- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
Chinese technology companies are paving the way for a world that will be powered by electric motors rather than gas-guzzling engines. It is a decisively 21st-century approach not just to solve its own energy problems, but also to sell batteries and other electric products to everyone else. Canada is its newest buyer of EVs; in a rebuke of Mr. Trump, its prime minister, Mark Carney, lowered tariffs on the cars as part of a new trade deal.
Though Americans have been slow to embrace electric vehicles, Chinese households have learned to love them. In 2025, 54 percent of new cars sold in China were either battery-powered or plug-in hybrids. That is a big reason that the country’s oil consumption is on track to peak in 2027, according to forecasts from the International Energy Agency. And Chinese E.V makers are setting records — whether it’s BYD’s sales (besting Tesla by battery-powered vehicles sold for the first time last year) or Xiaomi’s speed (its cars are setting records at major racetracks like Nürburgring in Germany).
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I’d sooner buy a Chinese EV than a Tesla, but the orange gameshow host running my country says I can’t.
Because Biden said you could? He’s the one that doubled tariffs on Chinese EVs from 50% to 100%. Biden also gave the EV tax credit which was essentially a subsidy to Tesla, which Trump ended.
Note that I’m not defending Trump, but simply noting that the US was heading in his direction. He’s a symptom of advanced disease, but you don’t get to blame him all the shitty things all US presidents ever did. He’s a raging tumor, but the cancer was spreading already.
That is a very fair statement.
Agreed. Not sure what those downvotes are for. I saw this coming 20 years ago. Especially with lobbying as out of control as it has been. If Trump dropped dead now, we’d still have a catastrophe.
You’re absolutely right. Trump is a lightning rod for rage, but most of what the US is doing is bipartisan. It’s a huge problem that so many people harbor false hope for the controlled opposition.
People downvoting facts simply because they contradict their own stated position tells so much. They want cheap Chinese EVs but can’t accept that what they defended as protecting American companies (Biden’s tariffs) and making EVs more affordable for Americans (Biden’s EV tax credit) are the reasons they can’t have cheap Chinese EVs.
Instead of reflecting on the progranda they’ve been consuming, they downvote and move on to repeat the same nonsense later. I’m relieved they didn’t call me a tankie Russian bot this time for suggesting Biden wasn’t an angel.
I want a fucking Huawei P70. The 10x camera on that thing can practically take stabilized macro photos from a 5 m distance. But Ursula says Orange Man will spank her if she allows competition to Apple and Google.
I can hold out on not buying a new car a hell of a lot longer than the American economy can survive under a tariff regime.
For Australians (alas, big Teska supporters) and much of the world they are all made in China anyway.
I thought America was a democracy as opposed to China.
US is the same as China now. Well that’s not true, US foreign policy is way more batshit insane than China’s. If you can even call it a foreign policy… it seems to me it’s just the whims of a deranged old child molester surrounded by fucking Nazis.
And China is further away and there’s pretty much zero probability China will invade my country. With the US, who knows? Kinda stupid to send money to a country I may have to be fighting against within a year.
Trump is following in china’s footsteps. His longterm plan will fail because he is not authoritarian enough to retain power. If the CCP were in his shoes they’d have murdered millions of americans to ideologically cleanse the country.
Trump is on it dummy
Our Danish company Ørsted which produces wind power, has been in a huge legal dispute with the American administration for months over this. He wants oil, even if wind is cheaper:
He wants oil even if the wind is cheaper, the wind farm is almost finished and already producing power
Yeah because it’s not so much “he wants” as “oil and gas corporations are paying him for”.
Coal Brittain -> Petro Murica -> Electro China.
It’s funny how China said years ago that was the plan and they’re doing it while nobody stopped them because of short term greed.
nobody stopped them
What would “stopping them” have even looked like?
Competing. No one really even tried.
Yeah, it means giving up the current cash cow and they’ll only do that when it’s visibly dying. And then the competition has too much of a headed start so it’s already to late.
Tesla is definitely “trying” by number of units produced. Volkswagen is also taking EVs very seriously, at least by current and projected manufacturing numbers.
Facing reality and evaluating technologies through the crucial era of the 2010s with an eye on efficiency and pollutant reduction in the overall energy sector. From there, having the empirical justifications to your nation that focusing on energy storage and further electrification would be more beneficial than fossil fuels.
Rather than doubling down on the existing status quo due to lobbying and sunk cost beliefs from prior consumption rates.
Sure. But that doesn’t change China’s economic growth path. You aren’t changing their behavior
Oh, certainly. However, if enough nations had their heads out of their asses and spoke with engineers rather than oil tycoons, we’d have a more competitive and distributed market for these technologies and a lower future dependence on Chinese imports for said technologies.
Right now, I can see a chokehold forming on that sector, and it’s a completely self-inflicted circumstance for those deadset on oil.
we’d have a more competitive and distributed market for these technologies and a lower future dependence on Chinese imports for said technologies.
I don’t see a future where at least one of the two largest populations of educated professionals doesn’t lead the way on electric vehicles. And that really only leaves you with China or India.
You might have a broader distribution or more regionalized production. But there’s no world in which a country with the manufacturing capacity plus the enormous population advantage doesn’t come out on top eventually.
Right now, I can see a chokehold forming on that sector
I don’t see a chokehold on EVs any more than Taiwan has a chokehold on CPUs.
There’s a building comparative advantage, but the global market is enormous. Plenty of room to catch up.
That’s why China has ten competitive major brands right now
Regarding EVs I agree with you, but I was referring to battery production.
As for Chinese production leading the charge, I also think that’s apt, but I’m referring to the availability of domestic alternatives for things such as military production, which seems to only being kickstarted recently compared to say the 2010s. Currently, it seems like compromises will have to be made in order to minimize reliance on imported batteries from China, which is not necessarily a problem for the consumer market, but may be for governments seeking isolationist policies for their self-sufficiency (EU, US).
There is still plenty of time for things to change of course, but there are plenty of missed opportunities along the way.
It’s like he wakes up every morning and asks himself “What can I do to make sure China owns the 21st century?”
Thats because he’s stuck in the 80s. It’s common for people with dementia to fall back to a time they thought was good and for him, it was the 80s when oil was king.
Frankly you’re giving him too much credit. If oil is really still king it won’t need his help. He might be able to claim he was just being fair if he had only removed subsidies, but he was and still is actively sabotaging adoption of electric vehicles, like by terminating the USPS contract to buy all those electric mail trucks or removing already installed EV chargers at federal sites.
Oil is still king. It’s not by a long shot about to lose it’s value as a strategic resource.
King eh? Well I didn’t vote for yah!
Not sure about that.
Nuclear energy is safer than ever.
We even have small nuclear reactors that can use spent fuel from the larger ones, thus solving in part the disposal of it.
Furthermore, significant advances have been achieved on fision power.
Clinging to oil is like refusing to replace your horse with a car.
We even have small nuclear reactors that can use spent fuel from the larger ones, thus solving in part the disposal of it.
Do we? Last I heard there aren’t any in service.
Furthermore, significant advances have been achieved on fision power.
We’ll need a hell of a lot more advances before fusion is even close to powering a grid.
Are you guys taking about fusion? Aren’t all nuclear powerplants using fission reactions?
Corrected, thanks!
When you have plug-in hybrid tanks or nuclear powered strategic bombers oil will see a diminish in it’s strategic relevance as a resource.
Fusion is nowhere near being in industrial use or being profitable. In the future, maybe, pending more breakthroughs.
Whether nuclear is a good idea to cling to going forward or not, it takes time to deploy. Those small reactors don’t just come off a shelf, ready to be turned on. Oil, however, can generate power TODAY, anywhere you can ship it.
The question isn’t whether it’s a good idea to keep burning oil – it definitely isn’t – the question is whether oil is still a hugely important energy commodity and the answer is a resounding yes. Notably, the article mentions that China’s oil use hasn’t even peaked yet. China does not use a small amount of oil.
We are long past peak oil. Look I’m not saying we’re not going to need oil long into the future and its use for aviation is currently unsurpassed but the argument is our reliance on oil is waning as newer technologies have come into play, especially in the power generation and automotive sectors. Chemical and plastic production is still vital and that can’t be done without oil. We’re not getting away from using it for a long tine but it’s past it’s peak.
What Dumpy forgets is supply and demand (because he’s one of the worst business people ever) and releasing more oil into the market from his imperialist acquisitions means a drop in value - even the oil execs were apprehensive as to whether the takeover of Venezuela and being told they need to fix up their processing was a good thing as they don’t want the market flooded as that will cause the cost of oil to plummet.
As far as I’m aware peak oil production has not been recognized to have happened yet.
Over the last century, many predictions of peak oil timing have been made, often later proven incorrect due to increased extraction rates.[9] M. King Hubbert introduced comprehensive modeling of peak oil in a 1956 paper, predicting U.S. production would peak between 1965 and 1971; his global peak oil predictions were predictive through the 1990s and 2000s but eventually were deemed premature due to improved drilling technology.[10] Current forecasts for the year of peak oil range from 2028 to 2050.[11] These estimates depend on future economic trends, technological advances, and efforts to mitigate climate change.[8][12][13] Peak oil, Wikipedia
It is still assumed that global oil consumption scales with economic growth and under 2025 consumption increased.
Global liquid fuels consumption increased by an estimated 1.2 million b/d in 2025 and is forecast to increase by 1.1 million b/d in 2026 and 1.3 million b/d in 2027. Consumption growth rises next year as global economic activity picks up pace. Based on forecasts from Oxford Economics, our forecast assumes global GDP will grow by 3.1% this year and 3.3% in 2027. Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA (U.S. government)
This is one of those situations where the venn diagram of Trump’s handlers becomes a circle.
You have the billionaire Oil executives that want to continue using all their existing infrastructure and wasy access to continue printing money like they do now. Meanwhile, those companies all see the writing on the wall and know it’s running out so they’re investing in or buying technologies and companies working on alternatives. They’re playing both sides because they’re not idiots.
And then you have the manipulators like Putin (who we know Trump idolizes) with their goals of destroying American power across the board. Having America not only abandon new technologies but even propping up the old ones past when they should be phased out to focus on century-old priorities while the rest of the world continues to move on, helps that overall goal.
They’re bribing him and his daughter to do so.
Bribery is how the US political system has operated for the bulk of the country’s history
But, for the most part, the bribery was intended to increase private profits. Rarely have we seen industry bribe the feds in an act of self-sabotage.
Yeah, conservatives don’t think of the future except through the lens of the present. They can’t imagine a world with EVs and batteries because they have oil brains. They are looking for solutions to problems with an oil first mindset. Sunk cost is everything.
Need to remember where they are getting paid from as well. That’s oil money lining their pockets.
Beyond EVs, the much cheaper sodium-ion battery is entering mass production in China. We can already buy B-grade cells on AliExpress. This will have implications for all sorts of use cases that could use batteries but don’t due to cost.
much cheaper sodium-ion battery
To my understanding, these aren’t suitable for many use cases we associate with batteries (smartphones, EVs, laptops), but it has the potential to have a massive impact on utility scale battery systems and industrial use cases.
Can other countries forgo their climate commitments and scale up coal productions to compete in manufacturing or only China?
All other countries curently forgo their climate commitments to “win” the AI race. (Whatever that even means)
I wonder if the prediction that China will hit peak oil in 2027 will come true. This will have a massive impact on oil markets.
You reckon they will just promise Trump to buy lots of oil but then do nothing like their soybean promise?
I don’t think they’ll bother, they get oil from the russians at a massive discount relative to world markets.
they are shutting down refineries all over the country because people aren’t buying as much gas as they used to
I saw an IEA (i think it was ) estimate that China reduced oil consumption by 1.6 million barrels a day already becase of their EV rollout (cars and buses).
I imagine electricity generation is also transitioning away from diesel
I don’t think anyone is using diesel for electricity generation except remote locations.
Getting under $60/bbl has been a big deal. But a lot of that has just been the economy slowing.
Oil companies will probably go the way of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, going broke. They’re continuing to invest heavily in oil infrastructure at a time when the market is shifting and even now there is a flattening of demand for oil products where EVs are becoming prevalent. The trend will start to hit profitability and they will most likely double down.
go the way of the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Still quoted by facists who pretend it’s a better source than Wikipedia?
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China isn’t set to rule the world, they’re set up for collapse, be it in 10 years or 100. It’s just another cruel dictatorship in a long line.
I hate Trump, but I hate Xi Jinping with an equal fervor, they’re two of the same.
Yeah China is like the Soviet Union.
My grandparents had to hold their noses and be allies with the Soviet Union for a while.
But unlike the Soviet Union which was way behind the West in technology, China is ahead of us on EVs and we will have to catch up. But before worrying about that, we gotta take down the US.
I hate Trump, but I hate Xi Jinping with an equal fervor
Is this your equivalent to magats posting “TDS”
Version 2.0 uses memes
China is a democracy with 9 political parties as compared to America which has 2. Over 90% of Chinese people support the government. You’re allowed to criticize the government contrary to CIA propaganda.
I hope this is satire, but this being Threadi I have my doubts.
This has gotta be framed, its beautiful.
He’s a corrupt moron.
Cheney had an international oil/security conglomerate they keep renaming. uh, uh, haliburton. had to look it up. gravy train is moving out.
Halliburton hasn’t ever changed their name as far as I know. Are you thinking of Blackwater/XE Services/Academi/Constellis?
