Why a Chinese Gadget Company Can Make an Electric Car and Apple Can’t

The answer from the article

Chinese electric vehicle companies have benefited from billions of dollars in government support, which has helped them gain control of the supply chain down to the very minerals inside the car batteries. This early edge helped two Chinese companies, BYD and Contemporary Amperex Technology Company — known as CATL and added to the Pentagon’s list of Chinese military companies in January — become the biggest electric battery makers in the world.

Xiaomi used this supply chain to its advantage. Its cars contain batteries from BYD and CATL. It was able to quickly start production by taking over a factory from Beijing Auto Group. Construction workers in Beijing are working around the clock on a second factory.

All this manufacturing capacity helps Chinese electric vehicle firms move from development to production in far less time than traditional automakers in China, enabling them to bring new models to market quickly and focus on making software that they can continually update, said Stephen W. Dyer, head of Asia Automotive at AlixPartners, a consultancy.

Chinese cars are a known data privacy nightmare with proprietary software/ecosystems.

Tesla is much the same in the US... I've heard it analogized as "Tesla is the Apple of the automotive industry" and it is hard to argue they're not. Like the iPhone at its first launch, Teslas were the "new hotness" until they became so ubiquitous they are now the most basic removed car ever. They're massively overpriced for what they are, they promise lots of features that often fall flat in execution, they are terminally online and reliant on proprietary cloud services. They collect tons of user data and do lord knows what with it.

All that said, can you imagine if Apple itself had successfully launched a car in the US market? Its fanbase would be beyond insufferable and it would likely have all the worst issues of both Chinese cars and US EVs.