China boasts the world’s most robust registration figures for electric cars, especially Chinese models; however, carmakers might produce more electric cars than necessary, profiting from the generous subsidy regulations.
Officially, some 5.7 million electric vehicles were registered there last year, as “Merkur” reports. In addition, in the first third of this year, China recorded a volume of more than 1.5 million electric cars, according to “Elektroauto-News.”
Going by face-value statistics, China is the world leader in EV car sales, with the largest share coming from Chinese manufacturers such as BYD or XPENG, making it the top producer for the Chinese market.
However, several recent videos about Chinese e-cars indicate there’s more below the bonnet than meets the eye.
‘The land of abbreviations and façades’
Video blogger Winston Sterzel – aka SerpentZA – recently released a video showing substantial parking areas with thousands or even tens of thousands of brand-new e-cars.
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On some recordings, it can be seen that these cars have license plates, i.e., a registration. However, in some of these parked models (BYD in the video), there is even foil over the seats, and the mileage is only about 50 kilometers, meaning these are unsold new cars.
The high number of registrations is correct. These vehicles do increase the official number of registrations for electric cars, although they may never see a genuine buyer.
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In reality, these are vehicles that have not been sold, Sterzel argues. As a result of these bogus sales and the resulting doctored statistics, China can report ever-increasing production and sales figures.
Sterzel, a staunch critic of Communist China with 1.35 million subscribers on YouTube, in his video, describes the People’s Republic as “the land of abbreviations and façades.”
Also, according to “T-online” magazine, the colossal parking spaces result from bogus sales and statistical tricks by the automotive industry. Cars would be registered and recorded accordingly in the books to meet the government’s requirements.
Environmental damage
Sterzel also discusses the damage to the environment. He says that rare raw materials are needed to produce the batteries, sometimes mined under dangerous and sometimes inhumane conditions. “This is about human rights issues such as child labor and slave labor,” the vlogger criticizes.
The damage caused to the environment is also “simply insane.” Leaving these many e-cars unused would pollute the environment even more as the machines break down or get scrapped and their chemicals are released. “What people don’t see behind the high registration numbers is that China is destroying the earth on a scale never seen before,” Sterzel continues.
Another shortcoming of the EV revolution is that electric cars in China are mainly charged with coal-generated electricity. According to the German newspaper Die Zeit, this covers about 60 percent of China’s needs. Thus, China’s indirect CO production of e-cars — if worth mentioning at all — doesn’t have any beneficial effects in environmental terms in the first place.
As the video shows seven such parking spaces, it is unclear how many EV cemeteries exist in China. There could be only a few tens of thousands or even several hundred thousand false registrations.
