why have western countries collectively withdrawn from the electric vehicle market?

Why have Western countries collectively withdrawn from the electric vehicle market?

The reason is crystal clear: European automakers are fully embracing the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) industry chain.

European manufacturers have reached a decisive conclusion: to survive, they need to join the Chinese EV industry chain, occupy complementary technological sectors, become core shareholders, and share in the profits. Attempting to stand alone and compete across the board would be a certain death sentence. In fact, German companies have ambitious plans to team up with Chinese automakers to eliminate American and Japanese competition altogether.

Through a Sino-German alliance, Germany could pry open the doors of the European Union from within. Given this scenario, it would be almost inevitable for French, Italian, Japanese, and South Korean automakers to find themselves on a dead-end path, likely to be swallowed up by Sino-German hybrid vehicles adorned with a German label. Japanese and Korean manufacturers risk losing the European market, potentially surviving only on a blend of nationalism and the American market, as the rest of the world would fall under the Sino-German influence.

German enterprises are looking at a twenty-year partnership that not only allows them to stay abreast of developments and partake in the rewards but also to lie in wait, perhaps emerging as strong competitors in the next cycle. The current collective move by those who have been too slow to partner with China, or who are unable to do so due to various reasons, is an act of desperation. These “left-behinds” are banding together in an attempt to close off their markets and stave off sudden obsolescence.

The collective decision to abandon electric vehicle ambitions is simply an exercise in unifying their messaging, an effort to lower the barriers for setting up a defensive front. However, it’s doubtful that Germany will play along. Without a fallback option, Germany must ride China’s fast train to thrive in the grand electric wave, rather than huddle behind stone walls with the European losers, fighting over Europe’s shrinking internal combustion market. The assault from China isn’t a short-term challenge; it’s a relentless onslaught without a visible end, capable of gradually wearing down even the strongest of adversaries. After years of attrition, these contenders will lose the strength to even conceive of a fightback. Faced with a choice to either feast with a band of losers or dine with the new alpha, the answer seems evident.

Abandoning the goal of electrification is one thing; implementing a wholesale ban on electric vehicles is quite another. A ban on pure Chinese EVs may be feasible, but it would not be easy to extend such prohibition to hybrid German-made vehicles – a product of Sino-German collaboration.