Brutal competition in China’s clean tech sector is forcing electric-vehicle companies abroad in search of growth while the solar industry readies a cartel to combat mammoth overcapacity.
Chinese EV firms reported strong results this week — XPeng announced record sales while Xiaomi saw net profit more than double — but, faced with an increasingly saturated market and persistent price wars, Xiaomi is looking farther afield, announcing an expansion to Europe by 2027.
The solar sector, meanwhile, plans to pool $7 billion in order to buy out and shutter the least efficient manufacturing sites, before forming a cartel: Panel prices have plummeted, many companies operate at a loss, and the industry shed a third of its total jobs last year alone.
