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CT scans of BYD car parts

lumafield.com

71–80 of 402 posts

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#71
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have so much knowledge about EV repairs, but I got burnt by this on ICE cars already - had a car fail a regular fitness test on suspension bushes, they weren't replaceable without replacing the whole arm(s). What should've been a $40 part was being quoted as more than the cars value. (I'm not sure if there was a way around this, there may well have been but I had other things going on and sold for scrap)

FWIW, this has been my experience since 2003 when I had to get suspension work done. Doesn’t matter if it’s a BMW or Honda, dealership or indie repair shop, the story I have heard consistently is that the bushing is part of the arm for structural integrity, stability, . Bushings typically fail faster than the arm does, and this repair is expensive ($1000+ for performance cars, not that much cheaper for Civics). The “…

> repair is expensive ($1000+ for performance cars, not that much cheaper for Civics)

I can almost guarantee the lion's share of this is shop labor, not parts, and pressing a bushing out and back in would be more expensive after accounting for that labor than just swapping the suspension arms. This is often the piece that gets missed in these discussions of "why am I replacing this huge assembly for a tiny part", if the whole assembly is coming out to deal with that tiny part anyways and shop labor is $200/hour it's cheaper to swap the assembly a lot of the time.

Try getting any repair beyond routine maintenance done on a car in the US for under $1000 these days. Car maintenance is one of the things I'm happy to DIY in most cases because the delta on costs is massive and as someone that works on computers all day it's vaguely enjoyable to get angry at a mechanical object for a change.

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#72
post #68

I want to buy a Chinese car and I am annoyed that my protectionist government won’t let me. Lowering transportation cost would be the most impactful thing to my budget. All that serves to do is ensure the American car industry falls far behind by being coddled into a lack of competition. Toyota showed the world the Toyota Production System. What Tesla, Kia/Hyundai, and Chinese EVs have shown American automakers is ho…

Totally agree, this protectionism killed the Australian car industry because eventually you just can’t compete.

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed this was referring to the early days of the Ford assembly line

Yes, Ford claimed up to 90% in the 1930s when they were producing up to 1.4M cars and trucks per year. (Down to less than 400K in the worst of the depression.)

I suppose it makes sense, back then you wouldn't think there would be an existing supply chain of companies like Mopar just waiting for a car manufacturer to spin up and start buying their stuff

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#74
post #26
post #21

All you need to know is that BYD cars are good enough that the US had to effectively ban them.

It's worse than that. Trump's tariffs have knee-capped North American auto companies right when they needed to be upping their game. The auto sector is tightly integrated across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Or was... Now there's tariff's on every part and frame that crosses a border. The American plan seems to be to put up a wall and force Americans to buy domestic while nobody else in the world buys American cars.

The lada and movkvisch of car brands with people willing to cross the wall to buy BYD in Mexico

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#75

This looks like a stealth advertisement for their CT scanning business. There is nothing educational of value for the general public here. The only reason you would do this is for competitive analysis and I assure you the other car companies have already analyzed these parts.

There actually is a company who does this. full tear downs, of cars top to bottom. Interesting stuff

https://www.jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-company-that-tears-...

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#76
post #22
post #21

All you need to know is that BYD cars are good enough that the US had to effectively ban them.

Potentially predicated on anti-dumping rules.

I am torn on this. Anti-dumping is one thing, and yet disruption was an overused keyword for a long time in Silicon valley.

1. Huge scale subsidies like this are effectively a manufacturing attack. This is mean at the level of international politics and yet the world recently seems to be waking up to the idea they were handing over every practice of manufacture to China.

2. On the other hand, while the Chinese car companies are finding their footing they have not yet perfected the bullshit tiered marketing approaches that see relatively cheap to manufacture features gated to "high-equipment level" cars.

For example, now even the cheapest cars can have 360 degree parking cameras. Of course, the Chinese engineering level remains to be seen but many would argue this is competition in the market.

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a mechanical key hidden in the electronic key fob is nothing new, it’s common on many cars.

I guess my intent was not to point out that it has a mechanical key, rather that the description of the key on the webpage was wrong (it is not hinged). The mechanical key fallback pattern is standard across the industry for sure.

Ah, I misread your earlier revision's enthusiasm at the end as being about the mechanical key, not the CT scan.

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#78

This was stated about the key: "Folded into the base is a mechanical backup key, a flat metal blade in a hinged housing." I own a BYD: this is not true. The key is not hinged; rather, the entire mechanical key pulls out when a small clip is unlatched near the top of the assembly (you can see it in the CT). I assume the circular hinge-looking mechanism in the CT is just a by product of the plastic/metal weld process.…

I wasn’t surprised by the backup key, but rather by how empty it was. I really wish key fobs were smaller. They are quite bulky in a pocket and bigger than all my actual keys combined.

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#79
post #34
post #21

All you need to know is that BYD cars are good enough that the US had to effectively ban them.

I don’t think BYD would be a hit in the US as they are in Europe. It’s an entirely different market. They may be relatively successful just not to the point of taking an important market share, they would probably be like Mazda. Many of the subsides for Chinese EV ended this year too, and they are now realizing price alone is not a differentiator. So even if BYD eventually makes it to the US, they will be priced clos…

BYD is not just zippy little city cars. The BYD Sealion 7 SUV (EV) and Shark full-size truck (PHEV) are incredibly popular in Australia, which is a very similar market to the US, and I'm sure they would sell like hotcakes if allowed into the US.

https://bydautomotive.com.au/sealion-7

https://bydautomotive.com.au/shark-6

Re: CT scans of BYD car parts

#80
post #51
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BYD only entered the Australian car market in 2022. They are now the 2nd biggest seller after Toyota ( https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/insight/byd-overtakes-rivals-... ). They are also priced much lower than KIA and Tesla. FWIW I now own a GWM Cannon Αlpha PHEV pickup. Have also owned a Jeep Wrangler - the tech, build quality and reliability is not even on the same planet. I can't imagine how the US manufacturers woul…

US manufacturers' niche is half-ton and above trucks. Even mighty Toyota's offering is playing distant #4 in that market with Nissan capitulating after 20 years of trying.

The BYD Shark 6 is already a hit, and the upcoming Shark 8 is aimed squarely at the ginormous US-style truck crowd.

https://bydautomotive.com.au/shark-6

https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/byd-shark-8-co...

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