Alexander Bloch posted a list three weeks ago: eleven questions you should be able to answer before writing about the Chinese and German auto industry. Have you been to China more than three times on business? Driven five different Chinese models properly? Can you name what matters in safe lithium-ion cell production, in one term?

It is a good list. Slightly provocative, deliberately so, and most people posting confident takes would fail it. I would pass some and, honestly, not all.

But here is what struck me. Every question tests how well you know the car.

Not one of them tests whether you understand the system around the car.

And that system is increasingly what decides the outcome. You can have driven every Chinese model, know every cell chemistry and every E/E architecture, and still miss why BYD is growing at 270% in Europe - because that number is not really about the product. It is about financing, leasing rates and who carries the residual-value risk.

Todor Todorov wrote a sharp piece on exactly this a few days ago. I am not sure he has tested five Chinese cars around the block. It does not matter. He saw the mechanism that most people who would ace Bloch's list walked straight past: BYD has outsourced its residual risk to European banks, and the banks are not stupid.

That is the uncomfortable thing about expertise in a transforming industry. Knowing the vehicle deeply is necessary and no longer sufficient. The questions that decide who wins have moved - into finance, residuals, grid connections, operations. The parts you cannot test-drive.

So I would add a twelfth question to the list: can you explain why the best product does not automatically win?

If you can, you understand this industry. Even if you have never been to China.

Hashtags: #Automotive #ChinaEV #EVStrategy #AutoFinance #ResidualValue