The electric vehicle debate between China and the U.S.
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Exactly what role is China playing in the global EV market and what does the future of electric look like? Welcome to The Bridge, enlightening conversations on world cultures, life, and everything in between. Hey everyone, this is Jason Smith, host of The Bridge podcast from sunny California. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. We love The Bridge.

Hey, everyone. I'm Jason Smith. I'm originally from sunny California, now living in beautiful Beijing. Today with me is Alex. Hello, Jason. Hello, everybody. I'm Alex. I'm thriving in the beautiful Beijing. Competition in China is driving prices down and expanding China's global market share of EVs while...

Tesla hits 2024 China sales high with 73,490 deliveries in November, according to CarNewsChina.com on December 10th. Alex, would you buy an EV? Why or why not?

First off, we've covered the fact that whether I want to buy a car in general, but let's say I was someone with a driver's license and I do have a plan to buy a car. I probably will buy an EV just because of the environmental impact an EV has because I'm a I'm a nice earth citizen. Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting idea. Save the environment. I wonder if it's possible. Yeah.

You know what? That's a very legit point and we can definitely get into it with the batteries and then all of the recycling, the use of all of it. It's a huge topic. But for me, because I am not someone who

who gets the joy of driving, at least not yet. I understand some people want to feel that push. They want to feel that thrust driving a traditional car. And then a lot of people are saying EV doesn't give you that kind of feeling. When you step on the gas, a couple seconds, tiny little bit slower, but it's just that sense of thrill that kind of missing from driving an EV versus driving a motor vehicle. But I don't care. I don't know.

That doesn't make sense. The EV doesn't actually go much faster. It's actually so much faster than a gas car. Like, if you accelerate, it just... You know, it doesn't make that sound. It doesn't go vroom, but you can feel, like, the inertia. Anyways, I got this really interesting... Right before the show, I found this data. I got it from Mitch Presnick, the...

of what are those hotel chain in China? He sent this out and it's from Bank of America Global Research. Apparently China in the year 2000 accounted for about 1% of global car sales, not just EVs, just cars. And in 2024 accounts for 39% of

car sales globally. So from like almost nothing to almost half. That's crazy. It is. The number of EVs that we could see, at least in China, actually increased

That's very interesting. I don't think I've noticed because I've been traveling sort of in the past couple of months, and I don't remember seeing cars and thinking, oh, they have a lot of EVs. I was in Singapore, I was in Serbia. But you know what? That's definitely one thing that I will take more notice of when I travel next year. That'll be interesting to compare and contrast. Oh, you're going to travel more next year? Alex, where in the world will we find Alex Schur in 2025?

It's still in planning stages. I'm not going to disclose too much because I might, you know, I'm paranoid. I don't want my clients. Can we have one place you might go? Tokyo. Will this be your first trip to Tokyo? Yes, it will be my first time in Japan. Oh, wow. It's so close. I would assume you've already been there. It's like a jump over the water. That's the thing. I feel like I should have been because it's so close. And I do want to see all of the crazy...

crowd people keep describing or complaining in tokyo i want to see how they drive there i want to see if they have ev cars and stuff it's such a small place um ev cars can i wonder if you go to downtown uh tokyo and you go to shanghai's bund which place is more crowded it'll be tokyo because i don't go to the bund when i go to shanghai i avoid you know you don't go to the bund i think that that's the only reason people go to shanghai we went uh

Two years ago, when the Singapore team came for a team building and then we went to the Bund at nighttime to get on the cruise and it wasn't crowded. That was a nice trip. That was a nice view of the Shanghai night view. But that's it.

I don't actively seek to go to the bunt. Previous statistic I gave you is just for cars. So China's making 39 percent of cars globally. And, you know, I think a huge part of that isn't necessarily exports. I think it's because Chinese people are buying more cars than ever before. I interview a lot of people who, especially foreigners who used to live in China in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It's bizarre how many there actually are.

But they always explain, you know, in the 1980s, Beijing and other cities were largely bicycle cities. There weren't a lot of cars in the late 1970s. You would almost not see a car sometimes for hours before one would go by. But now, you know, all

the roads and all the cities of China are covered in cars. Oh, it's packed with cars. I saw this video on Red, which is kind of the Instagram of China. And then one Chinese girl that is studying in

the United States, she wrote an email to her professor because during their class, the professor said something along the lines of, you know, if I had a choice, I would not choose to live in a Chinese way, you know, because like people have to work really hard. And then if they're lucky, they can get a bike. And I was like, which era did this? Did he time travel? Did he time travel? I went back to like,

I don't know, the 60s or the 50s where like people are not using cars as a public transportation method. But yeah, she did write back. This is just too ridiculous because nowadays, I mean, there are only people that choose not to ride a bicycle like me because I'm scared. Yeah.

I have a bicycle. It's too cold to ride it now. I love riding a bicycle. You know what? There are times when I'm walking on the street when it's not too busy. I do get tempted. Maybe I should just get the public bicycles that are so easy and so cheap to use just to feel how...

What is it like to ride a bicycle in Beijing? I'm still waiting for that day to happen whenever I can. What? You've never ridden an Ofo or Meituan bicycle? At 2 a.m. for one time for like two seconds. But that's it.

Oh, my gosh. I take them all the time. They're so convenient. You say you get off at the subway station near wherever you're going, but it's still like five blocks. You know, just pop on a bike. You ride over there in like five minutes. It's no problem, you know? I'll let everybody know when that happens. But...

All right, I got some more research here. This is from euronews.com. EV sales from January to November 2024 versus January to November 2023. And it says global EV sales. This is 15.2 million in this year so far. And it's a 25% more than last year. So that's how many cars...

EV cars are sold in the world in 2024, 15.2 million. Of those, 9.7 million were made in China.

It's just giving some more data so people know what we're talking about. The entire EU plus the UK is 2.7 million and the USA and Canada is 1.6 million. So it's China by far way out in front of everyone making the most amount of electric vehicles. It's not a competition. It's China. And then way behind them are a couple of straggling economies trying to also make EVs as well. And that makes sense because there's been a lot of pushback in the United States and

I don't know what it's like in Europe, but in the United States, there's a lot of pushback. People love their vroom vroom cars with the gas. Yeah, exactly. I think this is the advantage of the Chinese market when something new comes on because the market hasn't been like at least for motor vehicles. It hasn't been a huge consumption habit for like a long time, like America has. So people don't hold on to that feeling or that kind of

like obsession with oil gas cars. And so when you say in the beginning, I think we've discussed this on the show before as well. In the beginning, when EV first came about, people were worried about, OK, this is just a toy car with a battery. What are you talking about? Like it drives for like, you know, five kilometers and it's done. But as China really, really pushed

the research and development and the cars could go for a long, long time. And with, I think, the past three, four years, probably mostly the past three years, the government, together with a lot of automobile groups, really worked together and they built so much infrastructure.

it becomes super easy for you to charge your car. And at the same time, the batteries can run for a much longer time. So you could like, you know, like when they sell the cars to you, I remember even though I don't own a motor vehicle or, or planning on buying one, I still see car commercials and they, it tells you like, okay, this car goes on. The battery can keep the car going for like 400 kilometers. And then I, I way more, right.

And you calculate that. I know that's, that's the thing that I remember from however long, but even with that number, I was like, okay, for you to drive from home to work, maybe it's like 30 kilometer. Let's say you live really far from work. That's like,

10 days at least you don't have to charge your car. So it's not like you have to like put gas in your car at some point as well. That's an interesting, you know, because I'm so close to my work. It's like half, it's like a quarter of a kilometer. There's a BYD that goes 2000 kilometers on one charge. So I could literally go back and forth to work for the next like 20 or 30 years. Yeah.

Exactly. And then like in the beginning, people were like, oh, what if it breaks down? What if like the battery kind of malfunctions and they need an emergency charge? And there's a charging port like pretty much in every parking lot. Yeah. China is so covered with them. I walk around every day to try to get my 10,000 steps.

And everywhere I go, there are charging stations. There's just a couple of blocks away. The entire street is charging stations. The entire street is just charging stations. And then there's just a couple of blocks from there. There's another street that's just charging stations. Most parking lots have charging stations. All gas stations have charging stations. Exactly. Yeah.

China has more charging stations than the entire rest of the world combined times three, roughly. Yeah. I have the data to support that. It's wild. So one of the things that made it possible to be really convenient, make it easy for people to buy them is the ubiquitousness of availability for charging stations. I have a friend, his name is Fernando. He's from Colombia. And he traveled all across China for a couple of years with his wife in an EV dragging a trailer so they could just sleep in a camper. Wow.

Ah, nice. They would be in the middle of the desert and there were charging stations. It's like not a problem anywhere you go. You're on a mountain, charging stations. It's like everywhere, charging stations. Yeah, it's very convenient. I almost want to say for people that live in big cities in China, it's probably easier for them to drive an EV. There are probably more charging options than there are gas stations. Yeah, probably, actually. Especially in a city like Beijing and Shanghai, it's not that often that you can see people

a gas station. Like you would need to go a little bit, just a little bit further away from the city center. But if you're within the third ring road, then you would need to drive for a while before I can find a gas station. But if you need to charge your car, find a mall, find the parking lot. Or like Jason said, there's probably something like on the above the ground charging stations that can just go do it. I think that's what California even tried to do this where they were like, oh, we're going to build all these charging stations. I

I don't know the name of the guy, so I'm not going to be able to embarrass him. But I was at a CCG event. This is a China Center for China and Globalization think tank event. And they had a whole bunch of panelists there. And there was someone from California on the screen that they were like zooming into this conference. And he was bragging about how California was going to build all these EV stations and it was going to.

change the game so i had an opportunity to raise a question and i was like how many charging stations are you planning on building and he said a number uh well i don't know about a numbers they didn't even know you know they ended up building like a couple dozen like china has you know like hundreds of thousands that they've put all over the country and like this guy is like doesn't know the number because they weren't really actually doing it they were just more like a

a promo thing to make the current governor look good. So that's the difference. And it's like, you know, because the percentage of EV car owners in America is still really, really low. So I guess they could just say whatever they want without being very responsible. You know, they don't have to have a number in mind before they speak on the public forum. But in China, I was reading this, the World Economic Forum report and research on

electric vehicles in China. And they said they interviewed like a thousand young Chinese people and 97% of the people interviewed said that it's very likely for them to choose EV as their next car purchase. But that number for America is only like 35 to 40%.

It's a huge contrast. So when people think about anything related to EVs in China, the government and the motor vehicle groups really have to think through what they want to do. And most of the time they do have a very thorough plan when they want to make a change or make an upgrade because there are so many consumers and there's even more potential customers that they need to be able to service and not just say, oh, we don't know we want to do this, but we know

We don't know how many. I also wanted to look at just what are popular brands because everyone hears BYD, Tesla. So I just have this list. This is the article is called China EV registrations in W49A.

It's from Car News China, and it says the number one car EV registrations. BYD, by far, way out in front. It's like above 80,000. This is just in this month, I think, in November. And then Tesla is number two. And Wuling Liadoo.

Geely, Xpeng, Aon, and a couple of others I've never even heard of. So BYD is leading with Tesla in tow. So that is where we are in terms of China. But Tesla is also doing really well in China, actually, despite the fact that there's so much competition.

Tesla had the most sales it's ever had in November 2024 in China thus far. So the market is growing. People are still buying so many EVs and they're moving into EVs so fast that even though Tesla's market share is smaller than BYD's, Tesla is still breaking records in sales in China in EVs. I mean, we don't have this exact data in hand, but...

It's kind of like Huawei and Apple and other phone brands. The original brand that comes from the United States, it's a little, they do a good marketing job and people really recognize the brand that has a high market awareness. But in terms of numbers, they're not necessarily the top. You're listening to The Bridge.

Well, China also controls a lot of the components that are made in other places, which I think is interesting. So say you're making an EV in Germany or the United States, even if you are making it in Detroit or you're making it in Germany, there's a very high probability that a lot of the components are coming from China. So China is an integral part of this competition.

to the electric vehicles in the 21st century. I think this is catching on in the United States because it is charging stations are becoming more convenient people and also people in the United States. They have something that most Chinese people don't.

And that is a personal garage. That's true. We here in China, we live in, we tend, it's not always true, but we tend to live in towers, you know, big towers in the city centers, residential complexes. We have garages below. Sometimes those have charging stations and sometimes not. But if you are an American, you're more than likely have your own personal garage and you can just charge your car at home. However many EVs you sell, you would have...

need to have an equal number of charging stations built. - Oh, Americans have no shame about having their more stuff. It's our whole MO is having stuff.

It'll be a really hard plan to realize, I'll tell you. You know, I think it used to be that Tesla would sell the charging part, like the thing you would put in your garage with the car. Like, I don't know if it still is the case. I think most Americans would probably just be like, I'm going to charge at home and then I'll drive around. No big deal. You would want that.

Yeah. I mean, I got to say, as an American, that's what I would do if I was living in America and I got a BYD or a Tesla or whatever it was. I would get my own personal charging station at home because like, why not just charge overnight or in the morning and then take off and not have to worry all day? Yeah. But then that'll be a huge waste of the resource because it'll belong to you. I don't imagine people are going to want to open up their garage to other cars to come in and have a charge. No, no.

I mean, maybe if it's a guest of mine, right? And my friend comes over and he's like, dude, can you charge? Can I charge my car? I'd be like, okay, I'll go for it. But like, because I'd be, I'd be showing off or whatever. Oh yeah. I've got my own charging station.

I think Chinese people are more environmentally conscious. They share a lot of goods like you're talking about. But in America, no one worries about the end of the world and overuse of stuff. People are just like, give me, give me, give me. I think it's also just kind of genetically it was easier for China to build all this big EV plan because, you know, mostly people in big cities use cars on a daily basis for commuting, for, you know, shopping and traveling and stuff.

And if we're talking about having to charge a car, there are too many people and we don't do houses. We do, like you said, we do compounds, we do apartment buildings. And as long as there are enough for the group, everybody's set. Like I haven't heard any friends who own EVs complaining about, oh, I had no place to charge.

My car today. So people don't even think about, oh, look, OK, I have my car. I want to be able to just charge my car in my own parking spot. And if that's not that's a shared thing, I feel like I'm losing part of the ownership to my car. They don't feel that way. Like they just very quickly caught on an idea of using the charging port as going to the gas station. Nobody complains about not having a gas station anymore.

In their own home. Exactly. Because we live by a bigger unit and that's just how the society is. And I think in a way, it really helped the growth of EV sales in China. I think both of the reasons that you gave today why EVs took off in China are correct. There's not a very long gas guzzler culture. Like in the United States...

In the 1950s, every other song feels like it's about a car. Yeah. Drive your Chevy to the levee, whatever. Everything is about having a car, owning a car, getting a Firebird. They're all named after cars. Like so many songs are named for cars. And like America is a very, very powerful car culture driven probably by car companies. Yeah. Right. But I mean, it actually did take off. It was part of rock and roll. It was part of country. It's part of folk. It's part of music. It's part of movies. It's part of...

American identity is linked to gas guzzling cars. And so there is a huge cultural resistance to changing that to electric vehicles. Exactly. Because people want their cars to go vroom vroom. And so...

the other big thing is the charging infrastructure for a long time. Like you said, you would get an EV and it would only go like very not as far as a gas car. And that would be like, oh, I don't want that. Why would I then I'm going to have to throw it away every few miles or whatever. So but now you have cars that China is making that two thousand dollars

That's what I don't know. 1,500 miles, guys, that you can go halfway across the entire country of the United States in some BYDs. Not all BYDs, but there's a couple of them that can do this. And on one charge. This is insane. So obviously it's turned around and EVs now have greater length of distance that they can cover than gas cars. So it's actually the reverse. So I think people are going to see them...

It's automatically switching over. People are going to want electric vehicles over gas cars, but it'll take time. It's going to be, you know, was that the United States, I think it was California, said they were going to make it illegal to buy new gas vehicles by 2035.

But now in the incoming administration and the White House under Trump is going to try to make these a federal mandate that says that's not not the case anymore and that gas cars can be used throughout the United States. So it's kind of like a legislative fight, but it will take 10 or 20 years. But the United States will catch up with China and start moving into EVs, too. Exactly. It really takes collaboration to make EVs a globally shared option for people.

Otherwise, you know, if it grows like in the rest of the markets, except for America. And we're not saying that, you know, EVs can't go through a boom in terms of growth in America. But like, I think for the reasons that I have stated and, you know, we've discussed EVs.

It really will take a very strong production partner for America to be able to provide its customers with the actual vehicles and the infrastructure that they will need for this vehicle to be worthwhile keeping. You know, it could be so beautiful. It could be the best brand. And I have so many like crazy marketing ideas and concepts that you could allure people into purchasing it. But if they feel like it's not a sustainable option, then they won't.

continue to purchase you have to change cars like every couple of years it's not something that you will you can buy one and just keep on for

i don't know for 20 years yeah you can you totally can okay okay i don't know i don't know how it isn't in china can you maybe um but you know i had a car for 10 years and this talking about car culture my uncle who has passed from this world into wherever the next place harvey he he used to buy up old parts of cars from like the 1940s

And he would spend a year or two remaking it to its pristine, original self. So you, he would literally for, and then he would drive it for a year and

and to show off and then he would sell it and he made a lot of money on the side doing this is his side hustle he would remake all these cars that were like you know decades and decades old but my mom and i remember 10 years ago she was still driving a mercedes from like the 1980s so in fact you know a good car can last a long time if you treat it right and treat it well

If you traded, right, exactly. But I just feel like, well, I guess phones are not a good comparison. Maybe an apartment? That's not really making sense either. But I just feel like people want to change cars, especially like when you have the option. If you want this industry to have a very robust momentum, then people need to think about it's not just a one-time purchase for the rest of my life. You know, at least you will change cars at least once or twice in your life, let's say.

I think that's a fair frequency. If the market doesn't have what it takes to keep the car to make it convenient, then the first electric vehicle is going to be their last electric vehicle. Maybe. I mean, if someone buys an electric vehicle and they're unhappy, but they could always change brands. BYD is becoming very popular in Europe. I just want to go switch gears a little bit to buses very quickly. The only data I have is from 2019, but I think it gives a picture. This is from Statista and

And at that time in 2019, North America had 2,200 electric buses. And at that time, China had half a million. So it's not just, you know, personal cars. We're talking about EV taxi fleets and buses and even the high speed rail is electric. It's not gas. So like there's 45,000 kilometers of high speed rail in China. That's all electric. Right.

So it's across vehicle types China has transitioned to electric vehicles. So China is way ahead of the rest of the world in terms of adopting this technology. And I think that's remarkable. And I think the rest of the world is kind of eager to catch up. I think the big problem for the United States is there's not a lot of available EV technology like the big Detroit motor brands, GM and so forth, are still trying to make EVs.

ev types that people want i mean that i think the major brand in the united states still the dominating brand is tesla it is true because there's such a high tariff on other at least on chinese ev brands and i think number last year like an average price for a chinese ev is around like 30 000 uh us dollars and that like price is about 20 000 more for for um

that are sold in America. You know, you can get, we're going to make a lot of Americans cry. The BYD I wanted my wife to buy, which she did not buy yet. She bought a used Mercedes, actually. Oh, no. But it was the BYD I wanted her to buy cost $12,000 U.S. dollars and goes 2,000 kilometers, 1,500 miles on a single charge. Oh, my God.

So that is absolutely insane and amazing. If Americans knew they could buy a brand new car for twelve thousand dollars, that is pretty much technologically more superior to anything made in America. I think that they would freak out. I feel like people would think it's unbelievable, like they wouldn't believe it's actual reality. I think this is also why the United States raised tariffs. Like,

They can't compete with that. American motor brands can not compete with Chinese prices and technology. It would literally bankrupt all American car brands overnight because everyone would be buying Chinese vehicles and all American vehicles would just

go under because American motor vehicle companies literally cannot compete with Chinese technology and with the prices and with the capabilities. They're just like, oh, let's just pretend those don't exist, which I think is a terrible idea, actually. I think that's a terrible idea. And that's the wrong way to go, because America is basically saying we would rather stay in the 20th century than accept the fact that

the world has moved on. Pretty much. And then China is working with them. You know, we were just talking about the like new energy buses. Chinese groups are also working a lot with people with, you know, outside of Europe, outside of,

which they're trying to get really hard to reach an agreement with. They're working a lot with South America, with Brazil, with Venezuela, Ecuador, like all of these South American countries are working really closely with Chinese car brands to use their EV buses for their sales

city public transport system. And it's a complete, almost a complete overhaul. So before you know it, and then, you know, the Chinese EV brands have built up factories for both car manufacturing and battery manufacturing in those places and in Southeast Asia and Thailand in Malaysia. And then those factories, they're not like an overseas factory. And then they get like, they put a tag on the, on the product and ship and,

anywhere else, those factories are built so that there are local productions of EVs to serve the market, to overcome any possible tariffs and whatever restrictions that could happen. And they are employing local laborers and helping with local markets growth. So again, like I said, this is a collaboration game. If we can, if every country is willing to get on board, then this is a very bright...

very bright future we're looking at for electric vehicles. Well, I think there's a couple of different things in there that I think are really important to note. So number one is firstly, OK, let's back up. When Japanese motors became really popular in the United States, which happened, they've set up Japanese factories in the United States to make those with American workers making cars in America for America for the American market, which were very popular. Honda, Toyota, all these huge Japanese brands are extremely popular still to this day in the United States. I had a Honda car

And now the same thing is happening everywhere all over the world, except in the United States. Like you said, China's building factories in Africa and South America, and Africans are getting jobs and it's increasing their domestic production, consumption, local economy and so forth. And it's good for everyone. And EVs are growing everywhere in the entire world, except the United States, where it's just like, oh, no, our car companies are too big to fail. We're not going to adapt. I think it's crazy. And I think

The first thing is in five years, the whole world is going to be like moved on to the future, to new technology, to a different kind of world. And the United States is going to be living in the past. And I think this is not safe for the United States. The United States is like

We're going to protect our economy by building a wall around the United States and pretending that the future is not happening. I think that's insane. I agree. And I think the best course of action as an American living in China, watching the world move forward without America, is that the United States needs to start doing these JVs.

like some big Detroit companies and some Chinese companies to do need to do a joint ventures in the United States to build factories where they build like a, you know, a Ford BYD factory or something and start building these kinds of amazing futuristic pieces of technology in the United States at price points that match the rest of the world. I

One of the things I always thought was interesting as an American, watching TV shows like Fawlty Towers, TV shows that were made in England at the time I was living in the United States, is how antique...

England looked to me as an American living in California. I think I've moved to China now and the United States is increasingly looking like an antique nation. It's looking like all the technology in the United States looks like, wow, it's so old and yet well-maintained. And the United in China, we have like cars that fly and robots are everywhere. And like, it's totally different world. And I think it's dangerous for the United States to put its finger. It's,

in its ears and say, blah, blah, blah, blah,

I don't believe in EVs. It's crazy. It's absolutely not. It's nonsensical. And the United States needs to joint venture with some Chinese companies to bring these technologies over to the United States. Or very soon, the United States is going to be looking at the rest of the world saying, what is going on? When did you do this? Look, we know that America is known for its technological research and innovation and development. You know, exactly like it.

But no one in history of any event or nature is able to stay number one forever. This is just a very objective piece of truth that if you want to stay, keep your head above water, need to understand and just come to terms with. So...

America has been number one for a very, very long time, let's say. That's an undeniable reality, which is true. Yes. But it doesn't mean that it'll stay number one for the rest of humanity. Nor is it now. I mean, it's already this is already not true. But if the United States continues on this path of pretending that the rest of the world is not developing, then it's going to get much worse. Like, it's just. Yeah, you can develop whatever rhetoric, whatever discourse about childbirth.

China and its technological advancement. At some point, I hope people will realize like outside of America, people are also enjoying the benefits of technological research and innovation in their own countries. And then when there are a couple of countries that are

you know, having this kind of joy, they will be like, you know what? Let's come together, make the cake bigger so that each of our piece is also bigger. And when that day comes, I guess America are going to say to me, like, you know what? We want our little cupcake because this was the best cupcake. I mean, it's also actually starting to come from American car companies themselves. This is an article BBC.com says,

Ford calls for incentives to buy electric cars as backlash grows. So even American car companies are saying, oh, this isn't right. We're like we're falling behind. We need to do something. Help us. Please help us. And they're begging the government to help. I don't know if this is the right solution. I don't know if the United States paying too big to fail American car companies to make

super expensive cars by subsidizing American purchases of those cars is the way to go. I really think, and again, Mitch Presnick, CEO of Super 8 Hotels China, who now works at Harvard University, has been saying this. The United States needs to realize that it needs to, quote, leverage Chinese successes to help the U.S. economy. So that means that China has things and technology and ways of processes that don't exist in the United States

And the United States, it can't just like move on like the world is normal and then just cut off China. That's not the solution. It's not going to work. Yeah. Especially if it's just the United States all by itself living in this protective bubble. The United States needs to look at, OK, China has all these amazing technologies. Let's use those to make America better on its own terms and figure out how to do that in a kind of crosswalk.

creative space where they're taking Chinese technologies and companies to help grow the U.S. economy. Instead, what's happening actually is the United States is just like, oh, China made all this new technology that we're scared of. Let's not let that in.

That is the wrong approach. And I'm really scared for the United States because as an American living in China, who is pretty educated, honestly, I don't think I can see the historical precedence for destroying America by cutting China off. The opposite needs to happen. We need to be embracing China. We need to be embracing cooperation. We need to be embracing leveraging Chinese engineering and scientific advancements to help the United States and help the United States grow.

in unique and new ways. And you know what? It was one thing that you were saying I want to point out. I would actually be a little happier if the mentality of blocking China out from America is like, oh, we don't want, like they have better technology or they have a better idea of how to applying this new technology. I feel like a lot of people outside of China or in America specifically and some European countries, they're like, there's no way China is doing something better, original and innovative.

Like they don't even, they don't believe it. And they're like, we don't know what you're doing. And there's no way that you're just doing this because it's good for the society. It's good for the consumers. It's a great product. There's something behind what you're trying to do. And that's why we're blocking out

That's worse than just being afraid of competition. It's like actually not believing that you could do something like that. And I hope that changes soon. Yeah, I run into this problem every day, all day, actually, because I have a very strong online presence and I'm engaged in debate and discussion with, you know, millions of people a week, actually, at this point. And one of the big things I do run into, and this is not usually among experts, most experts. Of course. Most of them.

not all of them know that China is just...

flying by the United States and it's just completely a way ahead of it now. But many normal people, you know, college educated people even have this idea that China is like, you know, villages and stuff. I don't know. I don't know what they, but you know, you say, oh, China can't innovate. Are you kidding me? Are you absolutely kidding? China put like rovers on the opposite side of the moon and brought lunar regal back to, to earth twice now.

by the way, China and the United States has never landed on the far side of the moon. China literally has a rover just going around doing stuff. I don't know what it's doing right now. China has a new train that it's developing that will be on them. You know, people will be on it this year or sorry, 2025.

And it goes 1000 kilometers per hour, which is like almost 700 miles per hour faster than an airplane has 45,000 kilometers of the best high speed rail in the world. And it has the three fastest trains in the world. China has the best TVs in the world. China has some of the fastest supercomputers in the world. China is leading in like 100.

AI and all kinds of fields that people in the United States are like, oh, China, someday maybe it'll be as... No, China is so far advanced in practically everything. If you look at patents across every field, China has more patents across like 20 different technology fields than any other country in the world. Like China is...

Anyone who does not think or understand that China is like leading innovation literally just needs to go read more because like whatever they are reading, it's those are the wrong sources. Find some other sources. Just keep an open mind when you hear something about China. Don't just automatically go, oh, well, they're not doing it themselves. Yeah. Those countries that choose to ignore reality are going to be left behind.

And you can already kind of see this with the EU economy. The EU economy is not just growing slowly. In many countries, it's growing. It has negative growth rates. Factories are shutting down. It's scary, kind of. But it's also, I think, giving an opportunity to the developing world outside of Europe, the United States and China to actually develop because a lot of countries in the developing world in Africa and South America, they're looking at China and saying, wow, we want to be like that.

How can we do that? You know, because China was a developing country and now it's one of the most advanced countries in the world ever. And so like African countries like Ethiopia, Sudan and stuff are like they're looking at China and saying, please build factories here. Come here. Like, let's do business. Let's get together. Whatever you want. JV, JV, JV all day. Those countries are going to see significant advancements in technology and economy and

So I think, you know, a lot of the Belt and Road Initiative, all these countries that are interlinked with China logistically now are going to be major beneficiaries of understanding where China is and embracing that for their own economic growth. Yeah. And then regardless of what people think the policies are or what they see in the news, if you really read the news in the industry, you know, like if you care about EVs, you want to find out what's really happening, go read the car news and you will find out that

big car groups from different countries, regardless whether they're American, Japanese, German, or Chinese, they're actually working together on developing new batteries, on developing new car models, especially if it's something that will be beneficial for the future, for sustainability. They're really trying to work together. Toyota is...

is working with Chinese car brands on building more hydrogen car manufacturing factories. And same with other big groups, like they're always working together because these people know that only by working together can they have a shared future of cleaner energy vehicles and is something very imminent for us.

us, like people with that kind of power and say and saying where the industry is going, like transportation is such an important aspect of human life. If these people are not coming together to work on something that helps us stay, you know, stay alive and healthier for now, then the world is going to really kind of deteriorate in a very short time. Maybe in our lifetime, we'll see

horrible disasters and these big players actually

are also, I think they're also aware of that and they know that that's where the market is. So again, don't just read, you know, the two or three news outlets and then that covers everything and without kind of a, you know, specific focus. If you really care about something, read the industry news. You will have a different perspective on what you think about a lot of these other tricks that they've been playing on your mind. Oh yeah.

You're listening to The Bridge. Well, I'd like to actually add to that. I don't even necessarily know if it's tricks on your mind, but Mabu Bani is the former Singaporean ambassador to the United Nations. And he went to Harvard in 2014 and he gave a speech about how the United States media is corrupt.

quote, incestuous and it's self-referential. So you have like this echo chamber of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and all of these big publications. One says something and another says the same thing and they just start bouncing off each other. But generally, they don't know what they're talking about.

And so like they choose one statistic or one data point or a couple of data points. And these things just bounce around for months at a time. It just becomes an echo chamber of false assumptions about the rest of the world. And he mentions that they are misunderstanding the rest of the world. And I think this is really important. My also recommendation is stop reading your own country's media, whatever country you're in, like read your own country's media and read the media.

media of countries around the world. Read Chinese media, read media from Brazil, read media from Europe, read media from Africa, read media from the United States if you have to. But know that most Western media now is actually misunderstanding the rest of the world in a way that's not true of other nations. Like if you are a humble person from one of the

countries in the bottom 100 in the economy in the world you're looking around for solutions and answers and you're looking at media from all over the world you're reading french news and you're reading american news and you're reading chinese news and you're having a wider better perspective of what's actually going on but americans we we're like oh we have the new york times we have wall street journal and we just read our own stuff time magazine and then we feel like we're getting a view of the world but really we're just kind of like in an echo chamber of

American and British kind of media that doesn't really understand what's going on in the rest of the world. And I think that is a huge problem. I do want to reference some UK media, which is inside of our echo chamber. This is from November 20th, 2024. Ford cuts 100 jobs claiming weak demand for electric cars. I just want to point out that this isn't a good sign. You know, I think this is a huge part of this.

is it's not really weak demand for electric cars. That's a misunderstanding that the BBC is throwing out there. No one wants to pay $40,000 or $50,000 for an electric car. And that's why when you go to come to China, BYD is selling some of its electric cars for 80,000 RMB or like, you know,

$12,000, $13,000, $14,000. People are buying those because, yes, I want to buy an electric vehicle. Do I want to pay $40,000 for a Ford electric vehicle? No. Would I pay $12,000 for a BYD that goes 2,000 kilometers? Yes. Yes.

So the price point is a huge part of the problem. Ford wants, firstly, it's firing people, as we just mentioned, and it wants subsidies from the government. But the government is doing everything wrong. We need to let the Chinese car companies come into the United States, build factories with American companies and build affordable cars in America with American workers for the American market. And that's going to solve the problem. Paying Ford to make overpriced cars is not going to solve the problem. Exactly. And then it's

A lot of major traditional car brands are also really struggling with this whole pivoting to the EV production because, again, it's yes, they're car companies, but the EV car manufacturing is such a different game. You need a completely new pipeline. You need a complete new development team and research team and design team.

And all of it, like, unless you're doing really well already, like you have a huge profit margin, like, you know, like Porsche is making, Porsche has like really fancy looking electric cars that they produce. And I actually, I have friends who own it. And, you know, if you don't look at the different number plate colors, you wouldn't tell, you know, just from the shape of it, from the exterior of the car, you'd be like, oh, this is a Porsche. It looks really nice. But then if you look closely, oh, it's a Porsche EV car.

They did it. But again, Porsche is not trying to get like more people. They're not trying to increase their sales by 20% to keep their profit. And they've made the EV. It's great. But Volkswagen, you know, like Mercedes and all of these BMWs, all of these big car brands are terrible.

doing a lot and they're suffering. Like they're really it's like every step they're taking in the process of making their own EV versions of the car is just kind of

super heavy. And then people have this fixated idea on what a Mercedes car is supposed to be like, what an Audi car should feel like when you drive it, like how fast it should go, you know, the interior, the exterior and all of these other criteria that actual car owners would look at and consider that I don't know about. So they can't just make something completely new. The cost of it is really, really high.

And if you don't work with, if these car companies are just doing it, in Chinese, we actually have this very funny term, almost seems a little too uncanny at this moment for timing wise. We talk about people that refuse to collaborate with the outside world. And instead, they're just trying to do things on their own. We call these people, they're doing things in a way where they build cars behind closed doors. It's actually...

um an idiom that we a proverb that we use to describe people with closed-mindedness and then it's it's doomed to fail and even though it's not talking back then it's not talking about motor vehicles it's talking about a cartridge but still like people it's just very it's kind of ironic um when we talk about other certain markets that are not willing to open up they're really

building cars behind closed doors, and it's not going to lead to success. You know, it's interesting also, I just want to point out the irony of it is that in the 1980s and 90s, the United States was the leading philosophical country for free market trade. And the idea of that capitalist free market liberal trade is wherever things can be made more affordably, let it. And the idea of American capitalism is there is no such thing as too big to fail. If a company cannot compete, let it die.

and let another company take over. And like, so all these ideas come from the United States. And yet at this time, now that the United States is no longer competitive, now it's, oh, trade barriers, tariffs, sanctions. Like, so as soon as it was not in the United States advantage to be pro-trade, pro-capitalism, America abandoned trade.

free trade and capitalism to protect its big companies because it's scared of what the consequences will be. So I don't think that I think that's really kind of funny that in many ways, China has become a more it's the part of Chinese economy, which is a market economy, has become more capitalistic

and more competitive and more free trade than that of the United States. And while China is opening up more and more and increasingly cutthroat competition in its market economy, the United States is closing off because it's scared of competing and it can't compete. I have another article here. This is the BBC.com. Five ways to persuade people to buy electric cars by Theo Leggett. So,

Number one, I'm not sure if I agree, is subsidize the cost. And I think, you know, that it may be. I don't know. That's something debatable. But number two, I think makes the most sense. Make cheaper electric cars. And actually, I want to say why this is a good thing for Tesla. Tesla is rumored to be coming out with a new car soon.

that is going to be more affordable than its previous cars. I believe I could be mistaken. It is called the Tesla Q model or model Q. Yeah.

And it is supposed to be the answer that America is looking for, the affordable American-made EV. So this is basically like America's Hail Mary to stay relevant in a global EV market. So it's possible that Tesla's new super hyper-competitive and affordable EV

car will be the answer that the United States is looking for because number two on this list is make cheaper electric cars. If Tesla can do that, maybe they can finally get the game going in America's favor a little bit. Some of the other things is cut VAT on public charging points. So they want to reduce taxes to make it more affordable and

And another one is cut the confusion. So why are all these policy debates? Make a policy and stick with it. Yeah. And the last one is the one that we talked to the first half of the show a lot about sort out the public charging network, which is clearly what the world needs in the UK and the United States in order to kind of catch up with where China has already kind of been. It's just like mobile payment. It's just like even.

computers in the very beginning. Like you give something that people could use at any given time or place, mobile payment, you need the vendors to be able to afford an end port to accept mobile payment, then mobile payment will become popular. Same thing. You make charging piles everywhere accessible, you know, then people will be able to consider purchasing that as an option. I think there's another direction that people are

considering things heading. And this is fascinating because the idea of the driverless car presents the opportunity to have people not own cars at all. Yeah. And I like this idea because I already don't want to own a car. I've not personally owned a car in 15 years.

And I just take a DD or take a bicycle or take the subway or whatever. And I think that is a great option, especially here in China, where it's possible. The United States, it's not possible. Let's say you live in Oakdale, California, where there is no subway. There's no the buses to get to the next city. There's like one an hour or something. So it's not really realistic. But if you have electric cars that run 2000 kilometers on a single charge, say, and you

They are completely autonomous. Then you can have taxi fleets that just bring you wherever you want, whenever you want. No one needs to own a car and they can just pick new guests up, drop off other guests, get new guests, drop other guests off and just continue to do that. And so the need to own a personal car becomes historical, I would say. Sure, optional. But at some point it just becomes pointless to not.

But, you know, you need to fix the tires, get the insurance, pay for the gas, pay for the parking spot sometimes, depending on where you live, park, which is another inconvenience, and then walk to wherever you're going.

It's just more convenient to have a car pick you up. I'm in San Francisco and I want to go downtown to Market Street to Chinatown and I'm in wherever. It doesn't matter. And the car picks me up. If I own my own car and I'm driving my own car, when I get to market, I have to look for a parking garage or a parking space and then park and then pay for parking. And I have to I have my insurance and the car and the damage and the potential for an accident, all this stuff and liability and all that.

But if a car just picks me up, it drops me off exactly where I want to go. I get out and I don't have to worry anymore. It's there's no stress about insurance. There's no stress about car payments. There's no stress about anything charging nothing. So if we have these like these driverless fleets just roaming the planet and cities all over the world, the need for all of these unnecessary stress points dissipates and stops existing.

Yeah, I mean, we don't know if that could be possible future we're looking at. People will still want the bragging rights of the brand that they have, then maybe they can have a nice EV at home. And then they have the option of using shared vehicles when they actually need to go do something.

That's all the time we have. If you want to agree, disagree, just yell at me for any kind of reason. You just let me know. Email us at welovethebridge at gmail.com. We would be happy to read your comments on the air. Or you can send us a WAV file or an MP3 file where you use your own voice and we can actually play that on the show. Thank you so much for your time, listeners. Thank you so much for your time, Alex. Thank you, Jason. And thank you, everyone, for listening.