President Trump has an unconcealed hunger for natural resources from abroad and the power they could grant him. He declared that the United States intervened in Venezuela to “take the oil,” betting that investors would put up at least $100 billion to revive a decrepit industry. His gamble is that countries will still want to buy oil from America to power their cars, trucks, ships and planes for decades to come.
川普總統對海外自然資源及其由此帶來的權力有著毫不掩飾的渴求。他曾宣稱美國介入委內瑞拉事務是為了「拿石油」，並押注投資者會拿出至少1000億美元，重振這個日漸衰落的產業。他的盤算是，未來數十年各國仍會繼續從美國購買石油，驅動汽車、卡車、船舶和飛機。
Though China is the world’s largest oil importer, its leader, Xi Jinping, is less brash about coveting foreign resources. The country’s leadership is pushing intensively at substituting electricity for oil.
儘管中國是全球最大石油進口國，但其領導人習近平對掠奪外國資源的態度更為克制。中國領導層正大力推動以電力替代石油。
Chinese technology companies are paving the way for a world that will be powered by electric motors rather than gas-guzzling engines. It is a decisively 21st-century approach not just to solve its own energy problems, but also to sell batteries and other electric products to everyone else. Canada is its newest buyer of EVs; in a rebuke of Mr. Trump, its prime minister, Mark Carney, lowered tariffs on the cars as part of a new trade deal.
中國科技企業正為世界鋪就一條全新道路，以電機驅動取代高油耗的內燃機，這是一種極具21世紀特徵的發展思路，不僅是為了解決自身的能源問題，更是為了向全球各國出售電池等電動產品。加拿大成為了中國電動汽車的最新買家，其總理馬克·卡尼以降低此類汽車關稅作為新貿易協定的一部分，也是對川普的公然反駁。
Though Americans have been slow to embrace electric vehicles, Chinese households have learned to love them. In 2025, 54 percent of new cars sold in China were either battery-powered or plug-in hybrids. That is a big reason that the country’s oil consumption is on track to peak in 2027, according to forecasts from the International Energy Agency. And Chinese E.V. makers are setting records — whether it’s BYD’s sales (besting Tesla by battery-powered vehicles sold for the first time last year) or Xiaomi’s speed (its cars are setting records at major racetracks like Nürburgring in Germany).
儘管美國人對電動汽車的接受很慢，中國家庭卻早已愛上了它。2025年，中國市場售出的新車中，54%為純電動或插電式混合動力車型。國際能源署的預測顯示，這也是中國石油消費量有望在2027年達峰的重要原因。與此同時，中國電動汽車製造商不斷刷新紀錄：無論是比亞迪的銷量（去年其純電動車型銷量首次超越特斯拉），還是小米的速度（其車型則在德國紐博格林等知名賽道接連創下賽道紀錄）。
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These vehicles are powered not by oil but by domestically generated electrical power that comes from coal, nuclear, hydropower, solar and wind.
這些電動車型的動力並非來自石油，而是中國本土生產的電力，其來源涵蓋煤炭、核能、水電、光伏和風電等多種形式。
In 2000, China produced only one-third of the amount of electrical power that the United States did; by 2024, it produced nearly two and a half times U.S. levels. China’s surging energy investments went substantially into building new plants for burning coal, which the country possesses in abundance. But over the past decade, it has also moved fast on building cleaner energy sources, especially wind and solar.
2000年，中國的發電量僅為美國的三分之一；到2024年，這一數字已攀升至美國的近2.5倍。中國激增的能源投資很大一部分用於興建燃煤電廠——中國擁有豐富的煤炭儲量。但在過去十年間，中國也快速布局清潔能源項目，尤其是風電和光伏領域。
China now generates more electricity each year than the United States and the European Union combined. It has close to 40 new nuclear power reactors under construction, compared with zero in America. Last year, Beijing announced work on a new hydropower dam in Tibet that will have triple the capacity of China’s Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s largest power station.
如今，中國的年發電量已超過美國和歐盟的總和。該國正在建設近40座新的核反應堆，而美國這一數字為零。去年，中國宣布將在西藏興建一座水電站，其裝機容量將是當前世界第一大水電站三峽大壩的三倍。
China isn’t just building gigantic amounts of power; its businesses are reshaping technological foundations to electrify the world.
中國不僅在大規模建設電力基礎設施，國內企業還在重塑技術基礎，推動全球電氣化進程。
China spent decades trying to build world-leading automotive champions; the results were not impressive until E.V.s arrived. Their adoption allowed Chinese automakers to stop trying to beat the Germans at building better combustion engines and leverage their greater expertise in electronics instead. If an E.V. is a smartphone with tires, then it makes sense that the country that makes most of the world’s electronics would also make nearly half of its cars.
為打造具有世界領先水平的汽車巨頭，中國付出了數十年的努力，卻始終成效平平，直到電動汽車的出現才迎來轉機。電動汽車讓中國車企無需再在燃油發動機製造領域與德國車企一較高下，轉而發揮自身在電子領域的優勢。如果說電動汽車是帶輪子的智慧型手機，那麼中國這個生產了全球大部分電子產品的國家製造出佔據全球近半數的電動汽車，也是順理成章的。
Several technologies had to mature before they could be electrified. The lithium-ion battery was invented by American and Japanese scientists before Chinese companies took over most of this industry in the 2010s. The United States also used to dominate the production of rare-earth magnets, the crucial product in electric motors; China makes more than 90 percent of these magnets today. In addition to batteries and magnets, the writer Noah Smith identifies power electronics and embedded chips as the main drivers of the new electric age.
電氣化的實現離不開多項技術的成熟發展。鋰離子電池由美日科學家發明，而中國企業在21世紀10年代已佔據該產業主導地位。美國也曾在稀土磁體生產領域佔據主導地位，這種材料是電機的核心部件，而如今全球90%以上的稀土磁體都由中國生產。除電池和磁體外，作家諾亞·史密斯指出，電力電子設備和嵌入式晶片是推動電動化時代的核心驅動力。
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The oil-burning products that can now instead be powered by batteries and electric motors include not only cars, but also bikes, buses and even some boats. Heavy industry and temperature control for buildings are being electrified, too. And a future in which many noisy, gas-powered household tools can be electrically powered is in reach: Even the foul and loud lawn mower and leaf blower are gradually being replaced by a more gentle thrum.
如今可由電池和電動機驅動的燃油產品不僅包括汽車，還涵蓋單車、公車乃至部分船隻。重工業生產和建築溫控領域也在推進電氣化。未來，眾多噪音巨大的燃油家用工具也將迎來電力化：即便是噪音刺耳、尾氣刺鼻的割草機和吹葉機，都正被更溫和的嗡嗡聲所取代。
Some products may never be electrified. Battery packs will probably not power a long-haul flight or container ship (though cleaner fuels are possible). But the opportunity to electrify almost everything else will grow over the next decade, and China is leading the charge.
當然，部分產品或許永遠無法實現電氣化。電池組大概率無法為長途航班和集裝箱貨輪提供動力（儘管清潔燃料是可能的）。但在未來十年，幾乎所有其他領域的電氣化機遇都將持續擴大，而中國正站在這場變革的前沿。
The southern city of Shenzhen, which has been producing Apple products for two decades now, is leveraging its expertise in electronics — as well as more advanced batteries, magnets and chips — to remake whole categories of transportation and household and industrial products into the image of the smartphone. As the world moves on from combustion engines and into batteries, it will be looking away from oil producers and toward factories in Shenzhen.
20年來，位於中國南方的深圳一直是蘋果產品的生產基地，如今它正憑藉自身在電子領域的專長，結合更先進的電池、磁體和晶片技術，推動交通、家居和工業全品類產品向智慧型手機的形態轉型。當世界從內燃機轉向電池技術時，全球的目光也將從石油生產國轉向深圳的工廠。
The United States is far behind this competition. On the one hand, Elon Musk has done more than anyone else to raise the status of electric vehicles and create their associated technological improvements. But the broader U.S. industrial base has mostly shed its capabilities in batteries and rare-earth magnets, in part out of a deliberate effort to move these factories to China. American companies building drones or other products of the new electric age are also far behind their Chinese competitors.
在這場競爭中，美國已遠遠落後。一方面，伊隆·馬斯克為提升電動汽車的行業地位和推動相關技術革新所做的努力遠超其他任何人；但另一方面，美國整體工業基礎早已喪失了在電池和稀土磁體領域的大部分產能，這在一定程度上是美國刻意將相關工廠轉移至中國的結果。在無人機等新一代電氣化產品的研發製造領域，美國企業與中國競爭對手之間的差距也十分懸殊。
Electrification demands engagement with the messy world of building power plants and manufacturing at scale, which are China’s strengths. But Silicon Valley has instead preferred to work in the realm of highly profitable digital businesses. Technologists like Sam D’Amico (who is making a high-powered electric-induction stove) and Ryan McEntush (a venture capital investor) have lately sounded the alarm at how comprehensively ahead Chinese capabilities have become.
電氣化的推進，需要深入參與發電廠建設、規模化生產這些複雜的領域，而這些正是中國的優勢所在。但美國矽谷卻始終偏愛利潤豐厚的數字產業。近期，研發大功率電磁感應灶的山姆·達米科、風險投資家萊恩·麥肯圖什等技術領域從業者紛紛發出警示，稱中國在電氣化相關領域的技術實力，已實現全面領先。
The United States could compete on building better drones and electric vehicles if its businesses had greater access to electrical power and a vital industrial base. But it is governed by a president who is enthusiastic about powering the future with fossil fuels and has a personal pique against wind turbines, calling them the “SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” His administration is slow-walking approval of and canceling new solar and wind projects while favoring coal and gas — which makes it more difficult to electrify. No product is more important than batteries in electrification, yet an infamous ICE raid targeted a Korean company that was constructing a battery factory in Georgia. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s tariffs have hamstrung American manufacturing, which has lost around 70,000 jobs since April.
倘若美國企業能獲得更充足的電力供應，且國內擁有完善的工業基礎，美國本可在無人機和電動汽車的研發製造領域展開競爭。但如今的美國，由一位執意以化石燃料驅動未來的總統執掌，他個人還反感風力渦輪機，稱其為「世紀騙局」。其政府拖延審批並取消新的光伏和風電項目，卻對煤炭和天然氣產業青睞有加——這讓美國的電氣化進程舉步維艱。在這一進程中，電池是最為核心的產品，然而美國移民與海關執法局卻出動警力，突襲了一家正在喬治亞州興建電池工廠的韓國企業，這一事件臭名遠揚。與此同時，川普的關稅政策也嚴重掣肘了美國製造業的發展，自去年4月以來，美國製造業已流失約7萬個工作崗位。
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America had better shape up before losing out to an electric age ushered in by Beijing. Otherwise, it will be stuck with outmoded products at home while China conquers markets through better technology.
美國若不想在由中國引領的電氣化時代中落敗，就必須儘快整頓。否則，美國國內將被落後的產品所困，中國則會憑藉更先進的技術橫掃全球市場。