CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY

以下为全文中文翻译：

气候变化与能源
中国如何在电动车领域称霸全球？
从慷慨的政府补贴到对锂电池的支持，以下是理解中国如何打造全球领先电动车产业的关键。
作者：Zeyi Yang
2023年2月21日

在大多数人尚未意识到事情变化之深之时，中国已成为电动车生产与消费的世界领军者。而这种势头丝毫未减：仅在过去两年里，中国每年的电动车销量就从130万辆飙升至680万辆，使2022年成为中国连续第八年成为全球最大的电动车市场。作为对比，美国在2022年仅售出约80万辆电动车。

这个行业增长之快，甚至让最资深的观察者也感到惊讶：“预测总是偏低，”专注交通领域的咨询公司Sino Auto Insights的管理合伙人乐途（Tu Le）说。电动车领域的这一主导地位，不仅在疫情期间为中国汽车产业提供了持续增长动力，也推动中国在成为全球气候政策领导者的道路上更进一步。

中国究竟是如何做到的？多位专家告诉《麻省理工科技评论》，长期以来政府发挥了关键作用——同时托举电动车的供给与需求。得益于慷慨的政府补贴、税收减免、政府采购合同以及其他政策激励，大量本土电动车品牌涌现，并不断优化新技术以满足中国消费者的真实用车需求。这反过来又培养了庞大的年轻购车群体。

但这一历程并非仅仅是中国国家政策的故事；其中也有特斯拉、中国电池技术研究人员，以及整个亚洲消费者的身影。

中国何时开始投资电动车，动因何在？
在21世纪初，在全面投身电动车领域之前，中国的汽车产业处于一种尴尬境地。中国在传统内燃机汽车制造方面是“制造大国”，但在这个由外资品牌主导的市场里，并没有哪家本土品牌有望有朝一日与之抗衡。

“他们意识到……在内燃机创新上，他们永远无法超越美、德、日这些传统车企，”乐途说。而在混合动力方面，早期电池只起辅助于汽油发动机的作用，研究已由日本等国领先，这也意味着中国很难在该领域竞争。

这推动中国政府摆脱既有技术路径，转而押注全新的领域：完全由电池驱动的纯电动汽车。

风险极高；当时电动车还只是通用、丰田等品牌的“小众试验”，往往几年就停产。但潜在回报同样巨大：如果成功，中国将在这块可能极具分量的汽车产业新赛道上占据优势。

与此同时，在汽油车或混动技术方面表现优异的国家，对发展新型汽车的激励更小。以混动为例，“（日本）已经站在了顶峰，因此没能看到为何还需要让汽车产业电动化：我已经能造出比你们节能40%的车。你们要追上我需要很久，”国际清洁交通委员会（ICCT）高级政策分析师、华北区联合负责人何辉（He Hui）说。

此外，对中国而言，电动车还有可能解决其他几大难题，比如遏制严重空气污染、减少对进口石油的依赖，并助力在2008年金融危机后重振经济。对北京来说，这似乎是笔多赢的买卖。

中国已经具备一些结构性优势。尽管电动车制造涉及不同技术，但依然需要既有汽车供应链的协同，而中国在这方面相对完备。支撑汽油车工厂的制造能力和低成本大宗商品，同样可以转而支持新兴的电动车产业。

因此早在2001年，中国政府就开始投资相关技术；当年，电动车技术被纳入中国最高层级经济蓝图——五年规划中的重点科研项目。

随后在2007年，行业迎来关键提振：曾在德国奥迪工作十年的汽车工程师万钢出任中国科技部部长。万钢是电动车的坚定支持者，在2008年第一代特斯拉Roadster发布时就曾试驾。很多人如今将中国“押注电动车”的国家级决策归功于他。自那以后，电动车发展在中国的国家经济规划中持续被优先对待。

政府具体做了什么？
这与中国的经济体制密切相关：政府非常擅长将资源聚焦到希望壮大的产业。最近在半导体上亦如是。

自2009年起，中国开始向电动车企业发放财政补贴，用于生产公交车、出租车或私人乘用车。当年，中国电动车销量不足500辆。但更多资金意味着企业可持续投入改进车型；也意味着消费者买电动车的成本更低。

2009年至2022年间，政府为相关补贴和税收减免投入超过2000亿元人民币（约合290亿美元）。虽然这项补贴政策已在去年年底正式结束，由更市场化的“双积分”体系取代，但它已达到预期效果：2022年中国销量超过600万辆电动车，占全球电动车销量的一半以上。

政府还通过政府采购合同帮助本土电动车企业在早期生存下去。大约在2010年前后、消费者市场尚未接受电动车时，中国最早的电动车来自庞大的公共交通系统。

“中国拥有数量庞大的公共交通工具、公交、出租车等。它们提供了大量稳定的订单，从而形成收入来源，”战略与国际研究中心（CSIS）中国商业与经济高级研究员伊拉里娅·马佐科（Ilaria Mazzocco）说。“除了资金层面的支持，这也为企业提供了大量（道路测试）数据。”

但补贴和税收减免并非全部；还有其他政策鼓励个人购买电动车。在北京等人口稠密城市，汽车号牌配额已实行十余年，为汽油车获取号牌可能需要多年或花费高昂成本；而购买电动车则基本免去这些限制。

最后，地方政府也常与电动车企业密切合作，量身定制有利于其成长的政策。比如，如今正挑战特斯拉电动车霸主地位的中国公司比亚迪，与深圳保持了密切关系，使深圳成为全球首个公交车队全面电动化的城市。

那么，全球最受欢迎的电动车厂商特斯拉，与中国的关系如何？
中国电动车产业的发展，与特斯拉崛起为全球最大电动车公司实际上紧密交织。

当中国政府发放补贴时，并未将其限制于本土企业。“在我看来，这是很聪明的，”法国外贸银行（Natixis）亚太区首席经济学家艾丽西亚·加西亚-埃雷罗（Alicia García-Herrero）说。“与其因不给外企同样的补贴而招致不满，不如如果你想打造生态，就给所有人补贴。因为这样他们就‘被绑定’了，已经成了生态的一部分，离不开了。”

除了财政激励，中国地方政府还积极争取特斯拉来华建厂。得益于地方层面的优惠政策，特斯拉上海超级工厂在2019年以极快速度建成。“从一块荒地到第一辆车下线，差不多一年时间，前所未有，”乐途说。“这说明中央政府，尤其是上海市政府，打通了所有障碍，让特斯拉得以如此之快投产。”

如今，中国已成为特斯拉供应链不可或缺的一环。上海工厂目前是特斯拉产量最高的制造中心，2022年交付的特斯拉汽车中有超过一半来自这里。

但中国同样从特斯拉获益良多。特斯拉对中国电动车行业产生了“鲶鱼效应”——迫使中国品牌在从技术进步到价格可负担性等各方面持续创新、迎头赶上。如今，即便在中国，特斯拉也必须思考如何保持竞争力，因为本土品牌的攻势愈发强劲。

电池技术发挥了什么作用？
电动车最关键的部件是电芯，成本可占整车约40%。而让电动车具备商业可行性的关键，在于电池既要强劲可靠，又要足够便宜。

伍德麦肯兹（Wood Mackenzie）电动车与电池供应链高级分析师马克斯·里德（Max Reid）表示，中国企业在推动电池技术进步方面做出了巨大贡献。

更具体地说，过去十年，中国公司大力推广磷酸铁锂（LFP）电池，与西方更常见的三元锂（NMC，即镍锰钴）形成对比。

LFP电池更安全、更便宜，但最初并非汽车的首选，因为其能量密度较低，低温表现也不佳。但当其他人放弃LFP技术时，一些中国电池公司，如宁德时代（CATL），用十年时间深耕研发，成功缩小了能量密度差距。

如今，行业再次认可LFP的优势。到2022年9月，LFP电池已经占到所有电动车电池的三分之一。“这说明LFP的进步有多大，而这完全归功于中国电芯厂商的创新。这也让中国电动车电池公司站到了前线，成为第一梯队企业，”里德说。

中国在电池制造上还有一项关键优势：掌控了大量关键材料。虽然中国未必拥有最多的电池矿产资源，但在钴、硫酸镍、氢氧化锂和石墨等关键材料的精炼环节，中国拥有全球多数产能。加西亚-埃雷罗认为，对这些化学材料的控制是“对行业的终极掌控，中国显然在多年以前就开始追求这一点，远早于其他人意识到其重要性。”

如今其他国家确已意识到电池材料的重要性，正通过与智利、澳大利亚达成协议来掌控稀有金属矿山。但中国的先发优势为国内企业提供了长期稳定的供应链。

“中国产的电动车电池……不仅价格更低，而且供给量更大，因为中国境内的制造产能已经建立并仍在持续扩张，”里德说。

如今的中国电动车市场是什么样？
得益于以上因素，中国国内对电动车的需求现已非常旺盛：据美国咨询公司艾意凯（AlixPartners）的一项调查，2021年超过50%的中国受访者考虑将纯电动车作为下一辆车的选择，这一比例居世界首位，是全球平均值的两倍。

为这些消费者提供选择的中国品牌层出不穷——包括比亚迪、上汽通用五菱、吉利、蔚来、小鹏和理想。前面三家是较早成功转型电动车的传统燃油车企业，后面三家则是从零成长、在不足十年时间里成为家喻户晓的纯电新势力。

这些公司的崛起（以及其他中国科技巨头的崛起）与新一代购车者的成长同步，他们并不认为中国品牌在档次或质量上逊于外资品牌。“因为他们伴随阿里巴巴、腾讯长大，天生处于数字化环境中，相比仍可能更倾向购买德日品牌的父母那一代，他们对中国品牌更为认可，”乐途说。他还表示，中国品牌在营销中点到为止地融入一点民族自豪感也有所助益。

其他国家能复制中国的成功吗？
许多国家如今很可能在羡慕中国的电动车经验。但即便照搬中国路线，想取得同等成功也未必容易。

尽管美国和一些欧洲国家具备加速电动车产业的客观条件，如技术能力与成熟供应链，ICCT的何辉指出，它们拥有不同的政治体制。“这个国家是否愿意在这个领域长期投入？是否愿意给予这一产业特别保护，并让它长期享受极高的政策优先级？”她问。“这很难说。”

“我觉得更有意思的问题是，印度或巴西这样的国家能否复制？”马佐科说。这些国家在传统汽车产业上的实力不如中国，也缺乏中国政府在动用多元政策工具（包括信贷、补贴、土地使用协议、税收减免和政府采购）来推动大规模产业政策方面的成熟经验。但中国的经历表明，电动车是发展中国家实现“弯道超车”的一个机会。

“并非不能复制，但中国在调动这些体系方面有着数十年的经验积累，”马佐科说。

中国品牌正瞄准海外市场。他们面临哪些挑战？
中国电动车公司首次真切感到有机会走出国门，成为全球品牌。其中一些已经进入欧洲市场，甚至考虑进入美国，尽管美国市场已经相对饱和且地缘政治敏感。本土燃油车品牌当年难以想象做到这一点。

然而，它们在其他市场中的营销语言和策略可能需要调整。它们需要适应不同的技术标准和偏好的软件服务；也要学会适应不同的消费习惯和售后服务需求。

“我们往往认为丰田或本田这样的企业能够从容应对不同市场是理所当然的，但这背后是它们几十年经验的积累，而这段历程也并非总是一帆风顺，”马佐科说。

在当前地缘政治环境下，这些公司走向更多与中国关系并不融洽的国家，也会让自己变得更脆弱。有些国家可能希望保护本国汽车产业，另一些甚至可能将中国品牌的进入视为国家安全风险。

基于这些以及其他原因，加西亚-埃雷罗认为，增长潜力最大的市场很可能是“新兴亚洲”。即便在中国国内市场趋于饱和之后，该地区在能源转型中对电动车的需求仍将持续增长。

这正是中国在电动车供给端发力带来的双重收益：既减少了从西方国家进口汽车的需求，又创造了一个持久的出口产业。一些国家如印尼，已经在积极吸引中国投资建设电动车工厂。

2022年，中国出口了67.9万辆电动车，同比大增120%。几乎没有理由怀疑，这个数字未来还会继续增长。
How did China come to dominate the world of electric cars?
From generous government subsidies to support for lithium batteries, here are the keys to understanding how China managed to build a world-leading industry in electric vehicles.
By Zeyi Yangarchive page
February 21, 2023
electric cars racing
ANNU KILPELAINEN
Tech Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what's coming next. You can read more here.

Advertisement
Before most people could realize the extent of what was happening, China became a world leader in making and buying EVs. And the momentum hasn’t slowed: In just the past two years, the number of EVs sold annually in the country grew from 1.3 million to a whopping 6.8 million, making 2022 the eighth consecutive year in which China was the world’s largest market for EVs. For comparison, the US only sold about 800,000 EVs in 2022.

The industry is growing at a speed that has surprised even the most experienced observers: “The forecasts are always too low,” says Tu Le, managing director of Sino Auto Insights, a business consulting firm that specializes in transportation. This dominance in the EV sector has not only given China’s auto industry sustained growth during the pandemic but boosted China in its quest to become one of the world’s leaders in climate policy.

How exactly did China manage to pull this off? Several experts tell MIT Technology Review that the government has long played an important role—propping up both the supply of EVs and the demand for them. As a result of generous government subsidies, tax breaks, procurement contracts, and other policy incentives, a slew of homegrown EV brands have emerged and continued to optimize new technologies so they can meet the real-life needs of Chinese consumers. This in turn has cultivated a large group of young car buyers.

But the story of how the sector got here is about more than just Chinese state policy; it also includes Tesla, Chinese battery tech researchers, and consumers across the rest of Asia.

When did China start investing in EVs and why?
In the early 2000s, before it fully ventured into the field of EVs, China’s car industry was in an awkward position. It was a powerhouse in manufacturing traditional internal-combustion cars, but there were no domestic brands that could one day rival the foreign makers dominating this market.

“They realized … that they would never overtake the US, German, and Japanese legacy automakers on internal-combustion engine innovation,” says Tu. And research on hybrid vehicles, whose batteries in the early years served a secondary role relative to the gas engine, was already being led by countries like Japan, meaning China also couldn’t really compete there either.

This pushed the Chinese government to break away from the established technology and invest in completely new territory: cars powered entirely by batteries.

The risks were extremely high; at this point, EVs were only niche experiments made by brands like General Motors or Toyota, which usually discontinued them after just a few years. But the potential reward was a big one: an edge for China in what could be a significant slice of the auto industry.

Advertisement
RELATED STORY
electric vehicle plug in a race with a gas pump nozzle
Why EVs won't replace hybrid cars anytime soon
READ NEXT
Meanwhile, countries that excelled in producing gas or hybrid cars had less incentive to pursue new types of vehicles. With hybrids, for instance, “[Japan] was already standing at the peak, so it failed to see why it needed to electrify [the auto industry]: I can already produce cars that are 40% more energy efficient than yours. It will take a long time for you to even catch up with me,” says He Hui, senior policy analyst and China regional co-lead at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a nonprofit think tank.

Plus, for China, EVs also had the potential to solve several other major problems, like curbing its severe air pollution, reducing its reliance on imported oil, and helping to rebuild the economy after the 2008 financial crisis. It seemed like a win-win for Beijing.

China already had some structural advantages in place. While EV manufacturing involves a different technology, it still requires the cooperation of the existing auto supply chain, and China had a relatively good one. The manufacturing capabilities and cheap commodities that sustained its gas-car factories could also be shifted to support a nascent EV industry.

So the Chinese government took steps to invest in related technologies as early as 2001; that year, EV technology was introduced as a priority science research project in China’s Five-Year Plan, the country’s highest-level economic blueprint.

Then, in 2007, the industry got a significant boost when Wan Gang, an auto engineer who had worked for Audi in Germany for a decade, became China’s minister of science and technology. Wan had been a big fan of EVs and tested Tesla’s first EV model, the Roadster, in 2008, the year it was released. People now credit Wan with making the national decision to go all-in on electric vehicles. Since then, EV development has been consistently prioritized in China’s national economic planning.

So what exactly did the government do?
It’s ingrained in the nature of the country’s economic system: the Chinese government is very good at focusing resources on the industries it wants to grow. It has been doing the same for semiconductors recently.

Starting in 2009, the country began handing out financial subsidies to EV companies for producing buses, taxis, or cars for individual consumers. That year, fewer than 500 EVs were sold in China. But more money meant companies could keep spending to improve their models. It also meant consumers could spend less to get an EV of their own.

From 2009 to 2022, the government poured over 200 billion RMB ($29 billion) into relevant subsidies and tax breaks. While the subsidy policy officially ended at the end of last year and was replaced by a more market-oriented system called “dual credits,” it had already had its intended effect: the more than 6 million EVs sold in China in 2022 accounted for over half of global EV sales.

Advertisement
The government also helped domestic EV companies stay afloat in their early years by handing out procurement contracts. Around 2010, before the consumer market accepted EVs, the first ones in China were part of its vast public transportation system.

“China has millions of public transits, buses, taxis, etc. They provided reliable contracts for lots of vehicles, so that kind of provided a revenue stream,” says Ilaria Mazzocco, a senior fellow in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In addition to the financial element, it also provided a lot of [road test] data for these companies.”

But subsidies and tax breaks are still not the whole picture; there were yet other state policies that encouraged individuals to purchase EVs. In populous cities like Beijing, car license plates have been rationed for more than a decade, and it can still take years or thousands of dollars to get one for a gas car. But the process was basically waived for people who decided to purchase an EV.

Finally, local governments have also sometimes worked closely with EV companies to customize policies that can help the latter grow. For example, BYD, the Chinese company currently challenging Tesla’s dominance in EVs, rose up by keeping a close relationship with the southern city of Shenzhen and making it the first city in the world to completely electrify its public bus fleet.

Okay, so China is the global EV leader. But how does Tesla, the most popular individual producer of EVs, fit in?
The development of China’s EV industry has actually been deeply intertwined with Tesla’s rise as the biggest EV company.

When the Chinese government handed out subsidies, it didn’t limit them to domestic companies. “In my opinion, this was very smart,” says Alicia García-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, an investment management firm. “Rather than pissing off the foreigners by not offering the subsidies that everybody else [gets], if you want to create the ecosystem, give these subsidies to everybody, because then they are stuck. They are already part of that ecosystem, and they cannot leave it anymore.”

Beyond financial incentives, local Chinese governments have been actively courting Tesla to build production facilities in the country. Its Gigafactory in Shanghai was built extremely quickly in 2019 thanks to the favorable local policies. “To go from effectively a dirt field to job one in about a year is unprecedented,” says Tu. “It points to the central government, and particularly the Shanghai government, breaking down any barriers or roadblocks to get Tesla to that point.”

Today, China is an indispensable part of Tesla’s supply chain. The Shanghai Gigafactory is currently Tesla’s most productive manufacturing hub and accounts for over half of Tesla cars delivered in 2022.

Advertisement
But the benefits have been mutual; China has gained a lot from Tesla as well. The company has been responsible for imposing the “catfish effect” on the Chinese EV industry—meaning it’s forced Chinese brands to innovate and try to catch up with Tesla in everything from technology advancement to affordability. And now, even Tesla needs to figure out how to continue being competitive in China because domestic brands are coming at it hard.

What role did battery technology play?
The most important part of an electric vehicle is the battery cells, which can make up about 40% of the cost of a vehicle. And the most important factor in making an EV that’s commercially viable is a battery that’s powerful and reliable, yet still affordable.

Chinese companies really pushed battery technology forward on this front, says Max Reid, senior research analyst in EVs and battery supply chain services at Wood Mackenzie, a global research firm.

More specifically, over the past decade Chinese companies have championed lithium iron phosphate batteries, known as LFP technology, as opposed to the lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries that are much more popular in the West.

RELATED STORY
""
Meet the new batteries unlocking cheaper electric vehicles
READ NEXT
LFP batteries are safer and cheaper, but initially they weren’t the top choice in cars because they used to have much lower energy density and perform poorly in low temperatures. But while others were ditching LFP technology, a few Chinese battery companies, like Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), spent a decade researching them and managed to narrow the energy density gap.

Today, the EV industry is again recognizing the benefits of LFP batteries, which made up one third of all EV batteries as of September 2022. “That shows you how far LFP has come, and that’s purely down to the innovation within Chinese cell makers. And that has brought Chinese EV battery [companies] to the front line, the tier-one companies,” says Reid.

China has also had one key advantage in battery manufacturing: it controls a lot of the necessary materials. While the country doesn’t necessarily have the most natural resources for battery materials, it has the majority of the refinery capacity in the world when it comes to critical components like cobalt, nickel sulfate, lithium hydroxide, and graphite. García-Herrero sees China’s control of the chemical materials as “the ultimate control of the sector, which China has clearly pursued for years well before others even figured that this was something important.”

By now, other countries have indeed realized the importance of battery materials and are signing deals with Chile and Australia to gain control of mines for rare-earth metals. But China’s head start has given domestic companies a longstanding stable supply chain.

Advertisement
“Chinese-made EV batteries … not only come at a discount but also are available in much higher quantities because the manufacturing capacity has been built out in China and continues to be built out,” says Reid.

What does China’s EV market look like now?
As a result of all this, China now has an outsize domestic demand for EVs: according to a survey from the US consulting company AlixPartners, over 50% of Chinese respondents were considering battery-electric vehicles as their next car in 2021, the highest proportion in the world and two times the global average.

There are a slew of Chinese-built options for these customers—including BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Geely, Nio, Xpeng, and LiAuto. While the first three are examples of gas-car companies that successfully made the switch to EVs early on, the last three are pure-EV startups that grew from nothing to household names in less than a decade.

And the rise of these companies (and other Chinese tech behemoths) coincided with the rise of a new generation of car buyers who don’t see Chinese brands as less prestigious or worse in quality than foreign brands. “Because they’ve grown up with Alibaba, because they’ve grown up with Tencent, they effectively were born into a digital environment, and they’re much more comfortable with Chinese brands versus their parents, who would still rather likely buy a German brand or a Japanese brand,” says Tu. The fact that these Chinese brands have sprinkled a little bit of nationalism into their marketing strategy also helps, Tu says.

Can other countries replicate China’s success?
Many countries are almost certainly now looking at China’s EV experience and feeling jealous. But it may not be that easy for them to achieve the same success, even if they copy China’s playbook.

While the US and some countries in Europe meet the objective requirements to supercharge their own EV industries, like technological capability and established supply chains, ICCT’s He notes that they also have different political systems. “Is this country willing to invest in this sector? Is it willing to give special protection to this industry and let it enjoy an extremely high level of policy priority for a long time?” she asks. “That’s hard to say.”

“I think the interesting question is, would a country like India or Brazil be able to replicate this?” Mazzocco asks. These countries don’t have a traditional auto industry as strong as China’s, and they also don’t have the Chinese government’s sophisticated background in handling massive industrial policies through a diverse set of policy tools, including credits, subsidies, land use agreements, tax breaks, and public procurements. But China’s experience suggests that EVs can be an opportunity for developing countries to leapfrog developed countries.

“It’s not that you can't replicate it, but China has had decades of experience in leveraging these [systems],” says Mazzocco.

Advertisement
Chinese brands are now looking to other markets. What challenges are they facing?
For the first time ever, Chinese EV companies feel they have a chance to expand outside of China and become global brands. Some of them are already entering the European market and even considering coming to the US, despite its saturated market and the sensitive political situation. Chinese gas cars could never have dreamed of that.

Nevertheless, their marketing language and strategies may have to change for other markets. They will need to adapt to the different technical standards and preferred software services. And they will have to learn to accommodate different consumption habits and customer service requests.

“I think we take for granted that a company like Toyota or Honda is comfortable navigating different markets, but that’s taken decades of experience to build up for these companies, and it didn’t always look pretty for them,” Mazzocco says.

In the current geopolitical environment, these companies are also making themselves vulnerable by entering more countries that aren’t exactly maintaining good relations with China. Some of them may want to protect their own homegrown auto industries, and others may even see the entrance of Chinese brands as a national security risk.

For these and other reasons, the most growth potential will likely come from “emerging Asia,” García-Herrero says. That region will continue to need more EVs for its energy transition even after China’s domestic market becomes saturated.

This is why the benefits from China’s focus on EV supply are twofold: it both reduces China’s need for car imports from Western countries and creates another long-lasting export industry. Some countries, like Indonesia, are already courting Chinese investment to build EV factories there.

In 2022, China exported 679,000 EVs, a 120% increase from the year before. There’s little reason to doubt the numbers will only grow from here.