Automakers in China are building a new generation of bigger, more technologically advanced and competitive electric cars, threatening to leap further ahead of their global rivals as they step up exports around the world.
中国的汽车制造商正在制造更大、更先进、更具竞争力的新一代电动车，随着它们在全球加大出口，有可能进一步领先于全球竞争对手。

The dozens of car companies operating in China plan to put 71 new battery electric models on sale this year. Many new models have taller hoods for a bolder appearance and more storage space. The cars have bigger tires that improve braking. The seats are thicker and more comfortable. The batteries are ever smaller, more powerful and quicker to recharge.
在中国运营的数十家车企计划今年推出71款新型纯电动车型。许多新车型引擎盖更高，显得更张扬，存储空间也更大。它们还配备了更大的轮胎，制动性能为此得以改善。座椅更厚实也更舒适。电池体积更小、功率更大，充电更快了。

The changes are aimed at making the cars even more appealing for customers in China and more competitive abroad. Along with plug-in hybrid cars, battery electric cars are taking sales away from gasoline-powered cars and their manufacturers.
这些变化是为了赢得中国消费者的心，同时也是为了提高在海外市场的竞争力。与插电式混合动力汽车一样，纯电动汽车也正在从燃油车及其制造商手里抢走销量。

China is also moving ahead with the technology and regulations for self-driving cars. The authorities approved data security arrangements this week for more capable autonomous vehicles. They approved cars from Tesla, the American electric vehicle company that also builds and sells cars in China, as well as five Chinese manufacturers, including BYD, Tesla’s principal global rival, and Nio, a longtime player in China’s auto sector.
中国还在推进自动驾驶汽车的技术和法规。本周，有关部门批准了针对性能更强大的智能网联汽车的数据安全约定。美国电动汽车公司特斯拉（也在中国生产和销售汽车）以及五家中国车企的汽车通过了国家汽车数据安全合规要求，其中包括特斯拉在全球的主要竞争对手比亚迪，以及中国汽车行业的资深品牌蔚来。

The approvals show the Chinese government’s eagerness to push the development of self-driving vehicles, which are widely seen as central to future competitiveness in the car industry. The technology is more compatible with battery electric cars than with plug-in hybrids or gasoline-powered cars, and Chinese companies are trying to catch up with Tesla, the leader in these systems.
这些批准表明，中国政府迫切希望推动自动驾驶汽车的发展，这被广泛视为汽车行业未来竞争力的核心。与插电式混合动力汽车或燃油车相比，该技术更适合纯电动车，中国企业正在努力追赶这些系统的领先者特斯拉。

In the United States, Tesla’s so-called Autopilot feature has been the subject of a series of government safety investigations. But in China, regulators and the general public have tended to see the technology as safer than relying on human drivers.
在美国，政府对特斯拉所谓的Autopilot自动辅助驾驶功能展开了一系列安全调查。但在中国，监管机构和公众倾向于认为，该技术比人类司机更安全。

Chinese automakers have been investing heavily in driver-assistance software. An electric car “is becoming a robot on wheels,” said Frank Wu, the vice president of design at Jiyue. The company is a joint venture of Zhejiang Geely, a Chinese automaker, and Baidu, one of China’s main artificial intelligence companies and Tesla’s partner in its self-driving efforts in China.
中国的车企一直在大力投资辅助驾驶软件。电动汽车“正在变成一个带轮子的机器人”，极越汽车负责设计的副总裁弗兰克·吴（音）说。这家公司是中国车企浙江吉利和中国主要的人工智能公司之一百度的合资企业，后者也是特斯拉在中国自动驾驶技术的合作伙伴。

Better batteries and falling costs underpin China’s push in electric cars. CATL, based in southeastern China and the world’s largest manufacturer of electric car batteries, announced last week at the Beijing auto show that a 10-minute charge of its newest battery would give a range of 370 miles. A 30-minute full charge would give a range of 620 miles, the company said.
电池性能的改进和成本的不断下降，为中国推动电动汽车的发展奠定了基础。位于中国东南部的宁德时代是世界上最大的电动汽车电池制造商，它上周在北京车展上宣布，其最新电池充电10分钟可续航600公里。该公司表示，30分钟充满电可续航1000公里。

Achieving these distances involves extremely high-precision chemistry and engineering and “putting each nano-particle in the right place,” said Gao Huan, the chief technology officer of CATL’s electric car business.
宁德时代国内乘用车事业部首席技术官高焕表示，实现这些里程需要涉及极其精密的化学和工程技术，“把每个纳米粒子放在正确的位置上”。

The advances have meant automakers can use smaller batteries, freeing up space in cars’ interiors, or they can keep the battery the same size and achieve greater range.
这些进步意味着汽车制造商可以使用更小的电池，从而释放出汽车内部的空间，或者保持电池大小不变，实现更大的续航里程。

Much of the extra space is going into larger back seats with more legroom.
多出来的空间大部分都用于更为宽大的后排座椅，提供更多的腿部空间。

“We’re going to put more focus on the backseat — we want to make it more appealing,” said Wang Tan, the general manager of design at XPeng Motors, a Chinese electric car manufacturer.
中国电动汽车制造商小鹏汽车造型中心总经理王谭说，“我们将把更多的注意力放在后座上——我们想让它更具吸引力。”

Manufacturers of electric vehicles used to put a priority on keeping cars as light as possible, because weight is what mostly matters for how far a car can go before needing a recharge. But more powerful batteries now allow electric vehicles to be taller and heavier.
过去，电动车制造商优先考虑的往往是让车尽可能轻，因为重量是决定汽车充一次电能行驶多远的最重要因素。但现在性能更强大的电池让电动汽车可以更高、更重。

Bigger front ends create a luxurious appearance that taps into many buyers’ admiration of sport utility vehicles, said Kris Tomasson, vice president of design at Nio.
蔚来汽车负责设计的副总裁克里斯·托马松表示，更大的前端营造出豪华的外形，迎合了许多购车者对运动型多功能车的喜爱。

“A higher front has that prestige,” he said.
“更高的前端能带来这种气派，”他说。

Chinese automakers are also embracing designs with more edges, like a blue-green Denza Z9GT sedan displayed at the show by BYD. They are shifting away from lightweight but costly aluminum and building cars with a higher proportion of slightly heavier but cheaper steel alloys.
中国汽车制造商还在采纳更具棱角的设计，例如比亚迪在这次车展上展出的一款蓝绿色腾势Z9GT轿车。它们也正在放弃重量轻但昂贵的铝材，转为增加钢合金的使用比例，这种材料重量稍重但价格更便宜。

Aluminum body panels need to be more curved and do not allow for the sharper lines possible with a return to steel, said Stefan Sielaff, Geely’s vice president of global design. The effect is to make the cars more visually striking as automotive fashions shift away from the rounded shapes on previous electric cars.
吉利汽车全球设计副总裁史蒂芬·西拉夫表示，铝材车身需要有更多曲面，不像回到钢材后可以做出更锐利的线条。在视觉效果上，这种锐利的线条让汽车变得更引人注目，因为之前流线型的电动车设计已经过时了。

Customers overseas as well as in China are getting pickier. Many are buying plug-in hybrids instead of cars powered only by batteries, although the markets for both are still growing in China.
无论是海外还是国内消费者都越来越挑剔。许多人购买插电式混合动力汽车，而不是纯电动汽车，尽管在中国，这两种车的市场都在增长。

Not all the electric cars at the Beijing show are bigger and roomier. Xiaomi, a Chinese producer of inexpensive smartphones, displayed its first electric car, the SU7 sports sedan. The tech company has made a move into the car market that Apple has mulled for many years without undertaking.
在这次的北京车展上，并不是所有的电动汽车都变得更大、更宽敞。中国廉价智能手机生产商小米展示了其首款电动汽车——运动型轿车SU7。这家科技公司已经向汽车市场迈出了一步，而苹果公司多年来也一直在考虑这个市场，却未见行动。

The SU7 looks almost identical from the outside to a Porsche Taycan electric car. But it costs less than a fifth of a Taycan, which ranges in China from $140,000 to $275,000.
在外形上，SU7与保时捷Taycan电动汽车几乎一模一样。但它的价格不到后者的五分之一，Taycan在中国的售价在99万到195万不等。

Lei Jun, the chief executive of Xiaomi, was followed by a crowd of admirers as he walked around the auto show.
小米首席执行官雷军出现在车展上时，身后跟着一群崇拜者。

He exuded confidence in a speech at the SU7 introduction while still expressing worry about one rival. “Except Tesla, there seems to be hardly anyone better than us,” he said.
他在介绍SU7的演讲中自信满满，同时仍对一个竞争对手表示担忧。他说：“除了特斯拉，好像比我们好的也没有。”

Chinese auto executives consistently express a mixture of respect and fear of Tesla, an automaker that did not introduce any new cars at the show. Last week, Tesla announced a 9 percent fall in sales and a 55 percent drop in profits in the first quarter of this year, and plans to lay off more than a tenth of its worldwide employees, or 14,000 people.
中国汽车业高管一直对特斯拉既敬佩又恐惧，在这次的车展上，它没有推出任何新车型。上周，特斯拉宣布今年一季度销售额下降9%，利润下降55%，并计划全球裁员十分之一，即1.4万人。

Long-established Western automakers, by contrast, lag in autonomous driving and are struggling to catch up in electric cars.
相比之下，老牌的西方车企在自动驾驶方面落后，在电动汽车方面的追赶也颇为吃力。

General Motors and Ford Motor have lost much of their market share in China over the past five years. Ford introduced the most-talked-about car at the Beijing auto show in 2020, the Mustang Mach-E electric car. But administrative problems led to more than a year of production delays, and public interest evaporated.
过去五年，通用汽车和福特汽车在中国市场失去了很大一部分市场份额。在2020年的北京车展上，福特推出了最受关注的汽车——野马Mach-E电动汽车。但管理问题导致了一年多的生产延误，公众的兴趣已经消退了。

Ford decided this year to emphasize very different Mustangs, equipped with hulking five-liter V-8 gasoline engines and four exhaust pipes.
今年的北京车展上，福特决定另辟蹊径，推介配备了笨重的5升V-8汽油发动机和四个排气管的野马车型。

Bill Russo, a former chief executive of Chrysler China who is now an electric car industry consultant in Shanghai, said Tesla had emerged as the sole strong global contender from the United States in the electric vehicle market.
前克莱斯勒中国首席执行官、现居上海从事电动汽车行业顾问工作的罗威(Bill Russo)表示，特斯拉已经成为美国在电动汽车市场上唯一强大的全球竞争对手。

“If they ever died, the whole E.V. market dies with it in the United States,” he said.
“要是他们死了，美国的整个电动汽车市场也会随之消亡，”他说。

Established companies in Europe also face formidable challenges. China’s electric car exports to Europe are climbing, prompting a European Union investigation into whether they are unfairly subsidized.
欧洲的老牌车企也面临严峻挑战。中国对欧洲的电动汽车出口正在攀升，促使欧盟对中国电动汽车是否受到不公平补贴展开调查。

Ralf Brandstätter, the chief executive of Volkswagen China, called for Chinese manufacturers to buy car parts in Europe and assemble them there using European workers.
大众中国首席执行官拉尔夫·布兰德斯塔特呼吁中国制造商在欧洲购买汽车零部件，并在那里使用欧洲工人进行组装。

“Then they have to handle a European labor force, European enterprises, and they have to compete in the same environment as we are competing,” he said. China has used steep tariffs and other measures to require that multinationals make cars in China for the Chinese market.
他说：“这样，他们必须面对欧洲的劳动力、欧洲的企业，他们必须在与我们相同的环境中竞争。”中国利用高额关税和其他措施，要求跨国公司在中国生产面向中国市场的汽车。

Chinese E.V.s are going next to the United States.
中国电动汽车的下一个目标是美国。

Geely is exporting its Polestar 2 to the United States from China, and paying a 27.5 percent tariff to do so. It is also beginning to export its new Polestar 3, before a planned shift of production to an assembly line being completed this summer in South Carolina.
吉利正在从中国向美国出口极星Polestar 2，并为此支付27.5%的关税。它还开始出口新款极星Polestar 3，之后计划将生产转移到今年夏天即将完工的南卡罗来纳州装配线上。
(本新闻网址：https://www.geilien.cn/news/2024/nyelectricars.html)

Li You和Joy Dong对本文有研究贡献。

Keith Bradsher是《纽约时报》北京分社社长，此前曾任上海分社社长、香港分社社长、底特律分社社长，以及华盛顿记者。他在新冠疫情期间常驻中国进行报道。 点击查看更多关于他的信息。

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