美国在电动汽车市场的滞后
华盛顿 – 在全球电动汽车竞赛中，美国正在落后。自十年前起，中国已启动了庞大的公共充电网络、提供补贴和其他激励措施，并推出了超过100个电动车型品牌。
北京为何领先？
早在本世纪初，中国政府便认识到电动车代表了继亨利·福特在20世纪初革新汽车制造业后的最重要交通革新。为此，中国政府动员其经济实力全力推动电动汽车发展，类似上个世纪70、80年代日本汽车产业的发展模式。
中国如何超越美国？
中国自2009年起推出了旨在促进公共交通领域新电车和混合动力车辆的补贴项目，并于2013年开始对个人消费者提供基于电动车续航里程梯度的补贴。到了2022年，政府暂停了补贴后，中国市场已显著领先。
中国引领市场的关键因素：
– 建立庞大的充电基础设施。
– 实行鼓励消费的“胡萝卜”政策，例如免征汽车销售税（计划于2027年逐步取消）。
– 出台总计高达2.31万亿元的补贴政策从2009年至2023年。
中国领先不仅在于数量，更体现在质量和体系上的优势：
– 统一充电标准接口，方便使用不同车辆进行充电。
– 掌握关键原材料供应，并且近在咫尺的技术资源，如半导体芯片生产中心位于其邻近的台湾。
美国能否追上？
尽管美国电动车采用相对滞后，“落后于大多数”，但在关键技术、制造能力和政治意志方面仍具备追赶的能力。美国电动汽车本土发展的“最关键”时期即将到来。拜登政府已调整目标至2030年时市场份额达50%，这应给予市场与供应链更多时间来适应和发展。
美国正在采取积极措施：
– 制定政策与激励措施以推动其目标。
– 计划在全国范围内建立超过50万座充电站，联邦和地方项目已启动了数千个电动车充电桩建设，并且还将在未来几年持续增加数以千计的充电桩投入运营。
在未来的日子里，通过加强基础设施建设和提升关键矿物供应链能力减少对中国依赖，美国有可能加速技术发展并赶超中国。例如：
– 投资机器人技术和自动化生产线以提高效率。
– 加大对先进材料的研发投资，确保关键原材料供应自给自足。
对于美国来说，下一个重点将是快速推进充电网络的建设与发展。联邦和地方政府的努力正在填补清洁能源领域的就业缺口，并且目前已有数千个电动车充电桩项目正在进行中，未来几年这个数字还将大幅度增长，最终目标是在本世纪末投入运营数以十万计的充电桩。
因此，尽管在初期采用速度上落后于中国，但凭借美国在技术、资金等方面的积累和国家政策的支持，实现追赶并非不可行。
新闻来源：www.cbsnews.com
原文地址：How China came to dominate the electric vehicle market, and what the U.S. can do to catch up
新闻日期：2024-09-24
原文摘要：
The U.S. blinked, and China built an electric vehicle empire."They're taking over the world, except North America," said Lei Xing, a Chinese auto industry expert. "The U.S. will be the last frontier."In the last 15 years, China has rolled out a public charging network over 10 million strong, convinced billions of drivers to go electric by dangling subsidies and other incentives, and introduced over 100 EV brands with a bevy of pricing options. The push exemplifies "China Speed," a term Xing used to describe the country's hypersonic development.The speed and scale of the shift has slingshotted China past the U.S. and every other nation in the transition to electric vehicles, while also positioning Chinese automakers near the front of the pack to dominate the market for years to come. In both July and August of 2024, for example, industry data shows that over half of total automotive sales in China were electric or hybrid. The U.S., quite simply, is playing catch-up. The Biden administration has made the transition to EVs a key priority, saying that by 2030 it wants half of all vehicles sold to be electric, plug-in hybrid or fuel cell EVs. The White House has also sought to throw sand in China's gears by imposing stiff tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, a measure aimed at protecting U.S. automakers.But with limited supply-chain access, lagging EV infrastructure development and a culture in which American motorists remain partial to gas-powered cars, the jury is still out on whether these goals are attainable. John Bozzella, CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing U.S. and foreign automakers along with other industry players, has characterized the Biden administration's goals as the "ragged edge of achievable." The skeptics may have a point: EV adoption, and the nation's buildout of the required energy infrastructure, has been glacial compared to China. According to the Federal Highway Administration, as of August 29, 192,500 public chargers were in place across the U.S. — a number that doubled under the Biden-Harris administration — with 1,000 new ones activated each week. Biden has committed to building 500,000 charging stations nationwide by 2030. To reach that goal, his administration has thrown $7.5 billion in funding behind electric charging infrastructure. Of that amount, $5 billion is being funneled toward expanding a fast-charging network along highways. So far, only some 69 of those fast chargers are operational across eight states, according to the Highway Administration. The slow infrastructure buildout has bogged down adoption, as drivers contend with "range anxiety." As of June, battery electric vehicles and plug-ins represented less than 10% of car sales in the U.S., according to federal data."China has a head-start in a race that is still at the starting line," said Baratunde Cola, CEO and founder of Carbice, a maker of so-called nanotubes whose products help keep electric cars from overheating. "Everybody's still setting up race blocks." How China came to dominate the EV marketChina's lead in electric cars hasn't happened overnight. The key driver: China's recognition more than a decade ago that EVs represented the most important transportation innovation since Henry Ford revolutionized auto manufacturing in the early 20th century. Determined to race ahead, Beijing threw its economic might behind EV development, similar to the centrally controlled industrial policy that powered the rise of Japan's auto sector in the 1970s and '80s.In 2009, the Chinese government launched a pilot subsidy program to lay the groundwork for an electric vehicle network. Dubbed "Ten Cities and Thousand Vehicle," the program's goal was to subsidize new electric and hybrid vehicles in the public transport sector like buses and taxis, Xing said.Starting in 2013, subsidies were made available to individual consumers through a tiered system based on an electric vehicle's range, Xing said. The government halted the subsidies in 2022 but by that point, China was already well on its way to EV dominance. The country also offered an exemption from the 10% sales tax to defray car costs, which is slated to phase out in 2027. In total, the Chinese government doled out $231 billion in subsidies from 2009 to 2023 according to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.This "carrot" approach to drive consumption proved highly effective. According to the International Energy Agency, new electric car registrations in China reached 8.1 million in 2023, a 35% increase from 2022. China has also gotten ahead by building a vast network of chargers. According to the National Energy Administration, as of June China had 10.2 million EV chargers, up 54% from the previous year.China has upstaged the U.S. not just in terms of quantity, but also in terms of quality. Part of this, Xing said, has to do with the country's streamlined charging system, which offers one standard plug for all vehicles."You don't have to think about the type of plugs or adapters and which type of charging stations to use," he said.Another advantage China has over the U.S. is its access to critical raw materials. The International Energy Agency estimates that 90% of graphite and 77% of refined rare earths — key inputs in EV and battery production— will come from China by 2030. The U.S. currently imports 100% of its graphite, with one-third of that supply sourced from China, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. Proximity to semiconductor chip manufacturing also gives China an edge, Hooman Shahidi, CEO and co-founder of EVPassport, told CBS MoneyWatch. Taiwan, right in China's backyard, produces around 90% of the world's most advanced chips, according to the United States Institute for Peace."The U.S. and Canada are basically trying to cut off the dependency on China, but it's easier said than done," said Xing. " I think that'll take at least a decade."Can the U.S. still catch up?U.S. drivers have been much slower to hop on the EV train."We have a lot more laggards, versus early adopters," said Shahidi, who also serves as an adviser to the Biden administration on EV charging infrastructure policy.Still, experts say it's too soon to count America out, which has the means and the technical expertise — if not always the political will — to quickly ramp up its electric transportation systems. The next few years will be the "most critical" period for domestic EV development, said Bozzella in a blog post for the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.The Biden administration in March lowered its goal for EV sales to half the market by 2030. This "should give the market and supply chains a chance to catch up and further bypass China," Bozzella wrote.Washington has set a "great tempo" so far setting mandates and incentives to achieve these goals, Shahidi added. But he believes more can be done to reward companies focused on the supply train and logistics side, something China has done with flying colors. "We need to incentivize and reward the ancillary economy tied to electrification," Shahidi said.For the U.S. to get a leg up, Cola, who runs Carbice, said the U.S. needs to make more investments in robotics and automating assembly, invest in advanced materials and shore up production of critical mineral supply to reduce reliance on China."If we were to focus efforts on scaling up new technologies, like carbon nanotubes, if we were to double down on robotics, we could catch up with China and be the world leader in a decade," he said.Another focal point for the U.S. will be building charging infrastructure. "In order for us to deploy more chargers, we need more people doing deployment," Shahidi said. As federal and local initiatives seek to fill the gaps in the clean energy workforce, the U.S. is forging ahead. The Federal Highway Administration says federally-funded projects are currently underway for over 24,100 EV chargers. More are on their way."We expect to see hundreds of federally-funded chargers operational this year, thousands next year, and hundreds of thousands of chargers by the end of the decade," a Highway Administration spokesperson said.
