China in the Limelight

At Everything Electric I had 3 conversations about the challenge from China.

Over the last weekend the team behind the Fully Charged Show and the Everything Electric show organised our 17th live event. Everything Electric South took place over 3 days inside and outside the massive hall that is Farnborough International.

It’s become a really huge event attracting many tens of thousands of visitors, over 100 exhibitors, literally thousands of test drives and dozens of amazing, informative and lively interviews and panel discussions.

The team that makes Everything Electric possible.

Each morning the show kicks off with a one to one interview, or ‘digital fireside chat’ as we’ve dubbed it. This features someone who has a notable role in the broad topics of electric ground transport, renewable energy and sustainable technology that we cover throughout the year on YouTube and elsewhere.

I just want to point out right now that the fact that these three keynote talks were all strongly connected with China and our relationship with that complex and challenging country, this wasn’t by design, it’s jst that this topic happens to be at the forefront of the transition we’re all going through.

This recent event featured Bono Ge who is UK country manager at BYD, the biggest electric car maker on the planet. (They outsold Tesla last year). Bono explained the incredible developments at BYD, a battery company founded in 1995, which then spawned a massive subsidiary, BYD Auto, which was founded in 2003.

Bono Ge BYD

So they are a battery company that makes cars, not a car company that is still struggling to come to terms with batteries, software and electric motors.

In the last 5 years BYD has grown to become the world's largest manufacturer of plug-in electric vehicles. Bono didn’t seem too concerned about tariffs, they are busy building factories in the EU so at some point in the next 3 or 4 years, they will just be seen by many people as another European brand but with some incredible technology and know how behind them.

And it’s important to remember their original business was batteries, and in many ways it still is. He was very flattering about the number of grid level batteries we have in the UK, which is not that surprising when you know that most of them were made by BYD.

They have also supplied over 1,000 electric double decker busses in London, which has helped improved street level air quality by genuinely measurable amounts. Since the introduction of the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) in 2019, and it’s expansion to most of the city in 2023, Londoners now breath the cleanest air the city had experienced since pre industrial times. And as a thought imagine how much CO2, particulates and stink 1,000 diesel busses pumped out every day.

So, should we buy Chinese made cars, busses and vans? I truly don’t know, all I do know is we already buy Chinese made clothes, shoes, hats, kitchenware, furniture, electronics, bicycles and an endless list of other products. It’s a problem, if we stopped all Chinese imports during some geopolitical crisis we’d be in serious doo-doo.

Elliot looking very cool on a Shanghai rooftop

Anyway, the following day we had Elliot Richards (our man in Shanghai) who gave a unique insight to the incredible advances being achieved in China. Not only in the automotive sector, but the ubiquitous charging infrastructure, the massive increase in renewables, the absolute transformation of the air quality in Chinese cities and wind, solar and batteries. You can catch up with Elliot’s wonderful regular reports on the Fully Charged Show.

Then on Sunday morning we welcomed Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of Octopus Energy.

The entire interview will be shortly released as a podcast on the Everything Electric channel

Now, at first sight it might seem that Greg stands out as not being very connected with China. He’s very connected with the British energy market and is well known in this country for his clearly expressed views on what needs to happen in the UK energy market.

If we are to have any hope of future success and make a genuine shift away from relying on fossil fuel, Greg is someone we, and in particular, our politicians should listen to very carefully.

He is a genuinely extraordinary figure, a whirlwind of energy with a dazzling intelligence and an incredible grasp of the opportunities that lay before us as we start to really understand the implications of burning less fuel and generating more and more of the energy we need in other, newer and cleaner ways.

Greg has just been in China seeing what is going on there, and as he said “In a nutshell the Western world is in danger of looking like an underdeveloped nation if it doesn’t go the way of China and get fully behind the renewable energy transition.”

He explained how reformation of energy markets is essential and instead of building wind farms in regions where there are subsidies as is the case at the moment, we should build them where the demand is. It’s just possible this might be happening with the new political administration currently in power in the UK.

It is so refreshing and reassuring to hear someone with a genuine grasp of economics and finance explain how renewables keep getting cheaper and cheaper, and that this technology should be the driving force to enable a better, more sustainable, future for us all.

He then gave numerous examples of what is happening in China, and how the standard narrative popular with the right wing press of ‘why should we do anything when China is just burning more coal.’

These publications have always been deliberately ignorant of what is really going on in China, but to hear, first hand, about the increase in generating capacity from renewables in the last 12 months in China and the positive impact that is having on cities and the people who live there is very encouraging.

Elliot described the same thing, how Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen used to be cloaked in choking smog with everyone wearing masks, to the clear skies and clean air they have today.

I did an interview with Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese State Media outlet who recorded a report at the show, they wanted to know what I thought about Chinese cars. I was very diplomatic, I hope, but also honest. The Chinese cars we can drive in the UK are impressive and seriously technologically advanced of every other car company excluding Tesla.

So is it just a question of protecting our remaining, slightly fragile automotive industry and tax Chinese cars out of our borders, because believe me, they really are a threat.

The French and German car companies know this and are worried, but they also know tariffs are a two way deal. BMW for example sells one third of its output in China.

But the overarching theme of the weekend is that all of this technology (renewables, electric ground transport etc) is simply cheaper, more sustainable and much more efficient than dirty, dated, fossil fuel technologies.

And the Chinese know this.