China’s domination of electric cars, which is threatening to start a trade war, was born decades ago in university laboratories in Texas, when researchers discovered how to make batteries with minerals that were abundant and cheap.
Companies from China have recently built on those early discoveries, figuring out how to make the batteries hold a powerful charge and endure more than a decade of daily recharges.
They are inexpensively and reliably manufacturing vast numbers of these batteries, producing most of the world’s electric cars and many other clean energy systems.
Batteries are just one example of how China is catching up with — or passing — advanced industrial democracies in its technological and manufacturing sophistication.
It is achieving many breakthroughs in a long list of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to drones to high-efficiency solar panels.
Organizations:
Companies, Communist Party
Locations:
Texas, China, United States