At an event last week, a businessman suddenly pulled out his phone to show me his experience in a driverless taxi in downtown Beijing. In the video, a robotaxi impressively navigated a turn across several lanes of a busy road. Needless to say, the autonomous fleets roaming around an increasing number of Chinese cities are electric. The lasting impression, for him at least, was how far China has pulled ahead in the future of transport.Those at the Munich motor show last week came to a similar conclusion. Germany’s biennial celebration of its own automotive prowess was dominated by Chinese brands, who were there in double the numbers seen in 2021. While European manufacturers showed electric vehicles coming to market in 2026 or 2027, the Chinese had cars ready for the forecourts. Gone were the shoddy motors of years past; these were quality vehicles for the European market. The sense was of an industry left behind. “It took too long to get the new reality,” says Ferdinand Dudenh?ffer at the Center for Automotive Research in Duisburg. “There was a long time when carmakers said, ‘We see the issue of battery electric vehicles but we don’t believe in it.’”