U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent said in a recent interview: "I believe electric vehicles produced in China are essentially coal-powered cars!"
The core intention behind U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent's statement typically lies in challenging the environmental credentials of electric vehicles from the perspective of lifecycle carbon emissions or power grid structure.
The central logic of Bessent’s argument questions the "well-to-wheels" cleanliness of EVs. He isn’t claiming that coal is physically inside the car, but rather pointing out that China’s power grid still heavily relies on coal-fired electricity. If the electricity powering an EV comes from thermal power plants, then emissions are merely shifted from tailpipes to smokestacks—upstream power generation indeed produces substantial carbon emissions.
This statement carries deeper policy implications, likely aiming to justify U.S. new energy subsidies (such as those under the Inflation Reduction Act) or oppose reliance on Chinese green technologies, seeking to undermine China’s competitive edge in the environmental narrative surrounding electric vehicles.
As the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Bessent overlooks a crucial fact: differences in efficiency and future trends.
Conversion efficiency: Large-scale thermal power plants generally offer higher energy conversion efficiency and superior centralized pollution control compared to the dispersed exhaust emissions from internal combustion engine vehicles.
China’s share of renewable energy generation is rapidly increasing. The potential for electric vehicles to become "cleaner the more they're driven"—as the grid transitions toward greener sources—is something internal combustion vehicles simply cannot match.
Bessent’s remarks are fundamentally using carbon emission calculations as a tool to serve industrial competition and trade policies, rather than representing a simple technological dismissal.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1862497355407436/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.