原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.com 翻译：bluebit 转载请注明出处

Opinion: China, not Tesla, is driving the electric-car revolution
By Jack Barkenbus Published: May 15, 2019 9:01 a.m. ET

是中国而不是特斯拉在推动电动汽车革命

Chinese consumers bought 1.1 million electric vehicles last year; U.S. sales were 358,000

中国消费者去年购买了110万辆电动汽车，而美国仅销量了35.8万辆


AFP/Getty Images
Visitors look at a Gyon electric luxury car at the Shanghai Auto Show in April.

ByJackBarkenbus2019年 4月，游客们在上海车展上观看“歌昂”豪华电动车

The electric vehicle revolution is coming, but it won’t be driven by the U.S. Instead, China will be at the forefront.

电动汽车革命即将到来，但它不会由美国来推动。相反，中国将走在前沿

My research on EVs, dating back a decade, convinces me that this global transformation in mobility, from petroleum-fueled vehicles to electric ones, will come sooner than later. The shift is already happening in China, which is the world’s largest automobile market, with 23 million cars sold in 2018. As Western countries approach peak car ownership, there are still hundreds of millions of Chinese families that don’t own a car at all — much less two or more.

10年前我开始对电动汽车进行研究，这让我相信，全球交通从石油燃料汽车到电动汽车的转型迟早会到来。而且这种转变已经在中国发生。中国是世界上最大的汽车市场，2018年的汽车销量为2300万辆。随着西方国家的汽车保有量接近峰值，中国仍有数亿家庭根本没有汽车——更不用说有两辆或是更多了。

Many of them are buying electric cars. By 2015, electric vehicle sales in China had surpassed U.S. levels. In 2018, Chinese sales topped 1.1 million cars, more than 55% of all electric vehicles sold in the world, and more than three times as many as Chinese customers had bought two years earlier. U.S. electric vehicle sales that year were just 358,000.

不少中国人正在买电动汽车。到2015年，中国的电动汽车销量已经超越美国。2018年，中国的汽车销量超过110万辆，占全球电动汽车销量的55%以上，是中国两年前购车总量的三倍多。而美国当年的电动汽车销量仅为35.8万辆。

A key element of an electric vehicle’s price is the cost of its batteries — and China already makes more than half of the world’s electric vehicle batteries. Battery prices continue to fall; industry analysts now suggest that within five years it will be cheaper to buy an electric car than a gas- or diesel-powered one.

电动汽车价格的其中一个主要因素是电池的成本，而中国已经生产了全球一半以上的电动汽车电池。规模效应至使电池价格继续下跌;行业分析师目前认为，未来五年内，电动汽车将比汽柴油动力汽车变得更便宜。

Huge government backing

政府全力扶持

China has a fledgling, but ambitious, automobile industry. It has never been able to match the efficiency and quality of established auto makers at making gas-powered vehicles, but electric vehicles are easier to build, giving Chinese firms a new opportunity to compete.

中国有一个尚未成熟但雄心勃勃的汽车工业。它在生产燃气动力汽车方面的效率和质量一直无法与老牌汽车制造商相比，但电动汽车制造相对容易，这给了中国企业一个新的竞争机会。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


The Chinese government, therefore, has chosen to highlight electric vehicles as one of 10 commercial sectors central to its “Made in China” effort to boost advanced industrial technology. Government efforts include using billions of dollars to subsidize manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries, and encouraging businesses and consumers to buy them.

因此，中国政府选择将电动汽车列为“中国制造”推动先进工业技术的10个核心商业领域之一。政府扶持方式包括提供数十亿美元，用于补贴电动汽车和电池的生产，鼓励企业和消费者购买电动汽车和电池。

The government is also aware that electric vehicles could help solve some of China’s most pressing energy and environmental concerns: Massive air pollution chokes its major cities, national security officials are worried about how much oil the country imports and China is now the nation contributing most to global climate change emissions.

政府也意识到中国的电动汽车可以帮助一些目前急需解决的能源环境问题，比如解决笼罩在一些大城市中的空气污染,减轻国家安全官员进口石油负担。目前，中国现在是影响全球气候变化排放量最大的国家。

New companies

新公司

Scores of Chinese auto-making companies have formed to profit from these subsidies. A major player is BYD BYDDY, +2.06% 002594, -1.16%, which stands for “Build Your Dreams,” based in Shenzhen. More than a decade ago, billionaire investor Warren Buffett bought about a quarter of the company for $232 million — a share that is now worth more than $1.5 billion.

已有数十家中国汽车制造企业受从补贴中受益。总部位于深圳的比亚迪公司是其中主要的参与者，BYD的含义为“筑梦”(Build Your Dreams)。十多年前，亿万富翁沃伦?巴菲特以2.32亿美元的价格购买了该公司大约四分之一的股份，目前现在这部分股份价值已超过15亿美元。

The company’s initial plans to export vehicles to the U.S. proved premature and fizzled. BYD instead started to focus mainly on the Chinese auto market, as well as building electric buses for the global market, which it now dominates.

事实证明， BYD公司起先向美国出口汽车的计划是不成熟的，最终以失败告终。相反，比亚迪开始注重中国汽车市场，以及该公司目前在全球市场上占据主导地位的电动巴士

If BYD’s electric car plans falter, though, there are plenty of other Chinese firms ready to pick up the slack.

不过，即使比亚迪的电动汽车计划遇挫，还有其他众多望眼欲穿的中国公司正积极准备弥补这一缺口。

Further support

进一步扶持

In addition to the government subsidies to ensure BYD and its competitors have lots of customers, new government regulations are kicking in. The Chinese government now requires all auto makers who sell in China, whether domestic or foreign firms, to make a certain percentage of their sales electric, through a complex crediting formula. The mandate will get stricter over time, perhaps requiring each company to make at least 7% of their sales electric by 2025.

为确保比亚迪以其竞争对手拥有大量客户，除政府出资补贴外，还出台了新的规定。中国政府现在要求所有在华销售的汽车生产商，无论国内或是国外企业，都必须通过一个复杂的信贷准则，将一定比例的销售收入投入到电动汽车。随着时间的推移，这一要求将愈来愈严格，至2025也许会要求每家公司年至少实现7%的电动汽车销售

Major foreign car companies have large investments in China and can hardly afford to abandon the market. Volkswagen VOW3, +4.91% VWAPY, +5.58%, for example, now sells 40% of its output in China, which is a main reason the company is pushing hard to develop electric vehicles.

外国大型汽车公司均在中国有大量投资，它们很难承担放弃中国市场的代价。以大众汽车(Volkswagen)为例，该公司目前40%的产量销往中国，同时这也是该公司大力开发电动汽车的一个主要原因。

China’s domestic auto makers have largely not yet engaged in the export market. Electric vehicle industry analyst Jose Pontes says there are three reasons for their reluctance: First, the Chinese market is big enough to absorb their current production. Second, many car companies in China are utterly unknown in the West, so customers would be wary of buying from a strange brand. And third, their cars do not yet comply with strict safety regulations in the U.S. and Europe.

中国国内汽车生产商基本上尚未涉足出口市场。电动汽车行业分析师何塞?庞特斯(Jose Pontes)表示，他们之所以不愿这么做，有三个原因:第一，中国市场足够大，能够内部消化目前的产量。其次，中国汽车品牌在西方默默无闻，所以消费者在购买一个陌生品牌的汽车时比较谨慎。第三，他们的汽车还不符合美国和欧洲严格的安全规定。

Jack Barkenbus is a visiting scholar at the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy & Environment at Vanderbilt University. This was first published on The Conversation — “The electric vehicle revolution will come from China, not the US.”

杰克?巴肯巴斯是范德比尔特大学范德比尔特能源与环境研究所的访问学者。这篇文章首次发表在《对话》上——“电动汽车革命将来自中国，而不在美国。“