How China is charging forward with EV adoption as Canada prepares to welcome its cars
How China is charging forward with EV adoption as Canada prepares to welcome its cars
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-electric-vehicles-ev-canada-9.7143644
Publish Date: 2026-03-31 08:56:00
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Hundreds of robots hum on a factory floor in Ningbo, just south of Shanghai, their long arms swooping and twisting, welding together different models of custom-ordered electric vehicles (EVs).
Robots also move briskly in the corridors delivering parts to different areas of the plant, playing elevator music to alert the few humans who work there to their presence.
This “dark factory” — where the lights don’t need to be on for the work to be completed, such is the extent of its automation — produces Zeekr vehicles, a luxury EV line owned by Geely, which is also the parent company of Volvo and Polestar.
With a steady, unending rhythm, the robots produce about 300,000 cars a year. The plant employs about 1,600 humans, who mostly work in robot maintenance or quality control.
The Zeekr dark factory in Ningbo, China, on March 11. (Lisa Xing/CBC)
“The automated manufacturing process has obviously improved our production efficiency and helped reduce costs significantly,” said Xu Naiping, general manager of the Zeekr factory, in an interview with CBC News. “While automation does lower costs, its primary purpose is to ensure product quality.”
The factory, along with the wider EV ecosystem being developed across China, give a glimpse of a massive transformation of the automotive industry that could one day come to North America.
And as Canada opens the door to Chinese electric cars following a trade deal earlier this year, it’s also leaving space for this kind of Chinese innovation to enter, too. While some say this comes with big rewards in terms of boosting EV uptake and infrastructure in Canada, others are raising concerns over the threat to North American automakers and data security.
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