Shadowing Practice: How Chinese EVs Won Brazil — And Left U.S. Automakers Behind - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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On the streets of Rio, it's not hard to find electric vehicles from China.
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I've seen a lot of BYD cars on the streets, and many electric cars because of the price.
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Everyone is getting on board.
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There are a lot of Chinese cars on the streets.
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Brazil is South America's largest auto market, and the country is quickly becoming the next frontier in China's EV expansion.
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In 2024, Brazil imported around 138,000 EVs and hybrids from China.
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That number is up nearly 100,000 from 2023.
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The momentum in South America mirrors a global trend.
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Chinese automakers have been shut out of the U.S by tariffs, so they're turning to emerging markets like Southeast Asia,
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the Middle East, and Latin America to sell their oversupply of cars.
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Chinese EV makers are facing a lot of pressure within China.
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They are under a lot of pressure to find new customers and new markets.
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And they've been going abroad in a very big way.
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Some companies are already breaking ground on factories in the country.
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I think Chinese influence has become very strong in vehicles.
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And they're also investing in the country.
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But officials say the influx of cars could come at a cost.
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Like fewer jobs for Brazilian workers.
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This is a worrying scenario for us Brazilian workers.
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Because it could lead to a huge number of vehicles arriving from China, threatening our jobs and production in Brazil.
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Chinese automaker BYD has also been criticized for alleged abusive labor conditions at one of its factories.
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So why are Chinese automakers so interested in Brazil?
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And does this flourishing trait actually come at a cost?
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China's mix of government subsidies and technical capability has pushed it past the US,
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Japan, and Germany to become the world's top auto exporter.
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In 2024, China produced 31.2 million passenger cars, commercial vehicles and trucks.
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That's compared with just 10.6 million made in the U.S.
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But the country is producing more vehicles than its slowing economy can absorb.
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They are not slowing down production at all of the plants in China, even though the economy in China has slowed down.
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So as a result, they have excess supply.
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They need to ship these vehicles somewhere.
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And so they have expanded in what's known as the rest of the world.
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Chinese car makers are just going to any market that will take them.
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There's a lot of interest in emerging markets.
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Brazil, which is part of the BRICS coalition with China, ranks as the world's sixth largest car market by volume.
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It is particularly attractive to Chinese auto companies for its size and limited competition from other EV makers.
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demand for Chinese EVs among Brazilians is strong.
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In the first quarter of 2025, Chinese brands accounted for more than 80% of electric car sales.
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At the same time, Brazil has rolled out policies to encourage sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids.
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Starting in 2015, the country lowered its 35% EV import tariff to zero.
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In 2024, tariffs were reintroduced and will reach 35% in July 2026.
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By removing the tariffs, they sort of encouraged and signaled actually
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that this was a market that Chinese automakers and other automakers were welcome to.
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BYD has been the company that has been the most proactive.
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We've seen the arrival of Chinese vehicles here in Brazil, a very large quantity.
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This has expanded.
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The demand for charging today is very high.
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Even consumers weary of electric cars are drawn to Chinese EVs for their affordable price tags.
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BYD sells its Dolphin Mini in Brazil for around 120,000 Ries.
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That's around US$22,000 or over $7,000 less than General Motors' cheapest EV model sold in Brazil.
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I chose the brand based on the price.
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The electric car gives me dynamism.
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I can charge it at home or I stop at the gas station.
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So I think it gives me a feeling that I'm doing something better.
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The Chinese have closed the quality gap with established automakers.
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So for a local Brazilian, while the Chinese vehicle may not be as nice as the local Toyota vehicle for sale,
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they will likely go for that Chinese vehicle if the payment fits their budget.
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Brazil has long been a key South American outpost for U.S automakers.
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Companies like Ford and General Motors have been building cars in the country for over a century.
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But in recent years, it's come with challenges.
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South America has always been a challenging market for automakers.
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And not just the U.S automakers, but all automakers have struggled to make consistent profits in South America for a couple of reasons.
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One is it is a market where the economies have really whipsawed.
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They've had problems in terms of sustaining growth.
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And if you can't sustain growth, it makes it really challenging in terms of one good year
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one really tough year in 2021 ford shut down its brazilian
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factory citing financial pressure in 2019 alone the company lost over
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700 million dollars in south america shares of ford moving higher
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as the company is announcing it is restructuring its operations in South America.
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That will include shutting down a manufacturing plant in Brazil.
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What has happened is that U.S automakers have felt the pinch in terms of profits
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and increasingly they have had to protect their home market share and the profitability of North America,
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which is really what drives the profits for U.S automakers.
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And as they focus more on protecting profits here at home, they've said, OK, do we really need to protect our market share in a Chile,
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in an Argentina or in a Brazil?
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As other automakers have pulled back, Chinese companies have seized an opportunity.
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Currently, at least four Chinese auto brands sell or manufacture in Brazil, including Great Wall Motor, Shiri, Zeker and GAC.
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The most popular is auto giant BYD, which brought in $109 billion in revenue last year, which is a 29% growth year over year.
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The company arrived in Brazil in 2015, making electric buses.
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Then in 2023, it purchased the closed Ford factory with plans to produce EVs.
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The plant covers 4.6 million square meters, about 645 soccer fields.
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It's one of the biggest EV factories in Latin America, and the company says it will eventually produce 300,000 cars in a year.
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The strategy really seems to be, you know, be the first company to start selling EVs in new markets.
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Create the market, which in a way is what some of these carmakers did in China.
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China's other large EV player, Great Wall Motor, has followed a similar trajectory in Brazil.
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In 2021, the company purchased a shuttered Mercedes factory, which had closed due to a drop in sales after the pandemic.
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In the first half of 2025, the company sold almost 16,000 vehicles in Brazil, almost 20% more than the same period last year.
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Brazil is the largest automotive market in Latin America.
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So if you want to sell in Brazil, there's a strong incentive to produce in Brazil.
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Critics say that Chinese automakers are taking advantage of Brazil's temporarily low tariff by flooding the market with cars,
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hurting the domestic auto market, and taking jobs.
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There's a huge volume of production, and in this case, there's an overproduction that they need to export.
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So the costs are very competitive,
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beyond what Brazil or any other country with a similar footprint can compete with.
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BYD has faced scrutiny from the public
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and from regulators after workers at its newest factory were found in what investigators called slavery-like conditions.
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For the construction of the factories, it's clear that they brought in Chinese workers, which was then the big controversy with BYD because Brazilian police found
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that they were being treated unfairly and didn't meet labor standards.
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BYD responded in a statement saying the company has zero tolerance for violations of human rights and labor laws,
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and that it terminated its contract with the construction company.
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A lawsuit from Brazilian prosecutors against BYD is ongoing.
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CNBC reached out to BYD for an interview, but was unable to speak with them before this story aired.
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Brazil's government is also under pressure to raise tariffs on Chinese auto imports.
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Those tariffs are now being reintroduced.
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It's on a schedule, so they'll hit 35% in 2026.
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That was the result of, you know, domestic companies complaining that this was sort of unfair competition.
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Meanwhile, there could be increasing competition in Brazil as some U.S brands have planned renewed investment in the country.
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In 2024, General Motors announced that it was investing $1.4 billion in facilities and operations.
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But for American automakers, they're still concerned that the rapid growth of Chinese brands in Brazil mirrors a global trend.
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A couple of different reasons why this matters for Washington.
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The first is that I think there's not necessarily a full recognition of the implications of China's expansion in the automotive sector.
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Smaller markets that by themselves are not a big deal.
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But you add a Chile with an Argentina, with an Australia, with an Israel, with a South Africa, little by little, all of that market share grows.
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And that's what the Chinese have done.
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For now, Brazil remains in the crossfire between two global superpowers in the EV revolution.
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This may be a strategy that does not pay off, but it is also much more of a strategy of market creation and market acquisition rather than a strategy about profitability.
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So it's very long term thinking.
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So I think the jury's out on what's going to work out and what's not.
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But it's for certain changing the markets on the ground in several emerging markets.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 119 sentences and 1584 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:46. The speaker talks at a steady 147 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| automobile noun | /ˈɔː.tə.məˌbil/ | A type of motor vehicle designed to move on the ground under its own stored power and intended to carry a driver, a small number of additional passengers, and… |
| worker noun | /ˈwɝ.kɚ/ | One who works: a person who performs labor for a living; traditionally, especially, manual labor. |
| maker noun | /ˈmeɪk.ɚ/ | Someone who makes; a person or thing that makes or produces something. |
| import noun | /ˈɪm.pɔɹt/ | Something brought in from an exterior source, especially for sale or trade. |
| emerge verb | /ɪˈmɝd͡ʒ/ | To come into view. |
| mirror noun | /ˈmiɹɚ/ | A smooth surface, usually made of glass with reflective material painted on the underside, that reflects light so as to give an image of what is in front of it. |
| encourage verb | /ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/ | To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit. |
| expand verb | /ɪkˈspænd/ | To change (something) from a smaller form or size to a larger one; to spread out or lay open. |
| invest verb | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in. |
| hybrid noun | /ˈhaɪ.bɹɪd/ | Offspring resulting from cross-breeding different entities, e.g. two different species or two purebred parent strains. |
| automotive adjective | /ˌɔtəˈmoʊtɪv/ | Having the ability to move by itself; self-propelled or self-propelling. |
| sustain verb | /səˈsteɪn/ | To maintain, or keep in existence. |
| consistent adjective | /kənˈsɪs.tənt/ | Of a regularly occurring, dependable nature. |
| meanwhile adverb | /ˈmiːnwaɪl/ | During the time that something is happening, often specifically in a different place. |
| necessarily adverb | /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/ | Inevitably; of necessity. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| shut down verb | To close, terminate, or end; to stop operating, either permanently or temporarily. | |
| slow down verb | To decelerate. | |
| pay off verb | To bribe, especially to deter oversight. | |
| pull back verb | To retreat. | |
| roll out verb | To deploy or release (a new film or software, etc.); to launch (a product or service), especially in a gradual fashion across multiple regions. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | they've been going · have been building |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've seen · have been shut · has become |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | have been shut · been criticized · were reintroduced |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Brazil, which is · year, which is · workers, which was |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 12 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, they've, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: sixth /sɪksθ/, threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/, coalition /koʊ.əˈlɪʃ.ən/, violation /ˌvaɪ.əˈleɪ.ʃən/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: automobile /ˈɔː.tə.məˌbil/, automotive /ˌɔtəˈmoʊtɪv/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like automobile, worker, maker.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.