The ‘godfather of EVs’ explains why China is winning the race to go electric — and why hybrids are a ‘fool’s errand’. “Hybrids are a road to hell. They are a transition strategy.” “It starts with an industrial strategy. That’s the big thing to learn.”

https://www.businessinsider.com/godfather-of-evs-explains-why-china-is-winning-ev-race-2024-12

by mafco

17 comments

  1. Paywall.

    Isn’t China producing more hybrid than fully electric? Their hybrids have much larger batteries.

  2. And?  We don’t value innovation in a nation of corporate raiders and private equity whores.  I cannot fathom a future where bureaucratic inertia steps aside long enough for C-suites to remove their collective heads from their collective cognitively dissonant asses.  These morons don’t even drive the cars they claim to build, let alone wipe their own asses.

  3. Does anyone know what a Chinese person pays to replace their EV battery? Its apparently upwards of $15k here, more costly than an entire Chinese EV brand new. I’m guessing they’re paying maybe… half of that?

  4. Why is china winning the EV race? Simple the CCP gave billions of Yuan so everyone goes electric. Once some made it the rest falted and collapse. Those that survive decided to ask for more billions so they can expand to other nations and strangle the competition by making the cheap. Once they took over the prices increased. They repeat this tactic everywhere until every nation is under their control and presto the CCP has your nation by the ball….you follow them or else. People forget the CCP is an adversarial nation to everyone even brics nations.

  5. If he’s the godfather, what does that make Bob Purcell?

  7. Anything that can help advance battery tech, and adoptability can help EVs.

  8. Until EVs can charge in 3-minutes and get 400-mi range, eff off. Also while proving full life cycle costs are beneficial over other fuels.

  9. Hybrid seems straight better then EV right now. I wouldn’t buy a current EV but I almost feel forced into buying Hybrid they are so fucking good.

  10. Article is mostly about what the Japanese makers did and should do. Everyone is reading only the headline and talking about either their personal buyer’s choice, or political judgment on China.

  11. guy with vested interest in promoting EVs says “EVs are the only option!” more news at 6.

  12. Theres a reason Toyota is the number one auto manufacturer in the world. They dont do EVs but rather make cars consumers actually like that last a long time with low maintenance. Imagine that!!.

  13. My next car is going to be PHEV, if only these greedy dealerships never add the outrageous mark-ups during the covid years, I’m probably driving one years ago. My choices are for the moment are the RAV-4, Outlander, the KIA, Hyundai. I keep my cars for a very long time. On a PHEV, when the battery needs replacement it won’t be that big or expensive vice on an EV. As long you replace the oil in its ICE, you don’t have to replace the engine at all.

  14. So this guy’s solution is to cut the range on future EV’s and hope the government will eventually force or induce the companies to build enough more charger stations to relieve consumers’ range anxiety? What a visionary!

  15. Aaaaaand Toyota is moving more towards hybrids. Government is trying to force EVs on the public. Allow the consumer to choose. Government shouldn’t pick winners and losers. If consumers don’t want them, great. Build something else

  16. Hybrids aren’t the long-term solution, but if we’d spent the last 20 years pushing hybrids instead of the BEV dream, we’d have made much better progress on emissions and we’d have much better technical infrastructure to ramp up into BEVs.

    BEVs will work fine, eventually, but “eventually” might be too late for a lot of people.

  17. Yet, most countries simply don’t have the infrastructure to support an all EV ecosystem. Hybrids seem like the best solution for now.

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