Consumers inspect BYD's NEV models at a shopping mall in Beijing Chaoyang district on June 22, 2023. (WANG SONG / FOR CHINA DAILY)
Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) are in a noteworthy position to drive the sector’s growth in the Middle East, which could help shape government policy, hit national carbon emission reduction targets, and develop local expertise, experts said.
China-made models are faring particularly well in the United Arab Emirates, which became the first country in the world to approve a national license for self-driving vehicles – awarding it to Chinese driving solutions company WeRide – and in Jordan and Israel where Chinese car sales dominated in the first half of 2023.
Regan Luo, business development head of WeRide’s Middle East and North Africa market, told China Daily that the UAE granting WeRide’s self-driving vehicle license suggests it recognizes the potential benefits and impact of self-driving vehicles and is willing to embrace and support their deployment
Between January and June, 16,000 foreign-made EVs entered a major free trade zone in Jordan's central governorate of Zarqa and around 80 percent of them were manufactured in China, according to Xinhua News Agency, citing the Jordan Free Zone Investor Commission.
In Israel, Chinese brands also topped the electric car sales in the first half of 2023, according to data from the Israel Vehicle Importers Association. In that period China’s BYD and Geely Auto Group sold 9,698 and 4,492 vehicles, respectively.
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“The Chinese car manufacturers are in an excellent position to grab the newly developing BEV market in Israel and the Middle East,” Felix Creutzig, head of the Land Use, Infrastructures and Transport working group and chair of Sustainability Economics at Technische Universitat Berlin, told China Daily.
Creutzig said European car manufacturers, especially the Germans, have difficulties competing in the Middle East as their limited production output has to remain in the European market to meet European Union vehicle fleet standards.
"Israel is an interesting market: a relatively affluent car-dependent country with a tech-oriented and eco-conscious business sector centered around Tel Aviv. As distances are mostly short, there is little reason to be concerned with range anxiety,” said Creutzig, who is also a former research associate at Israel Public Policy Institute (IPPI), an independent non-profit think tank.
"From a climate perspective, the contributions of Chinese car manufacturers in accelerating the switch from combustion engines to BEV (battery electric vehicles) is very welcome. The next important step is to decarbonize the supply chain – sourcing electricity for battery and car manufacturing from renewables instead of coal,” he added.
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Regan Luo, business development head of WeRide’s Middle East and North Africa market, told China Daily that the UAE granting WeRide’s self-driving vehicle license suggests it recognizes the potential benefits and impact of self-driving vehicles and is willing to embrace and support their deployment.
Currently, WeRide has a fleet of around 10 Robotaxis and several Robobuses in the UAE, he said.
Luo said the size of their test fleet was still under evaluation and that all the autonomous driving vehicles WeRide has deployed and will deploy in the UAE are EVs with Zero Emissions, “which definitely will help UAE reduce the carbon emissions”.
WeRide driverless cars are seen in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province. (SONG JINYU / FOR CHINA DAILY)
On July 11, the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment announced it was seeking a 40 percent emissions cut by 2030, compared with an earlier 31 percent target.
The UAE government also announced in July its target that at least 50 percent of cars will be electric by 2050. Along with this, a new network of EV charging stations will be introduced nationwide.
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“A well-developed network of charging stations across the UAE will address one of the key concerns for EV users: range anxiety. It will benefit the operation area expansion of the Robotaxi service as well,” said Luo.
According to the “China Leads the Way in Electrifying the Road” report published by market intelligence platform Statista on July 21, China has become the global BEV leader, increasing annual sales of fully-electric cars from roughly 10,000 in 2012 to 4.4 million in 2022.
Apart from China, which jumped from third place in terms of BEV sales in 2012 to the uncontested number one spot in 2017, the report said the United States and France have also been at the forefront of electrifying their passenger car fleets.
Since 2017, Germany has become a serious contender in this area, registering around half a million new fully-electric cars in 2022, it said, but “when it comes to growth” China “again can't be beaten”, increasing its annual sales by 44,000 percent from 2012 to 2022.
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Given the rosy outlook, Luo from WeRide said it would be helpful to create a supportive ecosystem for the growing EV industry to attract investments from automakers and charging infrastructure providers, stimulate new job opportunities, and encourage the development of local expertise in EV technologies and maintenance.
“All this will also be beneficial for the adoption of autonomous driving vehicles on a larger scale,” said Luo.
“Chinese cities and other cities around the world are best served by (electric) bikes and transit to avoid congestion and improve quality of life,” said Creutzig, noting China’s leading role in bicycle manufacture and use.
