The world’s largest automobile market is planning to conquer the electrical car world

BYD, China’s leading electric carmaker, takes only 90 seconds for an electric car rolls off the production line, more specifically in its’ assembly plant in the southern city of Shenzhen.

While Tesla, the US manufacturer, often grabs the headlines, BYD and peers like Beijing Auto and Roewe are consistently and efficiently selling enough electric vehicles (EVs) to make China the world’s largest market for both electric and conventional vehicles. In fact, sales of EVs in China reached 770,000 units last year, more than 50% of all such vehicles sold globally.

This leading endeavor is being supported by the Chinese government in a drive to turn the country into the world’s leader in green vehicles, not only to aid in the significant pollution issues striking home but also as part of the broader strategy to turn the country in a technological power in keeping with its global economic clout.

This vision is embodied in the “Made in China 2025” (MIC2025) industrial strategy, an ambitious plan first unveiled in 2015 to have the country catch up with global leaders and become self-sufficient in 10 core technologies, including new-energy vehicles.

“To become a world leader in terms of technologies is not an easy job,” claimed Peter Chen, a Shanghai-based engineer with US car parts maker TRW. “Given the huge market size in China, EV is certainly a key industry where the government wants to develop its own players to be world leaders.”

Based on the MIC2025 plan, Beijing is planning to have domestic carmakers pushing out 3 million EVs into the global market a year, controlling 80% of all domestic sales, while 10% of the total production the top two EV makers to move overseas by 2025, though the exact companies were unspecified.

Some of the more bullish industry executives predict that one-fifth of vehicle sales on the mainland, or about 6 million units, will be of green cars in 2023. BYD, meanwhile, the world’s largest new-energy vehicle maker by sales in which American tycoon Warren Buffett is an investor, sees itself as one of the leading “transformers” of the car industry.

BYD chairman and president Wang Chuanfu predicts that all vehicles on mainland China will become electric by 2030, a forecast that may help the company achieve annual sales of one trillion yuan 144.4 billion USD by 2025, or nine times its 2017 revenue. The company sold 113,700 EVs in 2017, a 13.4 % increase from its 2016 sales.