The Beijing Auto Show is now the world’s largest auto show — and its most important. It’s where China’s automakers show off their new innovations and newest models to a huge audience of domestic consumers and global influencers. As one attendee observed, there were more EV models in one room of the show than there are available for sale in the entire U.S. car market.

So what was it like to be there in person? On today’s episode of Shift Key, Rob talks with Kate Logan, the director of the China Climate Hub and Climate Diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute; and Jeremy Wallace, the A. Doak Barnett Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Jeremy and Kate attended this year’s show and left with some strong impressions. They also chat with Rob about whether China has solved the EV charging problem, what tech was most impressive (and what was absent) from the expo, and how American policymakers should work with China’s world-leading battery and EV manufacturing firms. 

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap News.

You can find a full transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

WSJ: Chinese EVs can already be seen in the US… in El Paso

The new Carnegie Mellon report: An Industrial Strategy for Ranking Risk and Opportunity in Energy & AI Supply Chains

Bloomberg on the Ford and CATL deal

Jeremy’s recent work in Heatmap: China Can’t Decide If It Wants to Be the World’s First ‘Electrostate’

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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