Car Talk

 

 

WARSAW - China’s electric-vehicle industry captured half its domestic market in just a few years, crushing sales of gasoline-powered vehicles from once-dominant global automakers.

But foreign players weren’t the only losers. Many Chinese legacy automakers also watched their sales collapse – and responded by flooding the world with fossil-fuel vehicles they couldn’t sell at home.

While Western policymakers have focused on the threat of China’s heavily subsidized EVs, protecting their markets with tariffs, U.S. and European automakers face greater competition from China’s gas-guzzlers in countries from Poland to South Africa to Uruguay. Fossil-fuel vehicles have accounted for 76% of Chinese auto exports since 2020, and total annual shipments jumped from 1 million to likely more than 6.5 million this year, according to data from China-based consultancy Automobility.