101–110 of 651 posts
US/German manufacturers just do assembly, they don't manufacture parts, so they only need assembly plants. BYD is a vertically integrated manufacturer. They make everything in-house which helps drive down costs. This huge footprint results in having all those different manufacturing lines under one roof. They depend on no one for finished parts, the only supply chain is raw materials.
Can the west compete?
west can compete. unlike byd’s, which get bricked all the time without infrastructure to maintain and repair them, west (and japan even more so) build cars that last. this is china we are talking about, the last thing I want is a car made by them… :)
I wonder if they built that factory to be resistant to bombing and how much air defense they plan to put around it when they take Taiwan. I also wonder how fast it can be converted to spit out drones.
They won’t be able to take Taiwan. Taiwan has enough missiles to wipe out China’s navy 10x over before the US steps in with our navy
This isn't Desert Storm we're talking about here, China is a real threat.
Can the west compete?
west can compete. unlike byd’s, which get bricked all the time without infrastructure to maintain and repair them, west (and japan even more so) build cars that last. this is china we are talking about, the last thing I want is a car made by them… :)
All this to produce machines of 2T to displace 80kg of human on average (think about it, the battery weight more than what it actually need to move on average) and maintain/develop car dependency infrastructures. This is the worst way of improving our efficiency and progress toward a more optimized, efficient economy and reducing massively our climate and biodiversity impact. I want those kind of factories to produce…
Why can’t both be done? Bicycles are already cheap, and an electric bike can be purchased under $1000. Not everyone is capable of limiting their commute to the ~10 mile radius an e-bike easily permits. Some of us still need cars, unfortunately. Sometimes the weather is bad, or we have things to haul around, or multiple people to move. Is there some technology that enables high-speed travel and weighs less than a huma…
I can't even import those electric mama charis because of unwarranted concern about batteries.
Hard to support bike infrastructure when safetyism means bike routes are only for singles and the rich.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, BYD will be fine. And they know this is --- hence they are doubling the size of their already massive factory. Guess who won't be fine? US auto manufacturers. They won't be able to compete anywhere other than the USA. And China loves it.
US auto makers have been on the ropes since the 1980s. My hypothesis is that their heyday was 50s and 60s “greaser” culture and they kinda got their heads stuck in that era. “Golden ages” are incredibly dangerous. When people started wanting just practical small reliable affordable cars as the price of gas increased and cars became just an appliance they didn’t respond to that market and the Japanese did. It’s been e…
Without a doubt.
In about 2000 the US automakers sued the EPA because their proposed clean air regulations for about 2009 were "impossible".
They were actually more lax than what Japanese automakers were already selling cars for in the year 2000.
So the automakers sued the US government to admit that in 2009 they couldn't build cars that were as clean as cars Japan was already making in 2000. That says a lot.
All this to produce machines of 2T to displace 80kg of human on average (think about it, the battery weight more than what it actually need to move on average) and maintain/develop car dependency infrastructures. This is the worst way of improving our efficiency and progress toward a more optimized, efficient economy and reducing massively our climate and biodiversity impact. I want those kind of factories to produce…
All this to produce machines of 2T to displace 80kg of human on average (think about it, the battery weight more than what it actually need to move on average) and maintain/develop car dependency infrastructures. This is the worst way of improving our efficiency and progress toward a more optimized, efficient economy and reducing massively our climate and biodiversity impact. I want those kind of factories to produce…
I agree that cars are at least double the mass they need to be. The size of cars needed for a school run or to drive to work are generally quite small, but most people seem to have giant trucks for the occasional times they go camping or carry something large.
This is the reality in United States, but not in most of the world.
Can the west compete?
I think it is a matter of strategy and it seems China's strategy is innovation, science and productivity. We on the west seem to like consumption before everything else and IMHO we are doing it wrong.
0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42225091
1 - https://www.statista.com/chart/31337/new-installations-of-in...
All this to produce machines of 2T to displace 80kg of human on average (think about it, the battery weight more than what it actually need to move on average) and maintain/develop car dependency infrastructures. This is the worst way of improving our efficiency and progress toward a more optimized, efficient economy and reducing massively our climate and biodiversity impact. I want those kind of factories to produce…
If we are going to have cars, I’d prefer they be smaller, safer EVs contributing ⅓ the carbon footprint of the status quo. Every bit of savings buys years to make further changes, and it directly saves lives and improves quality of life for a billion people. Even if climate change was not happening, it’d be worth doing for the improvements in cardiovascular health, disruption of sleep patterns and other consequences of engine noise, local water and soil pollution, etc.