China is conquering the world in electric vehicles. Its automakers produce far more than any other country and outpace them on innovation. China’s appetite for gasoline-powered cars is fading by the week. In each of the last five months, battery-powered and plug-in hybrid cars made up more than half of all cars sold.

中国正在电动汽车领域征服世界。其汽车制造商的产量远远超过其他任何国家，在创新方面也遥遥领先。中国对汽油动力汽车的需求在不断下降。过去五个月的每个月里，电池驱动和插电式混合动力汽车的销量都超过了汽车总销量的一半。

But look closer at the industry, and the picture is not pretty. Already, fierce competition among automakers has gotten ruthless, with about 50 automakers fighting for customers by slashing prices again and again. Manufacturers facing ruinous losses are struggling to pay the companies that supply their parts. And yet they keep borrowing from state-run banks to build more factories, leading to extensive overcapacity.

但仔细观察这个行业，就会发现情况并不乐观。汽车制造商之间的激烈竞争极为残酷，大约50家汽车制造商通过一次又一次的降价来争夺客户。面临巨额亏损的制造商难以支付零部件供应商的款项。然而，他们还继续从国有银行借款，建设更多工厂，导致了广泛的产能过剩。

The frenzy has captured the attention of the highest levels of China’s government. Officials have started a campaign against “involution,” which they define as excessive competition. Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, led a Politburo meeting on the economy on July 30 that ended with a statement declaring, “It is a must to reinforce industry self-discipline to prevent vicious ‘involution’ competition.”

这种狂热已经引起了中国政府最高层的注意。官员们开始了一场反对“内卷”的运动，将其定义为过度竞争。7月30日，国家最高领导人习近平主持政治局经济会议，会议声明强调：“要强化行业自律，防止‘内卷式’恶性竞争。”

The results have been mixed. In early June, under orders from China’s cabinet, 17 automakers agreed to pay their suppliers within 60 days of receiving parts. But a government report on compliance on Aug. 11 listed only three automakers, all partly or entirely state-owned, as having set up systems for prompt payment.

成效好坏参半。6月初，根据中国政府的指令，17家汽车制造商同意在收到零部件后60天内向供应商付款。但8月11日政府发布的合规报告显示，仅有三家汽车制造商（均为国有或国有控股企业）建立了及时付款机制。

比亚迪主导着中国的电动汽车市场。

Even BYD, the world’s largest E.V. maker, is now running into trouble. It said on Friday that its profits fell by almost a third in the spring compared to a year ago because of price competition.

就连全球最大的电动汽车制造商比亚迪现在也遇到了麻烦。该公司上周五表示，由于价格竞争，其春季利润较去年同期下降了近三分之一。

Discouraging investment by carmakers has been difficult. Even with a slight slowing in July in response to the government’s admonitions, the industry’s investments were up 21.7 percent in the first seven months of the year, compared to the same period in 2024 — the fourth year in a row of torrid growth.

遏制汽车制造商的投资一直很困难。尽管7月的数据因政府的警告而略有放缓，但与2024年同期相比，该行业的投资在今年前7个月增长了21.7%，这是连续第四年出现强劲增长。

Overcapacity and price wars are a chronic problem across China’s economy. Debt-fueled investment pours into a succession of government priorities. This creates a glut of companies and factories that battle for a limited domestic market.

产能过剩和价格战是中国经济的一个长期问题。债务驱动的投资涌入一系列政府重点项目。这造成了大量企业和工厂激烈争夺有限的国内市场。

“Involution” in the auto industry also shows the cost of China’s investment-led growth strategy. For example, even a slight slowing in July of the pace of investment in manufacturing equipment dampened the entire economy’s performance.

汽车行业的“内卷”也显示出中国投资拉动型增长战略的代价。例如，7月份制造业设备投资的步伐即使只是略有放缓，也会拖累整个经济的表现。

Electric cars are a lot like smartphones or laptops: The more you make, the cheaper it is to make even more. Automakers are constantly building ever larger factories to grab more market share, even when that means selling electric cars for less and less money.

电动汽车很像智能手机或笔记本电脑：生产得越多，增产成本就越低。为了抢占更多的市场份额，汽车制造商不断建造更大的工厂，即使这意味着电动汽车的售价越来越低。

“This is a race to dominate, not a race to profitability,” said Bill Russo, the chief executive of Automobility, a Shanghai-based electric car industry consulting firm.

“这是一场关于主导权的竞争，而不是盈利的竞争，”总部位于上海的电动汽车行业咨询公司Automobility的首席执行官罗威(Bill Russo)说。

Last year, 129 brands in China were selling cars that ran mainly or entirely on electricity, and only 15 of them would be financially viable by 2030, according to an estimate by AlixPartners, a global consulting firm.

据全球咨询公司艾睿铂估计，去年，中国有129个品牌在销售主要或完全以电力为动力的汽车，其中仅有15个品牌在2030年之前具备财务可行性。

“More than that will keep going, but they will require deep pockets investors to keep them going,” said Stephen Dyer, the head of the firm’s Asia automotive practice.

该公司亚洲汽车业务主管斯蒂芬·戴尔表示：“更多品牌会继续发展，但它们需要财力雄厚的投资者来维持生产。”

在车展体验涉足电动汽车领域的消费电子公司小米的车型。

The roster of China’s top electric carmakers starts with BYD. It has stiff competition from the Geely Group, with its many brands including Zeekr and Polestar, as well as Tesla, which has struggled but is still a popular brand in China. The Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi branched into electric cars last year and its first model, the SU7, already outsells all but five other models in China.

中国电动汽车制造商的领军企业当属比亚迪。它面临着来自吉利集团的激烈竞争，后者拥有包括极氪和极星在内的多个品牌。虽然处境艰难，但特斯拉在中国仍是一个受欢迎的品牌。中国消费电子企业小米去年进军电动汽车领域，其首款车型SU7的销量已位居中国市场前列，仅次于另外五款车型。

Absent from the top of China’s E.V. rankings are four state-owned automakers with ties to China’s national government: FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor, Changan Automobile and the GAC Group. The government-owned giants are strong in internal combustion engines but weak in electric cars.

四家与中央政府关联的国有车企未跻身中国电动汽车排行榜前列，分别是一汽集团、东风汽车、长安汽车和广汽集团。国有汽车巨头在内燃机方面实力强大，但在电动汽车方面较弱。

Beijing is struggling to contain the industry’s overall capacity in part because the state-owned companies refuse to shrink to offset the growth of the private companies making so many electric and hybrid vehicles. Closing state-owned factories that make gasoline-powered cars and laying off their workers is politically difficult, especially in a high-profile industry like automobiles.

北京正在努力控制汽车行业的整体产能，部分原因在于国有企业拒绝缩减规模以抵消私营企业电动汽车和混合动力车激增带来的冲击。关闭生产汽油动力汽车的国有工厂并解雇工人在政治上是困难的，尤其是在汽车这样一个备受瞩目的行业。

Beijing is concerned partly because banks are potentially exposed to heavy losses if automakers and their parts suppliers cannot pay their bills.

北京的担忧一部分是如果汽车制造商及其零部件供应商无法支付账单，银行可能面临巨大损失。

As big employers in an industry that is the pride of China, automakers have the clout to make sure that others keep financing their losses. And banks have been under regulatory mandates to lend for clean energy technologies.

作为中国引以为豪的汽车行业的大雇主，汽车制造商有能力确保其他公司继续为他们的亏损提供资金。监管机构要求银行为清洁能源技术提供贷款。

比亚迪位于深圳的总部，摄于去年。距离这里五公里的高铁站旁正在建设一座新总部。

Auto parts manufacturers have had to accept being paid months late, and then have had to take out bank loans to keep going. Local governments, many of which borrowed to establish companies, now need to borrow even more to provide financial lifelines to companies.

汽车零部件制造商不得不接受延迟数月付款，然后不得不向银行贷款以维持运营。许多通过贷款创办企业的地方政府现在需要借更多的钱来为公司提供救命的资金。

The lots of car dealerships are bursting because of the oversupply problem. Yet powerful automakers insist that the dealers keep buying cars. All along, cuts in sticker prices have shrunk the value of dealers’ inventories.

由于供过于求的问题，许多汽车经销店库存爆满。然而，大汽车制造商坚持让经销商继续购买汽车。一直以来，汽车标价的下调使经销商的库存价值缩水。

“Dealers are forced to promote products at prices below cost, which drags down the credibility and sustainable development of the entire industry,” the dealership associations of four provinces in the Yangtze River Delta said in a joint statement this summer.

“经销商被迫以低于成本价促销，拖累全行业信誉与可持续发展，”长三角四省汽车经销商协会今年夏天在一份联合声明中表示。

Another outcome of the overcapacity is that Chinese manufacturers now export a fifth of their production, up from almost none before the Covid-19 pandemic. The exports have established China’s carmakers as global powerhouses at the expense of other countries’ car industries. That has been a central trigger for the trade backlash and tariffs against China in the West.

产能过剩的另一个后果是，中国制造商如今出口量占总产量的五分之一，而在新冠大流行之前，这一占比几乎为零。这些出口以牺牲其他国家的汽车工业为代价，使中国汽车制造商成为全球巨头。这一直是西方对中国的贸易反制和关税的主要导火索。

One force propelling China’s E.V. revolution that Beijing is unlikely to slow is the torrent of mechanical engineers graduating from universities — 10 times as many as in the United States. Two-thirds of Chinese youth now go to university, and while many struggle to find jobs, the auto industry is hiring engineers in large numbers.

推动中国电动汽车革命的一股力量是北京不太可能放缓的，那就是从大学毕业的机械工程师洪流——其数量是美国的10倍。现在三分之二的中国年轻人可以进入大学，虽然很多人求职困难，但汽车行业正在大量招聘工程师。

BYD alone employs 120,000 engineers, roughly the size of Tesla’s entire labor force. Young engineers earn less than $3,000 a month. Across the street from BYD’s headquarters in Shenzhen, 500-square-foot apartments in high-rises, developed in part by the automaker, rent for $350 a month.

仅比亚迪一家公司就雇佣了12万名工程师，大致相当于特斯拉的全部用工规模。年轻的工程师月薪不到2万元。在比亚迪深圳总部的对面，约46平米的高层公寓租金为每月2500元，比亚迪参与了这些公寓楼项目的开发。

3月，在吉利汽车旗下品牌极氪的宁波工厂组装车间工作的工人。

The result of it all — the engineers, the state-backed lending and the ferocious competition — is a remarkable pace of innovation.

这一切的结果——工程师、政府支持的贷款和激烈的竞争——催生了惊人的创新速度。

BYD’s Fangchengbao Bao 8 sport utility vehicle has a drone that can take off from the roof and be controlled from the dashboard. The aircraft can fly above the car as fast as 60 miles an hour. The car uses artificial intelligence to edit the drone footage and download it to the motorist’s phone.

比亚迪的方程豹8运动型多功能车配备了一架无人机，可以从车顶起飞，并通过仪表板进行控制。飞行器可以以每小时约100公里的速度在汽车上方飞行。汽车使用人工智能来编辑无人机拍摄的画面，并将其下载到驾车者的手机上。

The Yangwang U9, BYD’s top-of-the-line sports car at $235,000, does a rolling “dance” to different tunes by bouncing up and down on its hydraulic jacks. Its seats are designed to clutch passengers so they don’t get tossed around.

比亚迪售价168万元的顶级跑车仰望U9能通过液压千斤顶上下弹跳，随着不同的曲调完成动态“舞蹈”。其座椅采用包裹式设计，确保乘客在颠簸中稳固不移位。

Geely’s Zeekr brand offers luxury minivans with rear seats that recline into hammock-like beds. A wall separates the rear seats from the driver’s compartment.

吉利的极氪品牌提供豪华小型货车，后座可以倾斜成吊床式床铺。后排座椅与驾驶舱之间设有隔墙。

Those kinds of bells and whistles have allowed BYD and Geely sales to grow rapidly and lengthen their leads over Elon Musk’s Tesla.

这些花哨的配置让比亚迪和吉利的销量迅速增长，并扩大了对埃隆·马斯克的特斯拉的领先优势。

Tesla, which helped pioneer China’s electric vehicle market, is now stuck with aging models and is suffering gradually shrinking sales. On Monday, it cut prices for its Model 3. The company lacks an affordable sedan after several years of focusing on its brash Cybertruck, which is not even sold in China.

特斯拉曾帮助开拓了中国的电动汽车市场，但现在却陷入了车型老化的困境，销量也在逐渐萎缩。周一，该公司下调了Model 3的价格。几年来，公司一直以招摇的赛博卡车作为重点，但该车型甚至在中国都没有销售，特斯拉缺少一款廉价的轿车。

“Tesla sales year over year are down from 2024, so they’re not doing as well as they have been in the early years,” Mr. Russo said, and added that this, “has got to be a concern for Tesla because their global business is also under stress.”

“从2024年开始，特斯拉的销量逐年下降，所以他们的表现不像最初几年那么好，”罗威说，他还说，这“一定是特斯拉的一个担忧，因为他们的全球业务也面临压力”。