Liam Denning, Columnist

How China Beat the US in the Great EV Race

Tesla brought electrification into the mainstream before Beijing’s single-minded devotion to the cause stole the show.

April 11, 2024 at 1:00 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

From China to the world.
Photographer: STR/AFP via Getty Images

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The US is somehow home to the most valuable electric vehicle producer in the world and, simultaneously, an also-ran in the race for EVs. How did that happen?

As recently as 2016, the US had more EVs on the road than China did. Now China has raced ahead.