531–540 of 1001 posts
They apparently optimized for cost and molecularity, most notably by removing the infotainment system, which apparently is the biggest warranty / "feature" cost center.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Seagull (aka "Dolphin Surf" in other countries) seems to cost 18560 GBP in the UK, or 11.780€ in Spain. Haven't checked out other countries, but clearly "Chinese EVs (BYD Seagull/Dolphin Surf/Dolphin Mini) are $10k worldwide except USA" isn't 100% correct. Seems fine to leave something like that unmentioned, as a quick check reveals it not to be true at all.
but I'm guessing those are post tax prices .. While in the US prices are pre-tax So if you saw the pretax figures it'd probably be true
But why would I look at the pretax figures? Who would look at that, unless you're doing a business purchase? It basically has no meaning for the average person since they'll never buy anything without the taxes anyways.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because a big part of owning a vehicle is summer roadtrips, ski vacations, visiting family, moving stuff. An SUV is simply more convenient. I've also found road maintenance is getting worse where I live, it's almost necessary having an SUV or truck just to navigate the suburbs. Also the (semi) compact crossover has kind of killed the compact car. You get more space, better ground clearance, for a decent price.
99% of people with an SUV will never use the "sport utility" aspect of it, and they could do all of the things you listed better with a minivan (Sienna/Odyssey/etc). But the driver would have to sit lower in a minivan. Which is what SUVs are really about, the ego boost one gets from sitting higher up (and the associated feelings with being able to not have to settle for a minivan, and being able to waste a little mon…
Completely unmentioned: Chinese EVs are $10k worldwide except USA. https://gmauthority.com/blog/2024/08/2025-byd-seagull-ev-sta...
Chinese manufacturers have come a long way and I wish I could buy one in the US but they are also pricing at razor thin margins to starve out competition.
Even in Vietnam the Dolphin is $25k
Last year we bought a car. While not being a petrol head I was still living in a lala land where you could buy a brand new car for 10k EUR. Nothing fancy, just "a car". Obviously it turned out to be not true. After some digging it turned out that in the last 10 years the price of cars went double. Literally double. Same car, like Fiat Panda, with the same engine and configuration, that ten years was worth one potato…
You communicated the concept perfectly. Anyone holding onto a pile of say 10k cash in 2015 have exactly 5k cash value in 2025. But here's a hidden kicker. Storing any functional vehicle in cheap storage is turning out to be a sold form of investing.
I work on my own cars now (as a hobby really) and one of the reasons the new cars are so expensive is they are much more complicated. A lot of this seems to be over-engineering IMO. This is alluded to in the article, but not explicitly stated. The cars I work on are from the early 90s and everything is very simple to understand. e.g. Electronics are normally simple circuits that aren't much more complicated than what…
I think in time we see a similar trend with EVs. They are, by many metrics, vastly less complicated in terms of hardware. Software, of course, is another matter.
Everything else is super basic. There's a reason some of the earliest vehicles were EVs.
Is anyone following Slate auto? They claim to be making a suburban pickup in the Ford Ranger size for ~20k. I've been cautiously optimistic about my reservation. They apparently optimized for cost and molecularity, most notably by removing the infotainment system, which apparently is the biggest warranty / "feature" cost center.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any recommendation how to start learning repairing a car? I have absolutely zero experience. A friend of mine said just learn to change a tyre first and I have been procrastinating since.
I went down this route in the early 2010's. In preparation for an over landing expedition I wanted to have mechanical knowledge to be a sort of "mechanic" on the trip so I bought a bunch of "project cars" and began tinkering. While it WAS a lot of fun and I feel smarter, it was a total waste of time. To save you all the trouble of all I went through, it was fun debugging mechanical stuff, but ultimately there is no "…
That is valuable as well, in some places car mechanics could be eager to let's say make repairs more costly than needed
Completely unmentioned: Chinese EVs are $10k worldwide except USA. https://gmauthority.com/blog/2024/08/2025-byd-seagull-ev-sta...
Some western countries allow Chinese evs without extra tariffs (Australia and the UK) but in general larger Chinese cars seem to sell better.