Chinese technology companies are paving the way for a world that will be powered by electric motors rather than gas-guzzling engines. It is a decisively 21st-century approach not just to solve its own energy problems, but also to sell batteries and other electric products to everyone else. Canada is its newest buyer of EVs; in a rebuke of Mr. Trump, its prime minister, Mark Carney, lowered tariffs on the cars as part of a new trade deal.
Though Americans have been slow to embrace electric vehicles, Chinese households have learned to love them. In 2025, 54 percent of new cars sold in China were either battery-powered or plug-in hybrids. That is a big reason that the country’s oil consumption is on track to peak in 2027, according to forecasts from the International Energy Agency. And Chinese E.V makers are setting records — whether it’s BYD’s sales (besting Tesla by battery-powered vehicles sold for the first time last year) or Xiaomi’s speed (its cars are setting records at major racetracks like Nürburgring in Germany).
It’s like he wakes up every morning and asks himself “What can I do to make sure China owns the 21st century?”
This is one of those situations where the venn diagram of Trump’s handlers becomes a circle.
You have the billionaire Oil executives that want to continue using all their existing infrastructure and wasy access to continue printing money like they do now. Meanwhile, those companies all see the writing on the wall and know it’s running out so they’re investing in or buying technologies and companies working on alternatives. They’re playing both sides because they’re not idiots.
And then you have the manipulators like Putin (who we know Trump idolizes) with their goals of destroying American power across the board. Having America not only abandon new technologies but even propping up the old ones past when they should be phased out to focus on century-old priorities while the rest of the world continues to move on, helps that overall goal.
They’re bribing him and his daughter to do so.
Bribery is how the US political system has operated for the bulk of the country’s history
But, for the most part, the bribery was intended to increase private profits. Rarely have we seen industry bribe the feds in an act of self-sabotage.
Yes, China has very purposefully put itself at the forefront of the first technological revolution of the 21st century and done this at multiple levels (solar panel production, battery tech, EVs)
Meanwhile the American elites have decided that 19th century technology is were they want to be. Well, that and dead ending killing the country’s lead in the Tech revolution by going down a branch with no future in the form of LLMs and making everybody lose trust in keeping their data in anything owned by American companies.
And, of course, the crooked politicians here in Europe are actually following America more than China in this.
It is a lot more complex than “Europe is actually following America more than China in this”.
Europe have very limited lithium deposits compared to China. Europe is trying to be as self sustaining as possible, especially now that the US have shown themselves to be a highly unreliable partner.
So exchanging one dependency for another is a poor lateral move at best.
You can’t just start digging up the entire ground and make car batteries out of all lithium you find.
European universities all over are researching alternative battery technology that doesn’t rely as much on lithium.
None of that is true. There is lithium everywhere, Germany just found 45 million tonnes of it. People have been digging up the entire ground for oil for 200 years.
You can research all you want, but the periodic table is not changing, and Chinese R&D is decades ahead of the West.
Yeah, they just found it late last year. And still working out how they should bring it up. They’ve made estimates on the amount, i’m not qualified to verify their estimates.
If they can actually bring it up we have security in the materials required to make the research worth it.
But no, we have not dug up all of the ground to get oil. Oil is a lot more liquid than lithium ore. We can pump up the oil without having to excavate the entire surrounding area.
I’m not saying that to defend oil. But the funny part about it is that if they had dug up all of the ground to get it, they would have found their lithium deposits sooner. Because they found it in an oil-field.
You can research all you want, but the periodic table is not changing, and Chinese R&D is decades ahead of the West.
What does that even mean? Do you have any idea how long ago it was since we found the last naturally occurring element? Should we have just stoped all research I the early 1900’s because “the periodic table is not changing”. Dumbest shit I’ve heard all years. And yes, I did hear about Trumps email to Norway. You still win.
Adding to your comment: Lithium brines are extracted through drilled wells, it’s not always ore.
Thank you. I didn’t know that.
Yeah, well, there’s no Oil in Europe either, so ICE cars are even worse for a self-sustaining Europe (at least Lithum is only consumed once for an EV car, whilst Oil is consumed all the time for ICE cars)
If Europe can constantly source Oil from abroad to keep ICE cars going, I’m sure it can also source (a far lower quantity of) Lithium from abroad to make cars that can then run on electric power produced right here in Europe.
Your entire “argument” is one big cherry picked excuse.
Yeah, well, there’s no Oil in Europe either,
C’mon. I’m a dumb American, but even I know without looking it up about Norway’s vast petroleum production as well as the North Sea petroleum platforms off the coast of Scotland.
I’m not arguing for oil. Yet the current production costs for lithium batteries, compared to their lifecycle, rivals that of combustion propulsion. That doesn’t mean we should stop researching and finding better methods. But it’s far from as “environmentally” friendly as you think it is.
Oh, and Europe have oil. Plenty of it. Where would you like start? The coast outside Norway? The vast natural gas reserves in western Russia? The ocean outside of Scotland, maybe it just happenes to be a shit ton of oil under Greenland which is 100% unrelated to why Trump wants to own it.
I’m still not arguing for or against oil. I’m saying Europe isn’t following the US, and Europe isn’t interested in following China either. Europe is interested in carving out sustainability for themselves without US or China.
And, of course, the crooked politicians here in Europe are actually following America more than China in this.
That is much less the case then it might appear. Out of the Top10 largest EV makers three are European(Volkswagen, BMW and Stellantis). When you look at wind, Europe has a few of the largest companies in the world. Europe is also basically the only place even attempting to compete with China in batteries, since Trump cut US support for that industry. There are plenty of more niche industries as well, in which Europe has some very strong companies.
Erm you really shouldn’t trust American companies with your data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
Well informed people knew that it wasn’t safe already for quite a while.
Most people did not, most companies did not, most public institutions either did not or could make believed they did not.
That’s changing (as are lots of other things) because Trump is being far more loud about how Europe is an adversary of America than previous administrations (it was too for Democrats, though only on business and trade terms)
There was quite a lot of fighting against treating America as a safe haven for the data of Europeans from people in the know in Tech and IT Security in Europe but we lost, but now crooked politicians can’t make believe America or American companies are safe for the data of Europeans anymore.
I don’t know if he’s obsessed by oil. So far when a president invaded a country because of it’s oil, it always went with a cover story to justify it. Now the (cover) story provided by Trump is oil, so it may be possible it was all just to get the Nobel prize. As trinkets are all he cares about. Now it looks like he wants what I want when playing hearts of iron: make all the continent mine.
Why make up a conspiracy when they’re telling you to your face what they’re doing? Trump literally read outloud a note passed to him in a meeting, he has no filter left and he’s never been subtle.
Ya’ll please just deal with the issues in front of you. There’s no secret motivation that will change and then make the problem go away, the problem is just what it is and needs to be dealt with.
Does it matter? He invaded a country illegally and kidnapped it’s leader. Whether his motivation is oil or the Nobel peace pride, it doesn’t change the fact he’s a war criminal, on top of being a pedophile, rapist, white collar criminal and probably much more.
You brought it up! Unless you’re going through a multiple personality disorder thing the guy I replied to is you talking about his reasons.
Thank you the diagnosis, random guy on the internet. Clearly you never heard of the concept “humor”. Maybe find a thesaurus, work your way through it. Cheers.
That’s not humour and you’re just embarrassed for being called out.
Making fun of Trump isn’t humor? Are you MAGA?
That’s not really what you did and not what I was talking about? Like at all? Brother, your low literacy level ain’t gunna be my problem, go figure that out on your own time.
His best before has already expired, one foot is in the grave, old age takes its toll, why do you think he would care about anything other than himself at this point in his life?
Those Chinese seem to be some decent forward thinking blokes. Nothing like I was led to believe by west
‘Alledged’
Beyond EVs, the much cheaper sodium-ion battery is entering mass production in China. We can already buy B-grade cells on AliExpress. This will have implications for all sorts of use cases that could use batteries but don’t due to cost.
much cheaper sodium-ion battery
To my understanding, these aren’t suitable for many use cases we associate with batteries (smartphones, EVs, laptops), but it has the potential to have a massive impact on utility scale battery systems and industrial use cases.
Yeah they can’t match top of the line Li-Ion like lithium-cobalt batteries. Neither can LFP, but LFP is good enough for lower range EVs cars as they’re already used in such. Sodium ion has even lower density than LFP but not dramatically so and it’s still early days so their density is likely to improve. Look at these two cells currently on sale:
The first one is a CATL-made LFP. The second is some smaller manufacturer’s sodium ion. The 729Whr vs 713Whr, 1944cm³ vs 2593cm³. If the sodium ones can be made cheap enough, these are already usable in low range vehicles like Nissan Leaf or equivalent. And then there’s buses, trucks, other ICE powered equipment.
Yeah, conservatives don’t think of the future except through the lens of the present. They can’t imagine a world with EVs and batteries because they have oil brains. They are looking for solutions to problems with an oil first mindset. Sunk cost is everything.
Need to remember where they are getting paid from as well. That’s oil money lining their pockets.
That’s in part because they see their future through the lens of them oppressing objective developments, so EVs and batteries will never happen in that fantasy. They took a liking to AI for example despite it being relatively new development purely because it helped them in that department. They will only embrace something if it’s ‘their’ idea, and they have a lot of shitty ideas.
EVs alone have major grid balancing potential. You can get home batteries for under $100/kwh in US right now, and cost of EV batteries have always been lower due to bulk/contract purchases. At $100/kwh, even from grid TOU use power, you can time shift profitably for just 1c/kwh before financing costs, but before resilience/backup benefits from batteries.
Solar is by far the cheapest way to charge those batteries, where home solar without monopoly persecution from utilities, as in Australia, can be extra affordable. But even before abundant solar is permitted in our countries, or even net metering, simply having TOU rates that are cheap at night allows for enough arbitrage for when TOU rates are high. Where some EVs are $300/kwh to $500/kwh for the entire car, TOU rates can allow for arbitrage that pays for whole car.
What sorts of batteries are around that price per kwh? Genuinely curious, been thinking about adding batteries but can’t justify the costs I’ve seen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bShGUPU3TQ $120/kwh. There are amazon listings for 20kwh in rack batteries for under $3000. It does take DIY (no soldering kits) to get to $100/kwh. searching youtube for projects/options reviews, and especially the linked author is recommended if you’re interested.
Amazing, thank you. My new obsessive project has been lined up
One is an energy and material source. The other is neither and is simply storage.
Why would you compare them?
Because batteries are a point of tension in the adoption of some electricity-centric techs. Electricity production can be done in many different ways already (unless you suddenly decide to 100x the demand for shit and giggles), but a lot of applications requires batteries, which makes them some sort of choke point for adoption. Making them better, more accessible, cheaper, more friendly on the environment ease that.
The comparison is also on one end of the world focusing on the dying down side of things, while the other end is (allegedly) looking forward.
That’s why they’re compared.
That’s nice. Now run a modern civilization of 10 billion (upcoming) with only electricity.
Yeah? That’s kinda the plan? Do you see a particular problem with a mostly renewable (to the scale of our species’ lifetime) source of energy, that can be implemented in various way to accommodate different situations, locations, and use, while trying to make things more efficient?
Because I don’t.
Wow.
I wonder if the prediction that China will hit peak oil in 2027 will come true. This will have a massive impact on oil markets.
You reckon they will just promise Trump to buy lots of oil but then do nothing like their soybean promise?
I don’t think they’ll bother, they get oil from the russians at a massive discount relative to world markets.
Oil prices are already plunging.
Supply is about 5 million barrels per day more than demand.
He’s a corrupt moron.
they are shutting down refineries all over the country because people aren’t buying as much gas as they used to
I saw an IEA (i think it was ) estimate that China reduced oil consumption by 1.6 million barrels a day already becase of their EV rollout (cars and buses).
I imagine electricity generation is also transitioning away from diesel
Getting under $60/bbl has been a big deal. But a lot of that has just been the economy slowing.
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Can other countries forgo their climate commitments and scale up coal productions to compete in manufacturing or only China?
Australia’s economy has been in a tailspin precisely because China hasn’t been buying enough coal.
Fortunately, India, Maylasia, and Indonesia have picked up the slack at the prodding of fossil fuel interests.
Not it hasnt. A small drop in exports to china isnt enough to send the austrialian economy into a tailspin. Chinese coal imports globally dropped only 9% last year (and domestic production increased to meet that deficit for all those thinking china isnt polluting the world). Keep in mind this 9% decrease comes after a record amount of coal imports in 2024.
Not that Trump is right but, how will we charge said batteries…?
There’s this really neat thing called nuclear reactors that produce an enormous amount of energy. It’s only been around for ~70 years but they look promising.
But they can’t work at night!
Right. And how many countries currently use or are planning to use this In a large scale capacity besides France? Oh yea.
No need to be a dickhead.
Works pretty damn well for France. Maybe we should follow their lead.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. Doesn’t seem like anyone is though unfortunately.
There was even a car that charged itself with solar, they only ran out of money because there was little interest for an unknown new brand
The cars with solar panels on them are a gimmick. There isn’t enough surface area on a normal car to meaningfully charge the battery.
I think you would be surprised. The problem really comes from the car not being a good shape to put solar panels on. I did the math a while back, and I only needed 200w of panels to cover my weekly driving.
There was never a car that charged itself with solar because it’s practically impossible unless you put the car on a turntable at the equator in July.
In my case wind turbines. My local utility produces more wind power in a year than customers use.
Funny thing. Cloudy and rainy days tend to be windier than sunny days. So, with a bit of battery reserve or net metering, it all balances out.
Wind turbines can’t meet the energy demand of the infrastructure unfortunately. Nuclear is the most feasible option however, with the exception of France, no country has really committed to an energy source that can adequately support charging all these batteries albeit oil, natural gas, renewable energy etc. Oil and natural gas still continue to be the cheapest
