President Trump's visit to China highlights a key tension for American decision makers: how to manage China’s growing prowess in sectors like the auto industry.
Setting aside fascism, the solution is expanded train infrastructure.
People in here are talking about battery IP but that’s not as important as simple BEV production capacity. An EV is dead simple mechanically but you’ve gotta have the raw resources and factories to keep up. Even then, the US would need to do some major infrastructure upgrades to support a bunch of heavy and plug-hungry EVs.
Trains are a big investment but getting track laid and a few hundred thousand running is much more manageable than trying to replace ~280 million ICE vehicles (97.9% of all US vehicles in 2023).
I predict China is going to feel the same car dependence pain in a few decades if they continue to ramp production and climb the cars-per-capita leader board. It’s crazy expensive to keep millions of people puttering around in multi-ton metal boxes.
Setting aside fascism, the solution is expanded train infrastructure.
People in here are talking about battery IP but that’s not as important as simple BEV production capacity. An EV is dead simple mechanically but you’ve gotta have the raw resources and factories to keep up. Even then, the US would need to do some major infrastructure upgrades to support a bunch of heavy and plug-hungry EVs.
Trains are a big investment but getting track laid and a few hundred thousand running is much more manageable than trying to replace ~280 million ICE vehicles (97.9% of all US vehicles in 2023).
I predict China is going to feel the same car dependence pain in a few decades if they continue to ramp production and climb the cars-per-capita leader board. It’s crazy expensive to keep millions of people puttering around in multi-ton metal boxes.