Is they abroad in China?

Zoë Schiffer: Can you talk to me about this relationship? Also, how is the shape of Tesla in China? Is it seen as a famous and cold car still?

Zi Yang: It is still somewhat, because for the longest time, the Chinese cars brands were considered lower than foreign brands. Tesla still has this aura as this American electric car company. But she loses her while we are talking. Also, when we talk about the relationship between Tesla and China, sometimes I forget how long does it date back. There is a very interesting personality that we should talk about. His name is zhuanglong. He used to be a Chinese minister of industry and information technology. Basically, the Ministry of Innovations, China. He went to San Francisco in 2008 and tried to one of the centers, one of the first electric cars that Tesla made. Because he came from the auto industry, and he was a student of an electric car. This is how all this started. Then, from the first Musk visit to China in 2014, he met this man again. He truly tried to pay for the sale of his car in China, and then we know that he built Gigafactory in Shanghai in 2020. This is a long history of how Musk and Tesla enter China. But what we know now is that China is one of the most productive facilities of Tesla. It is also one of the largest Tesla market. Tesla cannot lose China.

Zoë Schiffer: This is great, because we know with other technology companies such as Google and Meta, they really tried to reach China and it was not completely successful, or they completely failed in some cases. But Elon Musk was able to prevail. Do we know why that was?

Zi Yang: I think it helps to work on a car company instead of a social media company, because there is a lot of control of information and the Internet in China. While if you only make a car, it does not exceed those red lines that China has. Also, it is useful for China to think, over the past two decades, really, “maybe I should bet on the electric car as a future of transportation as well.” Tesla welcomed to be part of her major experience, as well as investing to build EV Empire. For this reason, Tesla has become a major part of it and has contributed to what China has achieved so far.

Zoë Schiffer: Well, this leads to my next question, because China has invested greatly in electric cars. In part, I think, to reduce their dependence on foreign oil imports. How is that so far?

Zi Yang: She is going well, I will say. Yes. China does not have a rich oil reserve, and oil has been imported from many other places for the longest time. For this reason, the Chinese government has always been very eager to do so, because, for example, World War III occurred, that oil supplies will be cut. What will you do? I think in the early days, I will say in the early first decade of the twentieth century, the idea of ​​electric cars was the idea of ​​the moon. Where they were thinking, “Perhaps, if all cars were one day they would be operated with electricity, we will not need to import this oil anymore and we will be safer if the war broke out.” This is when they have already started investing in the search of batteries and electric cars with university research money. But then, this gradually led to the construction of Chinese companies. They strongly support any car company that can create a product that gets the road and can purchase customers. All this, after years of heavy spending, led to what we have now, a market for booming electric cars in China. I think the latest data says that more than 50 percent of consumers when they try to buy a new car, they go to an electric car instead of a gas car. This is very cool.