Comparing it to the US isn’t really meaningful considering the EV market here is on life support.
Federal subsidies were eliminated. Funding for charging infrastructure and battery manufacturing was rolled back. ICE emission regulations were repealed. Individual states were barred from enforcing their own standards. EVs are down to 6% share of new vehicles sold.
Most domestic manufacturers have given up on EVs entirely and written off their investments. Tesla is the only one standing, and their US sales have also been falling for the last couple years.
Looking back 2024 is probably going to be the peak of the US EV market.
This post really fails to go beyond basic headlines.
> Federal subsidies were eliminated. Funding for charging infrastructure and battery manufacturing was rolled back.
These are both signs of a maturing market. It's a good thing that DCFC operators like Ionna, Walmart, etc. are still charging ahead at a pretty rapid pace, even without federal funding. Ionna especially has been deploying at a crazy speed.
> Individual states were barred from enforcing their own standards.
Litigation on this is still playing out. If car manufacturers aren't planning for these to swing back into force with a change of government, they are fooling themselves.
> Most domestic manufacturers have given up on EVs entirely and written off their investments.
Again, not true. Some investments like battery manufacturing, sure, but that's not what they were ever good at. GM has a pretty robust line of EVs, and Ford has bet big on their new platform underpinning on their new 'affordable' truck.
> Tesla is the only one standing, and their US sales have also been falling for the last couple years.
2023 was a stand out year for them, but it's not like they are falling off a cliff. We should expect Tesla sales to fall as other competitors like Rivian, Hyundai/Kia and even Toyota/Subaru release updated offerings.
Ideological reasons, yes, but the fact remains is the EV market is still standing on its own. Sure, the EV market is not growing anywhere near as fast as other parts of the world, but it is still growing. People talk about their EVs and it's becoming clear to even to people who don't have one that they are useful vehicles.
Every once in a while people ask about cost and discover that for most people charging in your garage is significantly cheaper than anything else and charging on the road is still cheaper than gas and while it does take longer it's not too bad.
And as was pointed out, there is every reason to believe that there'll be a change in administration in the federal level in a few years. And once again, the rules will change. The car manufacturers are going to keep building what they know and have good investments in. But they're going to keep investing in EVs both because in the world they're important players and also because they know the government will change and with it their rules and they don't want to be left behind.
You basically said this but charging at home literally eliminates fueling time and empty tank anxiety completely.
Get in your car, drive up to a few hundred miles. Dive home. Repeat. Never stop for fuel ever. That is what EV life is like for many people. I think most people.
That's about 95%, but there's still that last 5% of road trips that an EV does need to find a place to stop. Fortunately, there are places to charge an EV all over. Not quite as convenient as a gas station, but more than good enough for most trips.
I don't know about your city but my city there places to charge all over. Many of them are level 2, but if you are in the parking garage all day that doesn't matter.
Though honestly, in urban cities, we don't need to add more chargers, we need to add good public transit.
Where I’m at pretty much all chargers are in parking garages. But my garage doesn’t have one. And the garages that do, are expensive. And even then, it would be a shared space where I'd need to move my car, and I'd have to rely on others moving their car for it to be available.
And I do normally use public transit, so the primary reason I have a car is for out of town trips where I’d need to charge away from home.
I’d love to have an EV but I just can’t make it make sense.
If we incentivized parking structure owners to install chargers, it would be a different situation
Need to go to San Francisco (~90 min away, no good place to charge there so need to get back too). Can we make it? Mild panic. No, we can't.
Drive to a fast charger place nearby. Spend 45 minutes charging, bored with nothing to do. We were on time but now we're very late. Child is grumpy because we'll miss the start of the event (this is for watching Fleet Week last month). Finally get going, got there late due to time wasted charging, missed a few planes.
Coming home in the evening, battery is at 30% with half hour to go, partner is panicking. Will we make it? Maybe? Do we detour to a fast charger found on the map? Yes! No, maybe we'll be ok. Rather not stop in some dark sketchy place to charge for 30+ minutes. Let's hope for the best and keep going. Got home with ~10% left, stress on high alert.
Maybe some people like the adrelanine rush of this kind of stress on every road trip, but it's not for me.
As someone with a degree in human machine interaction: stop blaming machine problems on the user. Humans should not have to plan like that.
All the gas cars I've ever had, if I did a few gallons of gas, would only take a few minutes. Overall, the cost savings is worth having an EV, but charging time is a major downside. We need to stop blaming people for the downside of the technology.
There's a minimum level of competence expected before operating machines. I blame someone if they run out of gas. I blame someone if they run out of battery energy.
The charge time is a downside, but it's not like (particularly in San Francisco) there isn't an abundance of options that will give you 90+ miles in 5 minutes.
Yeah, and I personally don't buy what he's putting down. He's 90 minutes away from San Fransisco and doesn't have anywhere he can charge without waiting for 45 minutes? I find that highly suspect. That'd put the trip distance at around 100 miles (assuming 70mph average). Which, unless you are literally driving an old Nissan leaf, you could comfortably traverse with basically all EVs on the market.
But further, in that 100 mile radius, there's EV chargers literally every 10 miles or less on all major roads.
Because the charge curve on basically all EVs starts high at a low state of charge, there's basically no reason he'd have to wait more that 5 or 10 minutes at a stop to continue on his trip. 45 minutes is absurd.
I say this as someone that lives in Idaho and makes 6 hour road trips relatively regularly. Even on my longest "without charger" stretches, the wait is roughly 20 minutes to get enough to get to the next charger.
That is ideal, but unfortunately nobody can afford homes these days so we're stuck with rarely available car ports in apartment complexes with no charging ports.
Spot on. China is the largest auto market in the world, and two thirds (~67%) of their sales are new energy vehicles now (battery electric and plug in hybrid). It’s ~6-7% in the US. The race is over.
China is going to hit 100% light and heavy vehicle sales by 2030, and then they’re going to export them to the world as fast as they can build and ship them.
It's great for Tesla regardless of the overall EV market in the US. Anyone with money in China is willing to pay more for a Tesla because they know its superior. It's quite like their obsession with Apple products.
In many way Tesla products in China are viewed as superior. Recent reviews funded by the CCP showed their self driving is the only reliable one in China as well as the recent negative publicity from Huawei and their brake failures on their luxury models.($150,000)
Even here in Mexico EVs have tariffs that make them as costly as ICEs, just to please Trump. EVs are becoming popular here, but the market is far from mature. I don't think it was ideological, but short-sighted protectionist reasons, though.
Likewise, Musk's Sieg Heil and association with Trump didn't help- instant ~25% drop in sales (60% in Europe). It's like when that Campbell's executive said their soup is "shit for fucking poor people".
So why have EV sales in the US been dropping almost every quarter since 2024, from a peak of ~10% of new sales down to under 6% today? Is this the “mature market” you are referring to?
For comparison, that number is 53% in China and 60-70% in most European countries. In Norway 97% of new sales are EVs.
It all makes sense when you realize that the global fossil fuel industry is going all-in on their hold out market, the USA, with astronomical levels of corruption and propaganda to keep the gas guzzlers guzzlin'.
Besides the end of the tax credit, EVs are still quite expensive in the US and there's been a jump of used EVs flooding the market (mostly from corporate fleet offloads)
> So why have EV sales in the US been dropping almost every quarter since 2024, from a peak of ~10% of new sales down to under 6% today?
Because a lot of Americans lacks financial literacy (i.e. everyone buying a brand new ICE vehicle).
Even before that godforsaken war it made no financial sense at all to buy an ICE vehicle for most purposes. Now with that war and its effects wrecking the fossil fuel markets, it's even worse.
> Even before that godforsaken war it made no financial sense at all to buy an ICE vehicle for most purposes.
If you could not charge at home then a high mileage ICE vehicle (before the war) had lower energy costs in a significant fraction of the US.
Even with home charging there were something like 10 states where a Prius beat an EV if you were paying the state average rates for gas and for home electricity.
Massachusetts was the state most favorable to ICEs. In the Boston area a Prius would have lower energy costs in the city as long as gas was under about $4.40/gal.
Hmm. 16 million cars sold in the US each year. 1.2 million EVs sold each year. "Maturing" at less than 8% market share is not a good sign.
> Litigation on this is still playing out...these to swing back into force with a change of government
Have you not lived in the US, like ever? It will take anywhere from approximately a decade to never to claw back even a fraction of an progressive legislation or regulation.
> We should expect Tesla sales to fall...when [vague new things come out]
>These are both signs of a maturing market. It's a good thing that DCFC operators like Ionna, Walmart, etc. are still charging ahead at a pretty rapid pace, even without federal funding. Ionna especially has been deploying at a crazy speed.
But the market isn't mature. It COULD be the sign of a maturing market, or it COULD be the sign of politicians that take large sums of money from oil companies gaining power and gutting subsidies.
>Again, not true. Some investments like battery manufacturing, sure, but that's not what they were ever good at. GM has a pretty robust line of EVs, and Ford has bet big on their new platform underpinning on their new 'affordable' truck.
Ford has GREATLY reduced their EV plans. How's that EV Explorer coming along? Right, scrapped. The F-150 is scrapped, the maverick-esque platform will likely find a lukewarm response followed by further contractsion. It will be double the price of a slate, and nowhere near as nice as the Rivian.
That's just false. I don't think US automakers outside of Tesla have done well with EVs to date, but Ford went back to the drawing board a few years ago and is now near to releasing it's revamped EV platform that they believe will be actually competitive: https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/universal-electric-ve...
Charging infrastructure is blossoming. It is funded by private companies. Roadtripping in an EV is pretty seamless now. I'm driving to Death Valley in a couple of weeks. Plenty of charging options along the way.
Because funding for that network was provided for the several years before these changes were made.
They didn’t put money to rip out existing infrastructure and funding (let’s not give them ideas). It’s future EV charging growth and maintenance that will be affected, and its impact will be felt years from now.
> 2024 is probably going to be the peak of the US EV market
peak ever? no way. you can only think that if you havent been paying attention at all as to whats going on in the rest of the world. The EV transition is assured, the only variable is how long it takes a market to realize. The US can only resist gravity for so long.
Yeah Ford killed the f150 lightning because it appealed to no one. Trades people didn't want to fuck with charging their vehicle. Normal people didn't want to pay 100k for a truck.
Their new one is very interesting. I wanted an electric truck when I bought my most recent one but just couldn't afford it. If it's 30k for the base, figure 40k with bells and whistles. That makes it super attainable with a decent trade.
My interest in the Ford truck entirely depends on how thoroughly I can neuter its ability to talk to any network. Slate might be the clear winner there (and only "might" because of that insane kill-switch law).
The government is also trying to sell regular Americans paying a handful of oil companies a lot more money for gas, and the subsequent increase in profits for those oil companies, as a huge win for America.
They’ve been boasting about American oil companies having higher profits.
If Trump hadn’t petulantly killed the EV subside, hundreds of thousands of additional EVs would be on American roads today. That’s hundreds of thousands of voters who wouldn’t be reacting to gas prices.
Our lucky streak as America—Russia blowing itself up, China going wolf warrior right when they needed to build alliances—may continue in our wannabe fascist being so fucking stupid.
Conspiracy warning. Let's say "thought experiment" instead.
I wonder whether Trump has long-recognised the decline of the US, and is planning for his legacy to be setting up his family well enough to be able to move to wherever else in the world opportunity presents itself (or where oligarchies would appreciate their contributions - after all, "there's always another oligarchy"). Essentially both shorting the US and forcing the downfall to occur (and making the progress of its occurrence faster).
I'm interested to see the Trump family's reactions to the inevitable disenfrachisement that the real, long-term outcomes of this will manifest.
> Our lucky streak as America—Russia blowing itself up, China going wolf warrior right when they needed to build alliances—may continue in our wannabe fascist being so fucking stupid.
You are decidedly not on a lucky streak.
Your Dear Leader just threw the US into yet another incompetently waged war on the other side of the world, he tore apart bridges with virtually all allies the US had, including Canada of all places, his reckless usage of his powers to influence corporate decisions (i.e. the ICC sanctions and DoD/Musk throttling Starlink/Starshield for Ukraine) made everyone realize they need their own alternatives not beholden to the US for literally anything, the AI bubble growing uncontrollably while the QE money injections never got taken out of the system is setting you up for a financial disaster that will make 2007 look tame...
Agreed, but my point still stands - they are the ones who sent America off to its probably most consequential bad luck streak in centuries.
> it was a failure of democracy: not enough people showed up to vote and many who voted were poorly informed.
Oh hell no. They chose to fall for the anti-trans and anti-immigrant rhetoric. They voted for Trump because Trump promised to make "the others" suffer. The entire operating principle of the GOP and especially its Evangelical wing has been "the suffering is the point" for decades.
I get the "cruelty was the point" angle -- it's absolutely part of that equation. But a lot of those voters were voting out of anger and feeling abandoned and unserved by the government. Ignoring the aforementioned ugly parts -- Trump made a play at populism (albeit all lies) to an electorate hungry for change.
Bear in mind that Harris was playing the "the economy is fine!" angle, which it technically was as far as GDP and the stock markets. But that ignored the fact that for millions it was not so great.
My point about "not enough people showed up to vote" as aimed at the youth vote who is apathetic about such things, and more importantly, a lot of crucial voters who were angry about the situation in Gaza. The irony on that last point is that Harris was absolutely the lesser of two evils in that regard.
I think a majority of voters vote based on their emotions, how their parents voted, or a specific manner of "what's in it for me". I have tempered faith in the electorate as a whole.
I've been in a few BYDs as a passenger, I actually cannot fathom people spending money on them considering how low/cheap quality the interiors are. Like those garbage thin fake leather seats will have to be replaced within a year of use tops. Oh and also we broke the trunk's bedding by putting a mere 40kg bag in it, it just straight up collapsed.
The average consumer isn’t going to buy an electric car for climate reasons - they’re going to buy it to save money. So they want it cheap and they want to not have to wait ages for it to charge. The Chinese cars deliver on both fronts (provided sufficient infrastructure for fast charging). If the car doesn’t last 10 years that’s okay if they’re saving enough money.
If you want to save money, you either buy from a domestic brand or a used Toyota Yaris and squeeze out as many miles from it as you can while having the option to use a local mechanic. Electric cars still make up a small minority of the market.
In the US sure, thanks to laws preventing Chinese EVs. But look around at other countries.
In Australia, EVs are now 25% of the new car market, that's far from a small minority.
And sure a used Toyota Yaris might be cheaper for now but it won't be for long. A new Yaris starts from around $30k, you can buy multiple new EVs for cheaper than that. Which has caused downward prices on used EVs, you can buy a 2nd hand Nissan leaf for $6500.
And due to our abundance of rooftop solar much of Australia have access to domestic electricity plans that have hours of free usage a day, meaning if you can charge at home you can charge for free which really pushes the value proposition further
As you look at those other countries (Australia) flooded with subsidised to below cost-to-make EVs, note how they are killing any chance of a sustainable local EV industry. It is a total governmental derreliction of duty to see how cheap Chinese imports played out with solar panels (and many other industries before that), and still welcome cheap EVs instead of attempting to kick start (or protect) a local option.
There is no local car industry to protect in Australia, and Chinese cars here are more expensive than they are in China. That's why Chinese automakers are flocking overseas, the margins are much better, no subsidies needed.
They've banned EV imports in everything but name - yet why do we not see their EV industry taking off? Are US-made EV exports taking off? And do we see any of these low cost EVs being made domestically?
Last time I checked, they were doubling down on fossil fuel subsidies, and encouraging ICE cars. So I would argue this entire "dumping" argument was a Trump-induced fallacy to justify fossil fuel handouts.
Or for another example - has that local iPhone or Mac Pro production taken off, since China are supposedly "dumping" iPhones at below cost?
Shame on people falling for this protectionist stuff, again and again. I'm not saying that China isn't helping their renewal industries - but it's like US agricultural subsidies - every country does it, but people can't seem to accept that some countries do have a comparative advantage in certain industries.
The average American could save a couple thousand dollars per year in fuel costs by driving an electric car. Over 12 years that could pay for a cheap electric car. If you drive a lot more than average, you would save even more money.
While, trucks are popular. They're not that popular. The average American is not driving one. The average American is driving a smaller SUV which, while not as fuel efficient as the Yaris, is still fairly fuel efficient and is only sightly, efficient than a similar sized sedan
Americans are paying on average $50K for a new ICE car, gas prices are at an all time high, insurance premiums at an all time high, car service costs at an all time high, interest rates at an all time high, and they still think they're making a good deal. This is what I call financial illiteracy.
That's not only the new car that matters. The average car on the road in America is 12 years old, which means there's a lot of people who are not buying those brand new cars for $50,000. They're buying something older, more economical, and they're the ones who are going to start driving the demand for EVs. Either they will start paying a premium for the used EVs that do come available to them because it's worth it or they're going to start buying the cheap EVs if there are any on the market.
Fast charging is massively overrated. Most people's charging needs are better taken care of by charging overnight at home. You're getting electricity cheaper than at fast chargers, and you aren't even altering your commute in any way to charge/refuel. The only issue with this is lack of residential charging infrastructure for apartment buildings, but getting 240V to a parking spot is orders of magnitude cheaper than building a fast charger.
I'm sort of reminded of the Regular Car Reviews review of the Geo Metro, where he spent the first maybe 5 minutes of the video trying to manage viewers expectations. So he talked for a while about judging a thing based on how good it is at being what it's trying to be, not how bad it is at being something else. And then he talked for a while about how the Geo Metro's entire purpose is to be as economical as possible.
And then he spent the rest of the review talking about all the features that people typically hated on, but in a positive light. Because if your primary goal is to make the cheapest car, with the highest fuel economy, for the benefit of people who don't have a whole lot of spending money, those were exactly the design compromises to be making.
RCR went downhill fast when he realized the easy button to online automotive content was to just fellatiate Toyota.
The geo metro isn't that far off from everything else in its day when it comes to build quality, better than comparable models that hadn't been refreshed in longer.
However far apart the internet wants to try and make you believe any given vehicles are they're always way closer in reality.
Build quality was indeed pretty good. But it was still obviously a cheap car. The RCR review correctly pointed out that it was noisy as heck on the highway, had trouble getting up to 65mph, was just kind of generally uncomfortable, etc.
Contrast with, e.g., my stepmom's Jeep Grand Cherokee that was expensive and loaded with luxury features but had awful build quality and was constantly in the shop.
> spending money on them considering how low/cheap quality the interiors are
Because that's the point. It's a cheap reliable car that cut corners for high $$$ ROI fleet cars. There's reason most of PRC taxi fleet converted to BYD EVs over last 10 years. It's statistically battle proven and economical, they'll 500,000km like ICE fleet cars and save 30k USD - on fuel + maintenance savings alone you can buy another 2 fleet BYDs. Like a fleet operator would have to be economically stupid to not go for BYD tier EV. You get to enjoy cheap seats.
It's bringing EVs to the masses. There's so much potential in places like Europe and Latin America, where most consumers don't drive big SUVs and trucks. Apparently battery packs were about $1,200 per kWh in 2010, today it's $140/kWh. EVs are finally becoming mainstream
I don't know the model exactly but every Uber (maybe six of them?) I was in in Mexico City was the same model BYD and it was really plasticky and they all rattled on every bump in the road.
Maybe their more expensive models are better but they're damaging their brand putting it on those cars.
I know it can be shocking for tech people making good money, but whether the interior is plasticky and rattling is typically far down the checklist for most people buying a car.
This shows the inverted priorities people have in the US. The main feature of a car is the price you pay to get it working and serviced. If it has high end leather seats is a secondary decision left for people with extra money in the bank.
Bought a BYD, cross shopped it with some Mazdas and Toyotas. For less money we got more fruit, a full BEV and the Japanese brands materials were equivalent or worse.
Toyota interiors in particular are hard plastic monstrosities.
I can. There’s no other equivalent in south east Asia. They are consistent, they are cheap to operators, they have a viable and trusted dealer network and are cheap to purchase with immediate upsides.
Have you priced a similar car like a Toyota vios or Yaris or Honda hrv or brv. These are ICE and gas is what, in the Philippines 2$.gallon?
The only viable alternative that is non Chinese for South east Asia is ironically Vinfast, which are available in the USA and quite ibexpensively.
If you’re biggest claim is the “sear” and the “trunk bedding” you are missing the entire point of what this car is and it’s market position.
It's really not much different than most cars people use every day. Nothing weird is happening with my seats. (Sealion 7) And I put 40kg+ in the boot without problems either. I've not seen reports of this being a problem overall - maybe you just got very unlucky?
I get not liking something for personal preference reasons, but going as far as garbage and cheap quality in this case just... doesn't match reality. It's a perfectly fine car that works. Lots of people are happy with it.
Unlike Teslas, several that I've been in had a small display that showed things like current speed in the traditional position behind the steering wheel. Only having that large, center display in newer Tesla's freaks me out. I haven't driven one myself but it seems very unergonomic.
I've been in 6 or 7 between Spain and Indonesia (Uber/Grab). All of them had RGB mood lighting, enormous center displays, large digital gauge clusters, full pano sunroofs, good materials, good sound isolation from outside, and great AC. It's not a surprise the big three in the US are lobbying so hard to keep them out of the US... they'd be obliterated.
40 kg is nothing? A feed bag? A lead-acid battery? My backpack? I've put far heavier things in the back of our cars - generators, compactors, engine blocks - without a buckle or a scratch to show for it. That's in European-style station wagons like Skoda Octavia or Volvo V-series.
No, a 42 kg backpack. A bit more than 88 pound. With a 10 kg one on front so 52 kg in total. I used it on a 3.5 month expedition from Vancouver via Whitehorse, then paddled the Yukon to Emmonak, then Alakanuk at the Bering Strait, back to Emmonak, then Anchorage, hitchhiked to the start of the Alaska Marine Highway at Skagway, then to Prince Rupert, from there to Vancouver Island, then back to Vancouver.
It was quite the trip. I don't really hold with the 'travel light' motto and mostly use old military gear, normal food instead of the freeze dried stuff, normal (but smallish) pots and pans, etc. On the Yukon trip I also happened to have a solar-powered water- and probably bullet-proof computer with me plus 2 10W solar panels, that was what I had in the 10kg pack on front.
I spend a lot of time in Asia so I’ve been in dozens and dozens of BYDs while taking Grab rides.
I agree on the low build quality, but one thing that I’ve noticed as well is the atrocious ride quality. Hitting a small speed bump results in a jarring shock for the passenger combined with a loud clunk from the car.
I thought it was the road until I road in a few Toyotas over the same road and the speed bump was a gentle rocking of the car.
Not sure if it’s just a consequence of the battery weight or what but it feels like I’m riding in pickup truck when I’m in a BYD
Honestly, I don't believe it. My family rented a plug-in hybrid BYD car this summer in Georgia (the country). Our combined luggage was definitely more than 40kg in total, and we had zero problems with that. It also looks like there are no mass complaints about trunk panels breaking.
BTW, the car itself was fine, not the most luxurious but also not the cheapest possible box. My issues were mostly with weak USB-C ports in the front and with the sluggish cruise control.
China already outsold ICE cars than USA by volume. If you factor in ppp, China car market value crush USA. And now they are selling EVs, hybrids, and even farm-relatedachinery and vehicles crushing Deere. If you visit ASEAN, Africa, South America, and even Australia, Chinese cars everywhere. I grew up during Japanese dominant era, and then SKorea. Today Chinese cars everywhere even more dominant than back then. USA is fast on track Great Britain track.
The US economy has basically been taken over by venture capital and they're milking all the assets and value that they can. It's all short term thinking. Hype economy so the rich can cash out.
It will be interesting to see how these cars perform over years and decades. One of the major cost saving mechanisms BYD uses is lumping components together. An issue with one part of the drive train means the whole drive train may need to be replaced. The battery pack being part of the chassis means a small accident could become a write-off. Initial cost savings at manufacture will be passed on to the owner in maintenance.
That doesn't seem to be too far off from the status quo for typical American cars, which are fully capable of being totaled by a collision that only damages the bumper.
What are the manufacturing times for Tesla's down to? Low minutes or high seconds?
It would seem that a replacement entire car may be more economical than fixing anything. Like printers, buying a new one is cheaper than replacing the ink in the old one.
All manufacturing is moving this way, not even intentionally, but as a by-product of process efficiency.
Whilst Tesla is probably leading the way for car manufacture in the US, the other car companies are probably similar. EVs are also greatly helped in this by having far fewer moving parts, and so they're either more 'modular' or almost entirely monolithic. Makes for interesting hypotheticals about 'replacement' vs 'fix' into the future and manufacturing for 'ease of recycling/reclaiming'.
I realize. I'm just not prepared to assume that that's an automatic fail from a TCO perspective.
Suppose for the sake of argument that replacing the whole unit is expensive enough that any part of it failing is effectively the end of the car's life. You could still end up with a more economical car as long as the % reduction in the car's mean time between failures is less than the % reduction in sticker price.
It's kind of like how the most economical car I've ever owned was a rusted out pickup truck that was theoretically on its last legs when I got it. But I only paid $700 for it in the first place, and it lasted me another 3 years with only routine maintenance and wear items needing to be replaced. My 2010 Kia Soul would have to go 26 more years without any major repairs to reach the same price per year of service. (not adjusted for inflation)
Not exactly related to overall component maintenance, but this guy became a small YouTube celebrity for having a 200.000 miles BYD Dolphin with 87% battery health and no major issues. He get comments from many other owners (mostly Uber drivers) having similar experience.
Analysis is available for 5 years at https://driveauthority.com/is-byd-reliable-after-5-years/ , including actual maintenance costs over the period. No empirical evidence for 10 years yet of course. You certainly do want to buy expecting it to last for a couple of decades because the deprecation rate is really high (maybe because the tech has been moving so fast).
that's the new reality with a lot of modern vehicles. i'm not naming the brand here but a guy who's very familiar with one of the EV brands' manufacturing process told me the same thing that you posted. even a small fender bender is more than enough to total a car.
Dealer where I bought my Renault Megane e-Tech mentioned one of the Chinese brands they also sell had a headlight unit that cost 60k NOK (about $6k) to replace, plus labor...
So yeah, better have good insurance and hope it doesn't just die on you I suppose.
For an iPhone or Mac I can accept most things being binded together. I can’t for a car that I expect to be able to keep for a longer period of time. I can buy another phone relatively easily not a car. I feel that this goes for most people.
Car warranties are heading for 10 years these days. I think the two recent Chinese EVs we bought are both 7 or 8 year warranties. One must expect that this would affect second hand prices - but new prices seem to be coming down to a level where a second hand EV, in not many years, would be low enough that they are effectively throw away.
In this 'throw away' scenario, though, I'd hope that car recycling becomes a thing pretty quickly (aside: I think any large product manufacturer should have a complete lifecycle plan from manufacture to entire breakdown and recycle/reclaim, especially if their products include non-renewable minerals etc.)
The west doesn’t want to move forward and instead are doubling down on fossil fuel energy. It’s so sad. Car manufacturers have succeeded in lobbying out change and making your vehicle a subscription.
The real story here is the splintering of "the west". The US doesn't want to move forward, but UK, Europe, AU/NZ all do.
It's not clear to me where Canada stands on this issue. I know they're an exporter of fuel to the US, so perhaps they are more US aligned on this?
Sadly, I think this highlights the problem with Carney's middle powers idea - it's difficult to all work together when you have competing interests.
As far as anecdotal evidence from AU, in the last 12 months the number of EVs on the road has exploded. Only a year ago, maybe a bit longer, I'd specifically notice the odd BYD here or there. Now, you can't get stuck in traffic without having a couple of them within ten metres.
Tesla's have been around the place for a while, but are also increasingly present, but are a greatly decreasing percentage of EVs.
The west? As far as I am concerned, EU moves towards EVs as well. Not as fast as China does, but it does. It's the US that doubles down on ICEs (pun intended).
Check and see where VW, BMW, Citroen and Peugeot are with regard to EV production vs ICE. They are no where near 'wanting to leave the past behind' as it would mean lots of mittelstands losing out and lots of jobs evaporating.
The US is a bit of an outlier in "the west". They have extreme protectionist trade barriers to protect the local auto industry and fossil fuel producers. Most other "western" countries have a more Laissez-faire approach. Ironically the biggest driver for EV sales at the moment is high oil prices caused by US military action.
The US is simultaneously driving global EV adoption and the crazy growth of Chinese automotive technology and manufacturing and stranding their own automotive sector in the past. A lot of people who thought Trump was going to be a disaster are seeing him as an unwitting ally now.
> A lot of people who thought Trump was going to be a disaster are seeing him as an unwitting ally now.
Can you point to anybody in particular? Probably even Putin doesn't seem him as an "unwitting ally" as a result of how mercurial he is. Xi's references to a Thucydides Trap suggest that he too sees the unpredictability as unwelcome.
Starting a war in the Middle East doesn't really make you an ally of anti-fossil fuel groups. Sooner or later Israel was going to start most of those wars anyway.
You realize that “the west” is not just the United States, right? There are plenty of western countries around the world where EV sales are exploding. The Nordic countries and Australia come immediately to mind.
Australia has also seen an immense uptake in residential solar and batteries, driven by tariff-free imports from China.
China is the one doubling down on fossil fuels. They are commissioning several coal plants. Meanwhile, the us is still reducing CO2 emission (us is currently at pre-WWI levels) and the mix of renewables is increasing.
The coal plant boom right now in China is an inefficient result of their political system, and not indicative of "doubling down" on fossil fuels.
They had a bunch of energy shortages back in 2022, local politicians "had to do something", and green-lit a bunch of permits for coal power to stabilize energy generation.
Those are all coming online now, right as they are not needed. They're activating as much grid battery storage as they are coal, so the coal is doing nothing for supply stabilization. Actual coal burnt is plateauing. It's basically a scam by coal companies trying to get one in before renewable mandates take over. They're on contracts where they get paid just to standby and not generate power.
Coal is a stopgap for china. Until their renewables expansion can sustain their growth targets. They are being very veey aggresive in renewables until then to make that happen
They're building everything. Built more solar in 2025 than the US has in total, almost the same for wind, and currently building 36 nuclear plants. Also building more coal but coal usage is going down.
China is building more coal plants but they're burning slightly less coal. They can do that because they're not Capitalists, so the fact that it's less economical doesn't matter to them if it meets their goals. These new plants are definitely stranded assets. For the US that would need massive government subsidies, in China they can just decide it shall be so.
> us is currently at pre-WWI levels
This involves quite a lot of sleight of hand which I'll generously assume you didn't understand. Firstly the measure you're thinking of per capita rates, whereas the Greenhouse Effect only cares about total emissions which are of course enormously higher; Secondly this requires carefully choosing a brief window ("pre-WW1") when the US used almost only coal, producing a tremendous amount of CO2 for its relatively small population; Thirdly it just entirely ignores the amount of off-shoring everything anybody else makes and then ships to the US is magically carbon-free under this thinking.
china's co2 emissions are widely thought to have reached a plateau in the last 2 years, and are entering structural decline as the renewables build out accelerates.
Since late 2025 is one year, not two. It could also be a blip since a lot of weird shit is happening in China, like lowered demand for Chinese goods and factories being burned down by unpaid workers
"the West" geographically yes but the Australian public is hoovering up EVs right now.
Whoever hits the right window on an electric ute is going to make bank (it's probably more about getting another battery price reduction at this point so you can throw energy at the aerodynamics and range issues).
A friend of mine who's a "never EV" kind of guy, has bought some BYD Shark tray-top utes at his workplace. Mind you, they're hybrid not full EV, but it's big progress for his small mind ;)
It's less an industry thing and more a war thing. US wants to fight more wars and for that you need a plentiful supply of portable energy that other countries can't block. For physical wars that's petroleum fuels. By controlling "Greater North America" they can secure their cheap fuel supply and hunker down here. Investing in green energy would de-emphasize the infrastructure you need to process and use massive amounts of oil for cheap.
The U.S. and Europe are considering closing off their auto markets and people there will end up driving dinosaurs in a time of primates.
The electrification of cars is inevitable. Not in a small part because EVs can be made much more cheaply than ICE cars, which are mechanically complex. EVs also need little to no maintenance (except for consumables like tires, brakes and shock absorbers) which saves you at least $1200 a year alone.
Last but not least is that we'll see standardization of car components in a few years which will lead to lower prices, greater innovation and an almost limitless availability of parts. Electric motors, motor controllers, chargers and batteries will become interchangeable between brands and makes.
Nobody uses that expression to mean they would prefer to spend more, unless it's in the context where the number is so low that it implies a safety or fraud issue. e.g. "I would never buy a 5 cent burrito"
There's little point in spending more than $ 40,000 - especially for the crap currently being peddled in the U.S. I bought a 3-year-old electric luxury SUV with significantly under 20,000 miles for well under that.
I mean, if you're rolling in money, and don't need it for savings or more important purposes, you do you. But I'm with GP. 40,000 is excessive. Even in our devalued 2026 money.
Your median price new price is over double the cheapest new price, so no. EVs are now available out of the luxury car bracket in most markets. The cheapest car available on the Australian market was briefly a BYD EV. Not everyone wants to pay for heated seats or celebrity endorsements.
Not sure why you're throwing so much shade at people as though only poors would look at cars below forty thousand dollars. The 2027 Camry and the 2027 Escape both start at under $30,000. Tesla 3 is under $39,000.
Not everyone likes to blow 50-100 grand on an asset which loses 50% of its value in 3 years. Especially considering how much they're trending toward being so expensive to repair and unreliable that keeping it on the road after the warranty runs out is also expensive.
It's a thread about new cars. The price of a BYD car is a thing about cars, not about BYD cars. In fact, BYD is cheap compared to most comparable cars.
If a party was talking about running shoes, I wouldn't pipe in to say "I would never buy running shoes because I'm an amputee", because it's just completely outside the scope of the subject.
Cars are expensive and it's crazy, sure. But like, that's kind of just beside the point for the subject at hand.
i would love to spend >$100k on a great electric car, idk if they're quite there yet and the rocket boosters aren't doing it for me in the tesla line up lol
Still needs a step change upgrade on the battery tech
Nobody cares what you would personally spend on a vehicle. The point is that it's a very good value, relatively speaking, for a new vehicle of its class.
The person was asking me if I had seen a specific car and I gave them my reaction to that car. BYD has cars I want that they sell for ~$15k in China which look like a much better value to me.
I was in Montevideo this weekend and all car service cars I rode were Chinese EVs. They all seemed great and when I had Claude look up pricing they were all very well-priced. While I myself would loe a BYD Seagull or Dolphin, the more expensive ones like the Greely EX5 looked much cooler than much more expensive cars I see on roads in the US.
I live in Punta del Este, we just bought a Geely and a BYD (both) coming from a VW ID.3.
For BYD, a Dolphin 2027 for 21K + VAT. Insane value, by extreme far the best price-perf vehicle in the country’s history. Has every single little thing you might want. For that size and price, at least.
Notably, Tesla is attempting to destabilize the local market, coming in at 30K+VAT for the Premium Model Y which is cheaper than the US, Europe and pretty much anywhere.
I still prefer BYD by far, and not supporting the “controversial fellow”.
At a 20x electricity to gas price ratio (depending on factors, but yes), EVs are key here.
The tariff thing is a bit misleading if you're not familiar with the industry. Kia/Hyundai produce some of the "most domestic" vehicles on the market. Hyundai EVs were beating all American brands (incl. Tesla) by domestic content when the tariffs came into effect. Those lines are very well positioned to accommodate them.
The article is talking about a certain specialty model that's only produced in Korea, probably because it's low volume.
The reason is there's fierce competition between automotive companies in China.
Markets elsewhere that consolidated down to the 2 or 3 domestic champions that settled into a comfortable coexistence with their domestic "competition", and are coddled by protectionist government policy will have a hard time remembering how to compete for real.
That sounds quite reminiscent of America's auto industry, as well as the desktop computer, smartphone, web search, AI, fast food and supermarket industries too.
Is there a reputable summary that explains the cheaper sales price? I'm having a hard time believing it all boils down to politics, but there's way too much noise in the way.
An interesting explanation I heard is that China had this massive housing crisis that they never allowed to go Boom and clear the system in a few hard years. Instead the problems are lingering with an abysmal local credit market. This is why the local population can't/won't buy much and China either has to produce less or export more. For now they decided to export more to keep the machine going.
The bigger principal problem I have is that I do not understand how the Chinese economy/trade is supposed to work. China is working extremely hard to be completely self sufficient and not import anything. How is trade supposed to work if you do not want anything from your trading partners? What can they sell you besides sovereignty/land...
It will/is be a hard awakening when all those nations start to default/nationalize those projects. That is the point were usually the gunboats show up in the harbor....
Why BYD is cheap? They're heavily vertically integrated, they're ruthless about cutting production costs, they operate in an environment with more manufacturing talent than anywhere else, and they're a young company without many legacy costs.
What most folks in the USA don't understand, BYD manufactures two types of vehicles. One type is for the domestic market (cheaper and dangerous), the other is for export (meets some semblance of safety). I have heard that the export models are built to higher standards and are more dependable, hence the higher price than domestic models.
You are repeating years-old news by now. It’s true that the 2022 through 2025 model years had the ICCU problem, but they improved the ICCU design in 2026, with both better hardware (heavier duty power electronics) and better software (slow start for 12V charging).
Of course time will tell whether this brings failure rate down to be negligible. But I feel pretty confident.
It's not years old news, I was looking at used models and it still is an ongoing question. Having no real fix (time will tell if the 2026 revised part is reliable) and leaving owners with a potential brick (and re-servicing it again when the part dies) is completely unacceptable. Many Kia's were lemon'ed based on this issue.
Maybe I'm sensitive as I have a young child, but I will not buy a car with a known potential of stranding me.
If not, just don’t buy it. Let the free market sort it out. If the new part is proven to be good, the market will price these cars much higher, and sellers will perform a preemptive replacement to get higher resale value.
It should be noted that is for their E-GMP platform, which is their 800 V system. Their older 400 V platform, used on the Kia Niro and Hyundai Kona, has a completely different ICCU which has not had those problems. The first generation had some coolant leaks in the DC-DC converter housing and sometimes did a bad job keeping the 12 V battery charged but they seem to have got it all worked out for the second generation in 2024.
You need to go to China then. There are dozens of manufacturers other than BYD. It's astonishing just how many sexy EVs there are driving around in China.
And the United states is likely to never get them. Unlike the chicken tax with light trucks, I wouldn't be surprised if the BIG 3 are so afraid they lobby to completely block them from ever being built and sold here.
I would hazard that they'll buy their way into the local market: partner with a Big 3 manufacturer, build a plant somewhere in the South, and then sell a car 50% more expensive than what they sell in Mexico.
I've been seeing more and more JAC small pickup trucks (diesel though, not electric) around Austin lately. I think people are bringing them up from Mexico.
- The world’s largest electric vehicle maker will expand its fleet of car-carrying cargo ships to 18 from eight by 2029, according to shipping industry reports. Each new carrier will have the capacity to carry about 9,200 cars and will be built by China Merchants Industry.
- Owning its fleet could cut BYD’s cost to ship each car abroad by as much as 40% compared with renting carriers, according to one industry estimate. BYD’s increasing export capacity could help it push further into global markets, intensifying competition for automakers including Tesla and traditional U.S. brands.
- BYD aims to sell more than 2.5 million vehicles overseas in 2027, extending its rapid international growth through a larger shipping fleet and increased production abroad
- Its Indonesian plant has started production, its Brazilian plant is ramping toward annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles, and its Hungarian plant is expected to begin assembly in November or December, Deutsche Bank noted.
I would say it's actually more complicated than that. Here is a good video that goes over the situation, and multiple perspectives on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nim61oVLdwk
TL;DR They severely reduced the number of components by integrating parts into larger pieces. This trades upfront cost savings for longevity concerns and repair prices down the road.
One could argue the US wants to ban them solely because it undercuts other manufacturers, but there's more.
You can also argue it's not good for many other people, like:
- the average consumer (that expects a quality long-lasting product)
- the insurance companies that will be footing a lot of the repair bills
- independent repair shops that either won't get those jobs, cannot actually perform the work due to tech/service monopolies, or simply lose revenue because the work is shorter
Sortof. There's no guarantee they wouldn't lose customers/revenue if everyone started buying BYDs or NIOs... they could decline to insure those cars at all due to the high repair cost, or not cover all of it, and that affects more than just themselves.
We already have stats for Tesla Model 3, and they rarely have problems with the battery and propulsion. So it's a trade-off, fewer parts also mean that you can overengineer them more easily.
There are also third-party replacements available now, because it's not that hard to manufacture most EV components, outside the critical high-voltage paths.
I feel like most of the people I know (Americans) don't truly realize how utterly dense and populuated Chinese cities are.
I think about my home city (6th largest in the US) with its singular interstate looping around our metro area - and Beijing has five of these ring roads on top of having a far more robust public transportation system and tons of scooter/bike usage still.
A single carmaker outselling all of US-made electric vehicles is just normal especially given the prices of these cars (down to something like $8000 USD) and the fact that they live in such dense areas that don't require you to drive 20 miles just to, for eg, get to a Costco or something. So you can have these ultracheap cars with maybe twice the range of lithium-powered golf carts and not spend a ton of money on it along with having 5x the population.
One bellweather reason for this state being impressive is that this is china's domestic market demonstrating the buying power needed to fuel private innovation
This used to be something only the US could do. China always had the population. But it wasnt rich enough to create local demand. Now it can and that creates a flywheel effect of feuling its own innovation, like EVs, LLMs, reusable rockets, sattelite ISPs, and all the other thingsthe US prides itself on.
And eventually it might even make novel things the US or anyone else hasnt even made yet. If that happens then the american empire is truly over
I'm pretty sure we're witnessing the accelerating confirmation of this right now, for all the reasons you've already stated. The US still has some niches at which it's ahead, but China is a mere intellectual property theft away from being able to pwn those areas as well (rightly, or likely wrongly, but even 'wrongly' by any law is 'rightly' by China's point of view, same as plenty of US decisions of late - the lens makes all the difference).
I think the one caveat to this is that consumer spending and GDP growth has slowed dramatically especially following the housing bubble popping (remember Evergrande?)
A lot of the very high-tech manufacturing in China is still dependent on Western supply chains (ASML is one major one for semi-conductors) and there's a level of complexity and specialized knowledge there that probably doesn't exist domestically yet so the transition to a knowledge-dominant vs manufacturing-dominant economy is hitting a logarithmic wall.
That said, China's intellectual property ecosystem is extremely open and free. This is really a cultural thing, embedded since the early days of China's printing press half a thousand years ago when editing, rewriting, and printing your own versions of someone elses's works was totally normalized (think AO3 but standardized and normalized at a societal level). So we'll get to see whether or not that business-friendly theory of 'IP exists to protect genius inventors and without it we have no inventions' governing theory bears out or if a completely permissive and free ecosystem is better for innovation in the longterm.
BYD is also expected to export 2.5 million vehicles outside China this year. They are the largest manufacturer of EVs in the world, and not just for the Chinese market.
> don't truly realize how utterly dense and populated[] Chinese cities are
- A US and a China professor are talking in a bar. "We have about 10,000 students" they agree. But no, one is thinking of their university, the other of their department.
- Population of Wyoming < Louisville, KY (KY's largest city). Pop KY < NYC. Pop US Northeast region < Pearl River Delta megalopolis. PRD is sort of like a 20x compressed US Southeast, with 2x lower GDP.
I've yet to see an actual premium EV akin to the ICE cars from Lexus, Acura, or Genesis.
In fact that's my problem with all EVs because EVEN Lexus, Acura, and Genesis is not sticking to their premium quality when they release an EV version of their ICE cars. The Lexus ES ICE is legendary. The Lexus ES EV looks like a plastic coffin with 2 tablets. It's probably the zeigeist of car designs and/or my taste but I feel all EVs look the same without much personality. Not even mentioning the chinese brands because Geely, Leapmotor, BYD etc all look the same to me.
Say we have a Lexus LX 600 https://www.lexus.com/models/LX Why does this car can't be released as is, the same design and same interior but with an EV drivetrain?
It is consistently funny / revealingly human the lengths people will go to bad-mouth something they're irrationally biased against in order to not appear irrationally biased.
My extended family has three EVs now, and they're fucking great for our needs. They get us to where we need to go, and save us at least $350 a month in fuel.
Having said that, we're in the exact scenario pocket where EVs make sense: We can charge at home overnight, our daily commutes are 50km maximum, we have solar panels and cheap overnight electricity rates, we don't need to tow anything pretty much ever.
EVs are less niche than they were, but they're still not as commodity/utility friendly as ICE cars, but the niche is growing quickly. Interestingly, the haters I've encountered rapidly soften when they actually experience driving in an EV - they're still a ways away from looking to buy one for themselves, but they're noticeably less militantly/irrationally opposed than they were.
Caveat: 1 of the EVs is a 2014 Nissan Leaf, which is at about 80% of its original range. The other two are less than a year old Chinese EVs, and so I can't and won't speak to long term reliability - that's definitely a risk we were willing to take, and won't know whether it was worth it until a few years down the track.
Have you had a chance to ride in the Chinese EVs? Opinions on exterior designs are pretty subjective and change a lot over time (see: Porsche 996). I've driven and ridden in a lot of Chinese EVs over the past two years and find them much more luxurious than ICE cars across the price range. Most of them have huge panoramic sunroofs now that make even the small cars feel open and spacious, the technology is actually useful instead of a gimmick (Chinese navigation apps are way better than western ones, which is a big deal when the primary interface is a tablet), many of the cars can autopark/drive, they have cameras for all the blind spots, USB-c and magnetic chargers everywhere, fast charging, etc. etc.
I would encourage anyone that lives in America or Europe and hasn't been to China in the past five years to go see it for yourself. Take what western media writes with a grain of salt - you might be surprised.
Car makers can't win! Release an EV with "personality" aka looks different from an ICE, and people will complain why can't they make an EV that looks like a normal car. Release an EV that looks like a normal ICE and someone's going to complain it has no personality. Ah well.
The 'personality', that EVs used to seemingly be designed with, seemed universally ugly for a long time. Nissan Leaf (I own one, so familiarity has softened my opinion), Toyota Prius, BMW i3, all fucking ugly cars. It was like they didn't want to sell them in order to justify not putting further R&D into them, or they wanted to see how committed the market was, despite the butt-ugliness.
Current era is SUV-look for almost literally every car (even the Mini has the 'Countryman' variant, which makes a mockery of the very name 'Mini'), so EVs have essentially followed that bland-ness to now be leading it.
Polestar's are the nicest looking EVs, outside of the high-level performance cars that are out of the practical range of normal people.
I think it's a huge regression vs. the goofy looking i3 (which is carbon fiber, has a working jog wheel, etc). The i4 is basically exactly a modern BMW sedan, but an EV. I think they moved to a platform that lets them just switch between ICE, hybrid and EV. You can even set the safety tone to make it sound like a BMW with tuned exhaust pipes.
My i3 is my favorite car ever. If it looked like a BMW I would have never considered it. The i3 is such a pure design statement.
The only other ev I would describe that way is the now defunct Canoo.
They look like a swollen, but also squashed, BMW. Gross. But gross has its own appeal to vanishingly small minority of people. Like cats with the squashed up snouts. Cute, in a distinctly not-pretty way.
Having said that, I like the (hatch-size more-so than the SUV-size) GWM Ora, which seems to be a divisive looking EV.
Luxury seems like a tricky move for EVs. All those extra features add weight, which eats into range. I would guess that undermines your own sales pitch because people who want to spend a lot on their car are generally going to be people who expect to spend a lot of time in their car.
I imagine it's just a fundamentally more palatable compromise for an ICE vehicle. You maybe bump the size of the fuel tank a bit and assume your clientele aren't going to be all that much more cost sensitive about fuel than they are about sticker price and maintenance.
thats because there is zero demand as has been all over the news the past years. the european and especially german car industry wasted billions on EV strategies that now have to be rewound because it turns out there is basically zero demand for expensive EVs. people that can afford expensive cars want ICE.
In my opinion, the core concept is simple: China is a big market that's getting wealthier and BYD makes cheap and innovative cars.
Owning a vehicle is going from a luxury for wealthy people in China to a more every-day thing, driving huge volumes. Meanwhile the rest of the world (US excluded for now) is trying to electrify personal transportation, and China is meeting that demand better than any other country.
That is a big part of what drove down the price of lab diamonds in the world. The China-domestic market bought a ton of them for engagements, then they stopped getting engaged after the real-estate crash, and now there is a supply glut.
Hah was wondering if someone else had read that announcement/ finding.
Coupled with this https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/10/chinese-co... (lots of dead companies being propped up artificially by the govt and not allowed to fail so people stay employed) the strategy of cornering every global export market until complete dominance seems to be very a much make it or break it approach here. So the US blocking one important industry with likely lots of subsidies does make more sense under that light.
USA bans the onboard Chinese automotive software for national security reasons, effectively banning Chinese cars.
For all the talk about data and technology sovereignty in Europe about USA tech, you would think they would take that more seriously too. Instead Europe is flooded with underpriced Chinese cars that they have no control over.
There can be several motivations that are all equally valid. We should ask Europeans if they think national security has become a major concern in the face of their overwhelming reliance on USA technology and services.
Is this American overwhelming or European overwhelming? You know, the way everything is bigger in America? The claim is inflated. Yes, the US dominates parts of the digital tech economy. To imagine that as unilateral dependence is foolish. The US depends on European companies like ASML, hundreds of billions in European investment annually. Europeans used to trust the US and were happy to buy US products and services. That's over now. The US, and particular, the current administration, has shat the bed. The decoupling is underway and will not be reversed. I recommend the YouTube channel HouseOfEL if you'd like read the writing on the wall.
It’s amazing to me Waymo saw the estimated 50000-80000 tariff penalty (and time and money invested for essentially reinstalling electronics ) in their latest fleet worth it. American sourced options must really pale in comparison or be non existent and I wish I could just write off auto tariffs like that.
No amount of fucking banning will work and the US is going to end up with egg on its face when the entire world is using chinese everything and the US is still trying to banhammer. The entire world has started shifting away from the US, not in a positive isolationist way -- in an uncompetitive, stagnating innovation way.
The only way out is through competition and this lesson will probably only be learned when its too late to do anything about it. Everybody saw this coming
It basically started in the 70s with the outsourcing of manufacturing to China, and the short term thinking and naivete (hubris?) that China would not do anything and everything to use this to their global strategic advantage. Sure, lots of US executives made _mother-fucking bank_ but the massive amounts of money they made was essentially for the sale of US dominance to China over the course of 50 years. They can say "I got mine" though, which seems to be current zeitgeist.
China wins because playing the long game wins - or having X billion expendable population under a dictatorship wins - possibly/probably the combination of both.
There is no logical reason to ban vehicles except protectionism and protection of manufacturing capability domestically. There is no security risk from Chinese EVs that requires a full ban.
If you think labor exploitation on that scale is comparable to even extreme immigration enforcement policies, then we can’t have a rational discussion. And I can have whatever position I want despite how you feel about those policies.
EVs connect to people's home wifi and they are probably the most powerful compute on the network. You claim to be Infosec, yet cannot fathom any issues here?
The thing about protectionism is that sometimes it works. Also China is definitely not playing any kind of a fair game. Also adding another supply chain dependency is definitely a geopolitical risk.
> There is no security risk from Chinese EVs that requires a full ban.
Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to [map] you.
Of course there is a risk to allowing networked automobile sensor packages on your streets if they're feeding a potential adversary live info on everything going on on and around your roads. Denying this isn't virtuous or smart or benevolent, it is at the best naïve.
Disagree... they're a lot more integrated than other cars, meaning less parts in a way, which is cheaper to buy, but much more expensive to repair later.
Consumers want protection from cars they can't afford to fix.
Insurance companies want protection from costly warranty repairs.
Mechanics want protection from cheap highly-integrated gatekept parts that they can't work on, and/or won't get paid as much for.
>Consumers want protection from cars they can't afford to fix.
Said who ? If it's under warranty for long enough and cheap enough then I don't really care even if I have to fully replace it in 5 years and sell for scrap. Without tariffs that's what the price would be.
Are you suggesting consumers want cars they can't fix?
They may regret it when the battery dies and it's a $20k repair because they're actually structural components on those cars. Or a single $20 sensor dies that's part of a larger non-serviceable $5k component.
If the option is 25k for a car I "can't repair" in 5 years or 50k for a car I can - I'll take the 25k one, if I can get the warranty to cover those 5 years, all else being equal.
Everything is "repairable" it's just a matter of is it worth repairing. Maybe rebuilding the car every 5-10 years isn't that bad of a model.
Blade batteries are still repairable. Re-celling a Model 3 battery is $6000: https://recell-ev.com/ so BYD battery repairs will likely be in the same range.
That's assuming it's out of warranty, which is now 150k miles or 8 years for BYD in the UK.
The largest other component is the integrated motor/inverter and they should be pretty reliable. They are still repairable, although you might need to replace the entire circuit boards, rather than individual components.
And that's why we're banning American-made Teslas, where denting the rear bumper requires replacing the entire back of the car because of all the sensors and cameras baked in. Right?
I don't think that's a concern sufficient to ban import. Why not impose requirements for spare parts manufacturing and modularity?
Again, if they wanted to work in the interest of affordability and electric vehicle promotion, they would. They're being protectionist for Ford and GM.
I mean, right, but the word "protectionism" isn't the end of the argument. US-China trade relations are conducted in the context of the extremely serious problem that one day not too long from now China will rupture them by invading Taiwan. The US has to protect itself from that.
We do. The Department of Commerce notice proposing the connected vehicle rules (https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-21903.pdf) extensively discussed the national security risks of letting technology developed by foreign adversaries run US cars, although one such risk is the consumer privacy of individuals who might themselves be important to national security or be blackmailed into sabotaging national security. I don't know why it's sometimes presented as though it's purely consumer privacy.
Americans love complaining about gas prices too much to give up their ICE cars. Every manufacturer save Tesla and Hyundai/Kia have given up on the market. Let the Chinese in.
Comparing it to the US isn’t really meaningful considering the EV market here is on life support.
Federal subsidies were eliminated. Funding for charging infrastructure and battery manufacturing was rolled back. ICE emission regulations were repealed. Individual states were barred from enforcing their own standards. EVs are down to 6% share of new vehicles sold.
Most domestic manufacturers have given up on EVs entirely and written off their investments. Tesla is the only one standing, and their US sales have also been falling for the last couple years.
Looking back 2024 is probably going to be the peak of the US EV market.
This post really fails to go beyond basic headlines.
> Federal subsidies were eliminated. Funding for charging infrastructure and battery manufacturing was rolled back.
These are both signs of a maturing market. It's a good thing that DCFC operators like Ionna, Walmart, etc. are still charging ahead at a pretty rapid pace, even without federal funding. Ionna especially has been deploying at a crazy speed.
> Individual states were barred from enforcing their own standards.
Litigation on this is still playing out. If car manufacturers aren't planning for these to swing back into force with a change of government, they are fooling themselves.
> Most domestic manufacturers have given up on EVs entirely and written off their investments.
Again, not true. Some investments like battery manufacturing, sure, but that's not what they were ever good at. GM has a pretty robust line of EVs, and Ford has bet big on their new platform underpinning on their new 'affordable' truck.
> Tesla is the only one standing, and their US sales have also been falling for the last couple years.
2023 was a stand out year for them, but it's not like they are falling off a cliff. We should expect Tesla sales to fall as other competitors like Rivian, Hyundai/Kia and even Toyota/Subaru release updated offerings.
Federal subsides weren't rolled back because the market was taking off on its own, they were rolled back for ideological reasons.
Ideological reasons, yes, but the fact remains is the EV market is still standing on its own. Sure, the EV market is not growing anywhere near as fast as other parts of the world, but it is still growing. People talk about their EVs and it's becoming clear to even to people who don't have one that they are useful vehicles.
Every once in a while people ask about cost and discover that for most people charging in your garage is significantly cheaper than anything else and charging on the road is still cheaper than gas and while it does take longer it's not too bad.
And as was pointed out, there is every reason to believe that there'll be a change in administration in the federal level in a few years. And once again, the rules will change. The car manufacturers are going to keep building what they know and have good investments in. But they're going to keep investing in EVs both because in the world they're important players and also because they know the government will change and with it their rules and they don't want to be left behind.
You basically said this but charging at home literally eliminates fueling time and empty tank anxiety completely.
Get in your car, drive up to a few hundred miles. Dive home. Repeat. Never stop for fuel ever. That is what EV life is like for many people. I think most people.
That's about 95%, but there's still that last 5% of road trips that an EV does need to find a place to stop. Fortunately, there are places to charge an EV all over. Not quite as convenient as a gas station, but more than good enough for most trips.
If you've got a place to charge at home. We need subsidies to encourage chargers in more places outside of garages in surburbs.
If you live in an urban area and want to charge an EV, it can be quite a pain
I don't know about your city but my city there places to charge all over. Many of them are level 2, but if you are in the parking garage all day that doesn't matter.
Though honestly, in urban cities, we don't need to add more chargers, we need to add good public transit.
Where I’m at pretty much all chargers are in parking garages. But my garage doesn’t have one. And the garages that do, are expensive. And even then, it would be a shared space where I'd need to move my car, and I'd have to rely on others moving their car for it to be available.
And I do normally use public transit, so the primary reason I have a car is for out of town trips where I’d need to charge away from home.
I’d love to have an EV but I just can’t make it make sense.
If we incentivized parking structure owners to install chargers, it would be a different situation
> That is what EV life is like for many people.
Here is our EV life:
Need to go to San Francisco (~90 min away, no good place to charge there so need to get back too). Can we make it? Mild panic. No, we can't.
Drive to a fast charger place nearby. Spend 45 minutes charging, bored with nothing to do. We were on time but now we're very late. Child is grumpy because we'll miss the start of the event (this is for watching Fleet Week last month). Finally get going, got there late due to time wasted charging, missed a few planes.
Coming home in the evening, battery is at 30% with half hour to go, partner is panicking. Will we make it? Maybe? Do we detour to a fast charger found on the map? Yes! No, maybe we'll be ok. Rather not stop in some dark sketchy place to charge for 30+ minutes. Let's hope for the best and keep going. Got home with ~10% left, stress on high alert.
Maybe some people like the adrelanine rush of this kind of stress on every road trip, but it's not for me.
This seems to be a planning issue more than an EV issue...
As someone with a degree in human machine interaction: stop blaming machine problems on the user. Humans should not have to plan like that.
All the gas cars I've ever had, if I did a few gallons of gas, would only take a few minutes. Overall, the cost savings is worth having an EV, but charging time is a major downside. We need to stop blaming people for the downside of the technology.
There's a minimum level of competence expected before operating machines. I blame someone if they run out of gas. I blame someone if they run out of battery energy.
The charge time is a downside, but it's not like (particularly in San Francisco) there isn't an abundance of options that will give you 90+ miles in 5 minutes.
He didn't claim a lack of options to change. He described it being inconvenient.
Yeah, and I personally don't buy what he's putting down. He's 90 minutes away from San Fransisco and doesn't have anywhere he can charge without waiting for 45 minutes? I find that highly suspect. That'd put the trip distance at around 100 miles (assuming 70mph average). Which, unless you are literally driving an old Nissan leaf, you could comfortably traverse with basically all EVs on the market.
But further, in that 100 mile radius, there's EV chargers literally every 10 miles or less on all major roads.
Because the charge curve on basically all EVs starts high at a low state of charge, there's basically no reason he'd have to wait more that 5 or 10 minutes at a stop to continue on his trip. 45 minutes is absurd.
I say this as someone that lives in Idaho and makes 6 hour road trips relatively regularly. Even on my longest "without charger" stretches, the wait is roughly 20 minutes to get enough to get to the next charger.
No good place to charge in San Francisco?
you're in the bay area and you can't find a fast charger? or a charger at all?
pebcak issue
That is ideal, but unfortunately nobody can afford homes these days so we're stuck with rarely available car ports in apartment complexes with no charging ports.
Dude you're living in fantasy land. The US EV market is not good.
Spot on. China is the largest auto market in the world, and two thirds (~67%) of their sales are new energy vehicles now (battery electric and plug in hybrid). It’s ~6-7% in the US. The race is over.
Chart: A record two-thirds of car sales in China are now electric vehicles - https://www.carbonbrief.org/chart-a-record-two-thirds-of-car... - October 23rd, 2026
50% of their heavy duty trucks are electric already, four years ahead of the government’s 2030 target.
Electric trucks hit 50% of China’s heavy truck sales, diesel demand falls - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50340612 - November 2026
China is going to hit 100% light and heavy vehicle sales by 2030, and then they’re going to export them to the world as fast as they can build and ship them.
It's great for Tesla regardless of the overall EV market in the US. Anyone with money in China is willing to pay more for a Tesla because they know its superior. It's quite like their obsession with Apple products.
Tesla? Superior? My X button is wearing out from all this doubt.
In many way Tesla products in China are viewed as superior. Recent reviews funded by the CCP showed their self driving is the only reliable one in China as well as the recent negative publicity from Huawei and their brake failures on their luxury models.($150,000)
Even here in Mexico EVs have tariffs that make them as costly as ICEs, just to please Trump. EVs are becoming popular here, but the market is far from mature. I don't think it was ideological, but short-sighted protectionist reasons, though.
Likewise, Musk's Sieg Heil and association with Trump didn't help- instant ~25% drop in sales (60% in Europe). It's like when that Campbell's executive said their soup is "shit for fucking poor people".
So why have EV sales in the US been dropping almost every quarter since 2024, from a peak of ~10% of new sales down to under 6% today? Is this the “mature market” you are referring to?
For comparison, that number is 53% in China and 60-70% in most European countries. In Norway 97% of new sales are EVs.
It all makes sense when you realize that the global fossil fuel industry is going all-in on their hold out market, the USA, with astronomical levels of corruption and propaganda to keep the gas guzzlers guzzlin'.
Besides the end of the tax credit, EVs are still quite expensive in the US and there's been a jump of used EVs flooding the market (mostly from corporate fleet offloads)
> So why have EV sales in the US been dropping almost every quarter since 2024, from a peak of ~10% of new sales down to under 6% today?
Because a lot of Americans lacks financial literacy (i.e. everyone buying a brand new ICE vehicle).
Even before that godforsaken war it made no financial sense at all to buy an ICE vehicle for most purposes. Now with that war and its effects wrecking the fossil fuel markets, it's even worse.
> Even before that godforsaken war it made no financial sense at all to buy an ICE vehicle for most purposes.
If you could not charge at home then a high mileage ICE vehicle (before the war) had lower energy costs in a significant fraction of the US.
Even with home charging there were something like 10 states where a Prius beat an EV if you were paying the state average rates for gas and for home electricity.
Massachusetts was the state most favorable to ICEs. In the Boston area a Prius would have lower energy costs in the city as long as gas was under about $4.40/gal.
> These are both signs of a maturing market.
Hmm. 16 million cars sold in the US each year. 1.2 million EVs sold each year. "Maturing" at less than 8% market share is not a good sign.
> Litigation on this is still playing out...these to swing back into force with a change of government
Have you not lived in the US, like ever? It will take anywhere from approximately a decade to never to claw back even a fraction of an progressive legislation or regulation.
> We should expect Tesla sales to fall...when [vague new things come out]
Falling sales is sign of market maturity?
>These are both signs of a maturing market. It's a good thing that DCFC operators like Ionna, Walmart, etc. are still charging ahead at a pretty rapid pace, even without federal funding. Ionna especially has been deploying at a crazy speed.
But the market isn't mature. It COULD be the sign of a maturing market, or it COULD be the sign of politicians that take large sums of money from oil companies gaining power and gutting subsidies.
>Again, not true. Some investments like battery manufacturing, sure, but that's not what they were ever good at. GM has a pretty robust line of EVs, and Ford has bet big on their new platform underpinning on their new 'affordable' truck.
Ford has GREATLY reduced their EV plans. How's that EV Explorer coming along? Right, scrapped. The F-150 is scrapped, the maverick-esque platform will likely find a lukewarm response followed by further contractsion. It will be double the price of a slate, and nowhere near as nice as the Rivian.
> These are both signs of a maturing market.
I wonder when will oil companies reach the point of a maturing market... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/09/fossil-f...
> > Federal subsidies were eliminated.
> These are both signs of a maturing market.
I sure can't wait for oil extraction and farming to become mature markets, so we can eliminate those subsidies too! /s
That's just false. I don't think US automakers outside of Tesla have done well with EVs to date, but Ford went back to the drawing board a few years ago and is now near to releasing it's revamped EV platform that they believe will be actually competitive: https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/universal-electric-ve...
> Comparing it to the US isn’t really meaningful considering the EV market here is on life support.
I think that's the thing being pointed out...
Charging infrastructure is blossoming. It is funded by private companies. Roadtripping in an EV is pretty seamless now. I'm driving to Death Valley in a couple of weeks. Plenty of charging options along the way.
Because funding for that network was provided for the several years before these changes were made.
They didn’t put money to rip out existing infrastructure and funding (let’s not give them ideas). It’s future EV charging growth and maintenance that will be affected, and its impact will be felt years from now.
> 2024 is probably going to be the peak of the US EV market
peak ever? no way. you can only think that if you havent been paying attention at all as to whats going on in the rest of the world. The EV transition is assured, the only variable is how long it takes a market to realize. The US can only resist gravity for so long.
Ford is launching an EV pickup for like $30k to compete with the Slate pickup. Doesn't seem like Ford is giving up.
Yeah Ford killed the f150 lightning because it appealed to no one. Trades people didn't want to fuck with charging their vehicle. Normal people didn't want to pay 100k for a truck.
Their new one is very interesting. I wanted an electric truck when I bought my most recent one but just couldn't afford it. If it's 30k for the base, figure 40k with bells and whistles. That makes it super attainable with a decent trade.
My interest in the Ford truck entirely depends on how thoroughly I can neuter its ability to talk to any network. Slate might be the clear winner there (and only "might" because of that insane kill-switch law).
Got curious, searched, saw this on the Fathom page: “ Dealer sets selling price”, closed the page.
We’re going to see a repeat of Maverick with inflated prices which will kill the demand.
Given the high gas prices in the US, one would think the govt would be doubling down on EVs...
When the price of fuel goes up, American oil companies make more money.
We produce a lot of oil in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_extra...
That same government turned EVs into a cultural issue, so I doubt that would happen.
The government is also trying to sell regular Americans paying a handful of oil companies a lot more money for gas, and the subsequent increase in profits for those oil companies, as a huge win for America.
They’ve been boasting about American oil companies having higher profits.
> They’ve been boasting about American oil companies having higher profits.
It's wild to see the cultists cheer for this right now while they're plunging themselves further into debt.
The government is doubling down on helping their big oil buddies/donors.
Until this troglodyte administration is done. EVs are the future, the US will have to make the change at some point.
If Trump hadn’t petulantly killed the EV subside, hundreds of thousands of additional EVs would be on American roads today. That’s hundreds of thousands of voters who wouldn’t be reacting to gas prices.
Our lucky streak as America—Russia blowing itself up, China going wolf warrior right when they needed to build alliances—may continue in our wannabe fascist being so fucking stupid.
Why do you think China is not building alliances?
They are. But the wolf-warrior crap cost them a critical decade.
Conspiracy warning. Let's say "thought experiment" instead.
I wonder whether Trump has long-recognised the decline of the US, and is planning for his legacy to be setting up his family well enough to be able to move to wherever else in the world opportunity presents itself (or where oligarchies would appreciate their contributions - after all, "there's always another oligarchy"). Essentially both shorting the US and forcing the downfall to occur (and making the progress of its occurrence faster).
I'm interested to see the Trump family's reactions to the inevitable disenfrachisement that the real, long-term outcomes of this will manifest.
> Our lucky streak as America—Russia blowing itself up, China going wolf warrior right when they needed to build alliances—may continue in our wannabe fascist being so fucking stupid.
You are decidedly not on a lucky streak.
Your Dear Leader just threw the US into yet another incompetently waged war on the other side of the world, he tore apart bridges with virtually all allies the US had, including Canada of all places, his reckless usage of his powers to influence corporate decisions (i.e. the ICC sanctions and DoD/Musk throttling Starlink/Starshield for Ukraine) made everyone realize they need their own alternatives not beholden to the US for literally anything, the AI bubble growing uncontrollably while the QE money injections never got taken out of the system is setting you up for a financial disaster that will make 2007 look tame...
Many of us did not want this -- it was a failure of democracy: not enough people showed up to vote and many who voted were poorly informed.
> Many of us did not want this
Agreed, but my point still stands - they are the ones who sent America off to its probably most consequential bad luck streak in centuries.
> it was a failure of democracy: not enough people showed up to vote and many who voted were poorly informed.
Oh hell no. They chose to fall for the anti-trans and anti-immigrant rhetoric. They voted for Trump because Trump promised to make "the others" suffer. The entire operating principle of the GOP and especially its Evangelical wing has been "the suffering is the point" for decades.
I get the "cruelty was the point" angle -- it's absolutely part of that equation. But a lot of those voters were voting out of anger and feeling abandoned and unserved by the government. Ignoring the aforementioned ugly parts -- Trump made a play at populism (albeit all lies) to an electorate hungry for change.
Bear in mind that Harris was playing the "the economy is fine!" angle, which it technically was as far as GDP and the stock markets. But that ignored the fact that for millions it was not so great.
My point about "not enough people showed up to vote" as aimed at the youth vote who is apathetic about such things, and more importantly, a lot of crucial voters who were angry about the situation in Gaza. The irony on that last point is that Harris was absolutely the lesser of two evils in that regard.
I think a majority of voters vote based on their emotions, how their parents voted, or a specific manner of "what's in it for me". I have tempered faith in the electorate as a whole.
> Comparing it to the US isn’t really meaningful considering the EV market here is on life support.
A couple more Middle East wars from Republicans and the resulting gas prices will help push electrification forward. semi-/s
I've been in a few BYDs as a passenger, I actually cannot fathom people spending money on them considering how low/cheap quality the interiors are. Like those garbage thin fake leather seats will have to be replaced within a year of use tops. Oh and also we broke the trunk's bedding by putting a mere 40kg bag in it, it just straight up collapsed.
The average consumer isn’t going to buy an electric car for climate reasons - they’re going to buy it to save money. So they want it cheap and they want to not have to wait ages for it to charge. The Chinese cars deliver on both fronts (provided sufficient infrastructure for fast charging). If the car doesn’t last 10 years that’s okay if they’re saving enough money.
If you want to save money, you either buy from a domestic brand or a used Toyota Yaris and squeeze out as many miles from it as you can while having the option to use a local mechanic. Electric cars still make up a small minority of the market.
In the US sure, thanks to laws preventing Chinese EVs. But look around at other countries.
In Australia, EVs are now 25% of the new car market, that's far from a small minority.
And sure a used Toyota Yaris might be cheaper for now but it won't be for long. A new Yaris starts from around $30k, you can buy multiple new EVs for cheaper than that. Which has caused downward prices on used EVs, you can buy a 2nd hand Nissan leaf for $6500.
And due to our abundance of rooftop solar much of Australia have access to domestic electricity plans that have hours of free usage a day, meaning if you can charge at home you can charge for free which really pushes the value proposition further
Living in a place where weather makes AWD/4WD a very useful feature severely limits these choices.
As you look at those other countries (Australia) flooded with subsidised to below cost-to-make EVs, note how they are killing any chance of a sustainable local EV industry. It is a total governmental derreliction of duty to see how cheap Chinese imports played out with solar panels (and many other industries before that), and still welcome cheap EVs instead of attempting to kick start (or protect) a local option.
There is no local car industry to protect in Australia, and Chinese cars here are more expensive than they are in China. That's why Chinese automakers are flocking overseas, the margins are much better, no subsidies needed.
So how is that working out in the US?
They've banned EV imports in everything but name - yet why do we not see their EV industry taking off? Are US-made EV exports taking off? And do we see any of these low cost EVs being made domestically?
Last time I checked, they were doubling down on fossil fuel subsidies, and encouraging ICE cars. So I would argue this entire "dumping" argument was a Trump-induced fallacy to justify fossil fuel handouts.
Or for another example - has that local iPhone or Mac Pro production taken off, since China are supposedly "dumping" iPhones at below cost?
Shame on people falling for this protectionist stuff, again and again. I'm not saying that China isn't helping their renewal industries - but it's like US agricultural subsidies - every country does it, but people can't seem to accept that some countries do have a comparative advantage in certain industries.
The iPhone analogy is nonsensical. Apple produces iPhones at immense profit.
BYD’s margins are sub-4%.
The average American could save a couple thousand dollars per year in fuel costs by driving an electric car. Over 12 years that could pay for a cheap electric car. If you drive a lot more than average, you would save even more money.
Average American could save that much by driving Yaris instead of truck.
While, trucks are popular. They're not that popular. The average American is not driving one. The average American is driving a smaller SUV which, while not as fuel efficient as the Yaris, is still fairly fuel efficient and is only sightly, efficient than a similar sized sedan
Americans are paying on average $50K for a new ICE car, gas prices are at an all time high, insurance premiums at an all time high, car service costs at an all time high, interest rates at an all time high, and they still think they're making a good deal. This is what I call financial illiteracy.
That's not only the new car that matters. The average car on the road in America is 12 years old, which means there's a lot of people who are not buying those brand new cars for $50,000. They're buying something older, more economical, and they're the ones who are going to start driving the demand for EVs. Either they will start paying a premium for the used EVs that do come available to them because it's worth it or they're going to start buying the cheap EVs if there are any on the market.
Fast charging is massively overrated. Most people's charging needs are better taken care of by charging overnight at home. You're getting electricity cheaper than at fast chargers, and you aren't even altering your commute in any way to charge/refuel. The only issue with this is lack of residential charging infrastructure for apartment buildings, but getting 240V to a parking spot is orders of magnitude cheaper than building a fast charger.
I'm sort of reminded of the Regular Car Reviews review of the Geo Metro, where he spent the first maybe 5 minutes of the video trying to manage viewers expectations. So he talked for a while about judging a thing based on how good it is at being what it's trying to be, not how bad it is at being something else. And then he talked for a while about how the Geo Metro's entire purpose is to be as economical as possible.
And then he spent the rest of the review talking about all the features that people typically hated on, but in a positive light. Because if your primary goal is to make the cheapest car, with the highest fuel economy, for the benefit of people who don't have a whole lot of spending money, those were exactly the design compromises to be making.
RCR went downhill fast when he realized the easy button to online automotive content was to just fellatiate Toyota.
The geo metro isn't that far off from everything else in its day when it comes to build quality, better than comparable models that hadn't been refreshed in longer.
However far apart the internet wants to try and make you believe any given vehicles are they're always way closer in reality.
Build quality was indeed pretty good. But it was still obviously a cheap car. The RCR review correctly pointed out that it was noisy as heck on the highway, had trouble getting up to 65mph, was just kind of generally uncomfortable, etc.
Contrast with, e.g., my stepmom's Jeep Grand Cherokee that was expensive and loaded with luxury features but had awful build quality and was constantly in the shop.
> spending money on them considering how low/cheap quality the interiors are
Because that's the point. It's a cheap reliable car that cut corners for high $$$ ROI fleet cars. There's reason most of PRC taxi fleet converted to BYD EVs over last 10 years. It's statistically battle proven and economical, they'll 500,000km like ICE fleet cars and save 30k USD - on fuel + maintenance savings alone you can buy another 2 fleet BYDs. Like a fleet operator would have to be economically stupid to not go for BYD tier EV. You get to enjoy cheap seats.
It's bringing EVs to the masses. There's so much potential in places like Europe and Latin America, where most consumers don't drive big SUVs and trucks. Apparently battery packs were about $1,200 per kWh in 2010, today it's $140/kWh. EVs are finally becoming mainstream
Does it get you to point A and B? Is it an EV? Is it cheaper than the options currently available? If yes some people will say it’s worth it.
I don't know the model exactly but every Uber (maybe six of them?) I was in in Mexico City was the same model BYD and it was really plasticky and they all rattled on every bump in the road.
Maybe their more expensive models are better but they're damaging their brand putting it on those cars.
I know it can be shocking for tech people making good money, but whether the interior is plasticky and rattling is typically far down the checklist for most people buying a car.
On the contrary, BYD is gobbling up market share by selling vehicles people can actually afford.
This shows the inverted priorities people have in the US. The main feature of a car is the price you pay to get it working and serviced. If it has high end leather seats is a secondary decision left for people with extra money in the bank.
Bought a BYD, cross shopped it with some Mazdas and Toyotas. For less money we got more fruit, a full BEV and the Japanese brands materials were equivalent or worse.
Toyota interiors in particular are hard plastic monstrosities.
Well, they're cheap cars aren't they? That's often the single most important thing.
Other people can't fathom why people buy Android phones instead of Apple.
When American companies cut costs we call it innovation.
I can. There’s no other equivalent in south east Asia. They are consistent, they are cheap to operators, they have a viable and trusted dealer network and are cheap to purchase with immediate upsides.
Have you priced a similar car like a Toyota vios or Yaris or Honda hrv or brv. These are ICE and gas is what, in the Philippines 2$.gallon?
The only viable alternative that is non Chinese for South east Asia is ironically Vinfast, which are available in the USA and quite ibexpensively.
If you’re biggest claim is the “sear” and the “trunk bedding” you are missing the entire point of what this car is and it’s market position.
But hey, this is how propaganda works.
They just need to last 3 years on a PCP for most people. No-one buys cars any more.
It's really not much different than most cars people use every day. Nothing weird is happening with my seats. (Sealion 7) And I put 40kg+ in the boot without problems either. I've not seen reports of this being a problem overall - maybe you just got very unlucky?
I get not liking something for personal preference reasons, but going as far as garbage and cheap quality in this case just... doesn't match reality. It's a perfectly fine car that works. Lots of people are happy with it.
I've had a BYD Sealion 6 for 1.5 years in Australia and no such issues till now
I feel like they are literally Tesla replicas. I thought fit and finish inside the few I’ve been in over the last 2 years or so was pretty good.
Unlike Teslas, several that I've been in had a small display that showed things like current speed in the traditional position behind the steering wheel. Only having that large, center display in newer Tesla's freaks me out. I haven't driven one myself but it seems very unergonomic.
I've been in 6 or 7 between Spain and Indonesia (Uber/Grab). All of them had RGB mood lighting, enormous center displays, large digital gauge clusters, full pano sunroofs, good materials, good sound isolation from outside, and great AC. It's not a surprise the big three in the US are lobbying so hard to keep them out of the US... they'd be obliterated.
I’d still take it over the obscene prices of electric cars in the American market.
40kg is heavy, two medium plates in weighlifting.
Sure, but it shouldn't break a damn car.
Depends how you drop it.
Sorry, it's two large plates.
40 kg is nothing? A feed bag? A lead-acid battery? My backpack? I've put far heavier things in the back of our cars - generators, compactors, engine blocks - without a buckle or a scratch to show for it. That's in European-style station wagons like Skoda Octavia or Volvo V-series.
you have an 88 pound backpack? No you don't.
I had a 60 lb backpack when I hiked Philmont years ago. I wasn't the heaviest one there, not by far.
No, a 42 kg backpack. A bit more than 88 pound. With a 10 kg one on front so 52 kg in total. I used it on a 3.5 month expedition from Vancouver via Whitehorse, then paddled the Yukon to Emmonak, then Alakanuk at the Bering Strait, back to Emmonak, then Anchorage, hitchhiked to the start of the Alaska Marine Highway at Skagway, then to Prince Rupert, from there to Vancouver Island, then back to Vancouver.
It was quite the trip. I don't really hold with the 'travel light' motto and mostly use old military gear, normal food instead of the freeze dried stuff, normal (but smallish) pots and pans, etc. On the Yukon trip I also happened to have a solar-powered water- and probably bullet-proof computer with me plus 2 10W solar panels, that was what I had in the 10kg pack on front.
Sure.
And what do you use your 88 pound lead acid battery for?
You do not have a 40kg backpack. That's like the max rated load for one designed to haul elk or moose carcasses out of tight spots in short trips.
Multi-day backpacking trips rarely exceed 60lbs, and even that is way too much- the recommendation is 14–18 kg max for most people.
I imagine for many consumers the choice is between the BYD or no car at all.
Prospero's lesson in The Tempest is that sometimes it's better off to not have a power than a to have a power that isn't worth having.
So Prospero would just walk everywhere?
Think you're thinking of a Model 3
What models? The mid and top-tier models are on par with entry-level Euro, for half the price.
My Sealion 7 is nicer than my C-Class Mercedes.
Was going to say something similar - the interior on my Sealion 7 is great! It's better than the BMW or E-Class Mercedes I had before.
Yeah, with some minor exceptions (the interior door handles what the hell lol), my SL7 has similar interior quality to my Audi S4.
I spend a lot of time in Asia so I’ve been in dozens and dozens of BYDs while taking Grab rides.
I agree on the low build quality, but one thing that I’ve noticed as well is the atrocious ride quality. Hitting a small speed bump results in a jarring shock for the passenger combined with a loud clunk from the car.
I thought it was the road until I road in a few Toyotas over the same road and the speed bump was a gentle rocking of the car.
Not sure if it’s just a consequence of the battery weight or what but it feels like I’m riding in pickup truck when I’m in a BYD
So you don't see past the leather seats?
(That approximately nobody outside the US really cares about)
> That approximately nobody outside the US really cares about
That's just not true at all.
Well, and the fact that GP's bag literally broke the car, but sure it's only because the seats weren't leather.
Honestly, I don't believe it. My family rented a plug-in hybrid BYD car this summer in Georgia (the country). Our combined luggage was definitely more than 40kg in total, and we had zero problems with that. It also looks like there are no mass complaints about trunk panels breaking.
BTW, the car itself was fine, not the most luxurious but also not the cheapest possible box. My issues were mostly with weak USB-C ports in the front and with the sluggish cruise control.
This is not the place to have a negative opinion.
China already outsold ICE cars than USA by volume. If you factor in ppp, China car market value crush USA. And now they are selling EVs, hybrids, and even farm-relatedachinery and vehicles crushing Deere. If you visit ASEAN, Africa, South America, and even Australia, Chinese cars everywhere. I grew up during Japanese dominant era, and then SKorea. Today Chinese cars everywhere even more dominant than back then. USA is fast on track Great Britain track.
>USA is fast on track Great Britain track.
The US economy has basically been taken over by venture capital and they're milking all the assets and value that they can. It's all short term thinking. Hype economy so the rich can cash out.
It will be interesting to see how these cars perform over years and decades. One of the major cost saving mechanisms BYD uses is lumping components together. An issue with one part of the drive train means the whole drive train may need to be replaced. The battery pack being part of the chassis means a small accident could become a write-off. Initial cost savings at manufacture will be passed on to the owner in maintenance.
That doesn't seem to be too far off from the status quo for typical American cars, which are fully capable of being totaled by a collision that only damages the bumper.
https://financeliterate.blog/can-fender-bender-total-car-ins...
What are the manufacturing times for Tesla's down to? Low minutes or high seconds?
It would seem that a replacement entire car may be more economical than fixing anything. Like printers, buying a new one is cheaper than replacing the ink in the old one.
All manufacturing is moving this way, not even intentionally, but as a by-product of process efficiency.
Whilst Tesla is probably leading the way for car manufacture in the US, the other car companies are probably similar. EVs are also greatly helped in this by having far fewer moving parts, and so they're either more 'modular' or almost entirely monolithic. Makes for interesting hypotheticals about 'replacement' vs 'fix' into the future and manufacturing for 'ease of recycling/reclaiming'.
BYD is on a different level. For example the motor, gear box (i.e. gear reducing mechanism), controller etc are all part of a single component.
I realize. I'm just not prepared to assume that that's an automatic fail from a TCO perspective.
Suppose for the sake of argument that replacing the whole unit is expensive enough that any part of it failing is effectively the end of the car's life. You could still end up with a more economical car as long as the % reduction in the car's mean time between failures is less than the % reduction in sticker price.
It's kind of like how the most economical car I've ever owned was a rusted out pickup truck that was theoretically on its last legs when I got it. But I only paid $700 for it in the first place, and it lasted me another 3 years with only routine maintenance and wear items needing to be replaced. My 2010 Kia Soul would have to go 26 more years without any major repairs to reach the same price per year of service. (not adjusted for inflation)
Every EV I've seen drawings or teardowns for are built this way.
Yes, making it effectively disposable.
Not exactly related to overall component maintenance, but this guy became a small YouTube celebrity for having a 200.000 miles BYD Dolphin with 87% battery health and no major issues. He get comments from many other owners (mostly Uber drivers) having similar experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0CmwEJwaz8
Analysis is available for 5 years at https://driveauthority.com/is-byd-reliable-after-5-years/ , including actual maintenance costs over the period. No empirical evidence for 10 years yet of course. You certainly do want to buy expecting it to last for a couple of decades because the deprecation rate is really high (maybe because the tech has been moving so fast).
that's the new reality with a lot of modern vehicles. i'm not naming the brand here but a guy who's very familiar with one of the EV brands' manufacturing process told me the same thing that you posted. even a small fender bender is more than enough to total a car.
Dealer where I bought my Renault Megane e-Tech mentioned one of the Chinese brands they also sell had a headlight unit that cost 60k NOK (about $6k) to replace, plus labor...
So yeah, better have good insurance and hope it doesn't just die on you I suppose.
So the automotive equivalent of a MacBook or iPhone.
Yes but evil because it's not from the US
For an iPhone or Mac I can accept most things being binded together. I can’t for a car that I expect to be able to keep for a longer period of time. I can buy another phone relatively easily not a car. I feel that this goes for most people.
Car warranties are heading for 10 years these days. I think the two recent Chinese EVs we bought are both 7 or 8 year warranties. One must expect that this would affect second hand prices - but new prices seem to be coming down to a level where a second hand EV, in not many years, would be low enough that they are effectively throw away.
In this 'throw away' scenario, though, I'd hope that car recycling becomes a thing pretty quickly (aside: I think any large product manufacturer should have a complete lifecycle plan from manufacture to entire breakdown and recycle/reclaim, especially if their products include non-renewable minerals etc.)
I like that nobody pointed out that iPhones are as Chinese as it gets.
Apple is trying their hardest to get their device priced similarly to cars.
The west doesn’t want to move forward and instead are doubling down on fossil fuel energy. It’s so sad. Car manufacturers have succeeded in lobbying out change and making your vehicle a subscription.
The real story here is the splintering of "the west". The US doesn't want to move forward, but UK, Europe, AU/NZ all do.
It's not clear to me where Canada stands on this issue. I know they're an exporter of fuel to the US, so perhaps they are more US aligned on this? Sadly, I think this highlights the problem with Carney's middle powers idea - it's difficult to all work together when you have competing interests.
As far as anecdotal evidence from AU, in the last 12 months the number of EVs on the road has exploded. Only a year ago, maybe a bit longer, I'd specifically notice the odd BYD here or there. Now, you can't get stuck in traffic without having a couple of them within ten metres.
Tesla's have been around the place for a while, but are also increasingly present, but are a greatly decreasing percentage of EVs.
Relevant stats: https://solarcalculator.com.au/blog/ev-sales-statistics/
the citizens want cheap electrics
but the federal and ontario governments want to protect the auto industry in southern ontario
we did just let in something like 50,000 chinese vehicles this year though
The west? As far as I am concerned, EU moves towards EVs as well. Not as fast as China does, but it does. It's the US that doubles down on ICEs (pun intended).
> The west doesn’t want to move forward and instead are doubling down on fossil fuel energy
The west? You mean the USA. Europe is happy to leave the past behind.
Check and see where VW, BMW, Citroen and Peugeot are with regard to EV production vs ICE. They are no where near 'wanting to leave the past behind' as it would mean lots of mittelstands losing out and lots of jobs evaporating.
A lot of the fossil fuel industry is interested in people switching to electric. Not every one of them produces automotive gasoline after all.
The US is a bit of an outlier in "the west". They have extreme protectionist trade barriers to protect the local auto industry and fossil fuel producers. Most other "western" countries have a more Laissez-faire approach. Ironically the biggest driver for EV sales at the moment is high oil prices caused by US military action.
The US is simultaneously driving global EV adoption and the crazy growth of Chinese automotive technology and manufacturing and stranding their own automotive sector in the past. A lot of people who thought Trump was going to be a disaster are seeing him as an unwitting ally now.
> A lot of people who thought Trump was going to be a disaster are seeing him as an unwitting ally now.
Can you point to anybody in particular? Probably even Putin doesn't seem him as an "unwitting ally" as a result of how mercurial he is. Xi's references to a Thucydides Trap suggest that he too sees the unpredictability as unwelcome.
Starting a war in the Middle East doesn't really make you an ally of anti-fossil fuel groups. Sooner or later Israel was going to start most of those wars anyway.
You realize that “the west” is not just the United States, right? There are plenty of western countries around the world where EV sales are exploding. The Nordic countries and Australia come immediately to mind.
Australia has also seen an immense uptake in residential solar and batteries, driven by tariff-free imports from China.
China is the one doubling down on fossil fuels. They are commissioning several coal plants. Meanwhile, the us is still reducing CO2 emission (us is currently at pre-WWI levels) and the mix of renewables is increasing.
The coal plant boom right now in China is an inefficient result of their political system, and not indicative of "doubling down" on fossil fuels.
They had a bunch of energy shortages back in 2022, local politicians "had to do something", and green-lit a bunch of permits for coal power to stabilize energy generation.
Those are all coming online now, right as they are not needed. They're activating as much grid battery storage as they are coal, so the coal is doing nothing for supply stabilization. Actual coal burnt is plateauing. It's basically a scam by coal companies trying to get one in before renewable mandates take over. They're on contracts where they get paid just to standby and not generate power.
Coal is a stopgap for china. Until their renewables expansion can sustain their growth targets. They are being very veey aggresive in renewables until then to make that happen
> Coal is a stopgap for china
Citation needed.
They're building everything. Built more solar in 2025 than the US has in total, almost the same for wind, and currently building 36 nuclear plants. Also building more coal but coal usage is going down.
China is building more coal plants but they're burning slightly less coal. They can do that because they're not Capitalists, so the fact that it's less economical doesn't matter to them if it meets their goals. These new plants are definitely stranded assets. For the US that would need massive government subsidies, in China they can just decide it shall be so.
> us is currently at pre-WWI levels
This involves quite a lot of sleight of hand which I'll generously assume you didn't understand. Firstly the measure you're thinking of per capita rates, whereas the Greenhouse Effect only cares about total emissions which are of course enormously higher; Secondly this requires carefully choosing a brief window ("pre-WW1") when the US used almost only coal, producing a tremendous amount of CO2 for its relatively small population; Thirdly it just entirely ignores the amount of off-shoring everything anybody else makes and then ships to the US is magically carbon-free under this thinking.
Ok Christ. Drop per capita. The us (and just about every western country) is reducing co2 emissions and China is not. Happy?
china's co2 emissions are widely thought to have reached a plateau in the last 2 years, and are entering structural decline as the renewables build out accelerates.
> widely thought to have reached a plateau in the last 2 years
Show numbers, not speculation.
a trivial google search for widely reported data awaits you.
Since late 2025 is one year, not two. It could also be a blip since a lot of weird shit is happening in China, like lowered demand for Chinese goods and factories being burned down by unpaid workers
burning factories? now whos speculating? now go look at the various institutional forecasts, consensus is flat-to-decline from now on.
But by your responses in these threads, its clear you just have an axe to grind with china. good day.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-fa...
Can you tell me your source for your comment
Google says that in the last 5 years China has increased renewable from 464 GW to 1,840 GW
And fossil fuels from 1,250 GW to ~1,590 GW
So given they are increasing the mix of renewables I'm not sure doubling down on renewables is a good phrase
Are you shitting me these are basic facts that you can VERY easily find yourself?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katharinabuchholz/2026/02/27/ch...
https://decarb.co/us-carbon-emissions-per-capita-a-20-year-t...
Yes. China are building power stations to power their country.
I was wondering why you said doubling down and then said the US were increasing their renewable mix when China is doing that as well.
You obviously know the per capita emissions are lower from China because your WWI reference is to per capita.
Ok. Forget per capita. The us is reducing absolute co2 emissions and China is not.
pre-WW1 what? Source?
US CO2 emissions peaked in 2007 at 6.1B tonnes and is currently estimated around 4.9B tonnes. In 1914 it was 1.5B tonnes.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...
Per capita they are correct. Lots of coal burnt inefficiently for heating houses perhaps.
To be honest there are a few red flags in the comment we've replied to if you know what I mean
"the West" geographically yes but the Australian public is hoovering up EVs right now.
Whoever hits the right window on an electric ute is going to make bank (it's probably more about getting another battery price reduction at this point so you can throw energy at the aerodynamics and range issues).
A friend of mine who's a "never EV" kind of guy, has bought some BYD Shark tray-top utes at his workplace. Mind you, they're hybrid not full EV, but it's big progress for his small mind ;)
Australia and New Zealand don’t make cars? They have no skin in the game…
Are you suggesting customer demand does not influence car manufacturers?
Not as much as the car manufacturers influence demand.
It's less an industry thing and more a war thing. US wants to fight more wars and for that you need a plentiful supply of portable energy that other countries can't block. For physical wars that's petroleum fuels. By controlling "Greater North America" they can secure their cheap fuel supply and hunker down here. Investing in green energy would de-emphasize the infrastructure you need to process and use massive amounts of oil for cheap.
The U.S. and Europe are considering closing off their auto markets and people there will end up driving dinosaurs in a time of primates.
The electrification of cars is inevitable. Not in a small part because EVs can be made much more cheaply than ICE cars, which are mechanically complex. EVs also need little to no maintenance (except for consumables like tires, brakes and shock absorbers) which saves you at least $1200 a year alone.
Last but not least is that we'll see standardization of car components in a few years which will lead to lower prices, greater innovation and an almost limitless availability of parts. Electric motors, motor controllers, chargers and batteries will become interchangeable between brands and makes.
BYD is basically the only car company that has showed off cars I would like to buy.
Have you seen the Xiaomi SU7 yet? It's a very nice piece of kit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdSusCDZcDg
I would never spend $40k on a car, way too much.
That's pretty close to the median car price. Would you never spend that much or that little? It's hard to tell what you mean.
Nobody uses that expression to mean they would prefer to spend more, unless it's in the context where the number is so low that it implies a safety or fraud issue. e.g. "I would never buy a 5 cent burrito"
There's little point in spending more than $ 40,000 - especially for the crap currently being peddled in the U.S. I bought a 3-year-old electric luxury SUV with significantly under 20,000 miles for well under that.
I mean, if you're rolling in money, and don't need it for savings or more important purposes, you do you. But I'm with GP. 40,000 is excessive. Even in our devalued 2026 money.
That is WAY more than I would ever spend for a car.
If that's true, you'll probably just never buy a new car, so it's nothing particular about BYD.
Your median price new price is over double the cheapest new price, so no. EVs are now available out of the luxury car bracket in most markets. The cheapest car available on the Australian market was briefly a BYD EV. Not everyone wants to pay for heated seats or celebrity endorsements.
Not sure why you're throwing so much shade at people as though only poors would look at cars below forty thousand dollars. The 2027 Camry and the 2027 Escape both start at under $30,000. Tesla 3 is under $39,000.
Not everyone likes to blow 50-100 grand on an asset which loses 50% of its value in 3 years. Especially considering how much they're trending toward being so expensive to repair and unreliable that keeping it on the road after the warranty runs out is also expensive.
It's a thread about new cars. The price of a BYD car is a thing about cars, not about BYD cars. In fact, BYD is cheap compared to most comparable cars.
If a party was talking about running shoes, I wouldn't pipe in to say "I would never buy running shoes because I'm an amputee", because it's just completely outside the scope of the subject.
Cars are expensive and it's crazy, sure. But like, that's kind of just beside the point for the subject at hand.
The BYD car I am interested in is ~$15k in China.
i would love to spend >$100k on a great electric car, idk if they're quite there yet and the rocket boosters aren't doing it for me in the tesla line up lol
Still needs a step change upgrade on the battery tech
Nobody cares what you would personally spend on a vehicle. The point is that it's a very good value, relatively speaking, for a new vehicle of its class.
The person was asking me if I had seen a specific car and I gave them my reaction to that car. BYD has cars I want that they sell for ~$15k in China which look like a much better value to me.
I was in Montevideo this weekend and all car service cars I rode were Chinese EVs. They all seemed great and when I had Claude look up pricing they were all very well-priced. While I myself would loe a BYD Seagull or Dolphin, the more expensive ones like the Greely EX5 looked much cooler than much more expensive cars I see on roads in the US.
I live in Punta del Este, we just bought a Geely and a BYD (both) coming from a VW ID.3.
For BYD, a Dolphin 2027 for 21K + VAT. Insane value, by extreme far the best price-perf vehicle in the country’s history. Has every single little thing you might want. For that size and price, at least.
Notably, Tesla is attempting to destabilize the local market, coming in at 30K+VAT for the Premium Model Y which is cheaper than the US, Europe and pretty much anywhere.
I still prefer BYD by far, and not supporting the “controversial fellow”.
At a 20x electricity to gas price ratio (depending on factors, but yes), EVs are key here.
Same. The only brand I know that even comes close is Kia but even then they don't have many EV's and the cost is still pretty high compared to BYD.
Hyundai and Kia are being hit pretty hard by tariffs, and the expiration of the EV tax credit.
https://www.carscoops.com/2026/03/tariffs-kill-kias-hottest-...
The tariff thing is a bit misleading if you're not familiar with the industry. Kia/Hyundai produce some of the "most domestic" vehicles on the market. Hyundai EVs were beating all American brands (incl. Tesla) by domestic content when the tariffs came into effect. Those lines are very well positioned to accommodate them.
The article is talking about a certain specialty model that's only produced in Korea, probably because it's low volume.
Kia has ev2,3,4(x2),5,6 and 9, plus the pv5 in our market. They probably just determined they can't sell them in your market.
I tried to buy an EV3 last weekend but every dealership around me is sold out through the year.
Not clear to me why they started it with such low inventory, but I ended up getting a new Leaf since I couldn't wait another bunch of months.
there is a reason.
The reason is there's fierce competition between automotive companies in China.
Markets elsewhere that consolidated down to the 2 or 3 domestic champions that settled into a comfortable coexistence with their domestic "competition", and are coddled by protectionist government policy will have a hard time remembering how to compete for real.
That sounds quite reminiscent of America's auto industry, as well as the desktop computer, smartphone, web search, AI, fast food and supermarket industries too.
Man, China's been taking notes.
Because China has a surplus of batteries, electric motors, ICs and microcontrollers?
If it isn't, it's certainly an advantage over the trashy EVs we have in America.
Is there a reputable summary that explains the cheaper sales price? I'm having a hard time believing it all boils down to politics, but there's way too much noise in the way.
An interesting explanation I heard is that China had this massive housing crisis that they never allowed to go Boom and clear the system in a few hard years. Instead the problems are lingering with an abysmal local credit market. This is why the local population can't/won't buy much and China either has to produce less or export more. For now they decided to export more to keep the machine going.
The bigger principal problem I have is that I do not understand how the Chinese economy/trade is supposed to work. China is working extremely hard to be completely self sufficient and not import anything. How is trade supposed to work if you do not want anything from your trading partners? What can they sell you besides sovereignty/land...
It will/is be a hard awakening when all those nations start to default/nationalize those projects. That is the point were usually the gunboats show up in the harbor....
Why BYD is cheap? They're heavily vertically integrated, they're ruthless about cutting production costs, they operate in an environment with more manufacturing talent than anywhere else, and they're a young company without many legacy costs.
for example: https://x.com/maxiaoalex/status/2062910018840854722 ( https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/741394 )
What most folks in the USA don't understand, BYD manufactures two types of vehicles. One type is for the domestic market (cheaper and dangerous), the other is for export (meets some semblance of safety). I have heard that the export models are built to higher standards and are more dependable, hence the higher price than domestic models.
This is business as normal for most large automakers -- segmenting different parts of their product lineup for different regulatory markets.
For example, the original VW Beetle from 1938 was sold in Mexico up until 2003.
And even models that are sold in different regions may lack some safety features in other regions: e.g. https://www.latinncap.com/en/result/44/chevrolet-spark-no-ai...
Kia (and Hyundai) have a big problem with their ICCUs dying. They extended the warranty but no fix, which means your car could die at any time.
You are repeating years-old news by now. It’s true that the 2022 through 2025 model years had the ICCU problem, but they improved the ICCU design in 2026, with both better hardware (heavier duty power electronics) and better software (slow start for 12V charging).
Of course time will tell whether this brings failure rate down to be negligible. But I feel pretty confident.
It's not years old news, I was looking at used models and it still is an ongoing question. Having no real fix (time will tell if the 2026 revised part is reliable) and leaving owners with a potential brick (and re-servicing it again when the part dies) is completely unacceptable. Many Kia's were lemon'ed based on this issue.
Maybe I'm sensitive as I have a young child, but I will not buy a car with a known potential of stranding me.
It’s simple; if the used model has undergone an ICCU replacement in 2026 it will be better. It has a new part number, 36401-1XAD6.
And if not? Roll the dice on when you might get stranded? Its not an active recall, so you can't just take it in to get the new part.
If not, just don’t buy it. Let the free market sort it out. If the new part is proven to be good, the market will price these cars much higher, and sellers will perform a preemptive replacement to get higher resale value.
It should be noted that is for their E-GMP platform, which is their 800 V system. Their older 400 V platform, used on the Kia Niro and Hyundai Kona, has a completely different ICCU which has not had those problems. The first generation had some coolant leaks in the DC-DC converter housing and sometimes did a bad job keeping the 12 V battery charged but they seem to have got it all worked out for the second generation in 2024.
They have some minor problems like axis falling off.
Sounds like they're encroaching on Tesla's expertise, then!
Is it supposed to do that?
No, that is not very typical.
Not since 1945
Is that an issue with their export models?
Supposedly only the straight axis model.
Haven't heard of this in Australia and BYTD sells a lot here
You need to go to China then. There are dozens of manufacturers other than BYD. It's astonishing just how many sexy EVs there are driving around in China.
The Koenigsegg CCGT1 looks quite nice.
The Jonckheere Rolls-Royce is my #1.
> BYD is basically the only car company that has showed off cars I would like to buy.
They're not bad when you're in them but they're not amazing either. The thing is: they're incredibly good value compared to other brand new cars.
But the interior of a great many german cars (for example) is still qualitatively not just a bit but way above BYD.
Why?
I think the only Chinese EV that interests me is the Xiaomi SU7, and even then I'm extremely unlikely to ever buy one.
That's why you myst tariff them to protect America capitalism
And the United states is likely to never get them. Unlike the chicken tax with light trucks, I wouldn't be surprised if the BIG 3 are so afraid they lobby to completely block them from ever being built and sold here.
I would hazard that they'll buy their way into the local market: partner with a Big 3 manufacturer, build a plant somewhere in the South, and then sell a car 50% more expensive than what they sell in Mexico.
I've been seeing more and more JAC small pickup trucks (diesel though, not electric) around Austin lately. I think people are bringing them up from Mexico.
Is there a point where they have no choice?
US is less than 19% of the global auto market. It’s unfortunate, but the rest of the world will get them.
BYD is having another ten car carriers built to support growing exports. They’ll be the world‘s biggest auto maker in the next five years.
BYD expands EV shipping fleet as wars upend freight costs and key trade routes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50333037 - November 2026
- The world’s largest electric vehicle maker will expand its fleet of car-carrying cargo ships to 18 from eight by 2029, according to shipping industry reports. Each new carrier will have the capacity to carry about 9,200 cars and will be built by China Merchants Industry.
- Owning its fleet could cut BYD’s cost to ship each car abroad by as much as 40% compared with renting carriers, according to one industry estimate. BYD’s increasing export capacity could help it push further into global markets, intensifying competition for automakers including Tesla and traditional U.S. brands.
https://cnevpost.com/2026/09/07/byd-targets-2-5-million-over...
- BYD aims to sell more than 2.5 million vehicles overseas in 2027, extending its rapid international growth through a larger shipping fleet and increased production abroad
- Its Indonesian plant has started production, its Brazilian plant is ramping toward annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles, and its Hungarian plant is expected to begin assembly in November or December, Deutsche Bank noted.
I would say it's actually more complicated than that. Here is a good video that goes over the situation, and multiple perspectives on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nim61oVLdwk
TL;DR They severely reduced the number of components by integrating parts into larger pieces. This trades upfront cost savings for longevity concerns and repair prices down the road.
One could argue the US wants to ban them solely because it undercuts other manufacturers, but there's more.
You can also argue it's not good for many other people, like:
- the average consumer (that expects a quality long-lasting product)
- the insurance companies that will be footing a lot of the repair bills
- independent repair shops that either won't get those jobs, cannot actually perform the work due to tech/service monopolies, or simply lose revenue because the work is shorter
Surely it will be better for the insurance companies. Higher costs lead to higher premiums and higher profits.
That's not how insurance profits work. The profit is the spread between insurer income (premiums) and expense (repair costs).
Right. But if BYD costs more to repair they'll charge higher premiums to cover that cost.
Sortof. There's no guarantee they wouldn't lose customers/revenue if everyone started buying BYDs or NIOs... they could decline to insure those cars at all due to the high repair cost, or not cover all of it, and that affects more than just themselves.
> You can also argue it's not good for many other people, like: - the average consumer (that expects a quality long-lasting product)
I would rather let people decide for themselves.
> independent repair shops that either won't get those jobs, [ok] cannot actually perform the work due to tech/service monopolies
Part availability and service monopolization are easily fixable by regulation and it's an old practice.
> [ repair shops ] simply lose revenue because the work is shorter
Welcome to the AI economy, where a lot of people lose a lot of work because it became easier and shorter to do.
> They severely reduced the number of components by integrating parts into larger pieces.
Just swap the larger pieces, computers and phones are like that, when they're at all fixable.
We already have stats for Tesla Model 3, and they rarely have problems with the battery and propulsion. So it's a trade-off, fewer parts also mean that you can overengineer them more easily.
There are also third-party replacements available now, because it's not that hard to manufacture most EV components, outside the critical high-voltage paths.
I feel like most of the people I know (Americans) don't truly realize how utterly dense and populuated Chinese cities are.
I think about my home city (6th largest in the US) with its singular interstate looping around our metro area - and Beijing has five of these ring roads on top of having a far more robust public transportation system and tons of scooter/bike usage still.
A single carmaker outselling all of US-made electric vehicles is just normal especially given the prices of these cars (down to something like $8000 USD) and the fact that they live in such dense areas that don't require you to drive 20 miles just to, for eg, get to a Costco or something. So you can have these ultracheap cars with maybe twice the range of lithium-powered golf carts and not spend a ton of money on it along with having 5x the population.
One bellweather reason for this state being impressive is that this is china's domestic market demonstrating the buying power needed to fuel private innovation
This used to be something only the US could do. China always had the population. But it wasnt rich enough to create local demand. Now it can and that creates a flywheel effect of feuling its own innovation, like EVs, LLMs, reusable rockets, sattelite ISPs, and all the other thingsthe US prides itself on.
And eventually it might even make novel things the US or anyone else hasnt even made yet. If that happens then the american empire is truly over
> the american empire is truly over
I'm pretty sure we're witnessing the accelerating confirmation of this right now, for all the reasons you've already stated. The US still has some niches at which it's ahead, but China is a mere intellectual property theft away from being able to pwn those areas as well (rightly, or likely wrongly, but even 'wrongly' by any law is 'rightly' by China's point of view, same as plenty of US decisions of late - the lens makes all the difference).
I think the one caveat to this is that consumer spending and GDP growth has slowed dramatically especially following the housing bubble popping (remember Evergrande?)
A lot of the very high-tech manufacturing in China is still dependent on Western supply chains (ASML is one major one for semi-conductors) and there's a level of complexity and specialized knowledge there that probably doesn't exist domestically yet so the transition to a knowledge-dominant vs manufacturing-dominant economy is hitting a logarithmic wall.
That said, China's intellectual property ecosystem is extremely open and free. This is really a cultural thing, embedded since the early days of China's printing press half a thousand years ago when editing, rewriting, and printing your own versions of someone elses's works was totally normalized (think AO3 but standardized and normalized at a societal level). So we'll get to see whether or not that business-friendly theory of 'IP exists to protect genius inventors and without it we have no inventions' governing theory bears out or if a completely permissive and free ecosystem is better for innovation in the longterm.
BYD is also expected to export 2.5 million vehicles outside China this year. They are the largest manufacturer of EVs in the world, and not just for the Chinese market.
> don't truly realize how utterly dense and populated[] Chinese cities are
- A US and a China professor are talking in a bar. "We have about 10,000 students" they agree. But no, one is thinking of their university, the other of their department.
- Population of Wyoming < Louisville, KY (KY's largest city). Pop KY < NYC. Pop US Northeast region < Pearl River Delta megalopolis. PRD is sort of like a 20x compressed US Southeast, with 2x lower GDP.
I've yet to see an actual premium EV akin to the ICE cars from Lexus, Acura, or Genesis.
In fact that's my problem with all EVs because EVEN Lexus, Acura, and Genesis is not sticking to their premium quality when they release an EV version of their ICE cars. The Lexus ES ICE is legendary. The Lexus ES EV looks like a plastic coffin with 2 tablets. It's probably the zeigeist of car designs and/or my taste but I feel all EVs look the same without much personality. Not even mentioning the chinese brands because Geely, Leapmotor, BYD etc all look the same to me.
Say we have a Lexus LX 600 https://www.lexus.com/models/LX Why does this car can't be released as is, the same design and same interior but with an EV drivetrain?
There is staggering number of consumer debt in us because people buy luxury cars they can’t afford. We don’t need more 100k evs. We need 20k evs.
It is consistently funny / revealingly human the lengths people will go to bad-mouth something they're irrationally biased against in order to not appear irrationally biased.
My extended family has three EVs now, and they're fucking great for our needs. They get us to where we need to go, and save us at least $350 a month in fuel.
Having said that, we're in the exact scenario pocket where EVs make sense: We can charge at home overnight, our daily commutes are 50km maximum, we have solar panels and cheap overnight electricity rates, we don't need to tow anything pretty much ever.
EVs are less niche than they were, but they're still not as commodity/utility friendly as ICE cars, but the niche is growing quickly. Interestingly, the haters I've encountered rapidly soften when they actually experience driving in an EV - they're still a ways away from looking to buy one for themselves, but they're noticeably less militantly/irrationally opposed than they were.
Caveat: 1 of the EVs is a 2014 Nissan Leaf, which is at about 80% of its original range. The other two are less than a year old Chinese EVs, and so I can't and won't speak to long term reliability - that's definitely a risk we were willing to take, and won't know whether it was worth it until a few years down the track.
Have you had a chance to ride in the Chinese EVs? Opinions on exterior designs are pretty subjective and change a lot over time (see: Porsche 996). I've driven and ridden in a lot of Chinese EVs over the past two years and find them much more luxurious than ICE cars across the price range. Most of them have huge panoramic sunroofs now that make even the small cars feel open and spacious, the technology is actually useful instead of a gimmick (Chinese navigation apps are way better than western ones, which is a big deal when the primary interface is a tablet), many of the cars can autopark/drive, they have cameras for all the blind spots, USB-c and magnetic chargers everywhere, fast charging, etc. etc.
I would encourage anyone that lives in America or Europe and hasn't been to China in the past five years to go see it for yourself. Take what western media writes with a grain of salt - you might be surprised.
Car makers can't win! Release an EV with "personality" aka looks different from an ICE, and people will complain why can't they make an EV that looks like a normal car. Release an EV that looks like a normal ICE and someone's going to complain it has no personality. Ah well.
The 'personality', that EVs used to seemingly be designed with, seemed universally ugly for a long time. Nissan Leaf (I own one, so familiarity has softened my opinion), Toyota Prius, BMW i3, all fucking ugly cars. It was like they didn't want to sell them in order to justify not putting further R&D into them, or they wanted to see how committed the market was, despite the butt-ugliness.
Current era is SUV-look for almost literally every car (even the Mini has the 'Countryman' variant, which makes a mockery of the very name 'Mini'), so EVs have essentially followed that bland-ness to now be leading it.
Polestar's are the nicest looking EVs, outside of the high-level performance cars that are out of the practical range of normal people.
It's as if the world is filled with many people with lots of different opinions
I struggled to find anyone that found the older-school EVs anything but look-away ugly.
The BMW i4 is probably what you're looking for.
I think it's a huge regression vs. the goofy looking i3 (which is carbon fiber, has a working jog wheel, etc). The i4 is basically exactly a modern BMW sedan, but an EV. I think they moved to a platform that lets them just switch between ICE, hybrid and EV. You can even set the safety tone to make it sound like a BMW with tuned exhaust pipes.
My i3 is my favorite car ever. If it looked like a BMW I would have never considered it. The i3 is such a pure design statement. The only other ev I would describe that way is the now defunct Canoo.
They look like a swollen, but also squashed, BMW. Gross. But gross has its own appeal to vanishingly small minority of people. Like cats with the squashed up snouts. Cute, in a distinctly not-pretty way.
Having said that, I like the (hatch-size more-so than the SUV-size) GWM Ora, which seems to be a divisive looking EV.
Luxury seems like a tricky move for EVs. All those extra features add weight, which eats into range. I would guess that undermines your own sales pitch because people who want to spend a lot on their car are generally going to be people who expect to spend a lot of time in their car.
I imagine it's just a fundamentally more palatable compromise for an ICE vehicle. You maybe bump the size of the fuel tank a bit and assume your clientele aren't going to be all that much more cost sensitive about fuel than they are about sticker price and maintenance.
The Cadillac Escalade IQ is… a Cadillac Escalade with an electric powertrane. It is as nice as any of the brands mentioned.
The Lucid gravity is in the same discussion.
Lexus is releasing the TZ which is the equivalent to the TX gasser.
> yet to see an actual premium EV akin
thats because there is zero demand as has been all over the news the past years. the european and especially german car industry wasted billions on EV strategies that now have to be rewound because it turns out there is basically zero demand for expensive EVs. people that can afford expensive cars want ICE.
>I've yet to see an actual premium EV akin to the ICE cars from Lexus, Acura, or Genesis.
I drive a Polestar 4, which stands up very nicely to any Lexus/Genesis/Acura. So does the Lucid.
Not to mention the Porsche Taycan. And the Macan EV is essentially the same as their ICE Macan.
Maybe you don't like EVs - that's fine. Everyone has their taste. After switching to an EV I'm never going back to an ICE car again.
Have you looked at Polestars? They're nicer than any ICE car I've ever driven.
Chased out of the USA by policy decisions.
> EV akin to the ICE cars from [...] Genesis.
What about the EV Genesis? I personally couldn't see the difference between the ICE and electrified G80.
Otherwise, what about the Taycan?
The Taycan is the perfect answer to someone who's concerned that modern EVs aren't expensive enough.
If you buy it new sure; Porsches are always very expensive.
But you can get very good second hand ones for less than $70k; that should definitely fit OP's requirements.
> an actual premium EV
Porsche Taycan.
Whew lots of hot takes in these comments.
In my opinion, the core concept is simple: China is a big market that's getting wealthier and BYD makes cheap and innovative cars.
Owning a vehicle is going from a luxury for wealthy people in China to a more every-day thing, driving huge volumes. Meanwhile the rest of the world (US excluded for now) is trying to electrify personal transportation, and China is meeting that demand better than any other country.
This article from last wednesday seems to say the opposite, that the China-domestic sales are declining: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/28/china-car-exports.html
That is a big part of what drove down the price of lab diamonds in the world. The China-domestic market bought a ton of them for engagements, then they stopped getting engaged after the real-estate crash, and now there is a supply glut.
Hah was wondering if someone else had read that announcement/ finding. Coupled with this https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/10/chinese-co... (lots of dead companies being propped up artificially by the govt and not allowed to fail so people stay employed) the strategy of cornering every global export market until complete dominance seems to be very a much make it or break it approach here. So the US blocking one important industry with likely lots of subsidies does make more sense under that light.
USA bans the onboard Chinese automotive software for national security reasons, effectively banning Chinese cars.
For all the talk about data and technology sovereignty in Europe about USA tech, you would think they would take that more seriously too. Instead Europe is flooded with underpriced Chinese cars that they have no control over.
Europe is nowhere near flooded. You are out of your mind.
It’s not flooded, most ev car are Europeans. And the commission just recently put a quota on the number of imported Chinese EV.
I mean, do you really think they were banned for national security reasons? Or to protect Tesla and US ICE manufacturers?
There can be several motivations that are all equally valid. We should ask Europeans if they think national security has become a major concern in the face of their overwhelming reliance on USA technology and services.
Is this American overwhelming or European overwhelming? You know, the way everything is bigger in America? The claim is inflated. Yes, the US dominates parts of the digital tech economy. To imagine that as unilateral dependence is foolish. The US depends on European companies like ASML, hundreds of billions in European investment annually. Europeans used to trust the US and were happy to buy US products and services. That's over now. The US, and particular, the current administration, has shat the bed. The decoupling is underway and will not be reversed. I recommend the YouTube channel HouseOfEL if you'd like read the writing on the wall.
We in the EU do take it more seriously, hence the switch from unreliable US based tech to local or Chinese.
They'd sell even more if Americans and Canadians could buy them without paying punitive tariffs.
It’s amazing to me Waymo saw the estimated 50000-80000 tariff penalty (and time and money invested for essentially reinstalling electronics ) in their latest fleet worth it. American sourced options must really pale in comparison or be non existent and I wish I could just write off auto tariffs like that.
Same for Europe. Same car is 3x cheaper in China. The western consumer is paying a lot of money keeping the auto industry on life support.
You're not patriotic unless you willingly overpay for things, you know.
There's the scaling
No amount of fucking banning will work and the US is going to end up with egg on its face when the entire world is using chinese everything and the US is still trying to banhammer. The entire world has started shifting away from the US, not in a positive isolationist way -- in an uncompetitive, stagnating innovation way.
The only way out is through competition and this lesson will probably only be learned when its too late to do anything about it. Everybody saw this coming
> Everybody saw this coming
It basically started in the 70s with the outsourcing of manufacturing to China, and the short term thinking and naivete (hubris?) that China would not do anything and everything to use this to their global strategic advantage. Sure, lots of US executives made _mother-fucking bank_ but the massive amounts of money they made was essentially for the sale of US dominance to China over the course of 50 years. They can say "I got mine" though, which seems to be current zeitgeist.
China wins because playing the long game wins - or having X billion expendable population under a dictatorship wins - possibly/probably the combination of both.
There is no logical reason to ban vehicles except protectionism and protection of manufacturing capability domestically. There is no security risk from Chinese EVs that requires a full ban.
There are plenty of other reasons. Humanitarianism is a big one, but there are others.
Can't say that when you got concentration camps and gestapo running the streets.
If you think labor exploitation on that scale is comparable to even extreme immigration enforcement policies, then we can’t have a rational discussion. And I can have whatever position I want despite how you feel about those policies.
EVs connect to people's home wifi and they are probably the most powerful compute on the network. You claim to be Infosec, yet cannot fathom any issues here?
You can't fathom some kind of automobile designed without network connectivity?
Not for long, if they follow the laws.
The thing about protectionism is that sometimes it works. Also China is definitely not playing any kind of a fair game. Also adding another supply chain dependency is definitely a geopolitical risk.
> There is no security risk from Chinese EVs that requires a full ban.
Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to [map] you.
Of course there is a risk to allowing networked automobile sensor packages on your streets if they're feeding a potential adversary live info on everything going on on and around your roads. Denying this isn't virtuous or smart or benevolent, it is at the best naïve.
I'm not naive. They could require cars be functional with zero network connectivity.
They don't need to ban a nation's cars, they need to set safety standards.
But they want cars to be trackable by their own systems, so they don't want the public getting reacquainted with privacy protection.
Specific bans/standards from imported vehicles hasn't worked very well in the past.
Disagree... they're a lot more integrated than other cars, meaning less parts in a way, which is cheaper to buy, but much more expensive to repair later.
Consumers want protection from cars they can't afford to fix.
Insurance companies want protection from costly warranty repairs.
Mechanics want protection from cheap highly-integrated gatekept parts that they can't work on, and/or won't get paid as much for.
>Consumers want protection from cars they can't afford to fix.
Said who ? If it's under warranty for long enough and cheap enough then I don't really care even if I have to fully replace it in 5 years and sell for scrap. Without tariffs that's what the price would be.
Are you suggesting consumers want cars they can't fix?
They may regret it when the battery dies and it's a $20k repair because they're actually structural components on those cars. Or a single $20 sensor dies that's part of a larger non-serviceable $5k component.
If the option is 25k for a car I "can't repair" in 5 years or 50k for a car I can - I'll take the 25k one, if I can get the warranty to cover those 5 years, all else being equal.
Everything is "repairable" it's just a matter of is it worth repairing. Maybe rebuilding the car every 5-10 years isn't that bad of a model.
Blade batteries are still repairable. Re-celling a Model 3 battery is $6000: https://recell-ev.com/ so BYD battery repairs will likely be in the same range.
That's assuming it's out of warranty, which is now 150k miles or 8 years for BYD in the UK.
The largest other component is the integrated motor/inverter and they should be pretty reliable. They are still repairable, although you might need to replace the entire circuit boards, rather than individual components.
And that's why we're banning American-made Teslas, where denting the rear bumper requires replacing the entire back of the car because of all the sensors and cameras baked in. Right?
I don't think that's a concern sufficient to ban import. Why not impose requirements for spare parts manufacturing and modularity?
Again, if they wanted to work in the interest of affordability and electric vehicle promotion, they would. They're being protectionist for Ford and GM.
I mean, right, but the word "protectionism" isn't the end of the argument. US-China trade relations are conducted in the context of the extremely serious problem that one day not too long from now China will rupture them by invading Taiwan. The US has to protect itself from that.
It'd be lovely if we could competently say that out loud rather than pretending it's about consumer privacy.
We do. The Department of Commerce notice proposing the connected vehicle rules (https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-21903.pdf) extensively discussed the national security risks of letting technology developed by foreign adversaries run US cars, although one such risk is the consumer privacy of individuals who might themselves be important to national security or be blackmailed into sabotaging national security. I don't know why it's sometimes presented as though it's purely consumer privacy.
I mean, that's my point, cars shouldn't be connected. Rip out the modems. Rip out the black boxes.
BYD can single-hand crush US car makers for sooner or later.
Americans love complaining about gas prices too much to give up their ICE cars. Every manufacturer save Tesla and Hyundai/Kia have given up on the market. Let the Chinese in.