Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BYD builds fastest car

autotrader.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 312 posts

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#151

Post by jaredwilber »

gkanai wrote: post #146
intended wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know - American companies can give customers a better product, instead of hiding behind yet another “too big to fail” scenario. America was synonymous with competition. To see protectionism championed, is to really see the end of an empire.

It's not that simple. China has supported key industries (like EVs, batteries, solar, semiconductors) that it views as strategic. Each country should do the same for their own situation. There is no such thing as pure capitalism- and what you see is 'protectionism' is to a lawmaker a way to ensure that the local company survives and provides jobs for the local region/state, etc. And as the other commenter mentioned,…

"what you see is 'protectionism' is to a lawmaker a way to ensure that the local company survives and provides jobs for the local region/state, etc."

This is laughable given the history of the auto industry in America.

Foreign automakers (Toyota, BMW, etc.) build competitive factories in southern states and often paid better wages and delivered higher quality products. All this without decades of protection.

U.S. auto jobs still got wrecked despite the decades of "By American" policies anyway, since domestic auto companies decided to automate and offshore much of the work.

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#152

Post by taneq »

jakeinspace wrote: post #77

3000 hp? Not sure if that's measured at the "crank" or the dynamo, but that's over 2MW, probably pushing 2.5MW of power draw from the batteries assuming a motor efficiency of 90% and some other losses. Apparently that's getting drawn at 1.2kV from the batteries, so "only" around 2kA of current draw. That top power draw would drain the 80kWh batteries in around 2 minutes, though I'm guessing you'd hit thermal throttli…

2kA was pretty standard for a high end DC motor controller back 20 years ago when people were doing EV conversions with Optima Yellow Top batteries and Warp9 DC motors. Doing it at 1200V is new, though.

It's not unexpected for a record-attempt car to have severely decreased range at top speed, they're pushing up against all the limiting factors at once, hard. I seem to recall reading something about the Bugatti Veyron only having 15 minutes of tyre life at full throttle, but this not being an issue because it only carried 12 minutes worth of fuel. :)

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#153

Post by izacus »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #143
gamblor956 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrasting opinion: BYD made electric busses for US transit agencies. They were the worst buses that I have ever ridden. Today, no U.S. transit agency still uses BYD busses, because none of them managed a service live longer than about a year. BYD vehicles seem really nice for the first few hours, until you start discovering all the corners they cut to make their price point.

I've never used BYD vehicles but I've felt this about budget vehicles. Eg. In India, a Hyundai/kia sedan will be cheaper than a Toyota or a Honda of the same class with much more features. However, they start to break down and over a while, you can see the corners they cut.

Neither Hyundai nor Kia have a failure rate that's worse than any western or japanese manufacturers.

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#154

Post by justinclift »

socalgal2 wrote: post #137
justinclift wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No idea if this is made up It's an AI generated answer. That's always the problem so you shouldn't be using it as a factual information source.

Just because AI found an answer doesn't mean it's not true Elon Musk’s business empire is built on $38 billion in government funding https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/e... Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers Up to $250K Per Vehicle https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16192 Subsidy Tracker: General Motors https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/general-moto... etc... etc... etc...

> Just because AI found an answer doesn't mean it's not true

Sure. But using AI for factual information seems akin to a form of gambling. ;)

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#155

Post by henry2023 »

kirici wrote: post #30
darth_avocado wrote: post #6

But will it have full self driving by the end of the year?

Even if they did they still won't have caught up, because Tesla has had full self driving at the end of every year for the past 8 years.

Their new hope is to have the Optimus humanoid take the driver seat and finally drive the car. Of course, we'll have to wait until this December.

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#156

Post by intended »

solresol wrote: post #124
milesrout wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense are domestic car manufacturers "important"? They're inefficient if they're being outcompeted by China.

If the "outcompeting" is possible because of Chinese government subsidies, then it's important to protect local industry from unfair competition. It's similar to the logic behind anti-trust actions against monopolists. If the playing field isn't level, then the USA government steps in to level it. (Whether BYD is subsidised or not is another question, but the above is the logic of protecting local industry.)

Government subsidies effectively provide protection for a local market and capital.

America has some of the lowest cost of capital and most effective financial markets in human history.

If the Chinese markets are blocked that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is inaccessible.

Another aspect of government subsidies is that they mask incompetence.

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#157

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gkanai wrote: post #112
ryandrake wrote: post #82

Ever since I rode in a BYD in China I've thought it would be great to be able to get one in the USA. It just really felt complete, put together and polished in a way that I haven't seen in a "normie" U.S. car in a long time. Too bad our country uses high tariffs and regulatory barriers to protect its dinosaur companies.

> it would be great to be able to get one in the USA. Allowing in Chinese EVs into markets where there are important domestic auto manufacturers will be very bad for those domestic manufacturers. (US, Germany, France, S.Korea, Japan, etc.) Outside of Tesla, none have EV brands competitive with the Chinese firms and if customers in those non China markets migrate to Chinese brands en masse, it would be tremendous disr…

> Allowing in Chinese EVs into markets where there are important domestic auto manufacturers will be very bad for those domestic manufacturers

Tariff them so they're super expensive! Or set import quotas, so they can't displace too much demand. Either way, letting some of them through gives Americans visibility into what others are building while continuing to largely protect domestic manufacturers.

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#158

Post by jansan »

nabla9 wrote: post #42
jansan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seven minutes for the Nordschleife? Sabine Schmitz could have done that with a van. But honestly, ther are a Lot of production cars that went considerably faster. And the non-production Porsche 919 Hybrid EVO did it in 5:19, which is an entirely different league.

It's the fastest EV lap currently.

On the one hand this is quite an achievement, but on the other hand it shows that EVs are not (yet) superior to ICEs in every aspect except range.

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#159

Post by Gareth321 »

Veedrac wrote: post #54

It's wild that after a hundred years there is still exponential progress in the power output of cars. The most unusual part to me is how EVs are fundamentally a consumer technology, so it all rapidly falls into mass production territory; eg. Xiaomi sells a 1527hp car for $73k. Horsepower is rapidly reaching 'solved' territory; even at its record speed, BYD's car wasn't even power limited.

> It's wild that after a hundred years there is still exponential progress in the power output of cars.

We hit a wall there for a while. Cars were actually becoming less powerful and slower on average for a couple of decades as governments tightened emissions and safety requirements. It took Tesla to blow the walls off EV production and consumer acceptance. It's a good reminder that progress doesn't happen in a straight line.

Re: BYD builds fastest car

#160

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tehjoker wrote: post #141
ggm wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't rely on Chinese companies to make the tanks and rockets you intend aiming at China. Car manufacturers serve many purposes. Aside from keeping the UAW membership onside, they are a strategic buttress for an emerging future war risk. Australia maintained subsidies to Ford and GM for onshore production precisely because of this. And they stopped when a strategic realignment made successive governments decide t…

Since there’s no good reason to do any of that, we should absolutely lose that capability since to use it is to abuse it

> Since there’s no good reason to do any of that

It's 2025. We're still asking what happens when one group has lots of guns, tanks, fighter jets and missiles, and the other doesn't? Also, there is a difference between stockpiling arms and maintaining the ability to produce them if necessary.

Post reply on HN