How China powers its electric vehicles and high-speed trains

IN CHINA, THE longest ultrahigh-voltage power line stretches more than 2,000 miles from the far northwest to the populous southeast.

- KEITH BRADSHER

The power line starts in a remote desert in northwest China, where vast arrays of solar panels and wind turbines generate electricity on a monumental scale. It snakes southeast reaching Anhui Province near Shanghai, home to some of China’s most successful electric car and robot manufacturers. That's a single power line. China has 41 others. Each is capable of carrying more electricity than any utility transmission line in the US. That’s partly because China is using technology that makes its lines far more efficient than almost anywhere else. The feat is owed to China’s ambitious national energy policies and the fact that few residents along the path of these lines dare object.

“As long as you don’t fish directly underneath the wires and keep the fishing line from getting tangled in the wires, it’s basically fine,” Shu Jie, an air-conditioning repairman, said matter-of-factly.