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The size of BYD's factory

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Re: The size of BYD's factory

#411

Post by digitalsurgeonz »

t0bia_s wrote: post #375
ninetyninenine wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We Americans have more to fear from economic and technological dominance than we do from military invasion. As a budding superpower ready to unseat the US from it's throan. All China has to do is wait for progress and time to run it's coarse and emerge the victor. If anything, the US is the tigger happy country as we watch the inevitable, looking for any excuse to use to stop them. Remember, why the hell does China g…

When your natural resources shrinking, you need to expand if your entire economy depending on that sources. China will soon be more aggressive as any other empires.

>China will soon be more aggressive as any other empires.

in its entire history it has never invaded outside its traditional borders, and it achieved all this without invading or enslaving people. It will continue this way in future too :)

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#412

Post by latentcall »

sangnoir wrote: post #307
refulgentis wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are prima facie wrong, their overcapacity is bad and actively harmful, this isn't a sign of it succeeding, its a sign of desperation from it failing. There's a type of Western mind that gets distracted by their scale, and getting to build things we built a century ago. Dazzled by the spectacle, this misses that their economy is characterized by deflationary headwinds due to a massive, massive over-investment in…

> There's a type of Western mind that gets distracted by their scale, and getting to build things we built a century ago Where in the US can one find the secret, cross-country high-speed rail built in the roaring twenties?! There's also a type of western mind that automatically dismisses the odds of a different country succeeding, based on nothing but the fact that they are using a different approach (on the surface)…

I agree and see it all the time just the general attitude towards China is disdain when they’re arguably way ahead of us and we just don’t want to admit it. They are full speed EV and we are attempting to roll it back.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#413

Post by digitalsurgeonz »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #197
hackernewds wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does they have to be a winner and loser. everyone can thrive? except the United States is being buoyed by two main elements. 1) the ability of the internet to extract value overseas while untaxed in the client country 2) The H1B visa which funnels the best talent from struggling countries 3) strong institutions and financial and education centers and 4) military industrial complex that thrives on basically manufa…

> why does they have to be a winner and loser. everyone can thrive? except the United States is being buoyed by two main elements. Why can’t there be a winner and a loser and both the winner and the loser cooperate and thrive with loser having the humility to admit he’s a loser? Isn’t this the same peaceful consequence? Just say China is better and admit inferiority for the everlasting peace. Why can’t you do it? Bec…

[flagged]

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#414

Post by lm28469 »

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #83

Can the west compete?

What does "the west" even means ? You can't find two countries that agree on half of the topics of the day, no matter how small or meaningless the topic is

Nope, we're too busy talking about our tiny little problems now (which flavor of politician will get to pillage the gold chest for themselves and their little friends for the next X years, ecology, genders, migration, &c.), and we already sold/moved all our heavy industries to... well... China. We're left with services but guess what, you don't build an healthy/sustainable economy on uber eats, airbnb and a crumbling public service system on the verge of dying due to demographic issues

Meanwhile China's totalitarian regime allows them to do things 10-100x times more efficiently than we could, mixed in with a bit of state capitalism, add the fact that they became our factories for pretty much everything, that they have access to most raw materials needed for pretty much anything. Sprinkle with a bit of spirit of revenge for the century of humiliation and you got a pretty good cocktail.

They have a long term vision, no counter powers, a fraction of our regulations and the will we lost sometimes in the last 50 years

Temu and Shein are 25% of packages transiting in France for example, they'll do the same things with their car, until they destroyed local companies, then they'll buy them for scraps. Can't blame them, we're letting them do it

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexandre-Monnin/public...

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#415

Post by verzali »

codedokode wrote: post #383
Dalewyn wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tariffs are a surcharge on imports added and demanded by the government, paid by the people or entities importing. As an example, if an American buys a Chinese coffee maker priced at $100 and there is a 50% tariff, there is a $50 tariff that is paid by the importing American to the American government. The total cost to the importing American is $150. Now, if this price is equal to or higher than an American coffee m…

> As another example, if Tesla sells Model 3s for $50,000 and BYD comes in with a similar spec car priced at $25,000, then putting a 100% tariff on it will drive BYD's effective price up to $50,000 allowing Tesla to compete without undercutting or outright selling at a loss. Doesn't that mean that American will have to pay $50 000 for a car that is worth $25 000? While people in other countries will be able to buy ca…

Yes. Tariffs are bad for consumers. The supposed benefit is to manufacturers, since in that scenario Tesla will be able to sell its cars at a higher price and profit.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#416

Post by maxglute »

ahartmetz wrote: post #242
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-...

The doubts about the size of the investment in that Wikipedia article are funny. It's a bit like "We cannot afford to invest in education", but the Chinese are saying "We cannot afford not to invest in education" (Famous quotes, it's more about R&D here). China's leadership is probably terrified of falling into the middle-income trap. It might be the biggest issue on their minds right now. At least I am watching from…

> terrified of falling into the middle-income trap

Not really, there's 2 middle income traps:

1) the ACTUAL trap / thesis - countries fail to educate / upgrade workforce enough to move up supply chains to generate high income employment to bring up income, the TRAP is lack of advancement, to which PRC is basically the LEAST trapped country in the world, pursuing industrial development in all high end sectors. Issues is PRC being highly developed in every sector = still not enough high end jobs for 1.4B people.

2) the economic middle income trap, for last few years, PRC consisitly a foreskin (low single %) below world bank definition/revision of upper income, people need to ask why that is? IMO it's because PRC DOESN'T WANT to be definitionally upper income to play up developing status, and lose related perks. It would be absolutely trivial for PRC to revaluate FX by a few % and cross nominal USD high income and take a huge victory lap, but they don't.

The reality is "hiding strength" is going ot be increasingly hard with time - PRC per capita is being brought down by 600m low income. The TLDR is bottom 4-5 quantiles, i.e. 40% very undereducated population who got left behind during modernization and generates about only ~5% of GDP. They skew old and will eventually phase out of stats (die) in next couple decades, and numerator is going to be increasingly high educated new cohorts working high income. Low/high income divide is largely generational, the future educated populations are going to be in disproportionately high income high skill jobs i.e. PRC is replacing 200m subsistent farmers with 200m tertiary workforce. If most of the 2 bottom quantile dies by 2050, PRC per capita will nearly double to medium high income simply doing nothing, with PPP to rival upper-high income if they hold on to production. Short of unforseen catastrophe, it's statistic inevitability.

That's without mentioning FX, i.e. PRC securing enough economic clout = eventually ability to flex the FX lever to multiply nominal GDP faster than actual growth.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#417

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

mike_hearn wrote: post #379
sangnoir wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a type of Western mind that gets distracted by their scale, and getting to build things we built a century ago Where in the US can one find the secret, cross-country high-speed rail built in the roaring twenties?! There's also a type of western mind that automatically dismisses the odds of a different country succeeding, based on nothing but the fact that they are using a different approach (on the surface)…

> Where in the US can one find the secret, cross-country high-speed rail built in the roaring twenties?! Nowhere because the USA has an excellent internal flight and interstate highway system instead. Railways were already becoming uncompetitive by the 1920s and now live on mostly in parts of the world where they already exist, where land is at a premium. The reason people think China will crash is that their system…

> Nowhere because the USA has an excellent internal flight and interstate highway system instead. Railways were already becoming uncompetitive by the 1920s and now live on mostly in parts of the world where they already exist, where land is at a premium.

The fact that railways were becoming uncompetitive in the mid-1900s is why high-speed rail was developed. The Japanese pioneered high-speed rail in the 1960s, dramatically increasing the speed that passenger trains could run. That not only made trains competitive again, but hands-down the best mode of transportation for distances of a few hundred kilometers. The result is that new high-speed rail networks are being built around the world, not just in places where rail is already prominent.

In places where high-speed rail exists, it has taken most of the market share away from short-haul flights. If you want to get from Paris to Brussels (300 km), or from Beijing to Shanghai (1200 km), you take the train. This is despite the fact that Western Europe and China have excellent highway networks (China's highway network is now superior to the US interstate system) and plenty of airports.

> China is still a communist country: we know how that story ends and why.

China is not at all like the USSR.

> NASA didn't impress him, but the 30,000+ products for sale in a mundane shop blew him away.

China has an absolutely crazy abundance of consumer products. These days, Americans turn to Ali Express to get random widgets or knick-knacks of any kind. China is the place where you can pull out your smartphone, order pretty much anything, and have it arrive by courier 15 minutes later (okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but not much of one).

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#418

Post by flyingpenguin »

harrall wrote: post #75
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.

I believe outsourcing can be a symptom of not innovating anymore. Imagine having to contract out every prototype to a metal working shop — it slows down your ability to iterate because you can’t just go downstairs and try it . But once you have a design set in stone, outsourcing is cheaper than doing it in-house. These companies specialize in producing parts with economies of scale. But if you do it for too long, you…

I think its a symptom of economies of scale being able to go too far. Cost per unit seems to keep going down basically infinitely and it is a problem.

Making less than 10,000 of anything just doesn't seem to make economic sense unless you assume there is a chance no one will want any of them.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#419

Post by p_j_w »

codedokode wrote: post #383
Dalewyn wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tariffs are a surcharge on imports added and demanded by the government, paid by the people or entities importing. As an example, if an American buys a Chinese coffee maker priced at $100 and there is a 50% tariff, there is a $50 tariff that is paid by the importing American to the American government. The total cost to the importing American is $150. Now, if this price is equal to or higher than an American coffee m…

> As another example, if Tesla sells Model 3s for $50,000 and BYD comes in with a similar spec car priced at $25,000, then putting a 100% tariff on it will drive BYD's effective price up to $50,000 allowing Tesla to compete without undercutting or outright selling at a loss. Doesn't that mean that American will have to pay $50 000 for a car that is worth $25 000? While people in other countries will be able to buy ca…

It means exactly that. It also means the American company will feel less pressure to improve cost or quality.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#420

Post by latentcall »

meiraleal wrote: post #351
Epa095 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that life on minimal wage is comfortable, it's that we have been told for a generation now that 'just get a college degree and it will be fine'. Happily amplified by for-profit education investing a lot of money lying to young people (ads). Ask your local waiter with a college degree if they would have studied something else if they got the chance. My experience is that many would.

> Ask your local waiter with a college degree if they would have studied something else if they got the chance. My experience is that many would. The problem of bad choices is orthogonal to the problem you are describing.

In high school the administration specifically stated that just going to college was good enough. They encouraged people to get English, philosophy, history degrees if that’s what they wanted. If you’re 17 and like history class it seems like a logical next step. They didn’t tell you you won’t be able to find work.
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