Shadowing Practice: Why this Chinese EV terrifies Europe’s carmakers - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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This is a story about changes that are too big to ignore.
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This is a story about changes that are too big to ignore.
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For many years, the global car market has been dominated by the same small group countries like Japan, Germany and the United States, but no longer.
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In the span of five years, China leapfrogged the largest automakers in the world, going from sixth place to first.
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It now exports more vehicles than the United States and Japan combined.
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And no company tells that story better than the electric carmaker behind Bloomberg's Tom Mackenzie reports from Paris.
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At an opera house just north of the shows, it is a lavish debut even for Paris. The star of the show.
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Not a performer, but a product. This car is the latest creation of Bhiwadi, a Shenzhen based electric vehicle maker that's taking the world by storm. Today, it's China's biggest car company by sales. I want to be the best valuable brand in the auto industry. But it wasn't so long ago that other automakers literally laughed them off. This was Tesla's Elon Musk here on Bloomberg back in 2011. There's competitors now ramping up.
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And as you're familiar with video, which is also on the West Coast, I think they are ramping up production of their electric vehicles.
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Warren Buffett owns 10% stake in that. Why do you laugh here?
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Is trying to compete. Why do you laugh?
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Have you seen their car? You don't see them at all.
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Is it competitive now? Since then, a lot has changed.
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BYD now has almost a million employees. It says it files an average of 52 patents per working day. And in 2025, for the first time, BYD beat Tesla in total car sales, claiming the title of top electric vehicle maker in the world. How would you characterize BYD's growth in recent years? Yeah, explosive.
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Ryan Fisher is the electric vehicle and charging analyst at Bloomberg.
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And if they in 2021 go from like barely on the map if you know I mean if you look at the chart to having 4 million plus sales and being in the top ten automakers in the world, you come from the industry.
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Ryan, how how is be widely viewed within the industry, similar to Musk's comments, like who are these? I think now people are changing it to, oh, yeah, we're kind of scared for a better idea of just how seriously BYD and the Chinese auto sector broadly are being taken now.
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Just listen to Ford CEO Jim Farley speaking last year.
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It's the most humbling thing I've ever seen.
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Their cost, their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West. We wanted to get a firsthand look at the battle for the future of auto making. So we went to Paris to see the roll out of Boyd's new car that we spoke with the woman on the front lines of the firm's global expansion. Why Paris?
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Yeah, very good question. Paris is the country is a city full of energy. And also art steadily has led BYD's charge into markets beyond China, including here in France as the company's number two. After its founder, Lee also helped engineer its transformation from a battery startup into an auto manufacturing powerhouse. So, you know, I don't believe it.
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One big idea, a very small company. This started with 20 people.
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350,000 US dollar investment. So I joined we did a second year and my first job is for oversee marketing, promoting management.
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So I went to Hong Kong, set up with the first kind of international office in Hong Kong in 1997, and then came to Europe in 1999.
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Was this what saw the US dollar cash and the 140 feet contained battery?
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The message is you need to survive to sell the battery and sell the battery.
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She did securing deals with Motorola and Nokia back then.
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Leaders in the mobile phone space. An IPO followed, then a major investment from Berkshire Hathaway. With each step, the company grew and doubled down on research and development and bringing suppliers under their own roof. What do you think the biggest structural advantage is the p y de has over its competitors?
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Two things. Is of technology to today like it.
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We have 120,000 on the engineer. We invented 52 patent per day.
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The second is rapid. We have very strong vertical integration capability. What does this mean?
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This means like it. We can do innovation much faster or can do cool stuff much more than any other people.
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That's the reason you sold it in the past two years.
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We have like you have this sporty car called the young one.
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You and I will have 3000 horsepower. They supported his car in the tarmac.
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It's capable of well over 300 miles an hour.
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This feels like China turning up, but just saying, Yeah, we'll have all the records. Thank you.
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Sadly, EPD didn't let us race their hypercar to the Arc de Triomphe, but we did drive their latest luxury ev the Denver Z9 jet.
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Who do you see as your main competitor? Who is the brand that you're that you're really competing with in this premium segment now that is at night on the all the cool technology in this car. I did not see any competition here.
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Given the company's origins, it's no surprise that the car maker's key feature might be its battery. The range is long and the charge is fast, far faster than anything else on the market if done through their planned system of flash charges. Fisher says it remains to be seen how quickly it can roll those charges out and whether their new cars will beat the competition in the field. But there's little doubt that their tech is impressive when you think about their advantage in batteries that they've managed to produce. It does seem kind of like incredible.
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They've come out with the golden egg. They've done it incredibly quickly with the best technology at the best price. What's more, the new car has the profile of a Porsche and the horsepower of a Bugatti, or that the price of a Subaru outback, but only in China. Here in France, it runs about €115,000 or $135,000. So with this one you can chew it's a 0 to 100 kilometer, 2.7 seconds, 3.7. Not all of BYD's vehicles target the luxury space, the lowest cost model in the UK, where Chinese cars now account for one in every ten new vehicles sold, goes for under £19,000 or about 25,000 USD. Cheap, but not the cheapest.
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Nor is that the goal, according to bid's special adviser Alfredo Alta Villa.
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What do you say to regulators and consumers?
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How do you convince them that Bwindi isn't just a low cost disrupter by the.
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Has never been and will never be a low cost player in any segment.
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Our main selling argument is value for money at the way it came to be.
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After a career as an executive with the competition, as the former head of Fiat Chrysler's European operations, he was a close aide to former CEO Sergio Marchionne and was considered a top contender to take over his role.
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What are the real ambitions of Bhiwadi in Europe?
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Is it volume or is it positioning in the premium segment or something else?
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I want to answer with our volume target, because you will not believe me, but certainly we we want to be one of the key players in this industry on a global on a global scale. If you were.
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An auto executive at a European legacy carmaker right now as you were once.
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How worried would you be? Quite worried.
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About a million units sold last year overseas or international sales.
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One and a half million is the number they've seen for 2026.
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Yes. Are you on track to meet that?
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To beat that easily?
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Easily. Easily.
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Beating one and a half million? Yes.
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This year. Easily.
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Yeah. In recent weeks, the war in Iran and the soaring fuel prices that have come along with it have added new momentum to electric vehicle demand. China's exports of EVs and hybrids soared to a record high in March, with BYD leading the way.
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But for all the optimism about international growth, the company has faced major challenges in its largest market back home in China.
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I want to talk about the here and now in the Chinese market.
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How would you characterize the current state of the Chinese auto market?
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China's auto market is super competitive by recently posting a roughly 20% drop in year on year profit, the first time since 2021.
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Is that as bad as it gets, do you think? No, just nothing.
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Because first, because you need and the standards now would be had where price war and competing was a car because everything we do the next day I'll come up with a copy. But then for now, we bring another protection. Riva is our charging technology, the second generation below the cell. So this will be called a protection driver. I think we'll keep our competition several years behind us. Are you seeing signs of recovery in the Chinese market? Yes.
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And the second the market in China in Q4, Q1 is not good because of all this subsidy. Even we have a small portion left is 100% gone. Recent moves to wind down government support are a headwind for China's EV makers.
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But Fisher says subsidies haven't been the only driver of their rise, especially in BYD's case. How much of that success is down to Chinese government support over the years?
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That was the investigation from the European Union about which specific automakers were getting the most subsidies and therefore what tariffs they should achieve. Bhiwadi was actually on the lower end of the spectrum than some of those. I think what the Chinese government have done and what some people look as maybe I would be jealous of, is that they aligned everything they were doing. They had an automotive plan, they got involved with the metals and mining, they provided the subsidies.
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Some of this was about oil independence and some of this was about winning the automotive industry, right? This is a massive part of GDP in many countries and they've done that successfully.
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So I don't look at the Chinese and feel like they've done anything massively wrong. I actually feel like we've been a bit naive as policymakers in Europe and places like that.
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Some critics may look at Biden's success and the success of other Chinese automakers in Europe and in other markets outside of China, and say this is a classic example of China shifting excess capacity to other markets.
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Would that be a fair criticism? I think.
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I think it's a factor and we see it across industries.
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China obviously has leverage and you've seen that in the negotiations where they've tariffs different countries, maybe the French keep them out of their subsidies and then they get hit with tariffs back on brandy or something like that. Fundamentally, consumers want the cheapest products and the best ones, and the Chinese have managed to achieve that. So far, American consumers haven't gotten their hands on China's latest EVs.
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Biden era tariffs of over 100% have kept Biden and others out of the US car market. But Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping are set to meet in May, and those trade barriers are likely high on the agenda.
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U.S. carmakers might not have long before Chinese cars show up on American shores, something that Ford's Jim Farley was well aware of when he spoke to Wall Street Week.
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I've never seen a competition like this. The government bet on EVs before anyone else in the world. They are the largest market in the world, and now they're the most important market in the world.
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We can compete and win against them, but we have to bring our A-game and we have to learn a lot of new things. In 2027, Ford is set to debut a line of EVs starting at around $30,000, which Farley describes as a response to be wide. But he's also talk to the Trump administration about forming joint ventures with Chinese firms to build cars locally. Volkswagen and Stellantis have already made similar deals, and as each carmaker and country decides how to respond to China's rise, they must grapple with the costs and benefits of protectionism or an alternative. If you can't beat them, join them.
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Context & Background
The rise of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers such as BYD has been a topic of intense discussion among global carmakers, particularly in Europe. In this video, the transformation of the automotive landscape is explored, showcasing how BYD, once considered a minor player, has surged to become a leading company in vehicle sales worldwide. The dialogue highlights industry experts and executives reflecting on the impressive growth of BYD, its innovative technologies, and the challenges it poses to traditional European car manufacturers. By engaging with this content, English learners can gain insight into industry-specific vocabulary, enhance their speaking skills, and understand a key global economic trend.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- “The global car market has been dominated by...” - Use this to discuss market trends in various industries.
- “I want to be the best valuable brand...” - A strong expression to convey ambition and goals in business.
- “Their cost and quality of vehicles are far superior...” - Ideal for comparing products or services.
- “We have strong vertical integration capability...”strong> - Useful when discussing organizational strategies in business.
- “Value for money is our main selling argument...”strong> - Handy when talking about pricing strategies or budgets.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To fully benefit from the insights provided in this video and practice your English speaking skills, follow this structured guide:
- Watch the Video with Subtitles: Begin by watching the video with English subtitles. This allows you to hear the pronunciation and intonation while seeing the words on screen.
- Focus on Key Phrases: Pause after each important phrase. Write down phrases that resonate with you, paying attention to how they are used in context. Phrases like “the global car market” can frequently come up during discussions related to economics.
- Practice Shadow Speaking: Using the shadow speak technique, repeat what you hear exactly as you hear it. Emphasize the same rhythm and tone as the speakers, which is crucial for improving fluency and confidence.
- Record Yourself: Make an audio or video record of your practice sessions. Compare your pronunciation and fluidity with the original speakers. Analyzing your speech will help you identify areas for improvement.
- Engage with Discussions: Try to use the phrases you've learned in your everyday English speaking practice or even with peers interested in IELTS speaking practice. This reinforces your learning and builds your confidence when expressing yourself in discussions about contemporary issues.
By integrating these methods into your study routine, you'll improve your speaking skills while discussing relevant, engaging topics. Learn English with YouTube content like this not only boosts your vocabulary but also connects you with real-world scenarios, making your language learning experience richer and more meaningful.
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.
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