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BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

electrek.co

101–110 of 467 posts

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% tariff and political threats -- implying that they'd find a way to mark them as "unsafe", despite the fact that Canada and Europe tend to have higher safety standards than the US and already have BYD presence. You can see the political groundwork being laid here. https://homeland.house.gov/2025/05/21/homeland-republicans-p... If these concerns are so pressing, why do we allow any electronics at all from China? I…

Some level of protectionism is in the best interest of national security. How is the local electronics industry that you referenced in the US doing? What is the ramification of eliminating the job market for engineers or discarding all of the US manufacturing know how? The CCP knows the answer to that question

The reason I called out Lada in my original comment is because it's a counterpoint to what you just said. The Lada was the result of too much protectionism. Produced from an empire that was too inward looking and feared interacting with the rest of the world on equal terms.

BYD keeps performing well in the rest of the world. If we hold US consumers hostage to prop up companies like Tesla, we risk allowing them to stagnate.

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#102

Why should Australians or Dutch people have loyalty to foreign car industry? Who killed Holden or DAF? It wasn't BYD lol.

You should be loyal only to the extent that the loyalty helps some interests of yours. That is if the car industry ensures military equipment should you need it. (or alternatively you are going to war and don't want them to have the expertise that a car industry has).

For those not paying attention to geopolitics, Taiwan is the real concern here. China wants to control them, and is building a strong military. How the future will play out I don't know, but this should be your concern.

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#103
post #85

BYD has to me become an icon of US decline vs Chinese expansion. It’s just one example among many of China charting the way forward and innovating while the US recedes further into backward-looking, protectionist policy. See: US politicians on both sides trying to ban BYD imports rather than incentivizing stiffer competition from US automakers. Another example: massive growth in Chinese renewables while the US opens…

It seems like BYD is a much bigger threat to Europe (specifically Germany) and Japan. The auto industry is big in the US but an insignificant amount of total exports. Germany and Japan could both lose their cash cows if the Chinese auto industry dominates international sales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicle_e...

That's not really like with like. If you divided the states in USA into countries, their sales would be "international". The designation is misleading.

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#104
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BYD has pretty amazing tech to be honest, but putting protectionism as an argument against the US and pro BYD in the same sentence is naive at best. The CCP allowed BYD to exist and the CCP can end BYD in a single weekend regardless of any human right concerns elsewhere.

> the CCP can end BYD in a single weekend Seeing the way tech companies behave makes me think they fear Trump the same way. for example, Tim Apple certainly crawls up Trumps arse.

I don't mean to downplay Trump's strongarming of industry or the obsequiousness shown by tech leaders, but let's be real, it's not remotely the same level of control.

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world before all of the big beautiful tariffs. It's depressing that we can't buy BYD in the USA. It's feeling more and more like being stuck with a Lada in the 1980s.

Are BYD cars specifically banned or do they just not comply with all the US regulations?

Global automakers typically make small modifications to vehicles for different markets. Cars, like most engineered products, are built to a list of design criteria. BYD, like every large automaker that does this, has capable engineers that can target any regulatory specification you give them. They already do it for all of the other markets they sell in, just as every global automaker does.

Chinese cars don't exist in the US because of laws specifically designed to prevent their sale here. The tariff for Chinese EVs was increased to 100% a couple of years ago when it was rumored that BYD was going to move to the US market. And currently, there is a bill circulating to ban them entirely.

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#106
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has surpassed the US in total energy generation, and the gap is growing in their favor every year. Japan never surpassed the US in power or industrial output. China is different. They’ve clearly surpassed the US in some key areas.

I would certainly expect a country with 4x the population of the US, which is used as the center of global manufacturing, to need a lot of power. I’m not sure that’s something that anyone should be concerned about from a geopolitical point of view. Likewise expecting Japan to have ever done the same is… silly.

You're not concerned about the biggest army in the world flexing its muscles?

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#107

BYD has to me become an icon of US decline vs Chinese expansion. It’s just one example among many of China charting the way forward and innovating while the US recedes further into backward-looking, protectionist policy. See: US politicians on both sides trying to ban BYD imports rather than incentivizing stiffer competition from US automakers. Another example: massive growth in Chinese renewables while the US opens…

No to me it just shows 2 different capital allocation strategies. China picked manufacturing. US picked datacenters.

If 90% of the data centers in the world were hit by a nuclear bomb tomorrow, communication would be a shit show for a month or two, and then go on, as we'd fall back to simpler, less compute-expensive solutions. We'd also probably be net better off without all the adtech crap.

If 90% of the factories in the world were hit by a nuclear bomb, you'd find that your standard of living would immediately, and quite observably plummet.

You tell me which is more important.

The amount of internet technocrap we actually need to live comfortably is a tiny fraction of what actually gets built. Most of it is in service of adtech, the surveillance state, or shaving 0.5% off some rentseeker's fat margins (on his side, the savings aren't passed on to us).

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#108

BYD has to me become an icon of US decline vs Chinese expansion. It’s just one example among many of China charting the way forward and innovating while the US recedes further into backward-looking, protectionist policy. See: US politicians on both sides trying to ban BYD imports rather than incentivizing stiffer competition from US automakers. Another example: massive growth in Chinese renewables while the US opens…

BYD has to me become an icon of German decline vs Chinese expansion.

My view.

I was looking at a new car. Went into several car shops, VW, Skoda, Toyota and BYD.

And all of them were basically empty and BYD was FULL! Like really really full.

And the sales guy confirmed it, they are selling cars like crazy.

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#109
post #99
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BYD has pretty amazing tech to be honest, but putting protectionism as an argument against the US and pro BYD in the same sentence is naive at best. The CCP allowed BYD to exist and the CCP can end BYD in a single weekend regardless of any human right concerns elsewhere.

And, more to the point, BYD exists because the CCP has been aggressively protectionist of its domestic companies and has been strongly involved in growing, supporting, and protecting its domestic industry to ensure it has one. BYD is not a cautionary tale about protectionism, it's a sales pitch for it.

No, it is not. From mass recalls to faking sales targets and finances, BYD is actually facing serious problems. As soon as their benefits stop they are going the way of Evergrande

Re: BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets

#110
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was glued to the window while flying over southern China recently. There is so much infrastructure you can see from the air, even in fairly rural provinces. So many bridges. So many wind turbines. It is visibly a country on the move, a country that believes in itself and its ability to do things. The Chinese Century is increasingly palpable, for better or worse.

I have two chinese-born coworkers (who spent 20-30 years here in the us) in the same room. When we talk about china's expansion, I am always jealous of the public projects, infrastructure, housing, etc. They always point out the huge unemployment of young people, declining birth rate, and other social ills. They say they're worried when the building stops. Even more people will be out of jobs. And when the nation age…

China will likely become the go-to place for immigrants within couple decades. Just like any other developed economy had.
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