Voitures électriques : l'offensive chinoise | L'essentiel du Dessous des Cartes | ARTE

Welcome to the essential guide to the cards.

Today, we're heading to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

With the European elections just days away, the campaign is ramping up and one issue is grabbing the attention of both candidates and voters: the future of the electric car market.

It's both an environmental and geopolitical issue. One in five cars sold worldwide today is an electric vehicle.

This is certainly good news for CO2 emissions, but it poses a real challenge for Europeans.

In fact, they were just reprimanded by the European Court of Auditors.

She warns the 27 member states that European industry is lagging behind, particularly in battery manufacturing, especially given the goal of banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.

This gives us a chance to see how China has invested ahead of the curve in this key sector of the world to come. Let's take a look at the facts. (The phrase "sortons nos cartes" translates literally to "let's play our cards," but in this context, it is a figurative expression meaning "let's look at the facts" or "let's examine the situation.")

Since 2009, China has been heavily investing in research and manufacturing of electric vehicles, with a particularly strong emphasis on purchasing subsidies. (Note: "subvention à l'achat massive" is literally "massive purchase subsidy," but the common English idiom is "purchasing subsidies.")

Furthermore, China's massive domestic market has allowed it to become the world leader in the number of electric vehicles in operation, with 14 million units out of a global total of 26 million.

Let's take a look at electric vehicle sales now.

Chinese sales have surpassed eight million units, representing sixty percent of the global market. This is far ahead of Europe, with three million units, and the United States, with one million.

This dominance worries traditional automotive powers for several reasons. With China's domestic market slowing down, they fear a flood of Chinese brands into their own territory.

This is especially true in Europe, where electric vehicle sales make up as much as eighty-eight percent in a country like Norway.

The arrival of the Chinese giant Bee Waidi, which is building a factory in Hungary, is being met with a great deal of skepticism by Europeans.

Because the entry-level Chinese model is selling for twenty-nine thousand euros, compared to forty-two thousand euros for Tesla and forty-three thousand for Volkswagen.

This week, Tesla reported a significant drop in sales, triggering a crisis that forced the American carmaker to slash prices on its models in China and the United States in an effort to boost sales.

The situation is even more problematic because China has also become a leader in the field of electric batteries, which are essential for cars to operate.

China has notably developed a massive battery production capacity.

To fully control the production chain, Beijing has also become the undisputed leader in the extraction and processing of lithium ore, mainly sourced from Australia and Chile, cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia, and nickel from Indonesia and the Philippines.

That's the gist of it, folks. That's all for today.

See you soon.