The proverb “iron sharpens iron” may ring true for China’s EV industry.
Dara Khosrowshahi praised Chinese EV models on the most recent episode of Nikhil Kamath’s podcast, “People by WTF,” calling them “unbelievable.”
“The innovation coming out of the Chinese OEM and EV business — I’ve never seen anything like it,” Khosrowshahi said.
Automakers like BYD have helped China dominate the global EV market, putting pressure on American companies like Tesla and Ford. In June, Ford CEO Jim Farley said Chinese EV models’ in-vehicle technology, cost, and quality were “far superior” to those in the West.
Aleksander Kalka/NurPhoto/Getty Images
When asked why Chinese manufacturers were outpacing their peers, Khosrowshahi credited local competition.
“Every significant Chinese city or province wants their own EV company to succeed,” Khosrowshahi said. “In China now, there are over 100 OEMs, so there’s this bottom-up competition that’s based on the top-down strategy that the government sets.”
Khosrowshahi said it’s “the best of both worlds.”
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“You have industrial policy, but then the winners aren’t who’s buddies with the president. The winners are who wins in a brutal, competitive environment,” Khosrowshahi said. “So, the winners coming out of China — the Geelys of the world, the BYDs — they’ve been through the wringer. It really is survival of the fittest, and the innovation that we see and the speed of development there, it’s extraordinary.”
Representatives for Khosrowshahi at Uber did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Under Khosrowshahi, Uber has encouraged its drivers to embrace EVs as part of its sustainability efforts. In July, Uber invested $300 million into the automotive company Lucid, which manufactures the Gravity EV. Lucid will make the vehicles used as Uber’s robotaxis.
Uber partnered with Waymo, Alphabet’s robotaxi service, in 2023 after selling its own autonomous vehicle division three years earlier. Riders in Phoenix were the first to access Waymo Driver through Uber’s platform, but it has expanded to Austin and Atlanta this year. Waymo got permission to start testing its self-driving vehicles in New York City last week.
