[nhma]

Having recently been to several large (non-tier 1) cities in China, every bus, taxi, and scooter is already electric with about half of personal cars seemingly electrified too. The number of brands and diversity between them is mind boggling, and every single time I rode in one I was surprised by how well built they felt.

Can someone ELI5 why this is seemingly only possible in China?

[yorwba]

Established car-manufacturing nations are cursed with an internal market where consumers can afford ICE cars and mostly won't buy an EV unless it's as good or better as their previous car.

You won't see many people switching from an ICE car to a cheap electric scooter to save money. What if you need to get to work when it's freezing outside? The Chinese answer to that problem is to attach blankets to the scooter as a wind shield.

Chinese people riding electric scooters everywhere aren't doing so because they're committed environmentalists, but because that's literally the most convenient form of transportation they can afford. The same holds for extremely cheap electric cars that offer no protection in case of a crash.

[ZeroGravitas]

China is relatively poor on access to oil and so oil-related interests have not been powerful enough to slow this transition down there.