Electric Vehicles

Andreessen Horowitz founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz said on their podcast that Chinese automakers have developed high-quality and affordable vehicles supported by a robust supply chain ecosystem.

With the American auto industry struggling with slowing growth in its EV market, American automakers need to be able to offer a compelling $20,000 EV that also competes on quality if the US doesn't want to "lose the auto industry," Andreessen said.

"What China has now is not just really good car companies, but they've got this entire constellation of supply chain componentry," Andreessen said.

China's government has spent at least $230 billion to support electric vehicle makers such as BYD since 2009, according to a study published in 2024 by the Centre for Strategic & International Studies think tank.

Andreessen said that Chinese car brands are outperforming American EV automakers in affordability and quality, calling them "super technologically sophisticated."

"For example, they've got this feature where you just come in, and you just drop your phone down on the center divider, and basically, the car lights up," he said. "The whole system inside the car comes off your phone — like all your music and your maps and your calendar and all that stuff is just automatically there."

The venture capitalist also highlighted other features, such as customized dancing animations in the LED headlights that greet the driver and self-driving capabilities, which are already integrated into several lower-cost Chinese EVs.

To keep up, American automakers need to be able to offer a similarly affordable and full-featured car at the $20,000 price point, Andreessen said.

Sometimes reading the stats is not enough. I like to see for myself. So, we went to China. We had been looking forward to cruising the Yangtze River upstream from the Three Gorges Dam and thought it an opportune time to see what “53% of new cars sales in China are plugins” looked like in the flesh — so to speak. The short answer is: spectacular! “What do all the green number plates mean?” the tour guide was asked repeatedly by our group. “Green number plates means the car is electric!”

We had been in China 8 years ago, and the transformation since then has been dramatic. The country is much wealthier. We landed in Chengdu (a city of over 25 million) and were immediately impressed by the fact that most cars on the road were less than 5 years old. (The Chinese government is giving incentives to update to cleaner, newer cars. I wonder where all the old ones went? Scrap metal by the looks of it.) Gone were the human-powered vehicles and the three-wheeled, smoke-spewing rickshaws. There were even fewer motor scooters — and the ones that were on the road were — you guessed it — electric.

I am a gas car fan, but not in the normal way. Most self-described combustion aficionados mean they've owned a few fun cars, maybe wrenched on one or two and usually kept up with whatever's on the cover of the magazines. But I went a little further into that world. I didn't own a few cars. I owned 13 gas-burners over the course of 5 years, almost all of them old and beaten up. I didn't just read the magazines, I built my life around working for one, then became the reviews editor at Road & Track. But when I got the call to work at InsideEVs, I knew it was time to take a step into the future.

I leased a new EV. It's a 2024 Chevy Blazer EV, and I love it. Let me explain why.

Its powertrain is quieter than the smoothest BMW inline-six. It rides beautifully because it isn't trying to be a sports car or a truck. And the technology I've derided as a built-to-last enthusiast turns out to be quite charming in my day to day life. Sure, no screens and a double-din stereo would be more repairable. But it's ok to admit that I like having Google Maps and Spotify built in to my car. I love having a 360-degree camera and a power tailgate. I love knowing I have modern-car safety, with potential life savers like automatic braking with pedestrian detection. The curmudgeon in me wants to complain that humans should be able to drive without electronic aids, but a hundred years of experimenting with that has lead to a lot of deaths.

I love that my car doesn't need to be turned on or off. Like every electronic in my life, it knows to turn itself on when I start using it, and turn itself off when I walk away. I love that it still has overrides to keep it on, or force it off. I love that I can heat up the cabin without waiting 15 minutes for the engine to warm up, regardless of whether I'm driving or using remote start. I love one-pedal driving, and the feeling of a 1-to-1 relationship between my right foot and the rate of acceleration. There's no delay, no waiting for a dawdling transmission to downshift.

Most of all, I love the feeling of driving it at night. I love zooming unto a dark highway, without noise or drama, blasting into the night lit by nothing but LED headlights. I love that moment where there's a quick break in traffic, and one quick press of the throttle rockets me forward with more immediacy than the best internal combustion car can manage. And I love that I can enjoy all of this without any tailpipe emissions.