Daybreak Special: Despite what Ola Electric may claim, China is driving the global EV movement

When it comes to electric vehicles, China is the crownless king. Nothing new there.

But what was news to us was when Bhavish Aggarwal recently announced at an event that his company, Ola Electric, is the world’s largest electric two-wheeler manufacturer and the fourth-largest EV company in the world. 

It left everyone scratching their heads for a few seconds until they noticed the fine print at the bottom of the powerpoint slide — marked with an asterisk, in tiny lettering, it said excluding China.

But you can't exclude China from the EV conversation because for the last decade it has been leagues ahead of the rest of the world. The Chinese government has been pushing for EV adoption — and all of its efforts have paid off. Multiple studies and surveys have found that China’s EV market is now the biggest in the world.

But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. While India is still in its teething phase as far as electric mobility is concerned, China is well into its teens, and we all know puberty comes with a whole set of its own problems. In China’s case it’s price wars, record breaking insurance premiums, and a threat to data privacy.

Are there lessons here for India? In this episode, we speak to two people from The Ken newsroom, who have been covering the EV space extensively — Nathan Narde and Lu Zhao.

Tune in.

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