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The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

bloomberg.com

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Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#31

Post by ggm »

incompatible wrote: post #14
hairytrog wrote: post #7

There's tons of performance bike manufacturers with minimal variation. Reason is its easy - not that many parts, parts easily configured and modular, easy to build, low maintenance. Maybe EVs are similar. lower complexity than fossil engines (fewer parts and complexity moves down the supply chain). Perhaps such a large number of vehicle producers is sustainable. The real ev companies are the companies making batterie…

That would be similar to the dozens of Android phone brands. But new industries sometimes start that way, but eventually shake out into an oligopoly.

But new industries sometimes start that way, but eventually shake out into an oligopoly. The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index might say that's enough functional competition to sustain a good outcome. It depends. It's why we have in ICE engines anyway these days.

Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#33

Post by simonh »

incompatible wrote: post #14
hairytrog wrote: post #7

There's tons of performance bike manufacturers with minimal variation. Reason is its easy - not that many parts, parts easily configured and modular, easy to build, low maintenance. Maybe EVs are similar. lower complexity than fossil engines (fewer parts and complexity moves down the supply chain). Perhaps such a large number of vehicle producers is sustainable. The real ev companies are the companies making batterie…

That would be similar to the dozens of Android phone brands. But new industries sometimes start that way, but eventually shake out into an oligopoly.

I think cars are a bit different. Mobile phones all look the same and function largely the same and are used in similar use cases. The environments cars are used in, patterns of usage and level of customisation people care about are incredibly diverse. Apple has a massive market share with just a few phone models with limited options on each, but all the major car makers have many, many models each with endless customisations. The market supports enormous diversity.

Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#34

Post by rumanator »

AFascistWorld wrote: post #10

Note many of these are just forced by policies to "make" EV if they want to continue making traditional vehicles, others are just making money off of policies and subsidies, buyers are mostly forced to buy it due to license plate quotas. EVs' reputation in China is going downhill ever faster, it's been called "electric daddy". Urban area is extremely dense so it's lucky to find a place to charge where it hasn't been…

> Urban area is extremely dense so it's lucky to find a place to charge where it hasn't been ocupied, many place refuse to turn on chargers.

Plugging a car to the power grid is just one of many solutions to the problem of powering a car. There are other ways to solve the same problem, which in totalitarian regimes with a centrally planned economy are easier to implement, such as swapping pre-charged batteries.

Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#35

Post by rumanator »

notaki wrote: post #25

"Electric-Car Bubble"... "EV sales make up just 4 percent of overall passenger vehicle sales of 23.7 million units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers." Yup, definitely sounds like a bubble. Smog is their main problem, and EVs are the solution. Exponential growth will continue. And I'm tired of these anti-EV/anti-Tesla articles from Bloomberg.

> Smog is their main problem, and EVs are the solution.

They are not the solution. They represent a specific way to mitigate the problem by reducing the output of a very specific type of emissions.

I'd argue that setting up a functioning mass transit network in urban areas does more to lower emissions than switching powertrains in personal vehicles.

Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#36

Post by agumonkey »

hairytrog wrote: post #7

There's tons of performance bike manufacturers with minimal variation. Reason is its easy - not that many parts, parts easily configured and modular, easy to build, low maintenance. Maybe EVs are similar. lower complexity than fossil engines (fewer parts and complexity moves down the supply chain). Perhaps such a large number of vehicle producers is sustainable. The real ev companies are the companies making batterie…

I also see a shift in how cars are seen. Before they were a high grade cultural item. A blend of technology, lifestyle, time saver... Now it's starting to look more and more as a commodity, and even a problematic one in case of ICE due to CO2.

Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#37

Post by Retric »

majia wrote: post #30
dragonsh wrote: post #11

In China this is common when everyone wants to do or appear to do Govt promoted ideas and schemes to get govt subsidy. [1] If they do not act in time someone else will get it. It works somewhat similar to startup world where one raise money with compelling story, just in this case instead of VC it's govt money. Some survive and become big, but most fail. Obviously some are outright fraud. [1] https://www.scmp.com/new…

Gov is more likely to be schemed than VC because those who make investment decision don’t get as much reward/punishment. However, for the same reason, gov can also invest in projects with long term benefits. So gov is not intrinsically good or bad; it’s really about good governance.

I don’t know if that’s true. Overselling becomes less enticing to these administrators. It’s really a question if less motivated but more rational people are better at these decisions.

That said, there is plenty of incompetence, fraud, and corruption to make the worst on both sides really bad.

Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#38

Post by the-dude »

petre wrote: post #21
adrianN wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lowers the complexity sufficiently that traditional car makers in Germany are huffing and puffing about tens of thousands of jobs that won't be needed anymore.

Maybe they want subsidies. The German econony is slowing and this is another reason: people delay the purchase of an ICE vehicle indefinitely (they're going to be banned by 2030s in almost every country), diesel sales are at all time lows (emissions compliance) and the auto industry is stuck with the inventory.

AFAIK know, ICE vehicle sales will be banned around that time.

Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#39

Post by jp555 »

hairytrog wrote: post #7

There's tons of performance bike manufacturers with minimal variation. Reason is its easy - not that many parts, parts easily configured and modular, easy to build, low maintenance. Maybe EVs are similar. lower complexity than fossil engines (fewer parts and complexity moves down the supply chain). Perhaps such a large number of vehicle producers is sustainable. The real ev companies are the companies making batterie…

An ICE wiring harness costs more than the transmission, and I’ve only heard Tesla getting patents on significant innovations around the wiring harness component. All the other EVs, (including current Teslas) use old wiring harness tech, which has evolved into quite a plate-of-spaghetti of a standard.

I’m really looking forward to see what Tesla comes up with on the Y.

Re: The $18B Electric-Car Bubble at Risk of Bursting in China

#40

Post by jdietrich »

Gravityloss wrote: post #28
Zanni wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this was an interesting point even if "similar number" was an exaggeration by an order of magnitude. Then I clicked through. Holy shit. If anything it's an underestimate. Hundreds and hundreds of American car companies that lived for what looks like an average of two or three years, clustered around 1910. Seriously, worth taking a look.

Cars were a lot simpler back then though.

An EV is much simpler than an ICE car. Modern EVs use what is known as a "skateboard" platform, with the wheels, powertrain and battery forming a flat package. For western manufacturers, this means that they can build anything from a family car to a panel van on essentially the same platform, massively reducing development costs; Chinese startups can just buy a skateboard as a rolling chassis and bolt a body on top. It's essentially a return to the old body-on-frame approach that dominated prior to the 1960s.

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/skateboard-chassis-electr...

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