What a $15,000 electric SUV says about U.S.-China car rivalry

World's two biggest vehicle markets increasingly look like Mars and Venus

- Peter Landers

The offer sounds like a scam—a new Toyota electric-powered sport-utility vehicle for about $15,000, complete with sunroof and cup holders. But the Toyota bZ3X is real, and it is actually on sale starting at that price. There is a catch: To buy one, you have to be in China.

Auto executives once dreamed of a world car that could be designed once and sold everywhere. That world has fractured, and nowhere more so than in the two biggest markets, China and the U.S., which together account for nearly half of global vehicle sales.

"Decades ago, it was very easy to develop to produce one standard and to provide it globally," said Volkswagen's chief executive, Oliver Blume. "Today, it's impossible because the expectations of the customers are different. The ecosystems are different, the regulations are different."

"There is no such thing as a world car anymore," said Jürgen Reers, global lead for the automotive business at Accenture.

For an American used to a $50,000 gasoline-powered SUV as the standard family choice, the Chinese market is hardly recognizable.

A majority of new vehicles sold in China are either fully electric or plug-in hybrids, and a look around the recent auto show in Shanghai showed that local makers have mostly stopped introducing new gasoline-powered models. In the U.S., by contrast, the traditional combustion engine still powers about eight in 10 new vehicles.