LIUZHOU, China — Liuzhou may be a small city by Chinese standards, but it’s a big player when it comes to the country’s thriving electric vehicle industry. The city of 4 million, a longtime center of car manufacturing in the southwestern region of Guangxi, brands itself as an EV capital — and for good reason. Last year, it produced half a million EVs of all kinds, with the capacity to make about three times that.
From 2009 to 2023, that support totaled almost $231 billion, according to a blog post on Thursday by Scott Kennedy, senior adviser and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.