The size of BYD's factory • Hacker News Board

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#431

Post by bee_rider » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 3:59 PM UTC

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…

Yeltsin was trying to reform the Soviet system. He was a party higher up, surely he knew what he’d find in a supermarket. He’d had a long political career by the. My guy says the supermarket tour was “staged” in the sense that he knew what he was going to find and he knew what reaction would be politically helpful for his project.

This isn’t to say the Soviet Union was, like, a good pleasant place to live. But we shouldn’t accept Soviet propaganda just because it happens to align with our priors.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#432

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:04 PM UTC

cnity wrote: post #427

Why do I read most tweets as if they are trying to sell me on something extremely urgent that I must know about? As if the thing they are telling me must be known or else I will be left behind? Something about the sentence structure? Anyone else have this feeling? It's why I had to uninstall Twitter in the end, I hate it.

[deleted]

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#433

Post by bluGill » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:04 PM UTC

MaxPock wrote: post #326

XorNot wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's when an authoritarian government wants something they'll get it. And by get it I mean "they'll take your house, ignore any local environment concerns and possibly just demolish entire villages and generational livelihoods". Everyone seems to have some "oh how great it is they just get things done " as though they haven't diligently turned up to complain about some development application of the local council…

From my visits to China, lI've come to conclude that Chinese people have more property rights than Westerners . I saw roads built around houses because villagers refused to sell. Eminent domain doesn't seem to exist there

Details matter. Chinese have more in some areas, less in others. China also sometimes does things just for a show, so maybe that villager was allowed to now sell so they could off how progressive they were - while they take lots of other property. China also has a corruption problem (as does all countries!), maybe that villager belonged to the CCP and so had extra rights.

Until we get down to details it is hard to say who as more rights. And even when we have to weigh rights, if you don't care about a right does it matter that you don't have it?

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#434

Post by bluGill » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:07 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #281

edot wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They're building a large carwash facility near me and have taken over a year to get to the point of putting the roofs onto some steel framed sheds. I constantly think of the time when we were able to build the Empire State Building in 13 months.

They just built a car wash near me, just a few months from start to finish. I don't know what is going on with the one near you, but it isn't a US thing.

Of course car washes are a case where I could see someone building one to keep their crews busy between other better paying jobs. Thus have lots of stops as other projects come in. there isn't much investment sitting and there is value to a contractor to keep their crews busy (read paid!) even when there is no other work. I could see a car wash company agreeing to a build this over 2 years for a discount even though there are only a few months of work - for both it could be financially beneficial.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#435

Post by snapcaster » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:09 PM UTC

passwordoops wrote: post #4

jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

Just wait till Trump hits 'em with tariffs. That'll fix 'em --- NOT! China is rapidly de-carbonizing and leaving the West behind. https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-renewa...

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-has-more-than-... For reference, England consumed 1 billion tons of coal during it's peak coal consumption decade . So please stop with the "China is decarbonizing" crap, because they are not. A more accurate statement is "China understands the importance of energy and is applying an as-much-of-everything-approach to achieve its industrial goals"

They're making insane progress and they are decarbonizing in terms of their energy mix. Can you and others please stop with never letting china receive any praise for anything? it's so annoying when people seem incapable of pointing to ANYTHING in china and being like "nice". Is there anything positive you'll credit china with in this space or just nitpick?

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#436

Post by snapcaster » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:12 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #58

malermeister wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the Chinese will invade their neighbors?

Because that's what authoritarians invariably do. They abhor liberal democracies and seek to extend their domineering control over as many people as they can. The CCP is an absolutely tyrannical organization that denies their own citizens the rights that you and I take for granted. Why would they ever desire their neighbours to have what they deny their own people? Look no further than Hong Kong and North Korea to se…

It's so funny to read stuff like this and compare it to the united states which during my lifetime has invaded so many different countries and killed countless people across the world. Not saying China is great, but come on man if you had to pick one country that is invasion happy it's not china...

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#437

Post by mike_hearn » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:16 PM UTC

matthewdgreen wrote: post #388

mike_hearn wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's emissions are continuing to climb sharply: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?country=CHN~USA~IND... The New Scientist article is terribly misleading. It suggests China's emissions have peaked because of a few months of reported stable numbers. What they don't tell you is that such periods have happened many times before. Between 2014-2016 Chinese emissions were stable or even fell slightly, according t…

The analysis in New Scientist isn't based historical trends. It's a causal analysis based on the rapid deployment of new low-carbon generation on China's grid, which is being deployed at rates higher than expected demand. Of course you could be right -- maybe forward demand will be much higher than anticipated, or maybe all of those solar panels will turn out not to be plugged in or something. But you need to make a…

Yes, but such stories have been pushed for many years. If we look at the period before the 2017+ rampup in emissions we can see the same sorts of talk about China's solar ramp:

https://www.google.com/search?q=china+solar+deployment&sca_e...

"China's Solar Surge Presents Future Opportunity"

"China ramps up renewable energy deployment"

"Why China Is Leading The World In Solar Power"

etc. Solar can't replace fossil fuels so it's not unexpected that Chinese emissions would continue to grow.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#438

Post by mike_hearn » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:20 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #431

mike_hearn wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yeltsin was trying to reform the Soviet system. He was a party higher up, surely he knew what he’d find in a supermarket. He’d had a long political career by the. My guy says the supermarket tour was “staged” in the sense that he knew what he was going to find and he knew what reaction would be politically helpful for his project. This isn’t to say the Soviet Union was, like, a good pleasant place to live. But we sho…

He didn't according to his biographer, and it definitely wasn't staged. The bafflement of his hosts is well recorded, as were his questions and his expressions as he explored the shop, see the photo on this page:

https://www.cato.org/blog/happy-yeltsin-supermarket-day

Soviet supermarkets were drastically more impoverished at that time. No comparison.

Censorship is a problem because it affects everyone, especially the higher ups. That's why he'd got into the habit of demanding surprise inspections. As a factory manager he'd accepted that everyone was always hiding the truth from him. In systems like that there isn't any point in the hierarchy where you your boss takes you to one side and says Boris, listen, there's a vault with all our secrets and truths, let me show you. It never happens. The people at the top have to believe in the system the most of all.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#439

Post by russli1993 » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:21 PM UTC

throwawaymaths wrote: post #196

kjellsbells wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to say the same things about things made in Taiwan, then Japan, and then China, for things like electronics and white goods. It was true - until suddenly it wasn't. In engineering you ultimately have to build stuff. Over, and over, and over again. You'll mess it up a lot at first, and then one day you'll realize that you haven't. China is not stuck in 1965 trying to make an EV out of a saucepan and a back…

Yeah but Japan has long had a cultural obsession with delivering high quality products. I don't know if China ever did, but if it did, much of it was wiped out during cultural revolution and replaced with succeed at all costs. And there is a difference between success and excellence. For example there have been zero bullet train fatalities in its entire history, and several Chinese HSR fatal accidents already. For po…

Please show the news of several Chinese HSR fatal accidents, except the 2011 wenzhou hsr accident which happened during the early days of operation that everyone knows about, and it has been a decade since.

"For political reasons the quality of the HSR wheels in China took a sharp downturn so expect more accidents in the coming two years." if this doesn't happen, are you going to apologize for your lies, propaganda, defamation?

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#440

Post by MichaelZuo » Mon, Nov 25, 2024, 4:21 PM UTC

mazugrin2 wrote: post #409

MichaelZuo wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you expect local officials to stick their necks out for you? They don’t make the relevant laws but can be punished by higher authorities for breaking them. Unless it could be legally guranteed any potential punishment would be transferred to your team’s shoulders, it’s bizarre to expect someone else sitting in some municipal office to take the risk.

Why did you expect a foreigner who is not from China to realize that they'd be inhibited by the local authorities from doing work they were invited to do by those same local authorities? It's bizarre to think that it's bizarre that a foreigner might merely express some surprise by that.

Which would make sense if it was assumed there were only a few people in the entire bureaucracy… but doesn’t make sense when everyone involved knows, ahead of time, there are millions...

Probably thousands even in some random small city.

I’m guessing no one on the team had ever coordinated even a thousand people before on some complex legal issue. So it’s just bizarre to suddenly expect anyone capable of that would do so on their behalf and reach out with invitations…