'It is desolate': China's glut of unused car factories

China: On the outskirts of Chongqing, western China's largest city, sits a huge symbol of the country's glut of car factories. China has more than 100 factories with the capacity to build close to 40 million internal combustion engine cars a year. Three-quarters of China's exported cars are gasoline-powered models that the domestic market no longer needs, said Bill Russo, an electric car consultant in Shanghai. "There is a slowdown trend, especially for pure electric vehicles," said Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association. Hyundai is one of the few automakers, mostly foreign, that have halted production entirely at some locations, although the company still has three factories in China. The long-standing benchmark is that car factories should run at 80% of capacity, or more, to be efficient and make money. With new electric car factories opening and few older factories closing, capacity utilization across the entire industry fell to 65% in the first three months of this year from 75% last year and 80% or more before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics.