Tesla helped show the Chinese how to build EVs, (just as they have reverse engineered most significant western technology via a similar process) but today Tesla is no longer the leader- BYD is, by a huge profit and market share margin.

This seems to have gone woooosh over your head...clouded perhaps by a haze of US Exceptionalist delusion?

'A major part of creating a robust EV industry is to establish a local supply chain instead of being dependent on other countries. As mentioned, this is one thing that China is extremely good at and one that they were able to innovate and reduce its cost at a rapid pace. Remember the Volvo EX30 and its surprisingly affordable base price? This is due to a base version that uses a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery. While it's something that Western companies have shunned as they've mostly favored lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries, Chinese companies continued to innovate on LFP batteries. LFP batteries are cheaper and safer, and though they initially did not meet the energy density and low-temperature performance of NMC batteries, Chinese battery companies, most prominently Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) managed to narrow the energy gap of LFP whilst keeping its cost down.

Lastly, China also controls a whole lot of necessary materials for batteries. It doesn't have the most abundant natural resources for batteries, but it has the majority of the world's refinery capacity for nickel, cobalt, sulfate, lithium hydroxide, and graphite. Right now, a lot of countries are forging partnerships with countries like Chile in order to have greater access to their mines for rare-earth metals, but that's the critical part--it's still being established. China, on the other hand, already had a solid battery supply chain from raw materials to production for nearly a decade. As a result of all of these investments, CATL is already dominating battery supplies globally, accounting for 34 percent of worldwide EV batteries as of the end of 2022. Following in second is LG Energy Solution from South Korea, accounting for 14 percent of EV batteries globally. CATL, however, is just one of the six Chinese companies that are part of the top 10 biggest battery suppliers globally.'

Note- Politics are important to me-I enjoy the contest of ideas that is fundamental to our freedoms and wealth - as they seem to be to you also, and should be for any citizen that values and appreciates the importance of genuine representative democracy, but while I express genuine concern about the decline and corruption evident in our western democracies you are seemingly in cynical denial - you are spending just as much of your time on here as me- though of course I am not a taxpayer funded apologist for US imperialism. I am a self employed since 1983 free thinker and am not bound by any paid servitude to any politcal masters...unlike you.

Now you are begging me to shut up. Do realise you could not give me stronger encouragement. You have a lot to learn about politics and human nature.

Of course heard of their falling out due to Trumps serial intransigence but so what? Musks huge dependency upon taxpayer/debt funded strategic government contracts remains as does Trumps rentseeking corruption/misuse of executive power and market leverage gaming - is no big secret. Who shorted Bitcoin 30 minutes before Donald Trump last week tried to threaten 100% trade sanctions on China? POTUS TACO = INSIDE TRADER. Who issued shitcoins prior to inauguration. Who is enabling tax evasion via stablecoins. Misuse of power and market manipulation for private gain at the very top...goes on now almost uncontested as if its normal- it's not! It is crony capitalism and corruption deep within an empire in terminal decline that dare not look in the mirror.