Red Drive

Cuba looks to China for EVs:

After 65 years of communist rule repressing natural economic activity, blocking access to the U.S. market, and replacing the nation’s educated class with poorly prepared regime elites, Cuba’s power grid is potentially more unreliable than its old cars, making electric vehicles (EVs) a gamble. Once the wealthiest country in Latin America, Cuba now endures regular blackouts — and nationwide collapses of the power grid are not unheard of — as a result of the ruling Castro family regime neglecting to maintain any sector of Cuba’s infrastructure. While the Morning Post depicted the rise of EVs as a viable solution to fuel shortages and the communist economic crisis, tens of thousands of EVs relying on the power grid to function will likely impose significant strain on the fragile power grid, leading to more electrical failures and the increasingly common protests accompanying them. The rising presence of EVs in Cuba is largely the result of its close relationship with China. The Morning Post highlighted one especially productive joint venture, an electric motorbike factory owned by the Chinese company Tianjin Dongxing Industrial and the Castro regime. The regime participates in the manufacturing through one of its many corporate entities, “Caribbean Electric Vehicles” (Vedca), which it co-owns with Tianjin Dongxing.

Communism, the non-viable solution...