On my route home from work is a big arterial road with a whole line of different car dealerships. There’s a Toyota yard, a Ford dealership, a Mazda and a Volkswagon. A series of uber-fancy ones selling everything from Audis to McLarens to Lamborghinis. And as I made my one home one night a couple of weeks ago, a new sign caught my eye. 

What the hell is Zeekr? I wondered. 

Actually, truth be told I already had a pretty good hunch and a quick Google that evening confirmed my suspicion.  

Zeekr is the latest premium Chinese EV company to hit the New Zealand market.  

You can add it to Geely and Farizon, EV brands  owned by the same Chinese conglomerate. Add to those Xpeng, which has its first dealerships and sells a pretty smart-looking coupe SUV. Add to it Leapmotor, Dongfeng and old mate BYD, and if you’ve spent any time on the road in New Zealand of late, you’ve surely noticed we are in the midst of a bit of a revolution  with Chinese Evs.  

It’s not just us, of course. It’s everywhere.  

Last year, China exported $115B worth of electric vehicles. That was a 43% increase on 2024. And they’re not only relying on a single export market for their sales. Chinese EV sales are booming almost everywhere. 66 countries last year spent more than $US 100m on Chinese EVs. 

Why am I telling you this? Well I reckon there’s good reason to think that Donald Trump’s decision to scrap emissions standards and environmental regulations this week, is the equivalent of laying down your king and resigning the chess board. It might make combustion engine vehicles a bit cheaper for U.S consumers in the short term, but as the World slowly shifts to cleaner technology, it hands the Chinese EV makers an even greater advantage.  

Where is the incentive for U.S carmakers to make good EVs? Where is the incentive to push consumers towards electric vehicles? There’s a reason Tesla has opposed scrapping the vehicle standards. And what will it mean for U.S carmakers trying to sell into markets where emissions standards are still in place?  

China’s used some pretty extraordinary methods to propel its clean tech industries. They’ve subsidised and propped up EV makers in a way that foreign manufacturers say is anti-competitive and unfair. But look at BYD’s extraordinary vertical integration. They own mining rights. They revolutionised battery technology. They have purpose-built ships, designed to the perfect specifications to maximise the number of vehicles they can export. And look at the quality, the features, and price point of Chinese EVs. There is a reason they are poving so popular. 

I don’t think for a moment that EVs are the solution to everything. But I do think that on balance they’ll play a huge part in domestic transport in the near future.  

If you agree, then in my view Donald Trump and the United States has just thrown in the towel and more or less guaranteed that China will dominate that EV future.  

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