August 20, 2024
The End Game on EVs
First published in Aug 2024 on LI
Response to one post on social media, I wanted to share a different take:
The end game of EVs would be as below:
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China, understands the concern, so they go 3rd location (Mexico, South America) to manufacture the cars, and try to sell into US.
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However, West (US and later EU to some extent) + India, won’t have Chinese companies owned BEVs flooding their market due to SOFTWARE embedded in the cars. Rightly so.
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However, Trump (being a mercantilist), might be open to allowing Chinese automakers sell their EVs in US as long as they manufacture in US (won’t remain cheap then, and less market still). This despite of his anti EV stand, but he would sell it as creating more jobs for Americans.
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This would jeopardize US national security with risk of software embedded in them, which IMO is his least worry as Trump is also supporting Tiktok due to massive political donation he got. Trump’s thought process is more about show and perception than actual long drawn out thinking.
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The cars made in China, then get dumped in developing countries (Africa, South East Asia) and China becomes the market leader of BEVs there. Still sell a lot of them there.
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West, still won’t be able to compete with China on cost of manufacturing EVs as China owns the entire minerals refining pipeline. The ppl in West who wanted (largely subsidies driven) and could afford an EV is already saturated.
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West, finally realizes BEV mandate is a lose-all game, and slowly starts abandoning it’s BEV policy and in hush tones, start pushing Hybrid.
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Auto manufacturers in West finally rejoice openly, and pivot back to Hybrid cars (most) while continue selling gas cars until Hybrid reaches a critical inflection point.
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BEVs bubble bursts, BEVs-only companies go out of business or very very few (who haven’t run a valuation bubble on false expectations) just become an extremely niche luxury car EV manufacturer for a small cohort of BEVs hobbyists.