There's a tendency for car industry watchers to view the rapid UK progress of leading Chinese marques as some kind of unearned overnight success, predicated on their ability to sell advanced cars at lower prices than anyone else.
There is an element of truth to this, not least the recognition decades ago by China's long-termist government that the global electrified car market would be a prime target for future domination and its unswerving efforts ever since to create the conditions for high-achieving companies to succeed. But the recent, increasingly impressive progress of Chinese car companies towards this lofty ambition - with Tesla-beating BYD nowadays most prominent of them all - disguises the years of sweat and toil, reverses, failures, mistakes and blind alleys strewn along the potholed path to success.
