it's the only place I know where it's common to have your whole battery pack swapped out, much quicker than recharging a battery, and leaves the difficult job of battery maintenance up to professionals
I was in China two months ago and the use of electric cars is honestly changing the feeling of big cities. Delivery motorcycles and service vehicles are all electric now, and with the number of electric cars on the road, streets are a lot quieter now barring the frequent honking. Less air pollution too.
What I love about Chinese electric car manufacturers is that they've fully embraced the cyberpunk aesthetic from the chassis design to the car sounds. Made me feel like I was walking around a cyberpunk movie set.
I found this article from last year showing some interesting models. You'll see the most popular EVs range from more classical designs to weird and retro-futuristic.
Some of them also make futuristic noises when they drive around... The noise isn't needed at all because the motor is pretty much silent, so they're added by manufacturers so you hear them coming. I swear they sound like something out of a '90s sci-fi flick.
I just got back from a business trip to China also. The high proportion of EVs, particularly in the southern cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen really stood out to me, and many of them (particularly from BYD) looked really, really nice. They seemed less prominent in the more northern part of the country (e.g. Shenyang, Beijing), but even there I'd say they're more common than in the UK.
I visited the BYD factory years ago. I have no idea how big it is compared to others but it absolutely blew my mind. I was up on like 5th floor and when they sounded the lunch bell it looked like ants out the window. I think they said it was about 600k employees in that building.
It being huge is an understatement. They have dorms where people live on-site and it’s they are massive. Multiple soccer complexes and tons of restaurants all on campus.
I don't know how many workers BYD have, but Foxconn flagship factory is Longhua Science & Technology Park and it is a small city with hundreds of thousands people working there. Check the Google Maps satellite view, it's crazy.
It's not an SOE and like half of its stocks are owned by Americans. But the parent company got some government funding according to the US Congress, so the whole conglomerate is considered an SOE by America now. Sounds like trade war stuff to me lol