“Once we lose competitiveness and know-how in this industrial arena, it is impossible to regain.”
Responding to news reports that Uber will deploy 100,000 BYD electric vehicles as part of its global ridesharing service, SAFE experts issued the following statements.
Avery Ash, Executive Director of SAFE’s Coalition for Reimagined Mobility (ReMo), said:
“This is yet another wakeup call on how far and how fast America and our allies need to go to catch up to China’s multi-decade industrial strategy to dominate the electric and advanced transportation space. The CCP is playing a different game than western countries and companies, and have created a civil-military fusion to leverage critical technologies—like batteries and electric vehicles—with a long-term goal to continue seizing global market share of advanced manufacturing industries. Once we lose competitiveness and know-how in this industrial arena, it is impossible to regain.
“American automakers and policymakers already know that EVs are the future of global transportation. We must build on the industrial policies we do have, stop bickering over the politics of these policies and focus on their value for our economy and our national security, and we must continue to implement trade barriers to block Chinese EVs that are produced through exploitative and anticompetitive tactics, while continuing to work with allies and other free societies to do the same.”
Abigail Hunter, Executive Director of SAFE’s Center for Critical Minerals Strategy, said:
“China’s vertically integrated, opaque, and highly subsidized EV supply chains are entrenched in lower standard material inputs that do not reflect the true cost of extraction, refining, and processing. Sadly, the deal reflects a missed opportunity to catalyze demand around not only U.S.-produced EVs, but also higher standard minerals supply chains that could be sourcing them.
“If we continue on the path of insufficient demand signals that are not coordinated with our allies—particularly for the up and midstream—the future of the automotive sector will not be American, but Chinese.”
Recent research reports make clear that global EV demand continues to grow. American EV manufacturing and demand are growing, but China currently dominates the global EV market, a trend that will continue under the status quo.
- A recent report by the Rhodium Group forecasts that by 2030 EV sales in the U.S. will range from 4.6 to 9 million vehicles, which would require between 360 and 838 GWh of batteries.
- There are an estimated 100 facilities manufacturing battery cells and/or modules that are either operating, under construction, or have been announced. Since 2018, companies have announced $166 billion in investment in these facilities, with $128 billion in battery cell/module manufacturing and $38 billion in EV manufacturing.
- BloombergNEF’s 2024 EV Outlook projects that EVs will reach 45% of global passenger-vehicle sales by 2030 and 73% by 2040, with the largest growth markets outside of China being in emerging economies like Brazil and India.
