The situation in France was down to the Covid restrictions, resulting in the majority who went into Paris working from home,so no demand for renta ev. yes, BYD are going to survive as I posted, but a lot of these Chinese startups will not, just like in other countries. Its easy to dismiss all YouTube videos as fake news, but when the same data comes from different sources, some of which are well known, and from different people, there is truth there. Its hard to dismiss the fact that the Chinese economy is in free fall and it’s not just automotive but real estate, white goods etc.
Autolib Paris started to collapse before the pandemic facing fierce competition as you can read yourself here:
https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20180622-paris-puts-end-electric-car-sharing-system-autolib
What you have to understand is, many of the Chinese start ups are basically off shoots of major companies, so not exactly start ups in the way we think of them.
Europe/EU wanted Chinese cars which can be seen in aEU directive because they needed Chinese advancement in technology to meet their zero pledge. Yes they are concerned about an influx of Chinese cars swamping European manufacturers but no European manufacturer can do what China does. How many European manufacturers have the technology to produce batterys capable of exceeding 600 miles. CATL is building a 100GWh gigafactory in Debrecen, Hungary. BYD is planning on a gigafactory in Germany if I rember. Both companies hold the number 1 and 2 spots as the largest battery manufacturers, ahead of LG Chem.
ORA a joint venture between BMW and Great Wall, the new 2024 Mini EV will be built alongside of the ORA, sharing many parts with each other. Volkswagon has three joint venture with SAIC, FAW an JAC. Seeing further growth potential in the Chinese automotive market, Daimler and BAIC announced plans to further expand production for the Mercedes-Benz brand at their joint venture. Geely owns Volvo and the list goes on. Prestige companies like BMW and Mercedes use chinese battery tech along with other other European manufactures.
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