CLTC range is Chinese funny numbers and will underperform EPA mileage (which already overstate range particularly in cool weather)
Unrelated but I’ve taken a very hard stance personally on buying anything Chinese and have just accepted that it may mean being stuck with inferior technology. Not only are they dumping their high tech goods on the international markets, but I believe money sent over there will come back as bullets for my children or grandchildren.
Dunno, I was looking for a mini ITX NAS board with ECC and all boards from the US/Taiwan (Supermicro/ASRock) were underwhelming and overpriced, yet CWWK boards had so much tech stuffed inside (4-6x 2.5GBit, 6x SATA, 2xNVMe, ECC on Ryzen 7735HS etc.) that there are simply no functional equivalents anywhere else. I also bought Unitree Go2 robotics dog which does about what the Boston Dynamics one does but 20x cheaper. If somebody is doing a better job, are we supposed to ignore it until it's too late for us to catch up based on some dubious higher moral stance?
Well my children are already destined to be slaves to the system with the current cost of living so personally I would buy a cheap Chinese car. Not that I want to. I think it will be a good thing because then perhaps are home grown car manufacturers will see the writing and start offering affordable to the masses cars. We don’t need a thousand features in a car. Power windows, touch screens, self driving and every other tech that adds to the cost can take a bike. I just want a cheap bare bones electric car and local car manufacturers haven’t figured this out so I will risk Chinese bullets as I already have to choose when it comes to gas or higher quality food choices. Head of lettuce reaching $5 these days.
>I think it will be a good thing because then perhaps are home grown car manufacturers will see the writing and start offering affordable to the masses cars.
With Tesla supposedly canceling Model 2, it seems like the incumbents cannot possibly offer this car at this price because of their cost structure (overhead due to unions, expensive real estate, regulations etc.)
> because of their cost structure (overhead due to unions, expensive real estate, regulations etc.)
I'm sure those are factors, but I wonder, what about having to provide private health insurance to employees? My employer says our costs went up 9% this year. I also wonder how much owners and executives are paid in Chinese car makers vs US. The leader and largest shareholder of Tesla is the richest man in the world (or perhaps was; I'm not sure of the current ranking). I don't know the name of any Chinese automotive leaders (though it's certainly possible that that's just my bias as an American). But I wonder how much of the cost structure is going to shareholders?
> We don’t need a thousand features in a car ... touch screens, .. tech that adds to the cost can take a bike. I just want a cheap bare bones electric car
A touch screen plus software _is_ the cheap bare bones option, over having lots of physical dials and switches -
The touch screen is commodity tablet hardware.
Depending on how you count Chinese made, I'd think it would in many cases mean being stuck with no technology. What smartphone is made anywhere else? I'm pretty sure all the computers I've bought in the last two decades have been primarily manufactured in China. I'm sure some of the work could be "friend-shored" or whatever, but the whole thing seems like it would take more effort than we've got in us.
I don't think we much care about the future we create for children at this point, particularly if there's money to be made today.
smartphones are "assembled" and "packaged" in China. Most components, or over 90%, in Apple iPhones are sourced from non-Chinese sources; then imported into China for assembly and packaging; then exported out to the world.
The world's largest smartphone maker, Samsung, pulled out of China and closed the last factory in 2019 -- they are either made in Vietnam, India, or South Korea.
One of the ways I “get around” this rule in areas where China has taken over that industry already is to buy used. Sometimes that used stuff is made in China.
It doesn't feel like a totally satisfying answer, but I tend to agree. Personally I just bought an old Macbook Air and installed Pop!_OS on it and love it. I was thinking more in terms of being green and saving some bucks rather than political reasons, but I suppose it's a factor as well. I also run a business on off-lease servers, so I'm putting my money where my mouth is on that (though again it's more about avoiding the big cloud oligarchs and saving some money there as well).
>> Unrelated but I’ve taken a very hard stance personally on buying anything Chinese and have just accepted that it may mean being stuck with inferior technology.<<
LFP is mostly for cheaper, low-range EVs or stationary energy storage systems (ESS). The rest of the world already have access to high-energy/nickel lithium batteries, namely NCM/NCA, for mid/high EVs. LFP is like old spindle drive HDD (LFP) vs SSD (NCM/A).
That being said I'm not opposed to LFP -- it makes sense if you could get a cheap EV or ESS based on LFP.
Better question to ask: Are current EV companies even properly recycling the batteries?
The lithium itself is recyclable. However what’s the process for it? Is it so labor intensive that it makes recycling not worth it?
Remember: we were sold on the infinite recyclability of plastics. Yet look how that’s turned out. Industry did their own studies (in the 70s…), found recycling to not be cost effective (sorting issue, different types of plastic not recyclable, limited lifetime of plastic such that it could only be recycled a couple of times before becoming useless). Yet these companies still pushed this junk on us and we continue to live with those repercussions today.
Also battery packs are often packed with copious amounts of glue/adhesive and other items that don’t appear to be recyclable. Does that make the recycling process more difficult? As a battery pack in general, what can be recovered? What goes to the landfill?
Yes, the industry is recycling their batteries at a fairly high rate.
Most of the recycling is post-industrial. After a battery is made, it's tested, and if it fails testing, it is recycled.
There hasn't been a large amount of post-consumer car battery recycling because there aren't many 20 year old car batteries out there. The reuse market for old batteries is higher than expected, and people reusing batteries pay more than recyclers. But the post-industrial plants are humming along, and will expand to accept post-consumer batteries once the supply arrives.
Everybody brings up the plastic-recycling bugbear. There are a bunch of reasons why plastic recycling is hard, most of which don't apply to batteries.
A better example is lead-acid battery recycling. The US has a >99% lead acid battery recycling rate. Lithium batteries are much larger and have a much higher content of valuable materials, so will be much more fruitful to recycle than lead acid batteries.
The main materials recovered out of batteries are nickel, copper and manganese, which are quite valuable. Lithium is secondary -- lithium batteries don't actually contain a lot of lithium, and lithium is cheap and common. New plants are set up to recover lithium because the price of lithium has increased, but old plants don't.
Wait we have a 99% lead acid battery recycling rate? I don't mean to be suspect but that seems suspiciously high - maybe pushed by an industry rep group or something. Similar to how oil and gas say they flare 99.5% of their fugitive emissions instead of it getting vented.
Most place accepting lead car batteries will pay you for them. They are thus highly recycled for the same reason that copper is; there is a lot of incentive for random folks to seek out unrecycled batteries and recycle them.
I bet the precious metals in catalytic converters are also >99% recycled.
The core charge when you buy a new battery is a deposit returned to whomever returns the battery. Putting a $20 bounty on an item is a great incentive to have someone recycle them.
Counterpoint: they put a deposit/return on smaller plastic bottles and cans over here, but last year only 65% of cans were returned instead of just binned.
(as an aside I don't really understand that as cans and plastic bottles are easily separated from regular waste, but it's probably also down to reducing street waste, increasing consumer awareness, raising prices to consumers so they consume less disposable packaging, aaand get more money.)
The deposit is like 5-10 cents right? Might be too small for most people to notice. The car battery fee is like 15-30$ and is charged as a separate line item at the point of sale. Also the batteries are large and contain acid and are only taken out of the car once its time to buy a new battery and given straight to the shop that sells the new battery, all these incentives line up to make recycling essentially zero friction.
I live in Oregon where the deposit is $0.10, and while plenty of citizens will toss cans, there are also plenty of people who will go through trash looking for them to return.
It's not difficult to believe that increasing the deposit 150x would correspondingly increase return rates.
Are you US based? And have you ever replaced a car battery? The store you buy your new battery from usually adds a charge to your new battery called a "core charge" that they refund to you if you bring your old battery. Plus the batteries are large and contain acid so people don't leave them lying around at home. This helps ensure high recycling rates.
It's still suspiciously high. Just think of all the car junkyards and countries that basically have no enforced regulations like rural India, China etc.
The core charge on lead acid batteries is really high. It'd be surprising if they weren't getting recycled the vast majority of the time. 99% sounds high, but I wouldn't say it is impossible.
It's an easily falsifiable statement. If it's wrong the HN personality will not let it lie and proof that it's wrong will be quickly posted. It could be you!
I looked into it -- the Battery Council International is the one who promotes near perfect recycling rate. Listen - I'm sure its a high rate of recycling which should be celebrated. There's just no way its 99% that's all I'm saying. Maybe 99% of the components that make their way to e-waste get recycled but theres no way even 80% of batteries even make it to e-waste.
The amount of effort that I would have to put in in to refute the claims from an industry group that lobbies the Federal government (BCI) which includes both producers and recyclers is far to significant for the marginal gains of an upvote on HN. If you can't see the conflict of interest on the source of the 99% and the funding members of the BCI community and their interest that's on you.
Like I said I am sure its a high number but I very much doubt 99% and noone really has any incentive to try and find out what that real number is - its a waste of resources.
You don't have to refute the claims of an industry group. What you have to do is check their sources.
It also passes the smoke test. Who the heck is going to illegally discard a lead acid battery core, potentially risking hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines, when the alternative is collecting $20 from a recycler?
>> New plants are set up to recover lithium because the price of lithium has increased, but old plants don't. <<
The price of lithium has collapsed by as much as 85% since 2022 Nov peak and is expected to drop further all the way through 2030. Other valuable raw materials in the cathodes have declined quite a bit past year.
I wonder how that's going to affect the future of battery recycling.
> Lithium batteries are much larger and have a much higher content of valuable materials, so will be much more fruitful to recycle than lead acid batteries.
You mean car lithium batteries. In general, lithium batteries recycling isn't as successful in general because most of them are so small (e.g. cell phone and laptop batteries).
If you legislate that the producers of packaging have to pay for whatever system they choose to clean up after themselves then they tend to reduce how much plastic they use, and make what they do use easier to recycle.
> we continue to live with those repercussions today
I've yet to have an answer for what the repercussions in the developed world of non-recycling plastics actaully is. Once plastic is thrown away it can be put in landfill and my understanding is that landfills in the developed world are as a rule well sealed and the leakage is negligible. Landfilled plastic rather than recycled plastic means more oil gets turned into plastic rather than burnt for energy, increasing the price of oil and thus increasing investment in more carbon neutral energy sources.
So I struggle to see the benefits of cost-inefficient plastic recycling, particularly compared to all the other things that could be done with those man hours.
A lot of that plastic gets exported to other countries where landfills might not be as leak-proof, or gets thrown outside of dedicated spaces (like on the side of the road) and thus ends up in nature. There it directly damages wildlife (birds chocking on plastic bags and related), and/or breaks down into microplastics which are everywhere in water and animals, and we consume, with unclear effects on humans or biodiversity.
Furthermore, I don't get the link between increased plastics, price of oil and investment in carbon neutral energy. Price of oil is a delicate balance by OPEC to extract as much money as possible - they have drastically more capacity than they're currently pumping and exporting, and it's carefully managed, on purpose.
Reducing oil use is paramount to limit the damage to the planet; reducing plastic waste is too. Waiting for a potential cycle of "lots of plastic waste" -> "maybe prices of oil will go higher if OPEC stops existing" -> "maybe this will incentivise more investments in alternative energy sources" -> "maybe this will diminish plastic use" (how? according to market theories, the price of oil should go down if use goes down, so there will be even more incentive for plastic production; but as we discussed previously, oil is a very special market) is... not a good option.
But if the plastic is put in a local landfill (my local waste is) then is there any non-negligible harm?
(As an aside: I find it odd you seem to have plastic reduction as a similar priority to oil use reduction given the effects of climate change seem far more severe than even third world plastic disposal)
> But if the plastic is put in a local landfill (my local waste is) then is there any non-negligible harm?
Wasteful consumption of oil for a single use. And your local landfill isn't set in stone, a natural disaster or neglect can release the trash in it in nature.
> (As an aside: I find it odd you seem to have plastic reduction as a similar priority to oil use reduction given the effects of climate change seem far more severe than even third world plastic disposal)
But we don't really know what the impact of all the plastic everywhere is, like we didn't (widely) know what the impact of lots of carbon emissions is. And when we started realising it, it was still drastically underestimate (see: every month is breaking temperature records at an unexpected pace). Reducing oil consumption by reducing plastic consumption, and also reducing the amount of plastic in nature, are both important. Both will prevent potential ecosystem collapses.
It's stupid to recycle when we can reuse first. There are nearly zero production EV batteries which are unsuitable for reuse for stationary applications. Even if the quantity is too low for mass commercial scale (first gen Leaf) they're still good for home backup or hobby projects.
I wouldn't say that EV companies are, but the battery recycling businesses are working pretty hard at it. It won't really get started until there are more EV batteries to recycle. Volumes are still relatively low compared to the number of new packs being built, as the packs tend to last for a long time.
Even post-crash packs often get reused rather than recycled.
> Better question to ask: Are current EV companies even properly recycling the batteries?
Tesla has set this up, but hasn't recycled many batteries yet since they mostly get second lives in at home "power walls" (which I guess, is why the started up that business?). We have another 5-10 years before those batteries start needing to be recycled.
Yes. These things can both be true: We were sold on plastics being very recyclable, and hardly anyone ever actually recycles them. It's not a contradiction, it's a deception.
> Is there a decent marketplace for used Lithium packs yet?
I feel that BYD has taken steps to enable this. The replaceable battery and swap system they developed makes it orders of magnitude easier to get the battery pack out of the car.
Polestar in theory can have the battery pulled, but I believe it involves pulling cutting the car apart. This raises the cost making recycling less attractive.
I mean that's a big one, batteries should be easily removable and replaceable. I'm sure there will be legislation for that soon, although disappointed it isn't there already.
> Is there a decent marketplace for used Lithium packs yet?
I don't know about that, but there are multiple ventures ongoing (I thought it was only one and googled based on memory, "lithium battery recycling factory Scandinavia", and there's at least two only in Sweden - Northvolt and Stena) to establish facilities to recycle lithium batteries at scale.
Battery "passports" to enable a 'second life' market have been a major point of discussion in the industry for a few years now. I'm not sure what the current state of traceability really is but manufacturers are certainly interested. I don't think planned obsolescence is a real concern. The EU and other government bodies have been pushing for usability for a while now and a market for used packs for energy storage is looking more realistic.
Their cars also look good. I will probably consider BYD for my next car. I don't like not having dashboard in front of me (like Tesla is doing right now).
The part you're referring to is called an instrument cluster traditionally, or more modernly, a driver's display. Teslas do have dashboards, despite their commitment to minimalism. :)
I actually love having the dash off to the side. My eyes need to adjust focus less, and the clean symmetrical interior is gorgeous in my opinion.
That said, the BYD airliner-inspired interior looks great too. I am probably buying a BYD after I'm done with my Tesla, though not because of the car itself. The Tesla car is terrific, but the Tesla service is horrible.
By buying BYD, you are supporting the Chinese government, which is actively supporting Russia [1]
By buying BYD, you are supporting Chinese government's deep subsidization of BYD and its heavy loss per vehicle, to dump on and destroy US/Europe/Japan auto industries and its labor forces
Most people buying BYD abroad are not in those countries. Australians, for example, don't very much care if they are destroying US/European/Japan auto industries, and are sort of liberated by the lack of any car manufacturing in their own country.
well, Australians should care. Australia is part of aukus which is security pact along with US and UK meant to push back against China. Less they've forgotten, Australia was engaged with trade war with China earlier when China slapped unreasonable tariffs on Australia due to Australia wanting to investigate the origin of covid that killed thousands of Australians.
They just want affordable cars, price is going to win over anything else. A bunch of anti trade US folks aren't going to move the empathy needle with them. The developing world that BYD is mainly selling to is going to care even less.
As an Australian, I can tell you our view is more nuanced than "we are a vassal state of the USA".
> Less they've forgotten, Australia was engaged with trade war with China earlier
Oh, we haven't forgotten. The war was triggered by madness from both sides. Madness from someone taking violent exception to a nickname like Pooh is to be expected. Whatever your private opinions on that, it's understood here one must be pragmatic in your public positions when dealing with such people when they are your biggest trading partner. Even innocent mistakes could cost you billions. Our prime minister fanning conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID wasn't an innocent mistake, it was fiscal insanity. He was ousted in a landslide at the next election. And despite China being being our biggest trading partner, we won that war. It hurt China far more than it hurt us. It turned out Australia is far better and faster at rejigging its international trade than China.
> Australia wanting to investigate the origin of covid that killed thousands of Australians.
Australian's see it differently. What hurt us was the refusal of OECD countries to honour agreements to ship vaccines we had bought and paid for. With no vaccines (the one we did produce ourselves, AstraZeneca, got unapproved after we had produced huge quantities of it) we had to shut down internal borders, trade and large parts of our economies to prevent the spread, until we could get the vaccines. It was a difficult time. Yet despite those challenges, Australian emerged from COVID sooner, and with less economic damage that most other countries.
But you are right in thinking Australian's in general are anxious about what is happening in China. It's constantly in the news. I'd be stunned if Australian citizens weren't better informed on China is doing in the South China Sea, of it's real estate crash, and premier Xi's actions than USA citizens. But you know what? We watch what Trump is doing in the USA equally closely, and it causes us just as much anxiety. Trump closing the USA off from the rest of the world would likely have far worse consequences for us than a trade war with China that we won. When it comes to damage inflicted on it's citizens, nothing beats a countries own incompetent management. Trust me, we know. Or if you don't trust me ask someone from Türkiye, or Venezuela. On the up side, I do have a lot of faith in the USA's political institutions. They've survived a lot worse than Trump.
There is a lot of animosity even from our closest allies that Americans are often too arrogant and take respect for granted. We are just allies, we agree with some things, but those countries are going to go their separate ways if it fits their needs better.
Sure, that happened with Europe, when Europeans laughed at trump wanting to terminate nato for not contributing to their promised defense spending. then Russia attacked. Europeans are now firmly allied with US against Russia and China.
When China attacks Australia again, either via a trade war again, or a territory war like Chinese ships water torpedoing Philippine ships or China killing Indian soldiers, perhaps Australians will then change their mind, at least the ones that had dollar signs only in their head.
People respected Australia before for standing up to China and calling China out for covid origins.
> then Russia attacked. Europeans are now firmly allied with US against Russia and China.
Trump said he would use Russia to destroy Europe, and was more interested in blackmailing Ukraine then helping them ward of Russian aggression. It’s no wonder Trump is so popular in Russia and hated very much in rest of Europe.
I think this is a big problem in the EV race. Most Western companies are still unwilling to get their hands dirty, even as China's grip on raw materials and refining has become a serious geopolitical threat.
You can build a manufacturing base, but can you also "build" the workforce willing to work for manufacturing sector wages while keeping the prices competitive?
China hasn't been a low-wage country since 2016. They're able to continue to build cheaply because they built an efficient and comprehensive supply chain with increasing levels of automation and robotization. BYD factories are full of robots.
1. Wages in the US are still way higher than China.
2. Cost of manufacturing something is much more than just raw workers' wages. There's environmental regulations and protections as well, insurances, taxes, pension contributions, etc all being significantly less in China than the US or the west.
Especially the environmental part. Also work accidents. If a worker in China looses a thumb, it's no biggie, If a worker in the US does, he'll sue and win a 6 figure payout.
All these make manufacturing in the US much more expensive even if wages were to be the same.
The previous gen was also LFP. That's not what they are saying makes this a new gen. They are claiming improvements to basically every relevant metric in this LFP blade vs the previous one.
> The company’s latest Blade batteries have an energy density of up to 150Wh/kg. BYD’s next-gen EV battery is expected to reach upwards of 190Wh/kg.
> This could enable fully electric models to exceed 621 miles (1,000 km) CLTC range, which would be the highest among LFP batteries. The report claims BYD will release the new battery as soon as August 2024.
A quick Google search claims that Tesla’s “4680” battery has an energy density of 244 to 296 Wh/kg. I don’t know enough about the industry to know if these numbers are right. If they are, seems like BYD is pretty far behind Tesla.
Anyone know if this is right? Or what I’m missing?
4680 is a cylindrical cell format, the number you quoted refers to the cell itself, when packaged into a battery with busbars, cooling, etc., the gravimetric density on pack level for model 3 is around 125Wh/kg. the number listed by BYD is 150Wh/kg pack level density. the cells themselves are probably around 200-250, but they require less packaging effort due to the fact that the cell housing for prismatic cells already incorporates various mechanical and safety features.
i haven’t checked any of the numbers nor have i seen 3rd party analyses, but it definitely follows the trend: prismatics keep getting better and they might ultimately win the race once we get to solid state and thermal management “solves itself”
Tesla uses some of the current gen BYD batteries in their low end models.
So they're good enough for some uses, but energy density was a stat they trailed current battery tech on. Any improvement in that stat just expands the area where the trade off makes sense.
This article claims a quarter of Model Y in Germany use the LFP battery from BYD, and covers the pros and cons:
You are talking a different (nickel-cobalt-manganese, or NCM) battery chemistry. This is also a type of a Li-ion battery but has a number of advantages and disadvantages compared to LFP battery chemistry (which is just another type of Li-ion batteries).
As you mentioned, NCM has much higher power density, and allows charge/discharge at higher rates than LFP. But LFP technology is much better in terms of safety, stability, low degradation over time and much longer overall lifetime with high number of charge-discharge cycles.
You are not wrong. LFP is mostly for small, compact low-range EVs, so its low energy cell density under ~160Wh/kg is sufficient.
Most mid/high end EVs with longer range or power needs use high-nicke/energy NCM/NCA. de facto standard such as NCM811 has over ~270Wh/kg while the cutting edge ones, NCM9, from SK On ~300Wh/kg and already deployed in Ford F-150, Hyundai Ioniq and Kia EV9.
Hyundai Ioniq 5 2024 Refresh just received the chemistry upgrade from NCM811 to NCM9 (or in this particular instance 88% Nickel) which in turn increased the capacity by 10%.
As for Tesla's 4860, it seems like they are still struggling with low production output. Tesla had promised much better efficiency figures years ago, but doesn't seem to live up. LG is however rumored to have finished developing their 4860 and will produce them later this year (alledgedly for Tesla).
It was NCM for a reason: LFP was patented in the USA. The patents applied to China too of course, but China ignored them. But now patent has expired Tesla can sell LFP into the USA legally it's happening.
Off topic rant. This is a fine example of the patent system hurting rather than helping a country. It's not the idea of rewarding the person taking a risk getting a reward for it that's the problem, it's more than a single term (20 years) works for all areas. It's probably fine for pharmacy. But that moves at a snails pace, and generally patents don't overlap. Batteries don't move much faster than pharmacy, but nonetheless the USA has almost no hope of overtaking China in LFP now and the USA in invented the technology. In fast moving industries like computers the current patent system the current patent is a disaster.
Interestingly, IP enforcement relies on globalization, which has been on the wane since Xi cemented his autocratic powers and the US began its trade war under the Trump administration
It's nice that Electrek mentions the 621 (621, not 600 or 620!) miles first, when it's obvious that the figure was originally in kilometers - a nice round number that should be enough to put anyone's range anxiety to rest...
Perhaps semi-off topic, but it will be interesting to see if silicon anodes (like https://www.silanano.com develops) will take off. They promise up to 20% increased capacity from switching from carbon anodes alone, which sounds amazing.
related: is there any second hand market for electric car ? knowing that the battery is a consumable ? I'm able to buy a very good used car for 5-10k€, I'm afraid I will never be able to afford an e-car without second hand market
Yes, or, there will be; the numbers are coming in from 10 year old EVs / cars that have done >600K kilometers and the batteries seem fine. Mind you, these are mainly teslas.
Second, there is an influx starting of secondhand electric cars as the first adopters of electric lease cars have their contracts expiring / getting a new car, leading the lease car companies to sell the cars on.
The second hand market for EVs has the problem that the price for a car will never be below the value of the battery.
So unless battery technology significantly improves the cost per performance ratio usable used EVs won't fall below a certain price point.
China is making EVs for ridiculous low prices, which is mainly due to the dramatic race to bankrupt the competition, before you yourself go bankrupt, that is happening on the Chinese domestic market.
Engines, transmissions and differentials are all consumables too, and require far more maintenance than a battery. When the battery in an EV has too much degradation to stay in the EV, it can still be used for stationary storage.
The main thint driving EV depreciation right now, and this will likely continue for some time, is how quickly the technology is improving.
You'll likely never be able to buy an electric car for much under $5k, because it'll have a scrap value of $3-$5k. $5k-$10k implies a >10 year old car and EV's only started shipping in good volume in the last year or two.
There are quite a few Teslas available in my area that are a couple years old; presumably, 2-3 year leases ending. Their batteries are likely to be in pretty good condition, and if you buy them from Tesla there's a warranty.
€ so european? A Nissan leaf can be €5000 but will probably only do 70 miles to a charge. A Corsa-e knock off Peugeot, 4 years old can be €10,000 just. I think they will get cheaper.
I'll need more frequent, but far cheaper maintenance.
The current electric cars are all overengineered luxury cars in order to hit a profit margin and are extremely expensive to repair many normally minor faults. It's fine if you're the original owner under a warranty but a second hand buyer beware.
Theoretically electric cars should be super simple and reliable and have very cheap repairs, but those cars aren't being made by anyone today (maybe the Nissan Leaf?)
I know you're being facetious, but the goal is to protect the automotive industry which has higher costs and safety standards compared to Chinese factories and to encourage these manufacturers to set up local factories to create jobs.
as long as safety standards match, I don't think we should slap them with high tariffs. If we start protecting car industry, we all know the consequences. There is a reason why many people prefer toyota over American brand car.
The German car makers oppose proposed tariffs, they believe that they can compete with the Chinese and in fact are already doing so in China, with variable success.
German car companies all have partnerships with local Chinese auto companies for their factories in China. Tarifs in Europe would mean a tit-for-tat for German cars in China ruining them. That's why they don't want tariffs, to protect themselves from retaliation..
What German companies will probably do in Europe is import Chinese EV designs from their partners, and rebadge them locally the same way Renault does with the Dacia Spring.
>Tarifs in Europe would mean a tit-for-tat for German cars in China ruining them. That's why they don't want tarrifs.
Yes, but this is just the nature of competition. If they think they couldn't compete, either in China or Europe, they would beg for Tarifs.
>What German companies will probably do in Europe is import Chinese EV designs from their partners, and rebadge them locally the same way Renault does with the Dacia Spring.
I assume you mean cars not designs of cars? That seems like the thing least useful to import.
Yes, if they want/need low costs for their cars they will build and import the budget models from China. If you have seen Chinese EV prices you would know why, they are insanely cheap, even if they are more or less equivalent to European cars of the same brand.
But they don't need to rebadge, they just build the actual badges cars and ship them to Europe.
I think the one important question is how long china can compete in the race to the bottom. The lower prices are due to many factors, labor cost among those. Surely that will not be sustainable indefinitely.
>I think the one important question is how long china can compete in the race to the bottom.
Haha, China can compete in the manufacturing race to the bottom far longer than Western companies/nations can stay solvent in that race with all their unions, high wages, pensions, and worker's rights pushing their costs up.
To whit, all my mates still working in the EU automotive scene with transferable skills are trying to side hop into other industries since the wage prospects in automotive for the same jobs are getting grim now.
EU can't compete with the US on SW innovation and can't compete with China on HW cheapness and manufacturing at scale. It's being squeeze in a pincer movement at both ends and I fear we'll see more years of economic stagnation to come.
The EU is going to become a regulatory super power. If you just regulate enough then you don't actually need industry or innovation.
> I fear we'll see more years of economic stagnation to come.
There will never be economic stagnation in a country like Germany.
Without the massive economic benefits of large and highly productive industry, the massive social security system can not be kept afloat. At the same time any government trying to dismantle that system is commiting political suicide and in turn will inevitably destabilize the economy.
> If you just regulate enough then you don't actually need industry or innovation.
I'm not sure if you're sarcastic or not.
>There will never be economic stagnation in a country like Germany.
Why not? People were saying the same about Japan? Or you're sarcastic again?
>Without the massive economic benefits of large and highly productive industry, the massive social security system can not be kept afloat.
The social security system has seen massive cutbacks in Germany, Sweden, France, Finland, Italy, Spain, etc in the last 20 years or so precisely because the costs have gone up due to ageing population and mass immigration, while the economic output needed to fund the welfare system has relatively stagnated.
>Why not? People were saying the same about Japan? Or you're sarcastic again?
I don't know what people have been saying about Japan. Except they are prognosticating it's decline due to an aging population for a long time. I do believe that this a problem which can be solved by some economic pain and cut backs.
>The social security system has seen massive cutbacks in Germany, Sweden, France, Finland, Italy, Spain, etc in the last 20 years or so precisely because the costs have gone up due to ageing population and mass immigration
In Germany, as a percentage of GDP, it did somewhat rise though.
Absolute welfare spending has doubled over the last 20 years. The only reason it could do this is because the same is true for absolute GDP.
The GDP of Germany did massively rise over the last 20 years, clearly it isn't stagnant. If ever it stops growing, then the social security costs will rapidly outpace GDP growth, but that hasn't happened yet. At least, looking at the numbers, I see no evidence. Well, except for a very worrisome 2023.
One brings labor into a country, the other evaporates the need for said labor.
Also there are a lot of guys standing in processing centers waiting for their asylum claims to be processed who would take umbrage with your definition of "wide open border", but that's another discussion.
You're intentionally misleading away from the point: the United States does not benefit from becoming wholly dependent on China for industrial goods. I don't care what some Wall Street exec or Austrian School "scholar" tells you.
Sure, some shareholders might - and they're the same ones who also benefit from screwing migrant laborers - but you're not one of these captains of industry who can jet off to their bunker in New Zealand when shit hits the fan.
Those 10K range cars are much lower quality/battery/finish/size/etc... and that's before any shipping, taxes and likely adding any safety features required to adhere to rules to US/EU market.
Given it's selling in NL it will meet EU safety standards, but granted, that's a far cry from €10K and still very far removed from affordable / budget.
Note that I think the BYD quote of 29 or 30k euros is including VAT [1] which is 21% in the Netherlands. On the other hand the quote given above as the starting price in the US for the Mach-E not include sales tax. In the Netherlands (trying to compare apples to apples), the Mach-E is being sold for €75200 [2]. Significant price gap in that market.
You can get Mustang mach-e, basic for 46K (check ford.nl...), you are looking at the GT version there which is much much nicer compares to the 30k BYD.
You can gey hyundai kona starting from 37k with 65kwh battery as opposed to byd 44kwh for 30k. So more value for money.
Apples to Apples is Dacia Spring Extreme 44kwh for 23.5K with tax for same battery and features... much lower price then BYD
That BYD is equivalent to a 23.5K dacia spring extreme... so similar quality can be had cheaper.
American cars are much nicer (tesla?), or have better reputation then a recent foreign company with no accountability if they decide to pack up and leave customers stranded... Or if China decides to invade taiwan and get embargoed.
> Those specific numbers were about a plug-in hybrid. So with gas power.
Where are you seeing that? I can't find 'hybrid' in TFA at all.
Admittedly it's a bit confusing that Americans stick with miles, and are also the only culture on the planet to call the (very much a liquid) petrol 'gas', but the reference in TFA was pretty unambiguous:
"This could enable fully electric models to exceed 621 miles (1,000 km) CLTC range."
The article is written with errors and sounds like it was created by a bot, complemented with some fake quotes… I guess the battery is ok or is the point here to push BYD cars?
Unrelated but I’ve taken a very hard stance personally on buying anything Chinese and have just accepted that it may mean being stuck with inferior technology. Not only are they dumping their high tech goods on the international markets, but I believe money sent over there will come back as bullets for my children or grandchildren.