The Quiet Unassuming Origins of China's EV Industry

In 2000 Wan Gang was still working at Audi in Germany when he presented to China's State Council the idea that clean fuel would provide critical impetus for new car technologies. He was invited to return to China to head up EV and NEV projects.

That same year, 2000, Time Magazine had written "China cannot grow into an industrial giant in the 21st century. Its population is too large and its gross domestic product is too small." As Graham Allison described the then conventional understanding, "with a per capita income at roughly the same level as Guyana and the Philippines, most Chinese did not have enough money to buy advanced technological products - let alone the resources to invent them."

In 2007 Wan became China's Minister for Science and Technology, where he was one of a few non-CCP members of the State Council. But today he's just "The Father of China's EV Industry".

We have always wanted good quality of life but the tech we normally use for that is also burning our planet to a crisp. Now we have new technology that can help us be green and cool. But instead of producing more so that as many people as possible get to use it, we're fighting over who gets to make that technology and more importantly who not.

Economics says that when social benefit exceeds individual gain, left to our own devices, never enough gets produced. Government needs to subsidize. That's not vindictive or unfair. It's economic efficiency, and it is good for the planet.

Quah, Danny. 2024. "Tanks rather than thanks", China Daily (12 July)
(In Chinese) https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xV2hBei8Xna503IQLgXupw
(In English) https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/gia/article/tanks-rather-than-thanks

Quah, Danny. 2024. "EV Overcapacity" (July) https://dannyquah.substack.com/p/ev-overcapacity