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DiogenesKynikos 5 hours ago

This factory is being built by BYD, not the government, and not a state-owned enterprise.

It's being built because BYD anticipates massive growth in demand for electric vehicles, not because of some arbitrary mandate.

BYD is known for its ruthless price-cutting and drive for efficiency, so they're a very bad example to illustrate government bloat.

ZeroGravitas 4 hours ago | parent [-]

There is a mandate, several interconnected mandates actually.

They're not arbitrary though, and many nations have them. China just seems to be translating that into action better.

https://www.globalpolicywatch.com/2021/06/chinas-14th-five-y...

DiogenesKynikos 4 hours ago | parent [-]

There's a mandate for the government to support the development of the EV industry, and there are targets, but this factory is being built because BYD decided it makes economic sense for them, based on anticipated demand.

The Chinese government is doing many things that increase demand, make it easy to scale up production, etc. For example, many Chinese cities are making it difficult to register new internal-combustion-engine vehicles. I'm also sure the local government has rolled out the red carpet for BYD in terms of permits, tax incentives, and so on.

That's different from the government issuing a command, "Build us the largest EV factory in the world, regardless of economic viability!" That's how the previous comment came across.