IT·Science Talk

The Beijing show numbers that worried me more than the flying cars

Everyone is talking about the six-minute batteries, and they are impressive. But the line in the GONOM post that stayed with me was from AP: passenger car sales inside China fell 23% in January to March, while exports rose 63% to almost 2 million cars.

From Korea this feels very close to home. When a huge market cannot sell enough at home, those cars go abroad, and our own carmakers will feel it. One analyst said a comeback for foreign brands in China is "not realistic". I am not an economist, only a retired pharmacist, but I think the flying cars are the decoration and the export number is the real story.