Developments in the automotive industry are going so fast that some car brands cannot keep up. The situation has created entire car graveyards, especially in China.
Some have denied they were supposed to be there. Others have held firm all along. But now the American media Wall Street Journal can document it.
Because yes, there are massive car graveyards in China. Areas that are filled to bursting point with often only lightly used electric cars, which can therefore no longer be used.
– The city of Hangzhou is full of electric car cemeteries like this one. Dated electric cars have been left here in recent years.
– The Chinese government has pumped money into this sector, and the technology has developed very quickly, which also means that older models become obsolete very quickly, says Wall Street Journal journalist Yoko Kubota.
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It may not be so much the parked electric cars that worry the West. But so does China's relationship with the country's car industry in general.
– China has the entire ecosystem. They have the batteries, lithium, the whole value chain is predominantly Chinese. So in the end, China will win, says Vivek Vaidya, a market analyst at the financial firm Frost & Sullivan.
Back in April, a German report documented that the Chinese car brands have been receiving state subsidies for years. A support which, among other things, the EU sees as illegal. BYD alone, which believes it has been given the blue stamp in Denmark, received over DKK 16 billion in support from the Chinese dictatorship in 2022.
Although the EU has not yet acted on the threat of imposing tariffs – and retroactively – on electric cars, a country like the US has already done so.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden's administration raised tariffs on Chinese cars to a total of 100 percent. Something that has prompted the Chinese government to warn of retaliation.
And precisely the threat of a retaliatory attack has caused several German car brands to warn the EU against introducing the proposed punitive tariff. Several European brands have such large businesses in China that they cannot afford to lose them in a trade war.
On the other hand, European ports are already jam-packed with electric cars from China that nobody really wants to know about, or that can't move on. There are currently around 4,000 cars parked at the port in Esbjerg alone, which cannot get on from there.
Read more exciting news from and about the world of cars right here!
