[somenameforme]

The articles you provided were relatively light on relevant facts, but did cite two important values - 60% of all vehicles purchased in China are now EVs, and domestic sales of such are about 1.4 million per month. The data they conspicuously left out is, well how many EVs are sold elsewhere per month? In the US, ostensibly the largest consumer market in the world, the figure is 0.082 million per month. [1]

Even if we scale US sales to adjust for population differences, the Chinese are picking up electric vehicles at a dramatically higher rate - and the single highest in the world. And this is almost certainly due to companies like BYD and others providing quality electric vehicles at prices below even cheap ICE vehicles.

[1] - https://www.anl.gov/esia/light-duty-electric-drive-vehicles-...

[ShinyLeftPad]

How is it relevant how many EVs are sold in the US? The country obviously prefers internal combustion engines.

I am saying that PRC is a command economy, EV production is strongly subsidized, no labor protection, falling domestic sales and crazy low domestic consumption in general, a lot of excess of EVs to the extent that they are trashed instead of resold, and so comparing EVs by price to European EVs is silly. Nothing you say contradicts me.

Yes Chinese buy lots of EV so what? And if you mistake this for choice or how great Chinese EVs are, I have news for you. https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/bogof666/shanghai-car-licens... https://www.cpopartners.com/chinas-green-push-shanghai-2025-...

[somenameforme]

Your entire premise was that domestic consumption of EVs in China is low, "laughably low" as you put it. That is an absurd statement when they have, by a very wide margin, the highest consumption rate in the world not only as a whole, but even per capita - at least relative to major economies. If you want to argue that global EV consumption rates are low then that's an entirely different topic.

[ShinyLeftPad]

Did you see my link that shows per capita household consumption in PRC lower than world average and places like Kosovo or Sri Lanka?

Here's a relevant article https://www.ft.com/content/f294be55-98c4-48f0-abce-9041ed236...

> If you want to argue that global EV consumption rates are low

No. Do you read my comments? I argue China subsidizes production of more and more EVs and buys less and less domestically, so they will be sold at unfair prices and comparing them by price to European EVs is pointless.

[somenameforme]

Chinese nominal consumption rates are low because prices remain low in China, far lower than PPP accounts for. Being able to buy a new EV for < $10k there is not some outlier, but a component of their overall economy where a single dollar goes way further than pretty much anywhere in the world. They're the largest economy in the world now and have a cost of living less than half the global median. They are very much like the US was in the 50s-60s, in a variety of different ways.

Beyond this, you have to keep in mind that overly simplified explanations for their successes fail to a very simple sniff test. If you could achieve what China is achieving with e.g. subsidization then every single country in the world would be doing exactly that, not the least of which being the US. Most Western economies are drowning in debt with GDPs being increasingly farcically propped up by government spending, yet we have, relative to China, less than nothing to show for it. We get all the negative consequences, but none of the benefits, at least not for the common man.

[ShinyLeftPad]

> Chinese nominal consumption rates are low because prices remain low in China

Personally been to countries with higher consumption than China and lower prices, so nope.

> If you could achieve what China is achieving

If you mean "heading towards an economic catastrophe" then sure. Suppressing domestic consumption is catching up with them.

Are you seriously pointing at western country government spending while talking about PRC? That's funny.

[somenameforme]

China's GDP to debt ratio is lower than the US' while continuing to have a rapidly growing economy, whereas US growth is not only significantly less but trending downward. About 17% of Chinese GDP is accounted for by government spending, in the US it's now up to 36%. And bond yields for China are dramatically lower than in the US, meaning all of their debt also comes way cheaper.

Claiming they're headed for economic catastrophe is rather the same sort of claim as you were making above - okay, they're headed for economic catastrophe but have some of the best economic metrics relative to other major economic powers, in much the same way that they have "laughably low" consumption of EVs yet purchase more EVs than anywhere else in the world.