Abandoned EVs are piling up across China. But why?

Something isn’t quite right over in China. Footage has emerged showing fields of cars, predominantly electric vehicles, just sitting there. It's a bit eerie, and quite confusing considering how China is a massive market for EVs, so what’s going on?

The fields have been seen on and off since around 2019, filled with almost identical vehicles. They’re all white or silver, often the same model, and judging by the amount of dust and plants growing around them, they’ve been sitting for a while.

One answer is that the ride-sharing market in China has all but collapsed. Hundreds of ride-hailing companies were created in the past decade, taking advantage of government incentives, but when those incentives were slashed in 2019, along with inherent issues in the model like almost any other method of transport being faster than cars, a comparatively high price and lack of dedicated parking, plenty went under and had to ditch their fleet of vehicles.

Something similar happened to the country’s bike-sharing market in 2018, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of bicycles being abandoned across the country.

The mass abandonment of the cars also came partly from the rapid rise of China’s EV industry. With new and better models coming from an array of manufacturers, existing vehicles were quickly outdated. It seems that instead of selling them into the second-hand market, it was easier (and cheaper) to just park the cars somewhere out of the way and leave them.

This has also had effects on the EV makers. According to Bloomberg, there were around 500 manufacturers in 2019. Now that figure is sitting at roughly 100. On the other hand, the massive demand and competition forced those makers to quickly improve the quality of their vehicles, which is one reason why we’ve seen massive jumps in improvements of locally sold Chinese vehicles.

Bloomberg also found that many of the vehicles were from around 2017, with some having registration stickers for driving in 2021.

While the reasons why these EV graveyards exist is an interesting, slightly haunting example of rampant capitalism – many of them were built cheaply and in large numbers to maximise profits – there is also the obvious environmental question mark hanging over it all.

According to local news, the government of Hangzhou promised to dispose of the cars back in 2019, but Bloomberg reports that, as of July 2023, there are still plenty of abandoned EVs dotted around the city.

These vehicles’ batteries contain nickel, lithium and cobalt, which are environmentally and ethically costly to mine and produce. They could be recycled or repurposed back into the EV or energy industries, as electric vehicles only really start to become more environmentally friendly after a few years on the road. The longer they sit, slowly being taken over by vines, the worse that impact.

But not all of these cars are abandoned. Some field occupants are brand new, waiting to be shipped to dealerships or new owners, as indicated by Toyota bZ4x SUVs and VW ID.3 hatchbacks without licence plates. Hopefully these don’t get left to rot.