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The size of BYD's factory

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Re: The size of BYD's factory

#571

Post by [deleted] »

petesergeant wrote: post #564
coliveira wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that old people in US and specially Europe expect to maintain their life standards, which are quite high. That's difficult in the middle of a demographic downturn. But that's not the case for elderly people in China. Even if their numbers do increase over time, the productivity of younger generations is so large compared to them, that they can effectively be supported with little problems for the Chinese…

To be clear, which of the newly-industrialized countries classically described as being in the middle income trap do you think that's not true of? Like is China going to be different from Mexico here because abuelas are demanding a high-standard of living?

[deleted]

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#572

Post by shiroiushi »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #36
edhelas wrote: post #25

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…

>Sometimes the weather is bad, or we have things to haul around, or multiple people to move.

150cm-tall women here in Tokyo have no trouble with all of the above on a bicycle. If they can do it, so can you. They have e-bikes with child seats and cargo baskets, and they wear rain gear when it's raining.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#573

Post by fspeech »

fspeech wrote: post #568
petesergeant wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, which of the newly-industrialized countries classically described as being in the middle income trap do you think that's not true of? Like is China going to be different from Mexico here because abuelas are demanding a high-standard of living?

The word "middle class trap" only makes sense for China based on FX rate. Rich Chinese will continue to diversify if not outright emigrate while the middle class is trapped by necessity. Meanwhile the savings/investment rate is so high that the Chinese middle class will enjoy things that middle classes in few other countries have, once normalized for population density. Right now they already lead in industrial robot…

For example, Chinese coffee chains are beating Starbucks in China:

"The pace of growth of domestic coffee chains has been impressive in the past year. Luckin’s performance has been especially strong. It has proved sceptics, who once saw its ultra-cheap coffee prices and high costs as a flawed business model, wrong this year. Luckin Coffee’s operating margin hit 15.3 per cent in the latest quarter as net revenues rose more than 40 per cent to $1.5bn, adding to annual sales that nearly doubled last year. It opened 1,400 new stores in the latest quarter, bringing its total to 21,300. Meanwhile, signs of the pressure are showing with same-store sales at Starbucks down 14 per cent in China last quarter."

"Automation, a rapidly growing trend in the local coffee chain industry, is helping margins during a time when costs are rising, especially delivery, sales and marketing expenses. Cotti, which has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2022, is pushing out coffee-making robots. Luckin has fully automated pour-over coffee machines. Luckin’s coffee robots and unmanned coffee shops were key to maintaining growth during the pandemic."

https://www.ft.com/content/5f070e18-3249-4bec-999b-56535cf25...

And you would be hard pressed to find anyone middle aged or older that actually drinks any coffee.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#574

Post by [deleted] »

shiroiushi wrote: post #572
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Sometimes the weather is bad, or we have things to haul around, or multiple people to move. 150cm-tall women here in Tokyo have no trouble with all of the above on a bicycle. If they can do it, so can you. They have e-bikes with child seats and cargo baskets, and they wear rain gear when it's raining.

[deleted]

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#575

Post by syndicatedjelly »

shiroiushi wrote: post #572
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Sometimes the weather is bad, or we have things to haul around, or multiple people to move. 150cm-tall women here in Tokyo have no trouble with all of the above on a bicycle. If they can do it, so can you. They have e-bikes with child seats and cargo baskets, and they wear rain gear when it's raining.

I ride my bike a lot, but in fact need a car where I live if I want to go 10 miles in less than an hour. This is common in most of the US, and we don’t like this lifestyle either. Biking on the street with high speed traffic is not safe here, regardless of your height.

Things are changing in the US. Car-centrism is on its way out, and walkable cities designed for humans are in. I’m really inspired by the new developments in my area. After covid, many US downtowns permanently shut down car traffic on core interior roads, and it’s made the experience 10x better.

I agree, Tokyo is one of the most incredible places I’ve ever visited. I’ve tried to retain some of the sensibilities I observed there, and incorporate them into my lifestyle. Amsterdam similarly inspired me to revisit my lifestyle. If you hate the system you live in, make improvements!

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#576

Post by bee_rider »

ceejayoz wrote: post #495
sangnoir wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced Do you suppose Yeltsin didn't have access to the uncensored information before his visit? Or that Soviet spies who sent in hyper-accurate maps of US city infrastructure wouldn't be asked to report on the booming economic success of American retail?

Russian intelligence hiding bad news entirely from Russian leadership is a long standing tradition. It's how we get three-day special operations in Ukraine. Case in point: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-war-russia-genera...

I think that is a different issue. There’s an incentive to not report problems upwards if there’s a tradition of shooting the messenger.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#577

Post by _DeadFred_ »

MaxPock wrote: post #331
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government bailed out GM under Obama. Do you know what GM did this month? They spent billions on stock buybacks and millions on bonuses while firing a ton of people. F'em. They aren't a car company, they are a stock company that happens to make cars, a route most large American companies seem to be taking (see also Boeing, whose management cares so much about/is detached from their product that they relocated…

China is a 30 million a year car market and up until 2 years ago,GM used to sell more cars in China than in the US . It was an incredible cash cow .

It was so weird going to China backing in the early 2010's and seeing everyone driving Buicks. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't a sea of Buicks.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#578

Post by tomcam »

Aperocky wrote: post #265
tomcam wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course we can motivate ourselves. But they're acting like we did in the 1800s through the mid 1900s. They just build anywhere no matter what. They have no interest in dealing with environmental concerns. The officially released pollution levels in China are mind-boggling and they still do not represent how bad it really is. You think US manufacturers wouldn't be delighted to just buy a few hundred acres land and s…

The air quality in China is lot better now than a decade ago. The smog was so bad in 2012 and I remembered the AQI hitting 999 (the max it would go) on more than one occasions during Beijing winter. Went back again in early 2024 and it was so much better, pollution still noticeable on more days than not but at least half the time I spent had AQI below 100.

True and good on them, but I suspect you’re not hanging out in a lot of the backwater provinces where industrial development is happening

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#579

Post by MichaelZuo »

Symbiote wrote: post #536
MichaelZuo wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Not all countries are like China. Other places could have a helpful bureaucracy, or one that ignores the laws, or accepts bribes.

How does this matter when the country is known ahead of time, and the relevant laws, the details, etc., are all widely known to be nowhere near identical?

It’s not like someone could accidentally board a flight to China and clear immigration by happenstance, or without being informed that things may be very different from their home country.

Re: The size of BYD's factory

#580

Post by fspeech »

coliveira wrote: post #519
JackFr wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those old enough to remember, we heard it all before in the 1980's about Japan so experience has made us circumspect. But even more so, markets enforce discipline on capital that state directed firms don't have. Everyone decries executives who "only look as far as next quarter's profits", and while admittedly at the margins that can have perverse incentives, in the large it demands that management put capital to…

This "market discipline" also requires that companies only look for their immediate future and next quarter profits. This makes it hard to do anything long term, which is exactly what China is doing. Even companies like Google, that expressly said to make decisions based on a long term view, are pushed by the markets to consider only their current profits, which reflects in the changes we see in the company.

Most Chinese firms are also very short term focused as the Chinese would regularly lament. But somehow as a system they show persistence. A good example is the solar industry with many bankruptcies of the earlier giants, yet the baton gets passed on and they keep at it. I think because of the sky high savings rate they can afford (or even prefer) to have asset heavy industries. Even with financial failures the hard assets get passed on (as opposed to financial firms). Large projects are funded by loans. Banks prefer hard assets because they have collateral. Equity holders contribute through intangibles, i.e. operating expertise. If they fail banks foreclose and find new operators. US used to be like that. Railroads, airlines, factories etc routinely go through bankruptcies. But the equity markets learned their lessons and now hate hard assets. With heavy asset you need leverage to get decent ROE which makes you vulnerable to the business cycle and puts you in a weak position bargaining with third parties like unions, class action lawyers or debt holders.
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