When China’s BYD recently overtook Elon Musk’s Tesla as the global leader in sales of electric vehicles, casual observers of the auto industry might have been surprised.
But what’s caught other carmakers around the world off-guard is something else about BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway: its low prices.
“No one can match BYD on price. Period,” Michael Dunne, CEO of Asia-focused car consultancy Dunne Insights, told the Financial Times. “Boardrooms in America, Europe, Korea and Japan are in a state of shock.”
BYD can keeps its costs low in part because it owns the entire supply chain of its EV batteries, from the raw materials to the finished battery packs. That matters because a battery accounts for about 40% of a new electric vehicle’s price.
Of course nobody can match BYD, they don’t just own the supply chain the Chinese government subsidizes every part in their supply chain. The Chinese government wants to crush foreign competitors. And before you say that Tesla gets subsidies, it’s no where near as extensive as the subsidies Chinese EV manufacturers get.
Uh… yeah? China beats nearly everyone on price but you don’t go there for quality and durability.
The American car companies haven’t exactly been stellar with regards to quality, reliability, and safety lately either.
My VW-built EV seems pretty high quality. China and USA aren’t the only game in EVs.
Not to mention: I’ll eat my hat if the CCP isn’t providing some sort of subsidization, for no other reason than the fact that it’s a national pride thing for them
Are these even street legal in the US? Our safety standards are obscene. Air bags alone cost 5k.
It’s why Tata never released a vehicle here.
Another example of America costing loads of money for little to know benefit.
this comment has “little to know”
Yeah! Airbags suck! Wait, what?
Clown take if I’ve ever seen one lol
No not the airbags, the safety standards being “obscene”, cost prohibitive and not yield good results.
So if American standards are preventing additional competition it should be because they have a very high standard which should bare out in terms of road and pedestrian deaths and injuries. It does not. Therefore the “obscene” standards are another example of poor results to cost.
What a silly thing to say. On what basis have you decided they don’t yield good results?
Not really conclusive as there have been increases in speeding and drunk driving that cause total accident numbers to go up. A more relevant stat would be fatality or injury rates per accident.
You’ve changed your tune from it being silly to needing more granular data.
Pedestrian deaths are on the rise and decent safety regulations could impact speeding and drunk driving.
Sounds like what the Oceangate CEO said about industry safety requirements for submersibles.
I’m saying they’re not fit for purpose, America has a shit ton of road and pedestrian deaths. The safety regulations don’t do enough.
Hey since you seem to be ignorant of old car safety hazards ive got a '78 Ford pinto to sell you.
But seriously modern American cars (or atleast the post 80s ones) are a shitton safer than their old counterparts. And this is coming from someone who loves old piece of shit cars (Id drive the Homer).
Modern American safety features to a point were paid in blood. Tuna canning in small cars is isnt nearly as common as it once was, and the pealing the smashed in head of the drive off of the stearing wheel isnt all that common anymore.
There are certainly some so called safety features that are laregly pointless IMO but my hatred of back up cams aside, survivability of car crashes have skyrocketed.
Also why all the new cars suck.
New cars suck because planned obscelensce has been catered to by regulations and industry.
Safety standards are not bad, they just don’t have decent standards in America.
If you want people to buy new cars every year wouldn’t you make the new cars look different? More exiting or whatever? We used to have awesome fins on the back of cars now we just get a shiny grill. “planned obscelensce” doesn’t force them to make cars that all look the same. That’s safety regulations.
This is why Americans hate China. It’s legitimate competition for them.
