https://x.com/i/status/2019025935882760666
Fact-checking :
- For BYD : « BYD has the most R&D personnel among automakers and nearly 110,000 engineers, CEO says »
- For Tesla : « As of December 31, 2025, our employee headcount worldwide was 134,785 »
It would be nice if China recognized that cars aren’t the future at all. Every car produced has been a waste of resources and has created pressure for unsustainable suburban development. Every mile of road built represents 25,000 square feet of space that will never be reclaimed, never be useful again.
China has incredible rates of building high speed rail, public transit networks, and smart, walkable city design. Cars are supplementary.
China absolutely does recognise that though? Why do you think they invest so much in public transport like HSR, sprawling subways and a huge bus network? They simply realise that the green revolution much like the socialist one is a process. You can’t just press the green button and do away with cars, you need to first build up the infrastructure to support every part of society not just the urban cores.
Since cars remain a necessity for many as China has a huge swathe of rural areas not yet catered to (to the the extent required) by public transport connections it’s best to have the cleanest best version of cars until they are.
It’s the same logic behind why they built new coal plants even into last year. Coal is unfortunately still necessary to support the grid for now but the new ones are much more efficient and clean and therefore it’s worth investing in their replacement with newer plants until they can be fully phased out.
Adding to what @QinShiHuangsShlong@lemmy.ml said, keep in mind there’s multiple different interests here. The bourgeoisie still make a significant amount of economic decisions in China, and they’re heavily influenced by the west/capitalism. At the same time, the CPC guides those companies (either through voting shares or party connections) towards accomplishing the goals of the party.
So it is a contradiction. Should China do more to export trains instead of cars? Sure, but they’re still somewhat at the mercy of the global market. And China is still the largest exporter of trains anyway.