China’s Expensive Gamble on New-Energy Vehicles | Center for Strategic and International Studies

China’s Expensive Gamble on New-Energy Vehicles | Center for Strategic and International Studies: What’s a trillion dollars between friends? China can shock you with all sorts of numbers, from the size of the population to the length of its bridges, but one of the gaudiest figures emerged in late October with the announcement that China’s FAW Group, the country’s first car producer based in Changchun, received a line of credit from a group of Chinese banks of approximately RMB 1 trillion ($149 billion), the largest loan in automotive history. It should surprise no one that FAW does not necessarily need all of these funds right now and that it is a state-owned enterprise (SOE).