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The size of BYD's factory

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Re: The size of BYD's factory

#171

Post by peterbecich »

wbl wrote: post #34
api wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The US consumer does not buy small new cars.

I agree with you. I.m.o. consumer preference is the root cause of the issue.

The 2008 bailout had some strings attached to modernize. I believe the Chevrolet Spark was one of these strings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Spark#Third_generati.... It was eventually discontinued.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#172

Post by mrtksn »

hackernewds wrote: post #161
mrtksn wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the west is that it’s already developed. Everything in the west is a bit like the European automobile industry, it’s highly refined for what it is and we expect to milk it for some time to come. Same thing happened with the financial institutions and internet infrastructure - those who had the early versions of it established early ended up lagging behind once the technology was superseded. The poore…

strongly disagree. the West has almost no manufacturing capability or labor force (at an affordable rate) at the moment. it's almost unsustainable even for a small business to be paying $20 an hour in some cities let alone run large factories

Is it maybe because centering divs was much better career choice than dealing with machines and chemicals for more than a decade now? If that’s changing and manufacturing becomes a need, it should correct by itself.

The west, especially the USA invested gargantuan money into high margin high scale businesses and the Chinese worked their way up in dealing with atoms with help of the west. Now they too can do many of the high margin stuff and the west will have to re-learn how to deal with atoms. It happened because the west’s rich were simply shittier than Chinese bureaucrats and invested badly by choosing wrong KPI or ideas. Wonder what happens if the AI thing doesn’t pan out after pouring enormous money on it(instead of on something strategically important but not as potentially lucrative).

IMHO things are reversible, especially for the USA. Europe is in a worse place as its demographics and energy situation is less favorable.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#173

Post by bobthepanda »

hackernewds wrote: post #156
toomuchtodo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With China's real estate sector stagnating (because they've built enough housing for future demand to an excess, broadly speaking), all of that capacity is moving towards clean energy manufacturing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025 https://thediplomat.com/2024/04/how-china-became-the-worlds-...

China scaling and efficiency is really something else. it seems they've latched on to something that works better than even democracy and capitalism

They’re certainly good at building.

Actually utilizing that capacity is something else entirely; there are factories less than ten years old shuttering due to overcapacity. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/business/china-auto-facto...

And the rush to subsidize more capacity is a big contributor to local government debt burdens in China, which is estimated to leave Chinese debt to GDP at 117%.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#174

Post by peterbecich »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #88
wbl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US consumer does not buy small new cars.

As has been pointed out, they sure did in the 70's when there was a huge financial incentive. I expect that acting like all American's want are $60K+ luxury cars is what is going to take the US auto industry into the next massive downward spiral.

I.m.o. consumer weight on safety has dramatically increased since the 70s. Frugality has decreased. Of course it is an arms race with all the other giant cars already on the road. Consequently GM etc. are trying to appease US consumers with giant EVs.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#175

Post by aaron695 »

zokier wrote: post #153

It's 2024, we can do better than blurry horribly blown out pictures these days. Check for example https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=34.39719,113.94792&z=15&t=SL&mar... for cleaner shot of the site (zoom in few notches for extra details). Google Maps annoyingly cuts half-way through the factory site. edit: that ACME mapper image looks to be from mid-2023, in more recent imagery the construction on the east side has been com…

[dead]

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#176

Post by moffkalast »

Archelaos wrote: post #86
poniko wrote: post #3

The scale is just insane .. hard to comprehend a 3km/2mi wide factory.

To my knowledge the largest factory in the world is BASF Ludwigshafen (Germany) with 10 km². Here is an aerial photo: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:LudwigshafenBASF2017-0... Followed by Volkswagen Wolfsburg (also Germany) with 6.5 km². Seems the BYD factory is competing with it for rank #2.

I don't think BASF really counts, it's more of a factorio district and not one single insanely large building.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#177

Post by luckylion »

_aaed wrote: post #118
Archelaos wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge the largest factory in the world is BASF Ludwigshafen (Germany) with 10 km². Here is an aerial photo: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:LudwigshafenBASF2017-0... Followed by Volkswagen Wolfsburg (also Germany) with 6.5 km². Seems the BYD factory is competing with it for rank #2.

It will be 50 sq. km by the time the extension is finished [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1859149340897628545

The wording is confusing, but I believe the Zhengzhou International Land Port is 50sqkm, not the factory. That also fits the numbers they're giving [1]: "Zhengzhou International Land Port Project announced ——total area of around 50 square kilometers", and that includes a lot of "open-air warehouse" (parking lot). It's still massive, but not quite as crazy.

1: https://www.zzhkgq.gov.cn/2024/01-28/2944537.html

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#178

Post by SoftTalker »

edot wrote: post #100
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27

The number of construction vehicles doing something versus sitting around waiting for labor in that shot is impressive.

Yeah, I have never seen something like that in America in my life. Always plenty of machines sitting around, and every few weeks some guys will hop on them for the day, but other than that they just sit there. It almost looks AI generated how densely packed those are - though I assume that this is real footage.

And what blows my mind is that if I want to rent a tractor with a front loader for some landscaping work it’s hundreds a day. Yet even larger commercial earth moving equipment sits around unused for weeks.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#179

Post by skybrian »

zokier wrote: post #153

It's 2024, we can do better than blurry horribly blown out pictures these days. Check for example https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=34.39719,113.94792&z=15&t=SL&mar... for cleaner shot of the site (zoom in few notches for extra details). Google Maps annoyingly cuts half-way through the factory site. edit: that ACME mapper image looks to be from mid-2023, in more recent imagery the construction on the east side has been com…

When you zoom out far enough in ACME mapper, the factory disappears. (I'm guessing that's an older image.)

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#180

Post by SoftTalker »

ChumpGPT wrote: post #19

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.

Wasn’t always that way. Ford’s River Rouge plant took iron ore in one end, and rolled automobiles out the other end.
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