Wan Gang’s story is mostly unknown. His rise in the EV world started at about the same time as Musk’s. In 2007 the car engineer by training was appointed China’s minister of science and technology. In the country’s top-down economic system, Wan’s policies incentivized the creation of hundreds of Chinese companies tied to making electric vehicles. The country now sells more than 6 million EVs each year.2 That includes not just expensive cars but the complete range, with the cheapest selling for less than $10,000.3 Wan’s policies have also created some of the world’s largest and most valuable companies selling electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries. And the choices he has influenced haven’t only affected already established Chinese car companies; all big car manufacturers in the world – for whom the largest market globally remains China – have been affected. While Musk fought Wall Street’s scepticism and benefited from waves of government subsidies to keep Tesla afloat through turbulent periods, Wan has shown how policy done right can drive technological disruption not just in China but worldwide. Both men are at the forefront of the global project to propel the world from the current economic age into the next – yet it is the lesser known of the two who has had the bigger impact.
His work ethic caught the attention of local Party members, and in 1974 he was unanimously elected as a team leader. Worried that because his parents were counter-revolutionaries he shouldn’t have been promoted, Wan spoke to the head of the local Party branch. ‘Keep at it,’ he recalled being told. ‘One day your parents will be heroes again.’4 After Mao’s death, in 1976, universities were reopened and Wan studied physics at Northeast Forestry University in Harbin and then mechanical engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai, one of China’s most prestigious educational institutions. He excelled there and won a scholarship from the World Bank to pursue a PhD in Germany. For his doctorate at the Clausthal University of Technology, he studied ways to reduce the noise made by internal combustion engines – the type of engine that powers all fossil fuel vehicles in the world. In hindsight, the decision to study cutting-edge automotive engineering in Germany was perfectly timed. Following the oil crises of the 1970s, the global car industry was undergoing a period of major change. The German car industry wanted to stay ahead of growing competition from the US and Japan, and was crying out for engineers like Wan. He received job offers from six car companies, from Volkswagen to Mercedes. In 1991 he chose to join Audi, the smallest of the German majors at the time, reasoning that it presented him with the greatest opportunity to rise through the ranks. Wan began in Audi’s car development division, helping to solve technical issues in design and manufacturing. After five years he realized that in order to climb the corporate ladder at Audi, engineers had to show success in more than one department. He duly moved to production, where he focused on car paint and was soon made head of a division with more than 2,000 employees.
Wan Gang's backstory of learning everything he could from the Germans before surpassing them after going back to China is the best bit of @akshatrathi.bsky.social's #ClimateCapitalism IMV. It's why it, like #NomadCentury, is going to still be read years from now. Just nailed it.
