China is becoming the world’s largest car producer
China is fast becoming one of the largest automobile exporters in the world. In the first quarter of this year, the country's exports increased by nearly 60% thanks to NEV shipments, Caixin wrote earlier this month. Data released mid-month by the General Administration of Customs showed the country exported 1.07 million vehicles in the first quarter, an increase of 58.3 percent from a year earlier.
The increase is attributable to overseas shipments of new energy vehicles (NEVs, as chargeable electric and hybrid vehicles are defined in China, the report reads. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, NEVs increased by 110 %, reaching 248,000 units year-on-year.
In first place is Tesla's Chinese unit, which shipped 92,000 units in Q1. It was closely followed by SAIC and BYD, which shipped 56,000 and 39,000 units, respectively.
The strong first quarter comes after China overtook Germany in 2022 to become the second-largest vehicle exporter, according to DirectIndustry E-Magazine. China, which exported 2.529 million passenger vehicles, a 56.7% increase from 2021, now ranks only behind Japan. The report also highlights the importance of NEVs.
“Ten years ago, Chinese automakers only dealt with ICE cars. Chinese producers had to compete with established producers from Japan and South Korea. Hence, they focused more on the fast-growing domestic market and mainly targeted developing countries when it comes to exports,” said Bala Ramasamy , professor of economics and associate dean of China Europe International Business School.
The pace at which China has emerged as a major auto exporter — and now a major net exporter of autos — is stunning.
1/3 pic.twitter.com/Fk7qNapAkb
— Brad Setser (@Brad_Setser) April 25, 2023
“We expect exports to continue to rise and that the number of EV exports will exceed that of EV exports, particularly in the EU and the UK, where the sale of EVs will be banned by 2035/2030” said Tu Le, founder and chief executive officer of Beijing-based Sino Auto Insights.
Ramasamy concluded: "I think the fact that the Covid pandemic was fairly contained in China in 2021 may have given China and its manufacturing capacity an edge over its rivals in South Korea and Japan." But the advantage of China is another: a domestic market that allows enormous economies of scale and a higher productivity than that of any Western or Japanese company. After all, Kaldor's second law of productivity means something.
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The article China is becoming the world's largest car producer comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-cina-sta-diventando-il-maggior-produttore-mondiale-di-automobili/ on Thu, 27 Apr 2023 07:00:01 +0000.