A comparison of American and Chinese policies for electric vehicle technologies

Mahmoud M. Ramadan*

Edited by Grant A. Knappe

Perspective | Aug. 29 2022

*Email: ramadanm@mit.edu

DOI: 10.38105/spr.02hu42bdxo

Highlights

The Chinese government has recently released the New Energy Vehicle Industrial Development Plan for 2021 to 2035 and has been, through extensive subsidies and protectionist policies, capturing significant sections of the supply chain for lithium-based batteries

The U.S. has one of the world’s largest reserves of lithium, but only provides around 2 percent of the world’s annual supply

American companies have lost control of important cobalt mines overseas

The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment reviews national security implications of foreign investments in the U.S.; however, there is no governmental committee or agency tasked with examining the national security implications of American transactions overseas

Article Summary

In the U.S., the gap between science research and commercialization has grown in recent years. In order to narrow this gap, the U.S. government could expand efforts to facilitate commercialization and public-private partnerships. This perspective compares the recent policies by the Chinese and U.S. governments towards emerging technologies. More specifically, we examine the current state of electric vehicles technologies in China and the U.S.

Open Access

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Mahmoud M. Ramadan

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA