There’s a new trade war brewing – over global dominance in the electric car market
There’s a trade war brewing between China and the West, at stake is who will dominate the global market for electric vehicles.
Outside the port city of Ningbo, Chinese car company Zeekr is rolling out luxury EVs and growing fast. The factory has only been up and running for three years, but this year it’s more than doubling production.
Chinese car company Zeekr is rolling out luxury EVs at its factory near the port city of Ningbo. Pic: Lex Ramsay
Zeekr is a new player in the EV market, but it has unbridled ambition to sell its high-end, high-tech cars abroad. It’s a subsidiary of a state-backed company, Geely.
However, US and EU critics say the financial backing and vast resources of China’s government gives companies like Zeekr an unfair advantage.
In a recent trip to Beijing US treasury secretary Janet Yellen accused China of “overproduction” and “dumping” its EVs on overseas markets. The European Commission has started an investigation into whether to impose punitive tariffs on China’s industry.
But at Zeekr the threat of tariffs is being talked down. The company insists the global market is big enough for everyone.
Zeekr is a new player in the EV market. Pic: Lex Ramsay
Speaking to Sky News at a massive auto show on the outskirts of Beijing, Zeekr vice president Chen Yu explained that when foreign car companies first started setting up EV plants in China, local car companies watched on and learned fast.
“Definitely,” Mr Chen said. “We learned about the performance, the design, the culture, everything.”
Now companies like Zeekr, and BYD which is a giant in the Chinese EV manufacturing market, are taking on traditional car companies.
“I would not say (Chinese EVs) are dominating the market. I would say just they bring more diversity to the local customer, that is the nature of competition as you know,” Mr Chen said.
However, the possibility of Europe slapping tariffs on Chinese EVs is a concern for the Zeekr executive: “Definitely, if the tariff goes up, no doubt we are worried about the potential challenge.”
Mr Zhang, EV owner Pic: Lex Ramsay
On the floor of the auto show, car dealers and importers were clearly impressed with China’s EVs and warned legacy car manufacturers that they are in trouble.
New Zealand car dealer Matthew Foot has been attending the annual show for five years, and said: “It’s going to be very hard to beat China. They get incredible resources from the government; from lithium mines, to the ships and everything in between.
“Obviously you can see why Europe is fearing them and taxing them as well.”
This week US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in China. Trade tensions are on the agenda, alongside the world’s geo-political crises.
The US already imposes a 27.5% tariff on Chinese cars. But in Europe it’s only 10% and that makes companies like VW, Volvo and BMW increasingly nervous.
In Beijing last week German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “It’s clear that we have to talk about questions of overcapacity, and that we have to talk about subsidy competition.”
BYD car at Beijing Auto Show Pic: Lex Ramsay
Germany is in a difficult position. As Europe’s largest car manufacturer, it fears that if the EU slaps tariffs on Chinese cars, China could retaliate by restricting access to its vast market.
But the fact is, more than half of all new electric cars sold worldwide are from China and it can make them cheaper and faster than its competitors.
At the end of last year China’s EV giant, BYD, sold more electric cars than Tesla. Tesla was back on top last quarter, but the competition is fierce.
The scale of production is staggering. BYD owns its mines, battery factories and eight ships.
Even a comparatively smaller company like Zeekr is the model of efficiency, with 2,700 workers churning out around 500 cars a day.
The focus on EVs is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plan to overhaul the country’s debt-driven economy. He calls it “new production forces”. Investing in infrastructure is out, new technology is in.
In the industrial hub of Anhui Province, local officials are also brushing off the looming threat of tariffs. Provincial official Pan Feng said: “Some countries, thinking about their short-term self-interests, introduced some regulations, but I think they are only temporary.
“China is a big country, with a big market, it has huge power and confidence to counteract these conflicts.”
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Chinese buyers are also confident about their country’s electric cars, purchasing more than seven million of them domestically last year.
The country also has more charging stations than anywhere else on the planet.
While charging his BYD electric car in Zhejiang Province, Mr Zhang told us: “Chinese-made cars are good enough for us ordinary Chinese. If you’re thinking of buying an EV, there’s no need to go for a Mercedes or a German EV.”
Vladimir Putin has played down the possibility of a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying that while it is possible, certain conditions must be met.
The Russian president was responding to an American proposal of a trilateral meeting between him, the Ukrainian president and Donald Trump.
The idea was floated by Steve Witkoff, the US president’s envoy during talks with Mr Putin on Wednesday, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Mr Ushakov said the three-way option was “simply mentioned by the American representative during the meeting in the Kremlin”.
He added, however: “This option was not specifically discussed.”
On the prospect of meeting Mr Zelenskyy, Vladimir Putin said: “I have already said many times that I have nothing against it in general – it is possible.”
However, he distanced himself from any such meeting happening soon, adding: “But certain conditions must be created for this. Unfortunately, we are still far from creating such conditions.”
Pic: AP
Mr Zelenskyy offered to speak to Vladimir Putin in May, challenging him to meet in Istanbul for talks on ending the war in Ukraine – an invitation the Russian leader declined.
While a trilateral meeting appears to be off the agenda, Mr Ushakov said an agreement had been reached for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to meet “in the coming days”.
After the US president touted a “very good prospect” of the leaders meeting for Ukraine ceasefire talks, Mr Ushakov said on Thursday that Russian and American officials had started working on the details.
“At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was essentially reached to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days,” he said.
“We are now beginning concrete preparations together with our American colleagues.”
Regarding a trilateral meeting, Mr Ushakov said: “We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive.”
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Will Putin agree to Trump’s condition to meet Zelenskyy?
It would be the first time the two leaders have met since Mr Trump returned to office, and follows a three-hour meeting between Mr Putin and Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Wednesday.
Following the meeting, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it appeared that Russia was “more inclined to a ceasefire”.
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The Ukrainian president said he planned to speak on Thursday to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, as well as contacts from France and Italy.
He said he planned to discuss a ceasefire, a leaders’ summit and long-term security, adding: “Ukraine has never wanted war and will work toward peace as productively as possible.”
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A poll from Gallup suggests 69% of Ukrainians support a negotiated end to the war with Russia – an almost complete reversal from 2022, when 73% favoured fighting until victory.
Most said they were sceptical the war would end soon, with 68% saying they believed it was unlikely that active fighting would stop within the next 12 months.
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Seven hours is a long time in US politics.
At 10am, Donald Trump accused Russia of posing a threat to America’s national security.
By 5pm, Mr Trump said there was a “good prospect” of him meeting Vladimir Putin “soon”.
There had, he claimed, been “great progress” in talks between his special envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president.
It’s difficult to gauge the chances of a meeting between the two leaders without knowing what “great progress” means.
Is Russia “inclined” towards agreeing a ceasefire, as Ukraine’s president now claims?
Is Mr Putin prepared to meet with his Ukrainian foe, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, too?
The very fact that we’re asking those questions suggests something shifted on a day when there was no expectation of a breakthrough.
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Mr Trump repeatedly vowed to end the war within 24 hours of becoming president.
On day 198 of his presidency, he might, just might, be one step closer to achieving that.
Staff at a zoo in Germany which culled 12 baboons and fed some of their carcasses to the lions say they have received death threats.
Tiergarten Nuremberg euthanised the healthy Guinea baboons at the end of July due to overcrowding in their enclosure.
Some remains were used for research while the rest were fed to the zoo’s carnivores.
Plans to kill the baboons were first announced last year after the population exceeded 40, and protestors gathered outside the zoo to show their outrage.
When the site closed last Tuesday to carry out the cull, several activists were arrested after climbing the fence.
The director of the zoo defended the decision, saying efforts to sterilise and rehome some baboons had failed.
“We love these animals. We want to save a species. But for the sake of the species, we have to kill individuals otherwise we are not able to keep up a population in a restricted area,” Dr Dag Encke told Sky News.
These are not the specific animals involved. File pics: Reuters
‘The staff are suffering’
He said police are investigating after he and the staff were sent death threats.
“The staff are really suffering, sorting out all these bad words, insults and threats,” Dr Encke said.
“The normal threat is ‘we will kill you, and we’ll feed you to the lions’.
“But what is really disgusting is when they say that’s worse than Dr Mengele from the National Socialists, who was one of the most cruel people in human history.
“That is really insulting all the victims of the Second World War and the Nazi regime.”
Josef Mengele was a Nazi officer who performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War.
Dr Dag Encke
Zoo animals ‘treated as commodities’
Culling animals and feeding them to predators isn’t unheard of in zoos.
In 2014, Copenhagen Zoo caused controversy by euthanizing an 18-month-old male giraffe called Marius and feeding his body to the lions.
At the time, the zoo said it was due to a duty to avoid inbreeding.
Dr Mark Jones, a vet and head of policy at Born Free Foundation, a charity which campaigns for animals to be kept in the wild, denounced the practice and said thousands of healthy animals are being destroyed by zoos each year.
“It reflects the fact animals in zoos are often treated as commodities that are disposable or replaceable,” he said.
Marius the giraffe was put down and publicly fed to lions at at Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark. Pic: Keld Navntoft/AFP/Getty
Zoo asks for unwanted pets
Earlier this week, a zoo in Denmark faced a backlash for asking for unwanted pets to be donated to be used as food for its predators.
In a Facebook post, Aalborg Zoo said it could take smaller live animals such as chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs, as well as horses under 147cm. It said the animals would be euthanised by specially trained staff before being fed to carnivores like the European lynx.
While some people supported the scheme, saying they had donated animals in the past, others are outraged.
“The very idea of a zoo offering to take unwanted pets in order to kill them and feed them to their predators will, I think, horrify most right-minded people,” said Dr Jones.
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Dr Mark Jones
Aalborg Zoo has now closed the post to comments and said in a statement: “For many years at Aalborg Zoo, we have fed our carnivores with smaller livestock.
“When keeping carnivores, it is necessary to provide them with meat, preferably with fur, bones, etc., to give them as natural a diet as possible.
“Therefore, it makes sense to allow animals that need to be euthanised for various reasons to be of use in this way.
“In Denmark, this practice is common, and many of our guests and partners appreciate the opportunity to contribute.”
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