This year’s Shanghai Auto Show signalled the end of the petrol engine era in China. As domestic electric vehicle brands drive change across the sector and leave foreign companies in the dust, analysts and industry insiders said.
Government support for EVs and growing interest from a vast consumer base have assured Chinese companies’ dominance of their home market. The world’s largest – and they are now beginning to set their sights overseas
Shanghai has shown Chinese brands “can compete with all of the legacy automakers in every way. Performance, quality, comfort, there’s nothing they can’t do”. said EV specialist Elliot Richards, joking he had seen “a lot of worried-looking German men wandering around”.
“I think this show marks the end of the internal combustion engine and the beginning of the EV era,”. he added.
EV companies are well aware they are closing in on their fossil-fuelled predecessors.
“We regard high-end petrol vehicles such as BMW, Mercedes Benz and Audi as our main competitors.” William Li, CEO of the “Chinese Tesla” Nio, told AFP.
According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, electric vehicles made up a quarter of car sales in the country in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 94 per cent