Apple should have learned a Chinese lesson on EVs
China over the past year has often felt like watching a looking-glass parody of the US.
In America, electric vehicles have been in retreat all year. General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. have scaled back expansion plans and cut jobs amid flagging demand for battery cars. Analyst expectations for Tesla Inc.’s fiscal 2024 net income are barely a third of what they were two years ago. Even Apple Inc. junked its 10-year, multi-billion secretive project to build a revolutionary EV.
On the other side of the Pacific, things couldn’t be more different. Battery and plug-in cars, which made up just 5% or so of the market in 2020, comprised 49.8% of all car sales in October, and only one out of the top 10 sellers came without a plug. Even the threat of tariffs from trade partners has barely slowed manufacturers’ global ambitions. What’s more, phone companies have, almost overnight, become major players.
Xiaomi Corp. made a name for itself selling $100 smartphones that do a decent imitation of far costlier Apple and Samsung Electronics Co. products. In March, just a month after Apple told employees that its Project Titan car initiative was being shut down, Chief Executive Officer Lei Jun announced his bid to do the same thing for sports cars.
At a base price of 215,900 yuan ($30,000) for Chinese buyers, the SU7 EV accelerates faster than a Porsche Taycan but costs about what you’d pay for a Toyota Camry in the US. Booming sales of the vehicle helped the company smash through estimates of September quarter revenue last week.
