Watching the carnage playing out in China’s car industry, the nation’s most powerful man and its biggest electric vehicle maker have come to similar conclusions: the bloodbath has to stop.
Chinese President Xi Jinping in July gave his clearest warning yet against “involution” — extreme price competition stemming from industrial overcapacity — when he pointed to reckless investment plans and questioned whether every province needed EV factories.
Stella Li, the executive vice-president of BYD, China’s dominant EV maker, last week said Beijing’s crackdown on aggressive discounting could see as many as 100 carmakers out of more than 120 being “pushed out”. She was speaking on the sidelines of the Munich motor show.