Move over Elon Musk, Wan Gang is taking the electric-car lead,

Wan Gang led the charge in electric vehicles in China, and beyond

At this year’s Beijing Auto Show, a retired Chinese bureaucrat bent down to run his hands over the hood of a sleek sports coupe billed as the world’s fastest battery-powered car and he smiled like a proud father.

In a way, that’s exactly what he was. Two decades earlier, Wan Gang persuaded China’s State Council to throw its vast power behind the risky, unproven technology of electric cars. He advocated using government money, including subsidies, to help create a world champion industry that would surpass Western automakers. That coupe he was admiring at the April auto show? It was built by homegrown NIO Inc. Elon Musk made a name for himself promoting new-energy vehicles, but when the history of the electric car is finally writ- ten, Wan may loom larger. Chinese drivers buy one of every two EVs sold, and the global auto industry is pivoting to adjust. It’s a revolution fomented by Wan, a former minister of science and technology whose achievements are even more extraordinary when you consider that he never joined the Chinese Communist Party.

“He’s the father of China’s electric-vehicle industry,” said Levi Tillemann, a former U.S. Department of Energy adviser and author of The Great Race: The Global Quest for the Car of the Future. “Without Wan Gang, it’s unlikely China would have pushed to surpass the West. That was his big idea.”

After decades of hype and false starts, electric vehicles are on course to represent a significant segment of the auto industry. This year, China’s production of NEVs is expected to reach one million vehicles, a 26 per cent increase from last year. The U.K., France and India are proposing bans on vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Wan was admitted to a PhD program in mechanical engineering at Clausthal University of Technology in Germany. When he graduated in 1991, job offers came from all the big German carmakers, but he picked Audi because it was the smallest and provided the best chances for promotion.

As an executive in Audi’s plan- ning department, Wan played the role of ambassador, showing its state-of-the-art factory in Ingolstadt to Chinese delegates trying to resurrect their decrepit auto industry. One guest was then-science minister Zhu Lilan, who took a liking to the engineer.

“Wan Gang was saying, ‘I want to create a system where we can be energy secure and there’s a more level playing field for our companies,’ ” said Bill Russo, a former Chrysler executive who now heads auto consultant Gao Feng Advisory in Beijing. “He knew you couldn’t win playing the old game.”

Today, there are more than 100 Chinese-made electric-car models on the market.

NEVs account for about one of every 20 passenger cars purchased in China, numbers likely to rise because of state incentives — Wan’s real legacy.

“Wan Gang ... knew you couldn’t win playing the old game.” BILL RUSSO FORMER CHRYSLER EXECUTIVE