China’s EV Juggernaut Is a Warning for the West


竞争压力和创造力使中国设计和制造的电动汽车成为强大的竞争对手。


4月，上海车展上一辆蔚来的汽车。

中国今年两度震撼了汽车行业。第一次是中国生产的电动汽车在上海车展上以质量、功能和价格震撼了西方竞争对手。然后又有报道称，在2023年第一季度，中国取代日本成为全球最大的汽车出口国。 6park.com
China rocked the auto world twice this year. First, its electric vehicles stunned Western rivals at the Shanghai auto show with their quality, features and price. Then came reports that in the first quarter of 2023 it dethroned Japan as the world’s largest auto exporter.  6park.com
    
汽车市场长期以来都是由美国、欧洲、日本和韩国的知名车企所主导，是全球利润最丰厚且最受瞩目的消费品市场，那么中国是如何在该领域夺得领导地位的呢？答案是一些独特因素的组合，包括产业政策、保护主义和本土竞争活力。相比第三个因素，西方的政策制定者和商业领袖针对前两个因素的应对准备要更充分。 6park.com
How is China in contention to lead the world’s most lucrative and prestigious consumer goods market, one long dominated by American, European, Japanese and South Korean nameplates? The answer is a unique combination of industrial policy, protectionism and homegrown competitive dynamism. Western policy makers and business leaders are better prepared for the first two than the third.  6park.com
   
先从产业政策说起，也就是利用政府资源来扶持想要发展的行业。中国已经实行了几十年的产业政策。虽然就连美国现在也越来越青睐产业政策，但围绕产业政策仍然存在争议。各国政府向来不太善于识别出能致胜的技术，通常是把补贴发放给了不具优势且浪费的产能，包括在中国也是这样。 6park.com
Start with industrial policy—the use of government resources to help favored sectors. China has practiced industrial policy for decades. While it’s finding increased favor even in the U.S., the concept remains controversial. Governments have a poor record of identifying winning technologies and often end up subsidizing inferior and wasteful capacity, including in China. 6park.com
  
但在电动汽车这一块，中国的产业政策带来了种种优势。首先，全球各国政府都认为气候变化是一个持久的威胁，需要十年的政府介入来实现化石燃料向新能源的转型。中国做了正确的押注，认为在交通领域这种转型将有利于电动汽车。 6park.com
But in the case of EVs, Chinese industrial policy had a couple of things going for it. First, governments around the world saw climate change as an enduring threat that would require decadelong interventions to transition away from fossil fuels. China bet correctly that in transportation, the transition would favor electric vehicles.   6park.com
   
中国在2009年就开始向电动汽车的购买者发放丰厚的补贴。出租车和公共汽车的大宗公共采购都转向了电动汽车，充电设施也获得了补贴，省级政府还为电动汽车电池所需原材料锂的开采和提炼提供资金支持。在2020年，当时有志于挑战特斯拉(Tesla Inc., TSLA)的蔚来集团(NIO, NIO)正是由于获得了政府牵头的救助，才得以避免了破产命运。 6park.com
In 2009, China started handing out generous subsidies to buyers of EVs. Public procurement of taxis and buses was targeted to electric vehicles, rechargers were subsidized, and provincial governments stumped up capital for lithium mining and refining for EV batteries. In 2020 NIO, at the time an aspiring challenger to Tesla, avoided bankruptcy thanks to a government-led bailout.  6park.com
  
产业政策保证了对电动汽车的需求，而保护主义则确保了这些电动汽车由中国公司在中国境内制造。为了获得补贴资格，汽车必须在国内生产，尽管外国品牌确实有获得补贴的资格。这些汽车还必须使用中国公司制造的电池，这使得中国国内龙头企业，如宁德时代新能源科技股份有限公司(Contemporary Amperex Technology, 300750.SZ)和比亚迪股份有限公司(BYD, 1211.HK, 002594.SZ)，相比当时领跑市场的日本和韩国公司拥有优势。 6park.com
While industrial policy guaranteed a demand for EVs, protectionism ensured those EVs would be made in China, by Chinese companies. To qualify for subsidies, cars had to be domestically made, although foreign brands did qualify. They also had to have batteries made by Chinese companies, giving Chinese national champions like Contemporary Amperex Technology and BYD an advantage over then-market leaders from Japan and South Korea. 6park.com
   
为了在中国进行销售，外国汽车制造商必须遵守旨在提升中国本土电动汽车产业技术的条件。德国墨卡托中国研究中心(Mercator Institute for China Studies)分析师Gregor Sebastian表示，得益于与丰田汽车(Toyota, 7203.TO)和本田汽车(Honda, 7267.TO)建立的合资企业，中国国有车企广州汽车集团股份有限公司(Guangzhou Automobile Group, 2238.HK, 601238.SH)开发出参与电动汽车产业所必需的制造技术。 6park.com
To sell in China, foreign automakers had to abide by conditions intended to upgrade the local industry’s skills. State-owned Guangzhou Automobile Group developed the manufacturing know-how necessary to become a player in EVs thanks to joint ventures with Toyota and Honda, said Gregor Sebastian, an analyst at Germany’s Mercator Institute for China Studies. 6park.com
   
尽管政府提供了所有这些支持，但电动汽车的销售维持疲软，直到2019年才发生改变；那一年中国批准特斯拉在上海开设一家全资工厂。专门从事中国汽车行业研究的公司Sino Auto Insights的董事总经理Tu Le表示，有了这个催化剂，才能增强中国本土制造商的兴趣和竞争力。 6park.com
Despite all that government support, sales of EVs remained weak until 2019, when China let Tesla open a wholly owned factory in Shanghai. “It took this catalyst…to boost interest and increase the level of competitiveness of the local Chinese makers,” said Tu Le, managing director of Sino Auto Insights, a research service specializing in the Chinese auto industry.



早在2011年，腾讯控股有限公司(Tencent, 0700.HK, TCEHY)创始人马化腾就解释过在中国经商与在美国的不同之处。据科技杂志Fast Company报道，马化腾当时表示，在美国，当你把一个想法转化成产品在市场上推出后，通常要在几个月之后竞争才会出现，使你能够占领大量的市场份额。他说，在中国，产品推出几个小时内就可能出现成百上千的竞争对手；在中国，想法并不重要，执行才重要。 6park.com
Back in 2011 Pony Ma, the founder of Tencent, explained what set Chinese capitalism apart from its American counterpart. “In America, when you bring an idea to market you usually have several months before competition pops up, allowing you to capture significant market share,” he said, according to Fast Company, a technology magazine. “In China, you can have hundreds of competitors within the first hours of going live. Ideas are not important in China—execution is.” 6park.com
   
得益于这种竞争和对执行的重视，中国电动车行业从一个小众的产业政策项目变成了一个以私营公司为主的庞大生态系统。这个发展过程很大程度上是在中国因新冠疫情防控措施而与世界隔绝时期发生的，西方浑然不觉。 6park.com
Thanks to that competition and focus on execution, the EV industry went from a niche industrial-policy project to a sprawling ecosystem of predominantly private companies. Much of this happened below the Western radar while China was cut off from the world because of Covid-19 restrictions.  6park.com
  
当西方汽车业高管乘飞机前去参加4月份的上海车展时，“他们看到了不计其数的绿色车牌，那是中国品牌的海洋，”Le说，他指的是中国新能源汽车使用的绿色牌照。“他们听着车门关上的声音，坐在车里，审视车子所用的材料、织物或是中控台塑料的质量，这又是一个大感震惊的时刻——他们已经赶上我们了。” 6park.com
When Western auto executives flew in for April’s Shanghai auto show, “they saw a sea of green plates, a sea of Chinese brands,” said Le, referring to the green license plates assigned to clean-energy vehicles in China. “They hear the sounds of the door closing, sit inside and look at the quality of the materials, the fabric or the plastic on the console, that’s the other holy s— moment—they’ve caught up to us.” 6park.com
   
Le说，汽油车的制造商以产品为导向，而电动车制造商像科技公司一样，以用户为导向。中资公司的电动汽车至少有两个显示屏，常常是三个，其中一个适合坐在后座上看电影；配备多个激光雷达传感器用于辅助驾驶，甚至还有可以唱卡拉OK的麦克风（这个功能很快被特斯拉学去了）。与此同时，像宁德时代这样的中国供应商以前落在后面，如今已经成了行业领袖。 6park.com
Manufacturers of gasoline cars are product-oriented, whereas EV manufacturers, like tech companies, are user-oriented, Le said. Chinese EVs feature at least two, often three, display screens, one suitable for watching movies from the back seat, multiple lidars (laser-based sensors) for driver assistance, and even a microphone for karaoke (quickly copied by Tesla). Meanwhile, Chinese suppliers such as CATL have gone from laggard to leader. 6park.com
  
中国在电动汽车领域的主导地位并不是注定的。中资品牌利用了较低的进入门槛，未来的非中资竞争者也同样可以利用这一点。中国在电动汽车上的成功也不一定会转化到其他一些领域，在那些领域，产业政策不是那么重要，而更重要的是创造力、隐私以及深度融合的技术能力（如软件、云计算和半导体）。 6park.com
Chinese dominance of EVs isn’t preordained. The low barriers to entry exploited by Chinese brands also open the door to future non-Chinese competitors. Nor does China’s success in EVs necessarily translate to other sectors where industrial policy matters less and creativity, privacy and deeply woven technological capability—such as software, cloud computing and semiconductors—matter more.  6park.com
   
不过，在中国电动车威胁到西方占据的汽车市场份额这个问题上，西方政策制定者没有显而易见的答案。“你可以封闭你自己的市场，在某种程度上，这将保住面向国内需求的生产。”Sebastian说，“真正的问题是，对于主要处于南半球的全球发展中国家，你要怎么办？这些国家仍然非常乐意与中国进行贸易。” 6park.com
Still, the threat to Western auto market share posed by Chinese EVs is one for which Western policy makers have no obvious answer. “You can shut off your own market and to a certain extent that will shield production for your domestic needs,” said Sebastian. “The question really is, what are you going to do for the global south, countries that are still very happily trading with China?”  6park.com
   
西方公司本身可能会通过加深其在中国的业务来作出应对，这不是为了销售汽车，而是为了与最见多识广的客户和供应商拉近距离。曾担任中国欧盟商会(European Union Chamber of Commerce)主席的伍德克(Jorg Wuttke)称中国为“健身中心”。在那里的环境变得越来越困难的同时，西方的跨国公司“必须在那里。它让你保持健康”。 6park.com
Western companies themselves are likely to respond by deepening their presence in China—not to sell cars, but for proximity to the most sophisticated customers and suppliers. Jörg Wuttke, the past president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, calls China a “fitness center.” Even as conditions there become steadily more difficult, Western multinationals “have to be there. It keeps you fit.”


在中国，绿色车牌是分配给清洁能源汽车的。