I’ve spent 22 years in the used motor trade. In that time I’ve watched cars that used to be bulletproof become regular visitors to the workshop — and regular destroyers of resale value. The pattern is clear. The very systems forced onto manufacturers in the name of cleaner air — diesel particulate filters (DPF), exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) valves, oxygen sensors, and continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) — are the same systems that now fail at alarming rates. Short trips, stop-start city driving and cold engines don’t give DPFs the sustained heat they need to regenerate. EGR valves clog with carbon. Sensors throw codes. CVTs, especially early generations, wear out or overheat under real-world use. The result? Cars that were once known for reliability now carry expensive, unpredictable repair bills. That uncertainty has hammered their second-hand values. Buyers who once sought out a high-kilometre Toyota or Volkswagen for its toughness are now wary. The trade sees it every day. For years the electric-car argument looked weak on pure economics. High purchase price, steep depreciation, and the only real upside being lower running costs. That equation has shifted. Chinese manufacturers are now delivering high-quality electric vehicles at prices that were unthinkable a few years ago. A GAC Aion UT, for example, sits in the low-to-mid $30,000s drive-away in Australia — competitive with (and in some cases undercutting) traditional small cars. This raises an uncomfortable question: is the current landscape pure chance, or the outcome of deliberate policy? Governments across the West embraced aggressive emissions targets and timelines to phase out internal-combustion engines. At the same time, Chinese industry scaled EV production, battery manufacturing and the broader renewable supply chain with extraordinary speed and volume. Whether this was coordinated “globalist” strategy or simply opportunistic industrial policy is open to debate. What is not open to debate is the outcome: traditional manufacturing has been squeezed while Chinese capacity has expanded to fill the gap. Pricing tells another part of the story. A base Volkswagen Polo or Toyota Yaris that sat around the high-teens or low-$20,000s a decade or so ago now starts closer to $30,000–$34,000 before on-roads. Light-car segment prices in Australia rose roughly 39% between 2019 and 2024. A large portion of that inflation coincided with the enormous expansion of money supply during the COVID period — broad money growth in Australia hit double digits, while other major economies saw even larger spikes. If the same Chinese EV that sells for around $32,000 today had been priced in a world without that monetary expansion, the figure would look very different. Whether China “manufactured” the crisis is a stronger claim than the data can fully support, but the timing and the resulting shift in relative competitiveness are hard to ignore. What does the trajectory look like from here? If we continue toward near-total electrification of personal transport, the individual who owns a house with solar can retain a degree of energy independence. The nation, however, becomes heavily reliant on Chinese supply chains for batteries, critical minerals processing, solar panels, inverters and the vehicles themselves. That is a strategic vulnerability. In the extreme, a disruption to those supply chains — or the theoretical ability to remotely disable internet-connected vehicles — would leave a country exposed in ways that previous generations of car buyers never contemplated. There is another view, shared by some in the trade (including Jason). That we will eventually recognise the limitations of the current path — grid strain, mineral constraints, residual value uncertainty, and the loss of manufacturing depth — and swing the pendulum hard back toward internal-combustion vehicles and domestic capability. The cost of that correction, paid for by taxpayers, would be enormous. Neither future is guaranteed. What is already visible, after 22 years watching cars come and go, is that the old reliability hierarchy has been broken by the very technology meant to improve it. Chinese EVs have filled the resulting gap with speed and price. The real question is no longer whether the transition is happening. It is whether we are prepared for the sovereignty and economic consequences that come with it.