He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of Xpeng, commented on the recent criticism of electric cars by Toyota's head, Akio Toyoda, who has attracted widespread attention, suggesting that the world's largest auto group could become the "Nokia" of the electric car era.
He stated:
On April 25, 2014, Microsoft announced the official completion of its acquisition of Nokia.
When Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila announced his agreement to the Microsoft acquisition at a press conference, he said, "We didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost."
After that, dozens of Nokia executives, including him, couldn't help but shed tears.
Akio Toyoda, the grandson of Kiichiro Toyoda who founded the company 70 years ago, said Japan would run out of electricity in the summer if all cars were running on electric power.
The infrastructure needed to support a 100 percent EV fleet would cost Japan between 14 trillion and 37 trillion yen ($135 billion to $358 billion), he said.
And most of the country's electricity is generated by burning coal and natural gas, so it's not necessarily helping the environment.
"The more EVs we build, the worse carbon dioxide gets…When politicians are out there saying, ‘Let's get rid of all cars using gasoline,' do they understand this?" Toyoda said.
It is worth noting that more than 20 governments, including Japan, the United Kingdom, and France, have long been on the agenda to ban the sale of fuel cars in the 2130s.
At present, Tesla's valuation is already higher than the combined valuation of seven Japanese automakers.
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