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

electrek.co

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

#301
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…

Are these not the same things people are complaining about in the West, though?

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

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that's the marketing material. Once Xi declared himself emperor for life, that marketing material fell apart a bit, didn't it? How is modern China even close to theoretical "communism?" It's certainly not Marxist, right?

it follows marxist principles and is building towards communism, which isn't overnight. It's currently in a socialist stage. Also, Xi is closer to the captain of a ship rather than an absolute monarch. He has a lot of power, yes, but that's because the party trusts him, not because he demands it

In the age of Mao, wasn't it closer to Marxism? There are more billionaires in China now, then there were back then. By that I mean, the wealth disparity in China is at an all-time high now, is it not? Xi removed the 2-term limit from his own position, and has been doing an excellent job at consolidating his power base, through all means necessary.

Disclaimer: I believe that pure "capitalism" and pure "communism" are marketing terms which both lead to authoritarianism, aka the "Horseshoe Theory of politics." To me, the natural end-state, if we survive the extremists is Social Democracy. However, it's boring and everyone appears to find the extremes far more exciting.

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

#303

This is not surprising as other manufacturers continue moving away from producing cheap cars. One notable exception is dacia. For all the China lovers here it's not a clear sign of Chinese superiority. I saw a video on youtube recently exploring BYD. It's success is due to the fact that the Chinese government as part of their plan to dominate the global car industry gives them massive amounts of money. Which manufact…

Don't forget their rampant channel-stuffing, which is so flagrant, that it makes Ford's and GM's channel-stuffing antics look like kindergarten games in comparison.

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

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada reduced theirs to 6.1% from 100% about a month ago.

I wonder what happens if someone from the US buys one in Canada and just drives it home? At what point and how do they get charged an import tariff? When they register it?

AFAIU, import duties aren't really something you're necessarily "charged" as much as it's something you have a legal obligation to pay. Sure, maybe you could buy a car in Canada and bring it in to the US without paying the tariffs... we call that smuggling.

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

#305

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…

Many predicted it for a long time, the US will always be a great power, for structural and geographical reasons, but it won't keep the position it had for almost a century. The good thing about China is that apart from Taiwan they have little territoral ambitions, I don't foresee huge conflicts incoming, but I am a not entirely sure the US will manage to lost its position as gracefully as the British Empire. It could…

> The good thing about China is that apart from Taiwan they have little territoral ambitions

One of the reasons China wants Taiwan is because it would enable further territorial expansions into The Philippines and Japan. China considers any neighboring Democratic nation a threat. Taiwan is just their first / easiest prospective target.

If you have access to PBS, there's a very good documentary that touches on this a bit called Invisible Nation.

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

#306

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.

A BYD seal is basically comparable to a model 3, except it has a more classic car aesthetic as opposed to a giant screen. What are we missing out on?

Freedom.

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

#307

I just signed an offer to purchase a BYD Sealion 5, plugin hybrid small-to-medium SUV. I’ve been largely happy with my 2018 Honda Fit and briefly researched a hybrid Fit. In ZAR, the hybrid Fit is listed as ~530K, while the BYD is 570, however the BYD is way bigger, has much nicer interior and insanely more features, including: adaptive cruise control, lane assist (it can basically drive itself for simple traffic), 3…

Own the sealion 7. It is feature full, and don’t want to crush your dreams, but i would trade that killer unreliable adaptive cruise control and lane assist with a (missing?!) simple speed limiter 100 times over

I don’t mind the honesty.

Price is so good that even if it’s a little lacking in this regard, I’ll probably still be very happy as a lot of the features are just a bonus.

Important for us was that it’s bigger as we have two growing kids, and that it is essentially an electric that we can plug in to charge.

I’ve only ever used simple cruise control on my CVT Fit and before that on a manual. On the BYD test drive (on my own chosen route) the cruise control seemed to work at least as well as what I was used to and the adaptive in traffic was impressive (to me whose never before had it), but was just one drive so will see how I feel after driving it for a while.

Also, I certainly wouldn’t count on it, but it’s conceivable that a software update could improve things, my honest hunch though is that it would be very unlikely.

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

#308
post #84
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I always take these views with a grain of salt, many immigrant's view of their home country is ossified at the time of emigration.

Sure, but in this case it seems spot on. China really does have a disturbingly high youth unemployment rate, along with a population that's aging and shrinking. I have no idea if they're headed for a major economic crash, but the track record of command economies controlled by a paranoid aging dictator don't have a very good track record.

For all the things China does well there are plenty of reasons for Chinese people to be concerned about their future.

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

#309
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm passively curious how the long-term maintenance of this all ends up. You don't just build a bridge, you have to keep it up when the natural strain of the world impacts upon it. Given provinces already have debt problems [0], how the hell will all of this infrastructure look in 50 years? [0]: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254680/c...

This is the structure of catabolic collapse. When the mere maintenance costs over run the capabilities/resources of the civilisation.

Funnily enough it may turn out that those nations that just muddled along could have the best long term out comes. Yes, they never got the really good stuff but they also won't have a harder decline.

"You cannot fall out of bed if you sleep on the floor" - Turkish proverb

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

#310
post #69

Traveling in Asia and South America, the primary impression I got was not that this is a war of manufacturing that we're losing but that the game is already up. Chile was full of Chinese makes and they were all surprisingly good. Riding in a Chinese MG in Taiwan or Hong Kong you suddenly realize that this isn't a future competitor. The people talking about the war of car manufacturers here seem like those Japanese ho…

Come to Australia. About two years ago there was so many Teslas. In the space of two years, I've seen twice as many BYDs. I can only imagine this will continue.
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