The Expert Podcast

Mark this on your calendar fast forward on your Google calendar, your Apple calendar to 2026. Seems like a long way away, but it's really only a couple of years away. Let’s see if the majority of vehicles that are being sold are more, I guess, obscure or Chinese electric vehicles. Here’s one example of a company called VinFast. This is an Automotive News article, and this example talks about how ultra-low EVs are going to take over the auto market—20,000 or less electric vehicles. Now, this kind of looks like a car, but in reality, it's more akin to a golf cart, right? It’s not the same as a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle.

This company, VinFast, is starting to recruit dealers across the U.S., and they’re discussing with a majority of large, well-established dealers to be able to sell their vehicles. They’re researching demand and potential for this model, and this kind of Chinese vehicle transition has been discussed in our videos before. But here’s another one: China owns the EV supply chain now, and it wants to sell you a car. Think about it right now—every appliance that you could buy for your house is not manufactured in the U.S. anymore. Even U.S. manufacturing companies like GE, Frigidaire—they’re all manufactured overseas. Televisions are not manufactured here either. The auto industry has transitioned somewhat overseas, but there are still U.S. carmakers like Stellantis and Ford.

The problem is, manufacturing gasoline engine vehicles is very complicated, very labor-intensive, and reliant on industry knowledge of how to build a motor. A gasoline engine is not a type of technology that’s done in Asia in a lot of cases, though China has some manufacturers. Japan has some manufacturing, and Korea has manufacturing. But China never really took that in range as much, and to sell in this country, however, it’s going to be very easy to manufacture electric vehicles in China. They’ll be a little tinier, for lack of a better word, a little less substantial. But the idea is to transition driving to not be a substantial, big, chunky, heavy vehicle to more of a thin, lighter vehicle.

Even the transition to electric vehicles that current manufacturers are trying to do—they’re basically trying to take the form of a current gas engine vehicle and put an electric drivetrain in it. Is it working? It’s not working, according to auto executives. EVs are not working. It’s not that electric vehicles per se aren’t working; it’s that the current type of electric vehicle isn’t working. Nobody wants to spend 50 or 60 or 70 thousand dollars for a big, heavy electric vehicle that has a 200-mile range if it’s not going to have the same authority level as a gas vehicle. Nobody wants to spend that much on that kind of a car. A different form factor would be good.

That’s why a lot of these little Japanese mini trucks are popular among people for a little commuter car. It’s also being pushed by the government. According to the Biden administration, the goal is to have electric vehicles constitute 50% of new vehicle sales by 2030. That’s a big number. Right now, it’s about 5%. 2030 is not that far away; it’s six, five, six years away.

In addition to having vehicles be more available, they also have to be more desirable. Right now, EVs are backing up on dealers’ lots. The kind of EVs that are being built now, if they want to get to 50%, they have to build something different or make them a whole lot cheaper, or both. And that’s where these types of, you know, Japanese-type vehicles come in. Whether or not that is the secret sauce is unknown. I’m sure you have an opinion about it. Let us know in the comments what you think. But mark on the calendar to see if these Chinese, more austere, lighter EVs become the norm and more traditional Western gas, heavier, more substantial vehicles kind of go the way of the dinosaur.