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Science and Technology Minister- Wan Gang and Minister of Industry - Miao Wei met with
Tesla CEO Eilon Musk
Wan Gang said that the Chinese government is considering reforms in the tax aspects of electric vehicles, such as import tariffs will be different from the traditional car imports, but the specific details are still under development.
Chinese government is now formulating policies to help companies like Tesla, like entering China, promote the development of electric vehicle industry in China.
Tesla is willing to negotiate opening the Supercharging stations for local government and corporations to help accelerate EVs in China
http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/gsnews/20140423/180318898072.shtml
Thanks Cankooo1, and I am super excited. the past few days, the lightbulb has started going off for me. while specific outcomes are speculative, I don't think there's any denying the great potential fit of Tesla/Musk and China. They both share the same biggest goals... sustainable energy and reduced pollution, and they are both looking to do this via EVs and energy storage. Tesla/Musk hold the best technology on the planet, the Chinese I'm starting to see offer the deepest pockets with motivation to move with great speed to transforming the auto and energy industries.
Please jump in those of you with far more knowledge on China than I have, but I see a country where private sector and government blur, government thinks long-term, is determined to see new industries grow, pollution and sustainable energy addressed, and gets itself involved in massive scale projects. I may have this wrong but my understanding is that there have been million plus population cities that just got developed in the span of say a decade, and the government had a hand in it. or as another example, all but 2 of Beijing's 17 subway lines entered service since 2002, and is now the 3rd longest subway line in terms of miles on the planet (with Shanghai being one of the larger two).
I say all this to suggest that China may turn out to be the big lever Elon has been looking for for ten plus years to convince the global automakers to go after EVs in earnest. I wouldn't expect anything major to get put in place for the next couple of years, but if Tesla nails a Gen III car that is clearly better than an ICE car, Tesla may have the opportunity to enter into whole new kinds of partnerships with the Chinese government/private companies with the goal of a massive increase of battery capacity to allow for EVs and grid storage.
moving into the speculative part... what if the Chinese government literally decided to spend $100 billion dollars from say 2018-2023 to fund 20 gigafactories capable of supplying batteries for 10 million cars? This is the scale Elon thinks about and I don't see any other entity with the will or resources to do it other than the Chinese government. I'm sure Elon would try to cut a deal so Tesla would benefit, but even if China/it's private companies robbed Tesla blind, Elon might still be happy. if China can build 10 million EVs in 2025, and they've taken from Tesla in the process, Elon would a) see the scale of movement to EVs he's looking for, b) have a catalyst to spark the global automakers of far greater strength than the million or so vehicles Tesla might make in 2025 (if China was making 10 million of the best cars on the planet in 2025 I don't think VW, Toyota, etc. could just ignore it, even if all those cars were all sold in China... I just don't think they could sit still if it became obvious that the best cars in the planet were being made in huge volume in China, were EVs, and yet they were continuing to push ICE or plug-in hybrids), and c) still have 90% of the global automarket, 90 million cars, to compete in unaffected by any IP pillaging by the Chinese government/private industries. Then there's the possibility Elon does get something for Tesla in return for working with China. and the possibility that if all this works, in the mid 2020s the Chinese government commits $200 billion to more battery factories. again, this is speculative, and I don't know whether the government in China actually directly funds these sort of efforts, or just incentivizes private business, but you've got giant vision and technology with Tesla, and long-term vision, and giant resources with China. makes Apple and Google look small
