For decades, ‘we’ looked with nostalgia at Chinese people measuring the footwells of Golf cars at car fairs with the centimeter tape. But now Europe is copying the Chinese.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. While we Europeans are completely navel-gazing about the LGBTI agenda and grams of CO2 from the exhaust, the Chinese continue to develop. Some say it was a premeditated plan to divide ‘us’ with these needless distractions so that China can ‘catch up’ with us.
In any case, it is certain that there is a derogatory term in China for white people who deal with these issues. Baizuothey are called. Useful idiots, more or less. Suckers who shoot themselves in the foot and force others to do the same. While in China people continue to innovate and make money for the greater honor and glory of the people.
Anyway, maybe that’s just a little too much aluminum on the head. On the other hand: better aluminum than butter, I guess. Because there is one thing we can no longer maintain: the idea that we are setting the tone in the field of technology. We recently reported that China is keeping all kinds of battery-making materials for itself. But it is now also evident that the Chinese are ahead in the field of electric cars.
We also see this in the Netherlands: one Chinese car brand after another is being introduced. In the past, LandWinds and the like were (rightly) ridiculed. But that time is over. They are often sturdy containers for low prices. And Jan Modaal likes that. Especially now that our average level of prosperity is under pressure due to all the measures to ‘save the planet’.
This trend is not only happening in the Netherlands Bloomberg noticed. The quality publication signals that there has been something of a turnaround. Not very long ago, Western companies were disappointed with the Joint Venture obligation that China imposed on them if they wanted to enter the large Chinese market. Manufacturers had to work with local parties for this coveted market access. And they were often rightly afraid that intellectual property would end up in the hands of ‘China’ in this way.
But now European manufacturers are ready to take minority stakes in Chinese manufacturers. Volkwagen recently invested $700 million to acquire five percent of XPeng. Stellantis shells out $1.1 billion to acquire 21 percent of Leapmotor. ‘We’ simply need Chinese tech. Because both Volkswagen and Stellantis (as well as the other major manufacturers) have not or hardly managed to sell EVs profitably.
Volkswagen would also be particularly interested in XPeng’s autonomous driving software. Stellantis explains the investment in Leapmotor as follows:
Leapmotor is a tech leader with a unique vertical integration model and full suite of in-house R&D and manufacturing capabilities.
Stellantis, not to be confused with the stars dancing on ice
Call it the student who becomes the teacher, the son who becomes the father, or from a European perspective the hunter who becomes the hunted. It suddenly becomes a different world outside. China 1, Europe 0. Fortunately we still have vegetarian rainbow fruit from Katja to comfort us.
This article Sapper the flap: Europe is now copying the Chinese first appeared on Autoblog.nl.
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