I've got a friend whos a master tech/trainer with our state automotive body, and is HV certified etc for dealing with these cars. He's currently got a BYD Shark strewn across his workshop for an autopsy.
I have to say I'm super impressed with how heavy duty everything is. The control arms, subframes, etc all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear. The powertrain components all look to be extremely high quality.
I've poked around a few EV's with him now, and I do feel like the Chinese market cars are evolving to a really good standard faster than their Korean counterparts did back in the 80s/90s.
In the last few years Chinese manufacturing has reached a very high-level. The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is because they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills.
While I reckon some other countries still have specialist manufacturing in key areas that surpasses China, most “common” parts can be made in China to a standard that meets or exceeds Western countries, if you’re willing to pay for it.
>they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills
It's more complicated than this. Historically, Chinese manufacturing has been notorious for quietly undermining the quality of the product to improve their margins over time, in a way that the commissioning brand doesn't notice. If a Chinese manufacturer quotes you a price too good to be true, they're probably quoting you at-cost and will build in their margin later, once the orders start flowing in.
High amount variance of quality is a daily reality and as any chinese consumer we are very used to that since the beginning of e-commerce. However there are multiple aspects to the quality feel. Production of high quality items is one thing (e.g one can do better QA etc), what I heard from some local car garages in China is that standardisation in the industry is still quite poor. E.g Parts to replace and bolts and nuts are not as standardised say as the German counter parts (purely from a mechanics point of view).
Having said that a lot of German car suppliers are in China, and the German car manufacturing industry evolved over a significantly longer period of time.
Also the enforcement of standardization is really poor, almost to the point nobody cares.
Chinese manufacturers can make quality stuff and can be rather honest to work with once you show certain knowledge of the field, they will even tell you which products are to avoid.
A really good example of this is the luxury watch market. China manufactures a heap of shitty knockoffs. They also manufacture a heap of the high end legitimate brand watches. And they manufacture some nice and obscenely expensive high end luxury watches.
The most infamous example of this is hip implants made in China that had to be recalled due to being made wrong. This is also why Chinese structural steel is rarely used in North America and Europe.
the key component of ASML is invented and manufactured by the US, that is how the US can force ASML not to export its EUV machine to China. it is an American tech.
Airbus is not the result of high tech manufacturing, it is the result of setting up regulations to stop others to join the competition. The entire EU is not capable of building any 5th gen fighter jet on its own, that is the best proof that its aerospace industry is about 20 years behind China's, same as the space industry.
> Airbus is not the result of high tech manufacturing
I LOL'ed.
> The entire EU is not capable of building any 5th gen fighter jet on its own
Saab is, but there has been no need to develop 5th gen fighters if there are reliable international partners that can provide them. Recent development made it clear the US is no longer a reliable partner and the European aerospace industry is working on reducing the dependence on US equipment.
An aircraft doesn’t need to be modern - it needs to shot down the other before it gets shot down.
And, as we have seen with cheap drones, all that money spent on making great stealth aircraft has not stopped Iran from blocking access to 20% of the world’s supply of crude.
So, how effective are your fifth generation fighters based on your nuclear carriers again?
> An aircraft doesn’t need to be modern - it needs to shot down the other before it gets shot down.
not on its own, but by having a combined AEW&C and high performance ultra long range air to air missiles.
Europoor just doesn't have any of these.
> all that money spent on making great stealth aircraft has not stopped Iran from blocking access to 20% of the world’s supply of crude.
that doesn't change the fact that Europoor doesn't have anything. Does Europoor has such drones? or the ability to knock them out of the sky at costs lower than drone production?
to get your some further idea on the gap - Shahed 136 is estimated to cost Iran $20-50k USD each, Chinese manufacturers are quoting less than $1k USD each including fuel.
> how effective are your fifth generation fighters based on your nuclear carriers again?
you don't have to pick which one is more effective when you can build and operate both at large scale. a few carrier strike groups fitted with fifth gen fighters and drone carrier-amphibious assault ships are a pretty good combination.
feel free to google Type-076 drone carrier-amphibious assault ships.
again - Europoor doesn't have any of these, so please stop pretending to be "advanced economy", you are no longer one.
> you don't have to pick which one is more effective when you can build and operate both at large scale. a few carrier strike groups fitted with fifth gen fighters and drone carrier-amphibious assault ships are a pretty good combination
Have you invaded Iran already? What’s stopping you? Didn’t Trump mention something like annihilating the current regime? Is it working?
> Have you invaded Iran already? What’s stopping you? Didn’t Trump mention something like annihilating the current regime? Is it working?
I am Chinese, why should Chinese be invading Iran?
Please just stop pretending to be an "advanced economy", scientifically, economically and militarily, Europoor is the modern textbook definition of failed states.
The military don’t exist in a vacuum - and the equipment they need varies with mission requirements. That’s why the A-10s had its life extended: because it is a better fit than the F-35 for ground support missions. Same applies to the B-52 and the B-2.
The operational cost of the F-22 and F-35 alone make them a poor fit unless you are engaging highly sophisticated air defenses, something the US haven’t done since WWII.
The requirement to be able to neutralise American aircraft is a new one for European (and Canadian) air forces, but one that’ll be tackled.
The US-made Ultra UV light source is important, but there is quite a bit more than that to a $380 million lithography machine. (Otherwise someone would have created a competitor by now.)
Considering decent portions of the F35 are built by BAE, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce and Martin-Baker - all of which are working on a 6th generation fighter which is due to be flight tested next year - this doesn't really ring true.
I didn't say where the steel the US and EU uses comes from, just that they don't use Chinese steel. So this is a very bad trolling attempt. You also use the word "woke" like the Nazis used the word "Jewish"
>Chinese manufacturing has been notorious for quietly undermining the quality of the product to improve their margins over time
Famously Gemtek Technology (https://www.gemteks.com/en/about/about), Apples small obscure modem OEM at the time, when presented with contract to manufacture 1999 AirPort Wifi cards made first batch of complete duds because factory owner saw picofarad smd caps and decided it will be more profitable to for him to GLUE tiny plastic rectangles instead, after all picofarad is like nothing so nobody will tell the difference.
>The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is
I think most people just buy trash at WalMart and Amazon and it's 99% Chinese disposable junk. That doesn't mean that China is incapable of producing high quality goods, but just that the average interaction that people have with Chinese goods are low quality.
It's the manufacturing equivalent of "How could the government be efficient? Haven't you ever been to the DMV?" (set aside that fact that many DMVs seem to be quite efficient these days)
* PE, on the whole, has extracted wealth from quality. This is true at both the consumer level and B2B. E.g. its impossible to trust any aftermarket car part manufacturer, and some OEM brands have turned to dogshit too.
* "most people just buy trash at WalMart and Amazon" I'd rephrase that to: most people either can't or are unwilling to pay the premium for quality in an increasingly disposable world.
So, I'd say that similar to post war Japan, while Chinese manufacturing has an image problem, they're just producing what we asked for.
I'm very willing to pay a premium for quality, I just can't seem to find any reliable signal for quality before buying. Price and brand are both increasingly meaningless signals.
I'm in a similar boat, and it annoys the shit out of my wife, and any family member that thinks I'm "just cheap" or a "budget shopper".
I'm a value shopper. I was happy with the McDouble when it was under $1, but not now that it is nearly $2. It isn't worth that, but the BK Double Cheeseburger IS worth it even for $1 more than the McDouble (at least in my location).
Same is true for almost everything I buy. A certain fabric I want in my button ups, or a stich type I want in my pants. I hyper inspect almost every item of clothing I'm even contemplating buying. Same with furniture, with tools, with appliances.
It is almost a compulsion. I cannot pay more for something than I think it is worth... unless I REAALLLLLY want it.
The lengths "drop-shippers" or similar groups are willing to go to game the system also has made almost all reviews and feedback useless. A few years ago I bought a feline water fountain and the lengths they went to get a 5 star review (extra free filters, etc) made me realize just how bad amazon reviews had gotten. I've slowed my amazon purchases significantly since then (along with other problems ordering from amazon has slowly introduced).
The book "The Paradox of Choice" led me to using Wirecutter and Consumer Reports in recent years - if it's not something I care that much about, I will just buy whatever their top recommendation is without second thought. The cost of the subscriptions pays for a human to wade through all the junk and select something that is at least adequate for the job, and is cheap compared to the effective hourly rate of having to search through mountains of junk.
For more niche stuff, Reddit groups like BIFL and seeing what niche hobby groups coalesce around is helpful for me. Which I suppose is the same reversion to word-of-mouth expertise when, as you said, brand and price are degraded signals.
I'm in the same boat. The only signal that I still trust is (for want of a better term) governance longevity, i.e. how long has the company/brand been under its current management structure. This requires some digging, but good salesmen are usually well aware of management changes at their brands. That may not apply to generic clothes shops, but in my experience this still works for tool shops and appliance stores. You'll want to talk to tradespeople though, not sales drones.
Then there's two signals that negatively inform my trust of a brand:
- company size: the larger the company, the lower they start on my trust ladder;
- advertising: when a brand is overly present in the public sphere, that to me signals that they're overcharging for their product.
I don’t fully agree with either of those arguments. I think parts of it are certainly true but at the end of the day it takes two to tango. American consumers on average want high consumption for the lowest cost. I hate the argument “just buy less $5 coffees” but there is at least a kernel of truth in it. Consumers stretch the limits of their budget.
I find that Chinese manufacturing offers the complete range of quality for every price point. At reasonable prices, the quality meets or exceeds that of other countries. But if you want something cheap and cheaply made, you can find that as well. And at the extreme, you still have counterfeit parts and products.
> While I reckon some other countries still have specialist manufacturing in key areas that surpasses China
I don't think this is true. Maybe super specialist things like chip manufacturing products, but it's guaranteed China is spending heavily on R&D to develop their own. When it comes to cars / car parts they will be on par with if not surpassing most countries.
Also keep in mind China's sudden onset had a big impact on European and US car manufacturing, with VW / VAG closing major factories in Germany. Mind you, that's also because VAG was the biggest car manufacturer in China, until suddenly BYD and co opened up their factories and dominated the market in a short amount of time.
> The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is because they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills.
I’m reminded of all the dismissals people made about the skill levels of Indian software developers when the explanation was that the more skilled ones knew they could do better than the MBAs were offering to make the savings sound even more impressive.
Also because of the appalling track record of QA/QC, and subsequent cover-ups, at every level of government and enterprise from regional to national.
In the 2008 milk Scandal, for example, the offending company Sanlu were aware of infants becoming sick December 2007, but refused to test until June 2008.
Shijiazhuang city governance failed to report the contamination to provincial and state authorities September 2008 and Sanlu subsequently asked the Shijiazhuang city government to assist them in controlling the media's reporting of the recall.
300,000 affected children were identified, among which 54,000 were hospitalized and 6 deaths were officially attributed to the adulteration and cover-up. If the government and industry were willing to collude to the detriment of their own populace so as not to sully the PR appeal of the Beijing Olympics, what level of care and consideration are we to attribute them in matters of low-consequence export to the West?
Yes, not having QA is one of the ways unscrupulous businesses boost profits. The answer isn't to say “everyone in China is like that” any more than it was to say “every meat packer in the United States will serve you dog meat and pink slime” but to accept that some things need to cost more.
I would also note that in the case of that melamine incident 2 decades ago, several of the business leaders involved got death sentences which seems relevant to the question of how much the larger country supports it. For example, I note that no member of the Sackler family has failed to die rich out of prison.
Very true, though it isn’t like we need to look very far to find similar instances of government and media collusion to control stories, laws passed to protect companies from liability for direct causally linked chemical dumping known to induce tumors, cancer, neurological diseases and other things, so on and so forth.
Every country seems willing to trade the lives or livelihood of citizens, much less people of other countries, to ensure their status quo. Some just pay more lip service to “rights” they will violate at the drop of a hat when push comes to shove.
Unfortunately, the manager pushing the outsourcing pockets the money, outsourcing company pockets the money, and the local and indian teams get to be abused and latter gets extra blame for things outside their control.
I would say the problem is heavily structural and linked to few companies that very much pursue lowest possible effort, harming both employee and customer. We had a company that infamously pursued a somewhat similar (just with not as much leverage over employees) strategy in Poland - a common refrain was how other companies would get people jumping jobs from them who gave variants of "I needed some spending money while finishing my degree, escaped as soon as I could" story.
Unfortunately it seems a bit harder to do when some places apparently hire with only category appearing to be "according to census they speak english", then put them on project with minimal training and zero time or space to acquire more training.
Yes - I remember one time hearing someone from a big consulting company make the argument that even the top Indian graduates would work for peanuts (even by local standards) and asking them how likely it was that they’d be that smart but unable to determine their market value.
This was unsurprising after my entire life hearing people complain about declining quality and imported junk while always picking the cheapest item on the shelf at the store, even when they had plenty of money for a better quality option. There’s just a certain mindset which can’t look past the lowest possible price.
Also sometimes you have few big companies dominate local market to detriment of choice, even if your plan is on getting further away.
The polish company I mentioned was infamous for using still in education students especially from an university where its founder was a professor, and for his motto of "you can replace any specialist with finite number of students, and the number is usually one". I met some of them later who worked there for first few years only to setup conditions to jump ship.
But along the line I heard how few big outsourcing/consulting companies dominated IT hiring in bunch of cities in Poland, with Warsaw being the odd one out because suddenly you had to fight for candidates with 100-150 person "minnows". I imagine without such minnows finding sensible work would be way harder
It's not just that they do what they are told, whether that is low quality or high quality.
It's that if you don't have a way to measure quality yourself (you're not an expert), or if you don't ask for exact specific features/qualities even if you offer a high budget and ask for high quality, manufacturers absolutely will cut corners, do stupid things, etc. to increase their own margin at the expense of quality and just hope you are none the wiser.
The US had the same culture in certain periods and certain industries, so I am not suggesting it's some innate Chinese characteristic. The meat factories exposed in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, where he documented unsanitary conditions, spoiled meat, rat infestations etc come to mind.
But one cannot just ignore that the China of today has had problems with fake baby formula, fake alcohol, fake medicine, fake everything and expect that that doesn't make its way into manufacturing of other classes of goods.
I wish China didn't have such a hostile government to the West. Because I'd love to buy a BYD car and see this for myself, or try the Xiaomi car that MKBHD was so keen on. But because of the hostility I kind of get why there are bans.
Are western companies able to freely compete in China? Last I checked, no, they need local partners at best, or are blocked completely at worst. And not just American but any outside company.
What their government does in regards to local industry is effectively what donald trump is attempting to do with the US economy. Except they do it well.
I consider you as a victim of the brainwashing by your main stream media.
there are tons of western cars on Chinese roads, tesla was given free land and close to interest free loan to build its factory in Shanghai. there are numerous apple shops in China. guess how many Chinese cars are driving on US roads, how many Huawei phones are being sold in the US.
if you are open to the idea of jumping out of your comfort zone of your favourite brainwashing media, some westerner actually went to China and counted every single car at an intersection for 30 minutes with all brands summarised. over 40% are western cars.
It's benefiting from the globalized market without freely competing in it. It gives them a massive edge in many industries and the world couldn't say no because of cheap manufacturing.
And certainly hostile when you add currency manipulation onto it as well.
>It's benefiting from the globalized market without freely competing in it.
Ha, very rich criticism considering the US economy and stock market has been benefiting 1000x more from said "globalized market without freely competing in it", by printing money and exporting its inflation across the world with dampened consequences domestically, then using said printed money like liquid gold to buy valuable assets around the world (like real estate and innovative companies) thanks to its status as a reserve currency (something Charles De Gaulle complained about since the 1950s), a unique US cheat code enforced thought force via its massive military.
>And certainly hostile when you add currency manipulation onto it as well.
Again, very rich criticism considering the US's abusing its status as the reserve currency for its own benefit, see above.
This is now limited to only some restricted industries: https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/zcfb/ghxwj/202504/P020250424307... Yes, the list is long, but it's a significant improvement to the before times when all industries were off limits save for a few exceptions where foreign investment was allowed. Notably, the car industry has been mostly unrestricted for a few years now.
Internet services? Yes, you need a domestic partner, because you'll disseminate information to the public.
If you're in the automobile industry, you can import cars to China. China was Porsche's largest market until 2025, and all Porsches are imported. It used to be that a Chinese partner is needed to manufacture cars in China, but Tesla did not need one, and that policy was dropped. Anyway, it's nowhere close to the complete ban the US placed on Chinese cars.
In many other industries, you can create a foreign-owned company and operate in China.
Giga Shanghai is the exception the proves the rule. It's one of the few, if only, foreign businesses that operate without a joint venture with a local company.
Again, nobody forces you to open your business or manufacture your stuff in China. Plenty of companies do not, like Google.
Companies abided to ruthless Chinese rules because they were greedy and wanted to exploit the Chinese slave labor and also get access to Chinese market, but the CCP didn't put a gun to their head and forced them to come to China, they decided that themselves for the sake of the holy shareholder growth. And now, 2 decades after you've made your money, you're complaining over a consensual arrangement?
And trade is always gonna be asymmetric, with rules in foreign countries that don't exist in the US. That's why the EU fines US companies regularly. China isn't much different. You want to operate in China, then you gotta follow the CCP rules. You don't? Then just leave. Easy.
Lots of countries are like that though. America has an unusually free system where anyone can do anything for better or worse, but Walmart failed in Germany by ignoring all the local processes like employee protections. (But I hear Aldi is taking over the UK!)
>blocking Facebook while exporting Tiktok is a hostile trade imbalance
The US also threatened to block tiktok unless China sold it to a local US oligarch(the Oracle guy). The US is no saint here. And good luck getting people to shed a tear for China blocking Facebook. Good riddance to both of them.
The Tiktok we get that's full of slop isn't allowed in China either. China has a completely different set of content on its TikTok. Trade imbalance is a skill issue and within the country they compete fairly.
China is just as much of a guilty party as the “west” could be. From massive corporate espionage, open stealing of western IP, blocking western companies from entering markets. It is foolish to think they are not at some level an adversary. I would still absolutely buy a BYD car but China plays the same game, maybe even better, and that the west has also played for decades.
Why is it wrong? China is just playing the greedy globalist capitalist game the west has created, but they haven't bombed foreign countries or kidnapped their leaders like the US has, so from that perspective China is not a military threat to us, they're just ruthless competitors. So you are the one who's wrong.
Whataboutism is a weak argument. China is an equal player on the world stage when it comes to propensity to harm. From the many human rights violations over the years, how they orchestrated the takeover of Hong Kong, frequent border disputes that continue to happen and the continuous posturing of naval fleets. I am not saying one is better or worse than the other but don’t confuse yourself, China is absolutely a threat to global peace.
Whataboutism is the magic gotcha card invoked when people have no answers to the absolutely fair question "why is X allowed to do Y but Z is not allowed to do Y".
If there's no hypocritical double standards then you'd have an answer instead of calling whataboutism.
>From the many human rights violations over the years
Their problem, not ours. Just don't buy stuff made in china and write to your politicians to stop sending your manufacturing jobs there out of greed of stonks go up like they've been doing for 30 years, if you want to do anything about it.
>how they orchestrated the takeover of Hong Kong
The British gave it to them. US also took over several overseas territories. Where's the hubbub there?
>frequent border disputes that continue to happen and the continuous posturing of naval fleets
Again, their problem to deal with not ours. I don't want to police and get involved in centuries old conflicts on other side of the planet that have nothing to do with us. I only care what happens in my backyard. Feel free to go join the Indian military and help them fight China if you actually care that much about it.
>China is absolutely a threat to global peace.
Then US is an even bigger threat. And still I don't want to go to war with them.
The hostility is a result of a long reading of history. If you think Chinese leadership has forgotten European colonialism, you are mistaken. If you want to understand how deeply the maximalist mindset runs in Chinese culture, look up what the name of the country - zhongguo - means. I love Chinese culture, and lived there, but make no mistake about how clear eyed their leadership is about competition with western hegemony.
>If you think Chinese leadership has forgotten European colonialism, you are mistaken.
You are mistaken to think I forgot that. The west is the one who is mistaken if they think all other countries and cultures forgot that. If they can, they would gladly enact revenge over Europeans and whip them. Which is why it's best to arm ourselves to the teeth and ensure they'll never be in a position do that. So no, i haven't forgotten, the west has.
>but make no mistake about how clear eyed their leadership is about competition with western hegemony.
Isn't hegemony what US leadership has been doing since WW2, increasingly more vigorously and more intensely today? Except China is doing without bombing other nations and kidnapping their leader. So in this game China is the righteous ones.
BYD cars in China are not very good. But to export them they need to be higher quality to meet criteria. I would never buy one in China. Happily own one outside of China.
I have a Chinese EV too, an MG4 built by SAIC. It’s a really cheap car, significantly cheaper than its non-Chinese counterparts like the VW ID.3 or (roughly) a Hyundai Kona.
The factory rust protection was maybe a bit on the lighter side, but everything else on it looks completely normal. The drivetrain is simple (no heat exchange mechanism between battery coolant and motor coolant, a slightly whiny motor), but also genuinely competent and modern for a 2022 design (a mature skateboard RWD platform with a thin CTP battery with large cells and generous cell/coolant heat exchange). There are no obvious wtf solutions, nothing that would look too thin or too flimsy. The infotainment and the SW of the car does have the occasional funny moments, but all that is happening on what looks and feels like a solid piece of hardware.
The point is that you can't tell anymore just by looking underneath and counting the wtfs.
I have a friend who's a big Honda fan, amateur racer, a true "petrolhead" but with an intact brain. Runs his own shop. Naturally there was a barrage of jokes when I rolled up in my new Chinese EV, but then we put it up on a lift and there wasn't really much to joke about. The platform looks boring and mature. Things are where you'd expect them, they're the right size and shape, you can tell why they're there.
Obviously, the motor/reducer bearings in my car may fail in a few years (like in the Kona Electric or Škoda Enyaq) or the charging circuitry may fail (like the ICCU in the Ioniq 5) but then we're already comparing it against legacy manufacturers, and that's a pretty good position to be in.
From what I've seen of youtube teardowns by mechanics, Chinese cars often have the air of modernity and future tech about them, but under the hood, they like to use technical solutions that were abandoned by European manufacturers a decade ago or more, leading to the cars not being competitive in driving dynamics to what you would get from an euro manufacturer for perhaps slightly more money.
European cars are incredibly expensive these days and have been for a while compared to imports.
About 7 years ago I was looking for a new car and had only owned and drove VW cars. Naturally, I looked at VW, the Golf in particular. With all the bells and whistles, it came to about 35k EUR. A Civic was about 11K cheaper. Guess what I bought?
There was nothing in the Golf that could justify the extra cost. Nowadays is the same.
More fun driving dynamics aren't worth the extra twenty thousand dollars you need to buy the equivalent European car, let alone the ridiculous lifetime costs of ownership, such as maintenance.
I mean, seriously. I can buy a shitty Argentine-made base model used 5-year-old VW Amarok with 70K km on it for the same price as a brand new Chinese-made Changan Hunter (whether gas or REEV). The second one is also going to be far, far cheaper to fuel (if you choose the REEV), maintain and repair.
Let's not even talk EVs. Europeans exited the market before it even began. European brands only start to show up at around what, the 70-100K dollar bracket? Sure, the Porsche Taycan is cool and all, but I've never seen one. Meanwhile, BYDs, Deepals, MGs, and a million other random brands are only growing more and more common with each passing day.
> Let's not even talk EVs. Europeans exited the market before it even began. European brands only start to show up at around what, the 70-100K dollar bracket?
The ID.3 starts at like 35k USD here in Europe. Škoda Elroq and Enyaq, both under 50k USD.
>Sadly that's also why it's hard to buy a new car, you only know what's a quality car years down the line.
Not always. Sometimes the components are a lot older than the car and have earned a bit of a reputation. The powerplant in my car is like 20 years older than the model year. The underlying platform is nearly as old as well. All proven to be boringly reliable.
I guess this changes in the EV era with faster rate of iterations compared to the ICE era. More lessons still to learn with the EV cars I'm sure. Meanwhile a 4 cyl compact car is practically a commodity and aside from safety widgets like backup cameras, have been relatively unchanged for 15 or 20 years.
I think it depends on the car. I've seen VW products fall apart in months after sale, we actually had a Mk5 golf that went back to the dealer three times in it's first year for fuel system faults.
There are a lot of low price bracket Chinese imports (MGs mainly) that seem to have severe rust issues that are present at delivery.
And Toyotas a few years ago had a problem where certain colour cars would have their paint fall off in huge sheets as the primer was incorrect or something.
I do agree in principle that most modern cars should be pretty good for their warranty period/first owner, but I've also seen some egregious edge cases!
A few years back my wife had a Toyota that had serious electrical problems (all instruments would stop working) that was eventually traced to a faulty sunroof combined with a terrible design...
What will you do when you want something different? Used car values are partially a function of their expected remaining lifespan, and if the car isn't trusted to last it is worth less.
I had AEG Lavamat 1055 about 35 years (from 1982), worked well without hitch. It was quite small, top loading model etc. Fast spin-dry w/ variomatic (shaking also while spinning). Laundry out of it was quite dry already.
Then 2017 building plumbing had to be redone and gave reason to remake bathroom completely and replacing old equipment. I would have bought Miele model but it didn't fit reserved place and I ended up buying Electrolux instead.
That's now month short of 9 years and I have no reason to believe it will not work well at least another 10 years to come. regardless advertised 10 years warranty.
This current one has more electronic parts, but now searching by its model found only fault codes all seem to be user errors, overfilling, water hose not open, draining filter clogged etc. All non issues whoever bothers knowing how to maintain and operate that thing over years. No complaints about issues with electronics problems.
These were first used by a couple and later single (me) needs which are usually once a week plus twice a month washing 4-5 uses single day. Which becomes bit over 100 washing in year.
That's just 1000 washings in 10 years and 3500 in 35 years. For a family washing every day once it would be 3563 uses in 10 years.
If washing machine isn't badly kept against instructions and it isn't cheapest knock off plastic rubish, why would be a surprise if it doesn't last at least that 10 years use washing family laundry. And last many decades with single or dink use?
Be thankful you didn't buy Beko. I had a horrible uphill battle trying to get them to honour a 2 year warranty in Ireland after about a years usage.
After they finally engaged with the warranty, they had someone come out to 'fix' it once every couple weeks until I gave up and just bought a different brand washer/dryer.
I'm now sworn off Beko, and will happily tell everyone I can about my terrible service :)
That's also a bit 'you get what you pay for'? Especially with large electronics/cars typically it pays off to go for the more expensive ones. Miele here as well and well past a decade
Yes. But. There's many companies that build up a reputation then cash in on that reputation. Eg Mercedes in the 90s. So you could end up paying more for cheap rubbish.
It would be nice if the EU or someone introduced an energy star type system for reliability and repairability so that consumers could have some kind of idea what the quality is likely to be.
Miele makes darn reliable appliances, I've had two Miele vacuum cleaners from -88 and still both work fine. Used weekly, one at home and when I sold summer cottage to my brother & his wife I gave one to them, they still use it there.
All parts still available and when I bought new hose few years ago from service I asked if they still are willing to fix it if it went broke answer was. Sure absolutely, just bring it here and we make it work again. I've just bought once new floor nozzle that was worn out and that hose because it grew leaky from ends. Third party dust bags are available and very cheap.
Not anymore. I bought a brand-spanking new high-end Electrolux dishwasher and discovered it had a flimsier construction than the 20 year old one my mom has at home, that was an absolute bargain bin purchase.
Maybe it’s me then. We just don’t get that long out of them. We have tried Fisher and Paykel and Samsung. Never had more than and year warranty either.
They do run at least once a day often more, but that’s not enough to explain it.
I understand that while small kids or baby then there is lot of laundry. But I've heard some people wash same fav clothes every day just to be able to use them fresh clean every day.
Gosh, but there are other ways to solve that issue like having bit more of fav clothes, so that you dont' have to wash same cloth every day but instead was a bunch of them end of week. Need white shirt every day at work, buy at least 10 of them, use one each day, wash & iron weekend, put on pile1 and use from pile2 next week rotating for even use and to have some redundancy, then pile1 week and so on. Get more trousers etc. whatever you need. This is what I did when had job where dress code told what to wear in office.
And kids, buy them more fav clothes too if it otherwise becomes fight what they want to wear daily.
But each to their own. Above is just my view and how I learned when I was kid looking my parents, and how I've done also.
I'd be disappointed if it didn't. My Bosch is running for about 13 years right now and just as well as when I bought it.
Maybe it helps I'm in the EU and there's a law stating you have right of compensation if it dies within a decade...
VW ID.3 is designed by a Chinese team in China, built in Shanghai backed entirely by the Chinese ecosystem.
You need to be totally blind to consider vw being able to design & produce such a car on its own. let's be straight - the software in the car is not something Germany can build on its own. That 20 years gap won't be filled overnight.
This is false, the ID.3 was designed primarily in Germany but they sell a model customised to the Chinese market. They're two different cars from different production facilities.
All the control modules for the German model at least are manufactured by Bosch and Valeo in France and Germany - where the software is also produced.
As an aside, Bosch produces control modules and the underlying software for just about every western car manufacturer. 80%+ cars sold worldwide use their traction control system for example so I'm not sure where this so-called gap is.
The kind of software needed in a car (minimal or ideally none at all except for DME and CarPlay display) is indeed not something that Germans were able to build on their own in the recent times.
Not according to what I've just read. It's sold in china via a joint venture with saic and seems to have been slightly redesigned for the china market.
What the hell are you talking about? Why are you lying?
ID.3 is a MEB car, its production started in Zwickau (Germany) in November 2019, two years before it even arrived to China, and one year before the SOP of ANY MEB car (ID.4 was the first one) in Anting (Shanghai).
>The control arms, subframes, etc all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear.
While I think the "chinese quality bad" narrative still applies to many Chinese brands, this isn't as universal as it was in the past.
I think my eyes were first opened when I bought myself a Huawei phone(before the Google ban). My first few smartphones had been Samsung, I've always felt the term "planned obsolence" was the best way to describe these phones: After just a year, the phone felt considerably slower, and after two it was almost unusable.
Huawei flagship phones were similar in price to Samsung, but I felt they lasted way longer.
I have had a fairly good run with a lot of these Chinese phones. Huawei when we could still get them was great. Xiaomi is great build quality but they are rotting out their OS with too much bloat and up sell. Oppo has been brilliant in that they are built well, cheap and allow you strip out anything you don't want.
I had one of the last available Huawei phones, the P30 Pro, for 3 years. The only reason I had to get a new phone is because it got stolen.
>Xiaomi is great build quality but they are rotting out their OS with too much bloat and up sell.
I've tried Xiaomi phones in their stores a few times. I feel like they're trying to copy the look and feel of iOS in a way, and I generally don't like the iOS UX.
Pre google ban huawei phones were incredible. 2-day batteries, great screens, fantastic cameras and an awesome price. I had a Samsung after my last huawei and it felt like a solid downgrade, even though the samsung was way more expensive.
FYI, if you are looking for a post google huawei, check out honor phones.
That's exactly how Chinese android market works, every phone/pad is No.1 upon release and within a few week's PR campaign. After a couple months a new one is released with another No.1 bla-bla, while the old one goes on life-support.
Also have to mention their ads, built into the system, when every app opens, when you switch back, f*king everywhere. The funny thing is if you switch language to English or use it overseas, some of the ads will go away, ironic.
Vertical integration matters. If BYD controls much of the chain from the mine to the ship, they’re not paying everyone else’s margin along the way. That can translate into more car for the money.
I own a BYD Tang, so I’m biased, but the value for money has been hard to beat.
Scale probably helps too. When you sell millions of cars using many of the same parts, availability is better and parts are more likely to stay affordable than on low-volume models with lots of redesigns.
Vertical integration is a double edged sword. When your car is a decade old or more, and stuff starts breaking, the only vendor that makes parts for it is BYD - and its up to them if they bother selling to you, at what price, provided they still make these parts at that time.
Time will tell how cheap and easy will they be to maintain, which affects residual value at the end of the lease, which affects payments.
Nobody pays sticker price for new cars as a lump sum. If BYDs (or whatever car) are impossible to maintain, that means nobody will want them used, and residual value will be low, which means BYDs will cost more to the end user to own than a more expensive car by a different manufacturer.
Which seems to be the case for now in places like Germany, but we will have to wait and see how the situation develops and the second hand market builds up.
Additionally, vertically integrated companies don't get to tag along on innovations produced by upstream suppliers. Many EV companies will effortlessly have their range increase by a couple % each year, with battery costs falling, just because they can adopt the improvements of CATL/Panasonic/BYD etc.
> Vertical integration matters. If BYD controls much of the chain from the mine to the ship, they’re not paying everyone else’s margin along the way. That can translate into more car for the money.
This is interesting. Wasn't the idea in Europe (and maybe elsewhere, too, no idea) that outsourcing components would lead to economies of scale? After all, a Mercedes or BMW or VW seat is still roughly a seat?
It's interesting to me that we seem to switch back and forth between the two models, each time saying the new approach is "better".
Outsourcing to somebody that can drive higher volumes for components can be cheaper, as they can amortize the manufacturing equipment over more widgets. If a car seat is just a car seat, then outsourcing makes sense. However, if you need to customize it or add some other value (heated seats, electronic movement, etc) then unless everybody is doing the exact same thing, you need to bring at least some of the components in house and/or pay for it.
The same is true in many industries. TSMC has dominated fabing chips because they scale wafers over many more customers, whereas intel mostly only focused on its own chips. The results was more expensive all around. (Intel also had to deal with bad western accounting attitudes to CAPEX spending, which IMHO is a huge reason so much manufacturing left North America, though lower costs also played a role).
VW, Mercedes and BMW also squeeze their suppliers very hard, and they operate with razor thin margins. So I agree and wouldn't say that doing everything in house is always going to be the cheaper way
My family operated a business on exactly these razor thin margins. You always live on the razors edge. You're unable to invest into the future, unable to improve your processes, and god forbid there is even a minor disruption. I don't think it's sustainable. We've since faltered, as have our many of our competitors and suppliers.
Having an adversarial relationship with your suppliers is not necessarily the best arrangement. It means that suppliers will nickel-and-dime you for every change and ship minimum possible quality to you. The cost of loss of agility and quality will impact your bottom line.
The value in being a supplier is you make the replacement parts when they start breaking in 5-10 years. The real money is in selling to every auto parts store in the country.
And also the simplicity of the products. You don't need to design a different engine for each car, you just vary the number of cells and change the motors. Your battery division can keep pumping out batteries, regardless of what models you make. If you design a new model, you can keep using the existing lines. It's perfect for mass production.
My grandfather in the 1970s used to complain about crappy Japanese tools. By the 1980s they were world-class. Same is happening with Chinese manufacturing.
My great-grandfather used to complain about crappy German tools.
My great-great-grandfather used to complain about crappy Scottish tools.
He was English. I am not sure you can buy as much as a paperclip made in England now.
Has to be said that nobody on this side of the pond ever complained about the quality of American Snap On tools though, just so long as the boss was paying for them.
And they have really good designs (after all, they are taking inspiration from the most succesful european cars. I saw the station wagon the other day, it's amazing. the octavia EV as it should be.)
The problem is always going to be: what's going to happen in 10 years, or whatever, after warranty expires?
The problem with vertical integration is for the customer, and it's repairs: traditional manufacturing is more expensive because you have a constellation of companies manufacturing pars with official and unofficial second sources. While this increases the overall cost of the vehichle, it decreases the final price of every component because the customer (independent mechanic) can choose to use a different source. The market working as intended.
BYD is currently the only EV i would consider, because it's the best value and the engineering quality is indeed high, but because i want to own, not rent, i'm preoccupied of what's going to happen in X years.
Yes, it's the same fear we had three-four decades ago when toyota/suzuki/kia entered the european market, that bet paid off but also because cost of repairs went down over time as they were also traditional manufacturers. (Yet for some exotic components you still must go to the OEM, and pay 2-3 times the equivalent sensor/component for an european car.)
However, with vertical integration you are always at mercy of the manufacturer. Better engineering, yes. Better integration, better efficiency, but you will suffer for repairs if you can't have second sources.
Think apple. (and tesla. but tesla is shit quality)
I think we're going to have to accept that the EV market and technology is moving fast enough that cars behave a lot more like smartphones, or buying a computer in the 90s: one that's ten years old is going to look ridiculously dated even if it's still working fine. It's not unreasonable to estimate than in 10 years the average range will be 50% more or even double current range.
I've got a leased one on order as a result. Let someone else eat the depreciation.
my car is already 12 years old, but has at least 5 more under its belly. Has long paid for itself.
It would cost me considerably more to keep changing it with something i don't own and as a result always be unconfortable with (and also keep paying until the end of time).
But that's kind of beside the point: ex-lease are also being sold somewhere, nobody wants to lease an old car and nobody in their right mind will destroy a perfectly good car just because it's too old to be leased, so i think my point still stands.
"chinese X bad" is really ignorant. One in 6 people on the planet lives in China, it's a gargantuan country that is the world leader in manufacturing. You're going to have a high variance of quality output for the mere fact that the overall output is massive.
People often equate low-value Chinese manufacturing that focuses on low cost with their manufacturing quality across all fields.
Does the true version have slave labor, reeducation camps for minorities, needing permission to travel, running protestors over with tanks, and gutter oil by any chance?
This could be mostly due to the fact that China has been on the rise, economically. So people mostly see the system working, and mostly in their favor. We'll see the real oppression once that changes.
I don't think it's anyone (lay person)'s fault. As a chinese person moved to European in the early 2000s for the longest time I wouldn't touch a chinese product (although I'm very proud of the progress made in terms of industrialisation).
Things changed in 2012 when I bought a 'cheap-ish' Huawei phone, it was nothing of a flagship, no performance but it was really solid product. Very light and well built too. How ironic that was my first ever experience of buying a product exported to Europe.
BYD are genuinely decent cars. And they've skyrocketed in popularity across parts of the world.
In the UK the major car dealers are franchises, and you tend to see for example a Ford garage next to a Toyota garage, and they are operated by the same company. Most of these places have closed one of the branded ones and turned it into a BYD franchise dealership. Theres so many of them across the country now.
I'd take a BYD over something like a Tesla thats for sure - far better cars, it's not even a fair comparison anymore.
I dare say they'll struggle a little more in the US with the whole "China bad" propaganda engrained into society, which is likely why BYD have gone for the agressive expansion in Europe instead.
I'd rather own Chinese everything over American. Everything America makes is slop and corners are cut for profits so the owners of companies can own their third home and maybe a yacht. The truth is Chinese engineering quality exceeds the West in almost every domain at this point.
I'd move there given the opportunity, the business owners of America are willing to poison and put the lives of their fellow citizens at risk for literal pieces of paper. I'm ashamed to be American.
I agree with the quality of some of the stuff coming out of China but when it comes to poisons and risking the lives of citizens, I have some bad news for you. That is how they undercut so heavily by foregoing those standards.
Not saying you are wrong about many US business owners but having travelled in China I can tell you that Chinese companies have no qualms about poisoning their neighbours for enhanced profits - my guide there said it was what he hated about his country. Money drives ethics pretty much everywhere I reckon.
This one of those if both country are spying on you, pick the foreign spy since their gov can't touch you. If industrialist from both sides poisoning backyards, pick the one that isn't doing it in near you.
This was stated about the key: "Folded into the base is a mechanical backup key, a flat metal blade in a hinged housing."
I own a BYD: this is not true. The key is not hinged; rather, the entire mechanical key pulls out when a small clip is unlatched near the top of the assembly (you can see it in the CT). I assume the circular hinge-looking mechanism in the CT is just a by product of the plastic/metal weld process.
I wasn’t surprised by the backup key, but rather by how empty it was. I really wish key fobs were smaller. They are quite bulky in a pocket and bigger than all my actual keys combined.
Now that’s an idea… I found one for my car, but kind of hate it.
I don’t have a 3D printer currently. I did help my cousin’s kid by one and they told me if I ever wanted to print something to let them know, but I have a feeling I’ll need to design my own with some trial and error.
I’ve hesitated buying one, because the idea of having a machine to melt plastic in my house seems like a bad idea when it comes to air quality.
Depends on the plastic, but even the most benign ones put out very minor amounts of fumes if YouTube testers are to be believed. Note that fumes in this case just means that they are seeing changes in AQI meters, which is something that can happen with too many people sitting in a room.
If it’s something you worry about, the enclosed models frequently either come with, or can be fitted with a carbon filter, and if you are really worried, you can use dryer vent to get it outside.
With the most popular plastic (PLA) at printing temperatures, there isn’t any data showing toxic byproducts. When you get into things like ABS and resin you have to think more about fumes.
Do not print a key fob out of PLA. It will not survive summer car temperatures. A better choice is PETG, or ABS and ASA if you have an enclosed printer that can vent outside.
I'm guessing parent-poster is saying the "is" should be "are", on the basis that the word "components" is plural.
That said, I didn't perceive a problem either, and my self-diagnosis is that "none of the X" feels like it could be evoking a singular item that failed to be found.
Yep, I think the singular is ok, as it could be just one. Seems like it could be both.
Cambridge says...
> In formal styles, we use none of with a singular verb when it is the subject. However, in informal speaking, people often use plural verbs...
Collins says:
> Since none has the meanings “not one” and “not any,” some insist that it always be treated as a singular and be followed by a singular verb: The rescue party searched for survivors, but none was found. However, none has been used with both singular and plural verbs since the 9th century. When the sense is “not any persons or things” (as in the example above), the plural is more common: … none were found. Only when none is clearly intended to mean “not one” or “not any” is it followed by a singular verb: Of all my articles, none has received more acclaim than my latest one.
But it was "none of -these- X" which (to me, at least) is a secondary signal for plurality indicating that "are" is (doubly) preferable to "is".
(I don't find "none of these components is ..." to be egregiously wrong but it definitely gives a brain hiccup where the "... are ..." variant is much smoother.)
I guess my intent was not to point out that it has a mechanical key, rather that the description of the key on the webpage was wrong (it is not hinged).
The mechanical key fallback pattern is standard across the industry for sure.
Article says key fobs are the same across all their cars and this looks the same as mine for a Sealion 5, there is no hinge for the key you just pull it out.
Likely the article authors just assumed from looking at the scan, if they’d actually tried to remove the key they would have realised their mistake.
Before keyless became defacto standard, most keys were fixed on a hinge - you'd first unlock your car by pressing a button on the fob, then swing the key open and use it to start the car.
Nowadays the physical key is only a backup, safely stowed inside the fob. It is meant to be pulled out only in an emergency.
Mercedes changed to the IR key in maybe turn of the 90's. The plastic blob would be used to turn the ignition like before, but the locking part was electrical (optical). There was still a metal key that could be pulled out and used on the exterior locks if the central locking was out.
When keyless start came, there was a dummy button that fit in the ignition lock that could be pushed to start. If there was a problem, you could pop it out and use the key as before.
IIRC, all that, so may have mistakes. Just crossed my mind that they went a few decades between no metal ignition key and keyless. MB being MB, I wouldn't be surprised if they still had models with that same "old" system and keyless as an option.
Yes sadly the Hyundai and Kia key fobs of EVs (at least EV9) don’t have the mechanical backup key in the fob anymore. So you need to carry it on your keychain. Don’t leave it in your trunk. If the 12V battery does out you won’t be able to get into the car.
Anecdotally on my Hyundai ionic hybrid from 2018 it does have a mechanical key in the fob, but it is very non-obvious. It’s physically the same piece as the keyring section at the top of the fob. There is a small catch you release to remove the key from the plastic fob body and it slides out the top.
All this to say Hyundai certainly knows how to do this. If they didn’t do it, it is almost certainly a deliberate omission.
> The last company to vertically integrate a car from raw material to finished product at this scale was Ford. Today BYD’s system runs all the way from the lithium mine to the port.
Both BYD and Tesla claim to produce around 75% of their components. Ford is at around 25%.
Yes, Ford claimed up to 90% in the 1930s when they were producing up to 1.4M cars and trucks per year. (Down to less than 400K in the worst of the depression.)
I suppose it makes sense, back then you wouldn't think there would be an existing supply chain of companies like Mopar just waiting for a car manufacturer to spin up and start buying their stuff
The original Model T plant (the Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit proper) was not vertically integrated, and in fact most of the "running gear" (all the complicated stuff, basically everything but the coachwork) was purchased as parts from the Dodge brothers (who owned a plant at what is now Detroit/Hammtramck Assembly -- formerly Dodge Main and then GM Poletown -- a GM plant making EVs like the Sierra and Hummer EVs) and merely assembled by Ford employees (albeit in an admittedly revolutionary assembly line process that changed capitalism forever).
The Highland Park plant was Ford's play to cut the Dodge Brothers out of the process by machining most of his own parts. The peak of vertical integration would be the River Rouge plant which, as you say, machined all its own parts from iron and steel made on-site from raw ore (but never made the Model T).
So BYD for cars and Samsung for phones and consumer electronics more generally (from fab upwards).
In fact, I believe Samsung is the only company on the planet that can design & build a state of the art smartphone from scratch - silicon/fabrication, SoC, battery, baseband, camera sensor, memory, and display.
What other high tech vertically integrated producers exist in this group?
While I could have sworn RIM put out their own modems (which Qualcomm used to make life difficult for them, especially as the world transitioned from 3G to 4G), and did their own hardware and software, I can't currently find a source
They are "more" vertical, but they too have vital suppliers that they could not do without. The semiconductor supply chain is deep. Everybody knows ASML, but there are countless others that produce raw wafers, etching machines, special chemicals and so forth.
IBM no longer has fabs (spun off as Globalfoundries and later sold), and no longer manufactures PCs (sold to Lenovo?), but it does make mainframes I guess?
I am still amazed that IBM is pushing their POWER processors forwards for things like their System Z Mainframes. From what I have heard they are still really fast with I/O and general shifting of data but I'm not sure how much better than is than the alternatives.
Wouldn't be surprised if that finally gets sunset in the next few years.
POWER still exists? That's kind of neat. I had a POWER 1 rs6k way back. Almost wish I'd had room to keep it just as a sort of museum piece. The processor was several chips on one or two large PCBs IIRC.
I know, they are up to the POWER 11 spec now. It is the definition of a brilliant architecture that was simply out run by others (x86) that could push their mediocre setups far better than they could.
Precisely. IBM paid them to take their fabs away (yes, they paid them, not the opposite, they were so obsolete that it was basically a waste disposal operation)
was there some regulation preventing them from just shutting the plants down and selling off the real estate and equipment? severance payments too high?
IIRC they had an agreement that Globalfoundries were to take the fabs and further develop them to shrink to better nodes. I think it was less than a "take this crap off of us" and more of a "we still need fabs, so here's some money and please continue running them for a while". GloFo then utterly failed at competing with TSMC, Samsung and Intel which was quite a problem for IBM. In general if you have a certain design you can't immediately port it to a different fab, you need to engineer it around the constraints of the fab node and process
Oh, I love the 2 sides of HN...
Here everybody's ready to buy a BYD and even move to China, due to the sheer quality of the product (for the money) and the integrity of the people, totally forgetting about the 'social credit system' and the data that these cars might be sending or being exposed to having the car remotely disabled.
Not to mention the repairability...
Just a few days ago there was a popular post taking a modem out of the RAV4. Bet you can't do even that on a BYD without rendering the car non-functional.
That pot&kettle contest between the US and China is really heating up!
You might want to switch from "social credit" (which was a failed local project from over a decade ago) to "blacklist", or just criticize the overall surveillance system, which is pretty invasive.
I'm getting a bit tired of people posting on social media websites and then pretending they are not a part of them. "Reddit" did this, "HN" did that... let's just admit that we're all chronically online people who get irritated whenever we stumble out of our bubble and more than one person dares to disagree with us.
> totally forgetting about the 'social credit system' and the data that these cars might be sending or being exposed to having the car remotely disabled.
No problem with building the same surveillance state at home though right? At least China's on the way up while the US is slowly declining on virtually every aspects.
American companies have been harvesting my data for 20 years, why wouldn't I give some to China? I interact with 0 chinese software in my day to day but dozens of american companies are harvesting and targeting me every single day since I started using internet.
The free market isn't fun when you're not the ones making all the money and dominating countries you determine to be inferior?
I really don’t understand why this social credit concept has become so widespread. It does sort of exist but not in the big government breathing down your neck kind of way.
Here’s an example - you can rent e-bikes and power banks at low cost, they are everywhere. If you don’t return an e-bike or power bank after using it, not only will that company charge you, but you’ll likely get blacklisted from renting more, even at other companies.
Feels like its the same poeple saying locked down OS stores are great because security and chrome engine in all browser is fantastic because then everything is standardized.
But worse because here we are talking deep human topics.
Such long period of peace made people forget about how the world work. And clearly studing history in school ks not working. I guess in the US they are getting a new shot right now to remember.
understandable that people might have fears like this since this happens a lot in the west in my own experience, but in china you can always argue with them and the customer service is usually way better, or you can drop the nuke by reporting to the authorities.
Well then we can unpack US and all the crap thats happening there. From an outsider, there ain't much difference China vs US, just different shades of brown. Comparing those 2, China is definitely more friendly to Europe, US gov publicly stated they want to break EU and make continent weaker FFS.
Nobody is moving to China just because they make good cars now, I have never seen anybody stating that so no idea why the hyperbole. But good (enough) cars they do make and various other products, ignoring facts ain't a smart move in any case.
Removing modem may kill new BMW as well as new Chevrolet and so on, so that argument is... weird. Expect more integration and dependence on online, like it or not. Repairability goes against primary incentives of all car manufacturers, they get significant revenue from official repair shops, often more than from sales themselves. Definitely true for that BMW, have a friend quite high in their sales team in Munich and he stated that few times.
Isn't the social credit system mostly a credit score, similar to the one implemented in the United States? As someone living in a European country without such a thing, I also find that one pretty dystopian.
About the data sending, wasn't there a quite recent incident where an American car manufacturer was leaking the real-time position of all their clients' vehicles? Aren't US telecoms selling position data of their clients? Isn't the US filled with surveillance cameras managed by a private company keeping track of every car?
Do you base your last statement on anything, or is it just a hunch?
What country do you live in? They probably have credit records. Here in Finland you definitely do. They don't break it down into a single score, but lenders can see how many debts you've defaulted on in the past.
Social credit score affects all your actions as a citizen, and can restrict your liberty as a citizen. E.G: a cop don't like you because you sleep with his sister, they charge you on false pretense, and now your internet is more restricted or you can't take some trains.
Banking credit score only affect your ability to get a loan. You sleep with a banker sister, and... they can't do shit because there is no money trail and you can apply for a loan elsewhere. You will only be rejected for a loan if fail to pay some of your existing loans. Reasonable.
From what I read it's mostly a credit score and blacklist system. In the 2010s there was a project to use it to reward and punish people for some everyday stuff based on whether it did or didn't align with the party's morals, but it got scrapped. That's the part everyone thinks is going on over there.
I agree it's dystopian, but I live in Germany and we have a similar thing called "Schufa". For most people it mostly means that if they default on a credit, they'll be less likely to find an apartment. It differs from the US one in the sense that banks don't require you to get into debt before they trust you, that whole "build your credit score" nonsense.
I see, thanks for the correction. Aren't people put in ICE detention centers and offshore prisons indefinitely with no charges and no judge involved, though? Or is that OK because they aren't citizens?
Nothing can restrict your basic freedom in the US though, right? lmao
American believing in the most base propaganda regurgitated by their government for the last 50 years is the funniest shit ever. You're implementing the same thing at home right now, not even secretly, and there is not a single protest, nothing...
If americans were 25% as critical with themselves as they are with China... Flock cameras, Palantir, 48 hours ago, one of trump's best friend:
> Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison: "Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on"
I'm not American, and my answer solely focuses on the fact the social credit score is the most dystopian thing ever created by modern dictatorship.
Which is an answer to guy saying people idealize china these days, thanks to effective propaganda from the regime.
Want to criticize the US? Go for it. That's just not the topic.
And until you can wear a Tiananmen Square t-shirt in a public street in Beijin, any good thing China is doing is moot for its population. It's still in a dictatorship.
lol, every single american repeating "ChInA bAd" on every single thread mentioning china like automatons, while not being able to locate it on a map or name three living Chinese people", and having the audacity to talk about being under "influence"... the irony
China's living rent free in your collective mind for 50+ years while they just chug along and slowly catches and surpasses you in most aspects.
I frankly could not give less of a fuck about China spying on me. Spy away. At least they don't communicate their findings with my government. What I do care about is my own government spying on me, or domestic companies spying on me and selling that information to my government.
The "Two sides" you're spotting is US posters vs non US posters. It's not exactly a secret that the US has long had a propaganda process going against China with their own citizens. From the outside it's weird how 'cult like' some parts of the US education system come across with things like this. It's similar to the whole socialism = communism = bad fear embedded into US society.
The US obviously isn't the only one guilty of this kind of thing, it just happens to have been one of the most effective.
Those are small parts, though. The interesting part is the E-axle. BYD builds a unit with an integrated motor, differential, axle, and wheel hubs. That, plus an electronics box and battery, is the power train. This simplifies vehicles considerably.
There are E-axle teardown videos. There's no big secret about how to do this. Copying this is hard for Detroit, because they have a huge investment in "engine plants".
With this design, BYD doesn't need standalone engine plants.
Tesla ought to be doing this, but they're into performance, not cost. They want to put two or four motors in a car. BYD does make supercars, to show off, but their volume products are reasonably good cars with E-axles and lithium iron phosphate batteries, which work fine. (It's not clear that Tesla is even into car design at all any more, but that's another issue.)
Detroit ought to be doing this, but they insist on making electric cars that are modified gasoline cars. Ford has an electric Mustang, an electric F-150, and an electric Transit. Chrysler doesn't even make cars any more, just one minivan. GM has a good Bolt now, which they are killing to appease Trump.
you still see these in velocipede-style vehicles commonly.
and to your point : a dead axle is an effort to reduce unsprung weight compared to a live axle; it also lets you actually use alignment as a remediation for asymmetry issues rather than just pre-delivery straightening.
Ah, like on my old Volvo 340 ;-) They were fun, all that weight at the back (the diff and gearbox were bolted together under the rear floor) gave it excellent balance. Bit of a shame all that 50/50 weight distribution was only pushed along by a 1.4 Renault engine then, I guess.
Have you ever seen the Jaguar IRS setup? It's more like a twin-wishbone suspension *but the driveshaft is the upper link!* It's in compression and stops the hub tilting out, and the rear brakes are inboard to reduce weight even further.
You have some false beliefs about Detroit’s product lines.
Fords mustang mach e is unrelated to the gas one. Totally different platform. It was designed from the ground up as an electric platform. The electric F-150 was a shrewd bet that didn’t pay off, but a pretty defensible decision to try to electrify the most popular vehicle in North America without changing the outside look too much. Under the sheet metal it doesn’t share a lot of drivetrain parts with the gas truck.
Chevy makes full size electric trucks on an all electric platform with three truck/SUV models across three brands. The bolt was cancelled in 2022 with the last one produced in December 2023. They have restarted production of the Bolt for the 2026 model year. The Bolt is also built on a platform designed as electric only. The factory building the Bolt is being tentatively retooled next year to build higher margin cars as a result of Trumps tariffs. I don’t see how any of that has anything to do with appeasing Trump.
Stellantis is its own mess, and they suck at designing all cars regardless of energy source.
True, the Mach E mostly just shares the name. The E-Transit really is the same van with a different power train. It ought to be taking over fleet sales, but it only sells about 12K units/year, vs. 162K for the fuel powered version.
The Ford electric F-150 was overdesigned and overpriced.
Comments on the Bolt indicate it's being killed due to "changes in the political environment."
On the contrary, this much integration makes repairs nearly impossible, meaning you might have to swap the whole unit(for a lot of $$$) when something small inside it inevitably breaks.
Check out the articles published by EVclinic that cover such cases.
Aftermarket EV repairs are already big business due to how difficult and expensive the OEMs make it.
On the other hand: If the assembly is reliable-enough, then repair isn't normally something that needs to be pursued in the first place.
Like Honda engines on their myriad pedestrian cars. I'm sure there's exceptions, but the engines tend to be ridiculously reliable. The rest of the car often fails (due to age and/or rot and/or deferred maintenance and/or crash) and leaves a very good engine behind.
Accordingly, junkyards are full of Honda engines that work fine.
Thus, there's very few people rebuilding them. They certainly can be rebuilt, but it usually just doesn't make financial sense to strip it all down and freshen everything up.
So when an engine does fail on an otherwise-working Honda daily-driver that is actually worth repairing, then the usual move is to swap in a used motor.
---
So if it's reliable enough, and there's also critical mass, then it doesn't matter much if the BYD drivetrain unit has easily-repairable components.
>So if it's reliable enough, and there's also critical mass, then it doesn't matter much if the BYD drivetrain unit has easily-repairable components.
True, but swapping ICE engines was such an easy fix because of the modularity of powertrains that detached the messy hot rotating vibrating part(engine block) from the electronics and the rest.
These new ultra compact EV units are like if the ECU, catalytic converters, and starter motor would be built inside the engine block.
In very broad strokes: It's just a BLDC motor, some driver components for those spinny-bits, plus some water cooling passages and gears. A surprising number of these parts are identified as having been provided by Borg Warner.
Thanks. As the owner of a 14-year-old Honda that is equipped in the most lavish of trim options, I found great pleasure in selecting that particular subperlative.
Most of those stories are 1/ crashes and 2/ hybrids. Again, with rare exception, manufacturers are just making gas cars with EV power trains. Tesla and BYD are making next gen transport. Are you old enough to remember when TVs broke so often that TV Repairman was a job? One day we will look back on car mechanics the same way.
I do remember the visceral joy of trying to keep a supercharged Camaro on the track, but those memories are overwhelmed by the terror of “what is that noise”. Now I drive a Tesla that accelerates faster than that Camaro, handles better, and hasn’t been to the shop once.
If I win the lottery I will buy another Camaro and a Corvette and I’ll work on them for fun, and kids will look at me the way I looked at old men who take care of antique steam engines and traction engines and take them to fairs. That sure is a lot of noise and smoke and doohickeys for very little speed and power!
I own a Model 3 and I like driving it, but I scratch my head at everyone who claims there are no mechanical problems. I'm glad you didn't have any, but there are some repairs that are almost obscenely common.
In the past year, the heater failed (PTC Heater had to be replaced), and the lateral link ball joint ball joint had to be replaced. That is about CAD5000$ worth of work. There is also an issue with a wire in the rear center seatbelt that broke (but after a check, it doesn't really have any safety concerns wrt airbags so it is OK to leave as is), and the top roof glass cracked. (I also had to replace the front windshield, but that's normal in Calgary and I don't hold it against the car)
I'm not "rough handling", I have a Toyota Sienna without any of these problems. On the bright side, the battery has no problems and no imbalances so fixing it will keep the car running for years (hopefully).
I bring this up because I find it very annoying that people were painting hagiographies of these cars when they have real issues. None of the issues above should be happening. Moreover, there are no 3rd parties providing parts (supposedly because of patents).
In the end, I'll never buy another gas car again but my cute tiny car has a bigger turn radius than my Sienna. It's lost more value than my Sienna. I agree with the poster who said that it isn't even clear if Tesla is interested in cars anymore.
If BYD is also creating cars that are expensive to maintain, then hard pass. I'm ok with having legislation to fix this.
My Model Y headlight failed. Bought the ballast for like $125 on eBay. Had to take my dang front of the car apart, but Tesla had a really nice manual online. So it has pros and cons for sure!
> manufacturers are just making gas cars with EV power trains. Tesla and BYD are making next gen transport.
From what I see online, Teslas, especially MS/MX, are actually quite like an EV-swapped Toyota than anything futuristic. A lot about their cars(exception being CT and Semi) are ICE-mass-market-car coded. They're car equivalents of ARM PCs in ATX form factor like NVIDIA's DGX Station, opposite to the likes of trashcan Mac Pro.
>Most of those stories are 1/ crashes and 2/ hybrids.
No, they're faulty coolant seals of the electric motor, wrecking the power unit.
>but those memories are overwhelmed by the terror of “what is that noise”.
I just turned up the music till the noise went away. Problem solved.
>Now I drive a Tesla that accelerates faster than that Camaro, handles better, and hasn’t been to the shop once.
Good for you, but do you know there's a whole lotta other EV brands out there? And many are not as well and reliably designed as your Tesla.
>I do remember the visceral joy of trying to keep a supercharged Camaro [...] If I win the lottery I will buy another Camaro and a Corvette and I’ll work on them for fun
Nice story, but what does all this have to do with the parent you're replying to? Did he mention ICEs anywhere?
I viscerally hate people who do or seriously suggest this. First, ignoring any strange noise in a car almost always leads to more expensive and stressful repairs down the road. Second, how the hell do people hear a noise and are simply okay with not knowing the source? Not understanding the situation and not being able to make any kind of informed decision?
Why would it be less repairable? Power electronics are still modular and are easily swappable. Mechanical parts are more integrated, but they so simple that they can last for decades.
And once they give out, you can just replace the whole unit for maybe $2000.
EU added "cybersecurity" requirements in response to Comma.ai that means that a lot of ECUs going forward use signed messages AND often crypto key pairing against an onboard security auth box. The pairing process often require something like a scuffed up manufacturer rental Panasonic Toughbook with weird half baked apps and passwords. The car would refuse to drive or whatever if the owner wouldn't play along with that game.
> Power electronics are still modular and are easily swappable.
Depends. These parts are custom designed, physically, and difficult to find off-the-shelf replacements for.
The heater fan-controller on my wife's SUV died. This is simply a current-limiting device: receives (I assume) CAN signals from the dashboard rotary encoder and determines what current to send the fan.
While I could have dragged my 'scope to the car, determine what signals it's getting from the dash system (all integrated, btw), it was easier to find one in China and wait six weeks.
(I may have chosen the first option if this happened in the winter, but in summer the heater is never used anyway).
>Power electronics are still modular and are easily swappable.
Only if someone makes and sells those power electronics to you along with the appropriate DRM tools required for calibration and pairing with the other electronics of the car. Otherwise you're shit outta luck.
>Mechanical parts are more integrated, but they so simple that they can last for decades.
Simple != decades of reliability, when the design and manufacturing quality are piss poor in the race to the bottom for cost cutting and shareholder returns. Timing chains were also supposed to last a lifetime but plenty have been recalled due to know timing chain issues from manufacturing quality.
VW and Kia/Hyundai EVs were found to use custom dimensions motor bearings that can't be bought on the open market from anywhere, so only the OEM and their dealers can get them via their supply chain.
There is nothing terribly complicated there. It's just an AC motor ("brushless DC") with a classic 3-phase inverter and a resolver. There are plenty of companies that make controllers for this kind of setup. Granted, they are typically not powerful enough for SOTA drivetrains, but it's a question of time.
Power electronics will need to fit into the footprint of the e-axle. Or maybe you'll need to manufacture a new housing. Both are easily doable for small companies.
> VW and Kia/Hyundai EVs were found to use custom dimensions motor bearings that can't be bought on the open market from anywhere, so only the OEM and their dealers can get them via their supply chain.
Again, an independent manufacturer can easily make them.
As cheap as the mass produced ones with the economies of scale? I seriously doubt it. You're talking about a car ECU. Go see how much ECUs cost that don't deal with power electronics.
>Again, an independent manufacturer can easily make them.
Yeah but again, for how much? You can make anything if money is no option. But if cost is too high people will just scrap the car and buy a new one.
> As cheap as the mass produced ones with the economies of scale?
Of course not. This has _never_ been the case. You get spare parts from manufacturers initially, usually at a higher price (buying new bikes and parting them has been a thing for decades). When manufacturers stop producing spare parts, you can cannibalize existing cars that are taken off the road for other reasons (crashes, severe cosmetic damage, etc.).
This is enough to last you at least 2 decades. And after that time, maintaining a car makes sense only for sentimental reasons. If there's demand, there'll be supply. There are companies that are _still_ making new parts for Trabants!
> You're talking about a car ECU. Go see how much ECUs cost that don't deal with power electronics.
You don't have any idea what you're talking about, do you? ECUs on EVs do NOT deal with high voltage directly. They are just regular computers that run off 12V and output control signals over CAN lines, just like on regular gas cars.
The drivetrain on EVs is now integrated, with the power inverter sitting next to the motor to minimize transmission losses. It usually exposes a simple CAN-based control interface with a bunch of diagnostic data and YUGE high-voltage power leads.
I don't have so much knowledge about EV repairs, but I got burnt by this on ICE cars already - had a car fail a regular fitness test on suspension bushes, they weren't replaceable without replacing the whole arm(s). What should've been a $40 part was being quoted as more than the cars value.
(I'm not sure if there was a way around this, there may well have been but I had other things going on and sold for scrap)
FWIW, this has been my experience since 2003 when I had to get suspension work done. Doesn’t matter if it’s a BMW or Honda, dealership or indie repair shop, the story I have heard consistently is that the bushing is part of the arm for structural integrity, stability, <reason I can’t remember, truth or crock>. Bushings typically fail faster than the arm does, and this repair is expensive ($1000+ for performance cars, not that much cheaper for Civics).
The “Design for purported Safety vs. Design for Saving Dollars” principle at work.
> repair is expensive ($1000+ for performance cars, not that much cheaper for Civics)
I can almost guarantee the lion's share of this is shop labor, not parts, and pressing a bushing out and back in would be more expensive after accounting for that labor than just swapping the suspension arms. This is often the piece that gets missed in these discussions of "why am I replacing this huge assembly for a tiny part", if the whole assembly is coming out to deal with that tiny part anyways and shop labor is $200/hour it's cheaper to swap the assembly a lot of the time.
Try getting any repair beyond routine maintenance done on a car in the US for under $1000 these days. Car maintenance is one of the things I'm happy to DIY in most cases because the delta on costs is massive and as someone that works on computers all day it's vaguely enjoyable to get angry at a mechanical object for a change.
I’ve moved in to doing my own plumbing, electric, HVAC. Tend to keep new enough cars that they don’t need much, knock on wood. But it’s not uncommon in “making” $500 an hour or more doing electric or HVAC.
In my area, no tradesman is willing to even get out of bed for less than $1000. They have more high dollar work than they know what to do with and some of them don’t even pick up the phone anymore. You have to be made of money or learn how to DIY everything.
and pressing a bushing out and back in would be more expensive after accounting for that labor than just swapping the suspension arms
Really? It's literally a few minutes (a few dozen $ at $200/hr, or $3.33/min) for any shop with a press. Removing the assembly from the rest of the car is going to take much longer.
That particular example is a labor arbitrage issue - it's a better value to have a $500 assembly with $250 labor than a $50 part with $600 labor. If you have the know-how, BYO labor is the magical way to save on this sort of thing.
The worst practices with cars is when they make it too tight or engineered to work on. Ford was kind of notorious for this - some dealers would do cab lifts for routine-ish work to save labor hours. I had a 90s Cadillac that required un-mounting and tipping the engine to change the rear spark plugs, unless you bought a really expensive tool.
Which is a scam. As with all car brands, that so called "lifetime warranty" has so many asterisks on the fine print and is only valid if religiously you stick to the manufacturer recommended regular service intervals where they rip you off at every visit.
> if religiously you stick to the manufacturer recommended regular service intervals where they rip you off at every visit.
That's something you're supposed to do for any and every car. I had to do it on my Japanese cars to keep the warranty.
Also, the last people I want to hear complaining about being ripped off by dealership service intervals are Germans. At least for Chinese cars, you do it for the warranty. For German cars, you have to bring it in for the services at the specified interval (or, in many cases, even shorter intervals!) or else it will blow up in new and exciting ways and basically total the damn thing.
Oh, and the services for German cars start at around 1500 euros. Hope you're rich!
There's a reason everyone calls them mobile phones with wheels.
Edit: I agree with you and upvoted your comment which I feel was unfairly downvoted. But economics are going to win here, only a tiny fraction of the user base of cars (or phones) tinkers with them.
People actually want a convenient and cheap service for getting around. All other considerations can be derived from this. If it was cheaper to replace the car than get it serviced, they would replace it. Currently this is almost never the case of course, but if it happens in future, watch people switch behaviour instantly.
> If it was cheaper to replace the car than get it serviced, they would replace it.
This is doing a lot of work but I'm going to go with a charitable interpretation. I seriously doubt that we'll ever hit a state where replacing a 2 ton vehicle is cheaper than repairing it. And if we do, I'll have to re-evaluate my charitable interpretation, because something shady is likely going on.
The crazy thing is people don't even repair things that are cheaper to repair than replace. Our countertop icemaker broke and my wife wanted to throw it out. I fixed it with 20 minutes of time and a $15 motor from Amazon.
I think the broader trend isn't what's cheapest, its what is easiest, even if its more expensive. People in large part have no idea how to repair anything they own. This mass ignorance is leading to some pretty poor market incentives.
>I think the broader trend isn't what's cheapest, its what is easiest, even if its more expensive.
I don't think this is true. If this is the trend you're seeing it's probably because you're sampling through people with relatively high disposable income(or who don't mind endless credit card debt), who can just afford to throw away broken things when it's just a rounding error of their income.
But if you look at lower income people(with sane spending habits and financial literacy) you'll see how they first ask around if something can be repaired before they claw money from their checking account to buy something new.
My local facebook group is full of students asking if someone can fix their macbooks for cheap as they can't afford a new one or what Apple is quoting them, which is close in cost to buying a new one.
My minimum wage gf still had her barely functional Windows 7 notebook up until a year ago because she didn't feel like spending money to buy a new one if I could just keep fixing it.
Some broke people try not to buy new things if they can, but some are broke because they can't stop buying new things.
A lot of it does come down to a cost / benefit analysis where time preference is extremely overweighted due to an abundance of seemingly free credit and, shall we say, a tragic dustbowl famine of available cognitive resources.
Excuse me? Describing people’s motives and reasoning has no bearing on my own. I’ve repaired multiple components on my own vehicle. Your mentality on the other hand is entirely typical of the reason I avoided this cesspool of a website for many years.
Weird. Reading your comment, I had similar adjectives about HN posting.
Learned helplessness (according to Wikipedia) is about being convinced by your environment that you are incompetent. Part of the feedback loop of the culture is not just the helpless and their helplessnes but the factors that teach them that they are.
well, people want to have enough money to do what they need to do, of course, so they will choose things that they can in order to minimize cost and time spent, and increase convenience. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to own things that can be repaired. Owning repairable things is also valuable. I don’t think anyone actually wants to “own nothing and be happy”. But they might be able to be coerced into it, sure.
>There's a reason everyone calls them mobile phones with wheels.
Which is why I'm so baffled how and why the EU has spent so much time and effort regulating batteries and charging ports for phones, but still ignores this massive issue of ease of repairability and right to repair of personal vehicles that has been plaguing car owners since the ICE days and is now only getting worse with EVs, that's costing us a lot more money than what's costing users to pay Apple to replace your cracked display and dead battery.
It feels like they just keep going for the lowest hanging fruits to score easy wins that don't impact local industry, while ignoring the entire forest behind them.
Jarvis, pull up on the central HUD how much the EU car industry spent on lobbying in the EU over the last 15 years.
The EU is beholden to the Germans, ease of repair would wreck the profit margins of VAG, BMW and Daimler both because of reduced after-sales profits and due to cost increases to manufacturing and engineering.
Any electric gear with the battery as its main wear part. Ebikes. Sit-on mowers. Cars.
This is about so much more than cost. Agency, autonomy, environment, efficiency, geopolitics even.
I refuse to buy drm'ed gear. The exception is second hand where I can reliably avoid the drm with little effort. At its simplest, that means never using specific drm'ed functionality. At its most complicated, that means mitm'ing an encrypted can bus.
There are lots of parts on a car that will likely wear out faster than the battery on a modern liquid cooled large NMC or LFP lithium battery. You should be able to get over 200,000 miles on the battery. You probably won't get near that much from the suspension, etc.
I’m very confused as to why this is downvoted but I tossed you an upvote since I do my best to work against the constant brigading I always see on this forum.
BYD is indeed producing cars by the millions now. Any quality issues would be very apparent at this scale.
Also worth noting that they are very advanced in applying robotics and automation in their factories. Anyone assuming that this is all underpaid Chinese workers doing things manually would be mistaken. And that also means they are very good at maintaining the same level of quality through their production process. So, this is not surprising.
Also in general, the Chinese car market is insanely competitive right now. There's just very little room for manufacturers that deliver low quality products with lots of warranty issues.
> This prismatic cell is NOT a Blade, but it does share the same chemistry.
Kind of surprised that the part that is perhaps the most "BYD" of the entire car, isn't actually the same cell that the BYD Blade batteries use, which was what I was most excited about seeing :(
LFP prismatics are dirt cheap, I actually thought that was cooler -- it's rare to see a car part for a specific brand that is so close to a COTS equivalent.
> I wonder if they simply couldn't fit it inside the scanner?
As far as I know, the cells they use for the Blade does look more or less to what they actually scanned, I'm guessing it's the same size as the actual cell they used. Makes sense they couldn't fit the entire Blade assembly, as it's lots of cells put together, but I don't understand why they couldn't use the real thing instead of something else...
Folded into the base is a mechanical backup key, a flat metal blade in a hinged housing. It reads warmer than everything else in the scan. It exists for the moment the battery dies or the RF link fails. Every BYD keyless entry system includes this fallback.
It's simple things like this which incumbent manufacturers need to avoid losing sight of.
The Volvo EX30/EX90 and Polestars 3/4/5 don't have a backup physical key or even buttons on the remote to force an unlock. That works exactly how you'd expect :)
I don’t think BYD would be a hit in the US as they are in Europe. It’s an entirely different market. They may be relatively successful just not to the point of taking an important market share, they would probably be like Mazda. Many of the subsides for Chinese EV ended this year too, and they are now realizing price alone is not a differentiator. So even if BYD eventually makes it to the US, they will be priced close to other brands like KIA and Tesla, but without the advantage of the brand and strong local presence. So no, there’s no concerns with BYD and we may see them sooner than later in the US.
They are also priced much lower than KIA and Tesla.
FWIW I now own a GWM Cannon Αlpha PHEV pickup. Have also owned a Jeep Wrangler - the tech, build quality and reliability is not even on the same planet.
I can't imagine how the US manufacturers would compete with the Chinese ones on a level playing field. Not from the US, but it's hard to see how any administration would allow that. Would be the end of the local industry.
US manufacturers' niche is half-ton and above trucks. Even mighty Toyota's offering is playing distant #4 in that market with Nissan capitulating after 20 years of trying.
BYD is not just zippy little city cars. The BYD Sealion 7 SUV (EV) and Shark full-size truck (PHEV) are incredibly popular in Australia, which is a very similar market to the US, and I'm sure they would sell like hotcakes if allowed into the US.
It's worse than that. Trump's tariffs have knee-capped North American auto companies right when they needed to be upping their game. The auto sector is tightly integrated across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Or was... Now there's tariff's on every part and frame that crosses a border. The American plan seems to be to put up a wall and force Americans to buy domestic while nobody else in the world buys American cars.
I am torn on this. Anti-dumping is one thing, and yet disruption was an overused keyword for a long time in Silicon valley.
1. Huge scale subsidies like this are effectively a manufacturing attack. This is mean at the level of international politics and yet the world recently seems to be waking up to the idea they were handing over every practice of manufacture to China.
2. On the other hand, while the Chinese car companies are finding their footing they have not yet perfected the bullshit tiered marketing approaches that see relatively cheap to manufacture features gated to "high-equipment level" cars.
For example, now even the cheapest cars can have 360 degree parking cameras. Of course, the Chinese engineering level remains to be seen but many would argue this is competition in the market.
I want to buy a Chinese car and I am annoyed that my protectionist government won’t let me. Lowering transportation cost would be the most impactful thing to my budget.
All that serves to do is ensure the American car industry falls far behind by being coddled into a lack of competition.
Toyota showed the world the Toyota Production System. What Tesla, Kia/Hyundai, and Chinese EVs have shown American automakers is how much vertical integration can be an asset, especially with the lower part counts of electric vehicles.
The model where every part is contracted out to parts manufacturers is proving to be antiquated.
I’m not sure why you think protectionism (by the local government) can’t kill an industry. It happened to American steel as well: the American steel industry was “protected” while foreign steel companies innovated their production processes.
The timeline goes like this:
1. Government gets pressured by industry to protect domestic industry from outside competition
2. Domestic industry stagnates as it has no reason to make competitive products
3. Time passes, quality/value gulf becomes so large that it becomes impossible to catch up to competition. It becomes impossible to export your goods and even domestic customers look elsewhere.
If the USA dropped tariffs and bans against Chinese car companies, American car companies would need to improve rapidly to survive. Instead, they’re selling us $50,000 decade old dinosaur designs like the Chrysler Pacifica.
This literally already happened to them with Japanese cars. And let me tell you, you don’t want to drive a Chevrolet from before Honda and Toyota sold cars in the United States.
Not protectionism related, but look at the MacBook Neo competitors shown off by Dell and HP at Computex. Competition drives innovation and cost reduction for consumers. Apple forced HP and Dell to make an affordable aluminum chassis computer for the masses and consumers are the winner in the situation.
It's also said to be one of the ironic long term impacts of the Jones Act (of 1920) in the US. The Jones Act among other things requires all US flagged ships at sea to be manufactured in the US in a hope to protect US manufacturing of ships, but instead in practice just became that most non-military ships just aren't officially flagged as US ships ever. For instance there's generally only one or two US flagged cruise ships in existence in a given year, they get US flagged through manufacturing loopholes (primarily constructed where other cruise ships are, but with enough "finishing touches" in the US to count as US manufactured), are smaller than the average cruise ship, and mostly only exist for Hawaiian island hopping cruises. (This is due to another quirk in the Jones Act that ships traveling directly between two US ports need to be US flagged. Most cruises can easily stop at a non-US port in between US ports, such as various Canadian, Mexican, and many Caribbean island ports, but from Hawaii the next non-US ports can be quite a bit more travel time and traveling to Tahiti and back just to see two different Hawaiian islands can be a bit much.)
Since the closure of Jeffboat in 2018 (among others), there's no non-military ship manufacturers in the US for anything even resembling cruise ship size (and even before that manufacturers like Jeffboat were mostly only making cargo barges) and the US military contractors have basically shrunk to a duopoly. Probably not the 100+ years later expectations of the Jones Act authors.
Correct, protectionism still saved the industry for years, it did its job perfectly.
Look at the car makers in Europe, they had decades to produce affordable electric cars, even lawmakers pushed their own population to buy electric cars with timelines and incentives, and they still failed miserably. How?
Tariffs are a last-ditch effort to buy more time. If you fail to use this time effectively, you will close shop. If you don't have tariffs, you close shop today.
Europe sells gasoline shitboxes for €30K when China could easily sell EVs for €20K, Europe (and the US) already lost.
> protectionism still saved the industry for years, it did its job perfectly.
This is under an assumption that the alternative would have been eradication of the industry, as in, “if we don’t protect the industry it will go out of business.” In reality, leading an industry to be more competitive is a lot better than protecting them from outside competition in the long term.
What was the economic value of protecting US steel for half a lifetime and then letting it turn into a dead industry? Wouldn’t it have been better for that protectionism to be more in the form of encouraging competition so that US steel companies were still thriving today? If the end result is going to be a dead industry why invest in protectionism at all?
It’s funny that you’re talking a bunch of smack about European electric cars without looking up sales numbers. The Volkswagen group EVs outsell Tesla in Europe. The top selling EV in Europe is a Skoda. VW and BMW are the top two EV companies globally besides Tesla and 4 Chinese brands.
and it's not just the end product, it's the process. China has built almost entirely automated car factories. They're already 10+ years ahead of what's happening in the US/Europe.
I'm having a Seal delivered next week, really looking forward to it. My friend went from a M3 to a Seal. She does a lot of miles. She says they trade blows, there's things that felt better in the Tesla and things she prefers in the BYD.
Back in the days the Chinese used to copy from the German automotive industry. Now it's about time the Germans start to learn from Chinese engineering.
> Fourteen pins in two parallel rows carry every signal this panel produces to the rest of the vehicle. Automotive connectors are among the most common failure points in modern cars: corrosion, fretting, and thermal cycling work on these joints over years of use. One connector failure on a module this integrated takes out mirrors, windows, locks, and child safety all at once.
Pack that shit full of silicone dielectric grease, check it every year or two, and it should be good for decades.
This sounds like copy written by someone who hasn't actually spent a lot of time with the automotive world and in trying to sound like they have.
Electrical connectors on automotive harnesses are far, far more reliable now on modern cars than they ever have been in the past, even with the increase in number of such connectors.
Companies like Delphi and Amphenol put immense engineering effort into the way modern connectors are designed, with weather sealing and contact plating that is way better than anything pre 1990's-ish was. Plastics really got way better after the turn of the Millenium compared to what they were before- I remember working on 1980s cars in the early 2000s (so, 20 year old cars) where connectors would ofter crumble in your hands when disconnecting them, or have completely corroded terminals, terrible sockets that yield and wouldn't keep continuity, etc. Compared that to all the cars I've worked on in the last 20 years where connectors have just not really been a worry (among the brands I've work on, at least). The electronics / sensors / modules themselves are much more likely to fail than the connectors they attach with, in my current experience. The only time connectors seem to fail is when cycled roughly/wrongly by people doing service incorrectly. Failure in place? Rare.
Anyone who thinks automotive electronics were more reliable in the past, live a bit with the electrical systems of a car from the 1970's thru the mid 1990's and report back to me on how that goes. Bonus points if it's Italian or British.
I think the point is that all those "dumb" switches, terminals or cables that get worn out can be replaced relatively easily (ie you need a multimeter and some patience to find the bad one). But if something in the integrated module fails, well good luck repairing that. These things are probably designed to be replaced as a whole, which is fine if you can get a new one. But as the cars get older, this is going to be a problem.
Yes but specifically, in this article, the passage is written about a harness connector on a door window switch module as follows:
>Fourteen pins in two parallel rows carry every signal this panel produces to the rest of the vehicle. Automotive connectors are among the most common failure points in modern cars: corrosion, fretting, and thermal cycling work on these joints over years of use. One connector failure on a module this integrated takes out mirrors, windows, locks, and child safety all at once.
This just reads weird to me.
Corrosion on an interior module connector is not as much of a concern these days unless the car is in a flood or the door card sealing is broken due to something like a poor repair job.
Fretting? What would cause fretting on pins of a connector that never gets touched by a human after it leaves the factory. It is a static connection, it doesn't get plugged and unplugged.
Thermal cycling? It is inside a door panel... not near a hot exhaust or inside an engine. It sees normal interior temperature cycles.
An actual Closures Engineer would more likely call out vibration shock during door slam in a closures FMEA as a potential electrical window switch fault hazard resulting from the connector loosening if the chosen connector lacks sufficient mechanical fastening moreso than anything..
Saying that connectors themselves are "among the most common failure points in modern cars".... just sets of flags to me as overly flatulent, generated puff writing. "Oh I need to list three things about connectors (thinking).... Corrosion -Fretting- Thermal Cycling-!! and this makes connectors among the most common failures in modern cars (no sources cited)".
>Its driver door panel consolidates mirror adjustment, mirror fold, door locks, all four window controls, and child locks into a single networked module. That consolidation exemplifies BYD's vertical integration favoring fewer subassemblies, each designed in-house and dropped into place, with firmware determining how any of it behaves.
Integrated door switch modules have been more common than not on cars for easily the last 15 years now, and I don't think this in any way exemplifies BYD's "Vertical Integration" or "favoring fewer subassemblies" (these two things actually don't even necessarily imply each other!!). There are plenty of cars that use such assemblies and the companies outsource to tier 2's for the actual manufacturing - Mercedes and Valeo, for example. Because they don't actually take apart the module and look for, say, a logo on the silkscreen of the PCB, I don't think the author actually confirmed if BYD 'designs' (let alone manufactures) the complete switch unit in-house. They could. I'm not saying they can't. But...
But this whole article is written from a weird authoritative viewpoint when really I think it should back down a bit and just describe what the damn CT scans show.
Yes, that’s exactly what it is. On the other side of it though, so what, we get to look inside stuff with a cool scan. They’ve been doing these posts for several years now, and they’re all interesting.
The part where they highlight the rippling in the lithium battery was interesting. They mention it can accelerate degradation over time. It's unclear if this specific example is within tolerances, but I have seen in other CT scans how dramatic the lithium rippling can become.
But overall, yeah, this is mostly an advertisement. They have other videos on their YouTube where they scan random items.
I would say that there’s quite substantial value perhaps not to the general public but to the general HN user from their reports. I was very excited to see them have a public scan of an LFP battery because the previous scans they did of batteries were very informative on which brands to trust and the level of inconsistency that can exist. Their analysis of BYD’s battery design is very useful to someone who is looking to understand LFP and the levels of quality control necessary to have safe batteries. The reports are a bit of a “How it’s Made” but written for the target audience of engineers and has similar utility.
I've got a friend whos a master tech/trainer with our state automotive body, and is HV certified etc for dealing with these cars. He's currently got a BYD Shark strewn across his workshop for an autopsy.
I have to say I'm super impressed with how heavy duty everything is. The control arms, subframes, etc all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear. The powertrain components all look to be extremely high quality.
I've poked around a few EV's with him now, and I do feel like the Chinese market cars are evolving to a really good standard faster than their Korean counterparts did back in the 80s/90s.
In the last few years Chinese manufacturing has reached a very high-level. The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is because they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills.
While I reckon some other countries still have specialist manufacturing in key areas that surpasses China, most “common” parts can be made in China to a standard that meets or exceeds Western countries, if you’re willing to pay for it.
>they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills
It's more complicated than this. Historically, Chinese manufacturing has been notorious for quietly undermining the quality of the product to improve their margins over time, in a way that the commissioning brand doesn't notice. If a Chinese manufacturer quotes you a price too good to be true, they're probably quoting you at-cost and will build in their margin later, once the orders start flowing in.
People should realize China is huge and manufactures one third of world's goods.
You're going to have excellence and crap across such a gargantuan amount of production and companies, a high amount of variance.
High amount variance of quality is a daily reality and as any chinese consumer we are very used to that since the beginning of e-commerce. However there are multiple aspects to the quality feel. Production of high quality items is one thing (e.g one can do better QA etc), what I heard from some local car garages in China is that standardisation in the industry is still quite poor. E.g Parts to replace and bolts and nuts are not as standardised say as the German counter parts (purely from a mechanics point of view).
Having said that a lot of German car suppliers are in China, and the German car manufacturing industry evolved over a significantly longer period of time.
Also the enforcement of standardization is really poor, almost to the point nobody cares.
Chinese manufacturers can make quality stuff and can be rather honest to work with once you show certain knowledge of the field, they will even tell you which products are to avoid.
A really good example of this is the luxury watch market. China manufactures a heap of shitty knockoffs. They also manufacture a heap of the high end legitimate brand watches. And they manufacture some nice and obscenely expensive high end luxury watches.
"Quality fade".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quality_fade
The most infamous example of this is hip implants made in China that had to be recalled due to being made wrong. This is also why Chinese structural steel is rarely used in North America and Europe.
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EU has ASML, Airbus and their suppliers left.
the key component of ASML is invented and manufactured by the US, that is how the US can force ASML not to export its EUV machine to China. it is an American tech.
Airbus is not the result of high tech manufacturing, it is the result of setting up regulations to stop others to join the competition. The entire EU is not capable of building any 5th gen fighter jet on its own, that is the best proof that its aerospace industry is about 20 years behind China's, same as the space industry.
> Airbus is not the result of high tech manufacturing
I LOL'ed.
> The entire EU is not capable of building any 5th gen fighter jet on its own
Saab is, but there has been no need to develop 5th gen fighters if there are reliable international partners that can provide them. Recent development made it clear the US is no longer a reliable partner and the European aerospace industry is working on reducing the dependence on US equipment.
I LOL'ed. Saab doesn't have any expertise to build modern aircraft.
An aircraft doesn’t need to be modern - it needs to shot down the other before it gets shot down.
And, as we have seen with cheap drones, all that money spent on making great stealth aircraft has not stopped Iran from blocking access to 20% of the world’s supply of crude.
So, how effective are your fifth generation fighters based on your nuclear carriers again?
> An aircraft doesn’t need to be modern - it needs to shot down the other before it gets shot down.
not on its own, but by having a combined AEW&C and high performance ultra long range air to air missiles.
Europoor just doesn't have any of these.
> all that money spent on making great stealth aircraft has not stopped Iran from blocking access to 20% of the world’s supply of crude.
that doesn't change the fact that Europoor doesn't have anything. Does Europoor has such drones? or the ability to knock them out of the sky at costs lower than drone production?
to get your some further idea on the gap - Shahed 136 is estimated to cost Iran $20-50k USD each, Chinese manufacturers are quoting less than $1k USD each including fuel.
> how effective are your fifth generation fighters based on your nuclear carriers again?
you don't have to pick which one is more effective when you can build and operate both at large scale. a few carrier strike groups fitted with fifth gen fighters and drone carrier-amphibious assault ships are a pretty good combination.
feel free to google Type-076 drone carrier-amphibious assault ships.
again - Europoor doesn't have any of these, so please stop pretending to be "advanced economy", you are no longer one.
> you don't have to pick which one is more effective when you can build and operate both at large scale. a few carrier strike groups fitted with fifth gen fighters and drone carrier-amphibious assault ships are a pretty good combination
Have you invaded Iran already? What’s stopping you? Didn’t Trump mention something like annihilating the current regime? Is it working?
> Have you invaded Iran already? What’s stopping you? Didn’t Trump mention something like annihilating the current regime? Is it working?
I am Chinese, why should Chinese be invading Iran?
Please just stop pretending to be an "advanced economy", scientifically, economically and militarily, Europoor is the modern textbook definition of failed states.
> An aircraft doesn’t need to be modern - it needs to shot down the other before it gets shot down.
Frontal RCS of the Gripen C/D between 0.1 m2 and 1.5 m2
Frontal Radar Cross-Section (RCS) of the F-35 roughly between 0.001 m2 and 0.005 m2
Gripen is an old airframe useless in modern combat. It will be shot down from far away.
> It will be shot down from far away.
By what exactly?
The military don’t exist in a vacuum - and the equipment they need varies with mission requirements. That’s why the A-10s had its life extended: because it is a better fit than the F-35 for ground support missions. Same applies to the B-52 and the B-2.
The operational cost of the F-22 and F-35 alone make them a poor fit unless you are engaging highly sophisticated air defenses, something the US haven’t done since WWII.
The requirement to be able to neutralise American aircraft is a new one for European (and Canadian) air forces, but one that’ll be tackled.
By what exactly?
By F35s and F22s and F47s
Sadly, we can’t really trust American fighters to fight, say, an American invasion of Greenland.
The US-made Ultra UV light source is important, but there is quite a bit more than that to a $380 million lithography machine. (Otherwise someone would have created a competitor by now.)
Considering decent portions of the F35 are built by BAE, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce and Martin-Baker - all of which are working on a 6th generation fighter which is due to be flight tested next year - this doesn't really ring true.
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lol wut? Ever heard of ASML? They make the thing that makes the things that all the other economies you mentioned depend on.
I didn't say where the steel the US and EU uses comes from, just that they don't use Chinese steel. So this is a very bad trolling attempt. You also use the word "woke" like the Nazis used the word "Jewish"
>Chinese manufacturing has been notorious for quietly undermining the quality of the product to improve their margins over time
Famously Gemtek Technology (https://www.gemteks.com/en/about/about), Apples small obscure modem OEM at the time, when presented with contract to manufacture 1999 AirPort Wifi cards made first batch of complete duds because factory owner saw picofarad smd caps and decided it will be more profitable to for him to GLUE tiny plastic rectangles instead, after all picofarad is like nothing so nobody will tell the difference.
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10273798...
Gemtek’s headquarters is established in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Republic of what?
>The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is
I think most people just buy trash at WalMart and Amazon and it's 99% Chinese disposable junk. That doesn't mean that China is incapable of producing high quality goods, but just that the average interaction that people have with Chinese goods are low quality.
It's the manufacturing equivalent of "How could the government be efficient? Haven't you ever been to the DMV?" (set aside that fact that many DMVs seem to be quite efficient these days)
While true, imho its more complicated than that
* PE, on the whole, has extracted wealth from quality. This is true at both the consumer level and B2B. E.g. its impossible to trust any aftermarket car part manufacturer, and some OEM brands have turned to dogshit too.
* "most people just buy trash at WalMart and Amazon" I'd rephrase that to: most people either can't or are unwilling to pay the premium for quality in an increasingly disposable world.
So, I'd say that similar to post war Japan, while Chinese manufacturing has an image problem, they're just producing what we asked for.
I'm very willing to pay a premium for quality, I just can't seem to find any reliable signal for quality before buying. Price and brand are both increasingly meaningless signals.
I'm in a similar boat, and it annoys the shit out of my wife, and any family member that thinks I'm "just cheap" or a "budget shopper".
I'm a value shopper. I was happy with the McDouble when it was under $1, but not now that it is nearly $2. It isn't worth that, but the BK Double Cheeseburger IS worth it even for $1 more than the McDouble (at least in my location).
Same is true for almost everything I buy. A certain fabric I want in my button ups, or a stich type I want in my pants. I hyper inspect almost every item of clothing I'm even contemplating buying. Same with furniture, with tools, with appliances.
It is almost a compulsion. I cannot pay more for something than I think it is worth... unless I REAALLLLLY want it.
The lengths "drop-shippers" or similar groups are willing to go to game the system also has made almost all reviews and feedback useless. A few years ago I bought a feline water fountain and the lengths they went to get a 5 star review (extra free filters, etc) made me realize just how bad amazon reviews had gotten. I've slowed my amazon purchases significantly since then (along with other problems ordering from amazon has slowly introduced).
The book "The Paradox of Choice" led me to using Wirecutter and Consumer Reports in recent years - if it's not something I care that much about, I will just buy whatever their top recommendation is without second thought. The cost of the subscriptions pays for a human to wade through all the junk and select something that is at least adequate for the job, and is cheap compared to the effective hourly rate of having to search through mountains of junk.
For more niche stuff, Reddit groups like BIFL and seeing what niche hobby groups coalesce around is helpful for me. Which I suppose is the same reversion to word-of-mouth expertise when, as you said, brand and price are degraded signals.
I'm in the same boat. The only signal that I still trust is (for want of a better term) governance longevity, i.e. how long has the company/brand been under its current management structure. This requires some digging, but good salesmen are usually well aware of management changes at their brands. That may not apply to generic clothes shops, but in my experience this still works for tool shops and appliance stores. You'll want to talk to tradespeople though, not sales drones.
Then there's two signals that negatively inform my trust of a brand:
- company size: the larger the company, the lower they start on my trust ladder;
- advertising: when a brand is overly present in the public sphere, that to me signals that they're overcharging for their product.
I buy Xiaomi products. I know I get high quality products. From Xiaomi Kettle to Xiaomi SU7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaomi_SU7
I don’t fully agree with either of those arguments. I think parts of it are certainly true but at the end of the day it takes two to tango. American consumers on average want high consumption for the lowest cost. I hate the argument “just buy less $5 coffees” but there is at least a kernel of truth in it. Consumers stretch the limits of their budget.
I find that Chinese manufacturing offers the complete range of quality for every price point. At reasonable prices, the quality meets or exceeds that of other countries. But if you want something cheap and cheaply made, you can find that as well. And at the extreme, you still have counterfeit parts and products.
> While I reckon some other countries still have specialist manufacturing in key areas that surpasses China
I don't think this is true. Maybe super specialist things like chip manufacturing products, but it's guaranteed China is spending heavily on R&D to develop their own. When it comes to cars / car parts they will be on par with if not surpassing most countries.
Also keep in mind China's sudden onset had a big impact on European and US car manufacturing, with VW / VAG closing major factories in Germany. Mind you, that's also because VAG was the biggest car manufacturer in China, until suddenly BYD and co opened up their factories and dominated the market in a short amount of time.
Apple in China is a great book and shows how good China is on focusing on quality when that is the given objective.
> The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is because they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills.
I’m reminded of all the dismissals people made about the skill levels of Indian software developers when the explanation was that the more skilled ones knew they could do better than the MBAs were offering to make the savings sound even more impressive.
Also because of the appalling track record of QA/QC, and subsequent cover-ups, at every level of government and enterprise from regional to national.
In the 2008 milk Scandal, for example, the offending company Sanlu were aware of infants becoming sick December 2007, but refused to test until June 2008. Shijiazhuang city governance failed to report the contamination to provincial and state authorities September 2008 and Sanlu subsequently asked the Shijiazhuang city government to assist them in controlling the media's reporting of the recall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
300,000 affected children were identified, among which 54,000 were hospitalized and 6 deaths were officially attributed to the adulteration and cover-up. If the government and industry were willing to collude to the detriment of their own populace so as not to sully the PR appeal of the Beijing Olympics, what level of care and consideration are we to attribute them in matters of low-consequence export to the West?
Yes, not having QA is one of the ways unscrupulous businesses boost profits. The answer isn't to say “everyone in China is like that” any more than it was to say “every meat packer in the United States will serve you dog meat and pink slime” but to accept that some things need to cost more.
I would also note that in the case of that melamine incident 2 decades ago, several of the business leaders involved got death sentences which seems relevant to the question of how much the larger country supports it. For example, I note that no member of the Sackler family has failed to die rich out of prison.
Very true, though it isn’t like we need to look very far to find similar instances of government and media collusion to control stories, laws passed to protect companies from liability for direct causally linked chemical dumping known to induce tumors, cancer, neurological diseases and other things, so on and so forth.
Every country seems willing to trade the lives or livelihood of citizens, much less people of other countries, to ensure their status quo. Some just pay more lip service to “rights” they will violate at the drop of a hat when push comes to shove.
The best part of this scandal is in a press conference a major producer, Mengniu, publicly announced that milk made for Hong Kong is not affected.
This one-sentence message demonstrates a lot of the problems of Chinese manufacturing if you think about it for a minute.
Unfortunately, the manager pushing the outsourcing pockets the money, outsourcing company pockets the money, and the local and indian teams get to be abused and latter gets extra blame for things outside their control.
I would say the problem is heavily structural and linked to few companies that very much pursue lowest possible effort, harming both employee and customer. We had a company that infamously pursued a somewhat similar (just with not as much leverage over employees) strategy in Poland - a common refrain was how other companies would get people jumping jobs from them who gave variants of "I needed some spending money while finishing my degree, escaped as soon as I could" story.
Unfortunately it seems a bit harder to do when some places apparently hire with only category appearing to be "according to census they speak english", then put them on project with minimal training and zero time or space to acquire more training.
Yes - I remember one time hearing someone from a big consulting company make the argument that even the top Indian graduates would work for peanuts (even by local standards) and asking them how likely it was that they’d be that smart but unable to determine their market value.
This was unsurprising after my entire life hearing people complain about declining quality and imported junk while always picking the cheapest item on the shelf at the store, even when they had plenty of money for a better quality option. There’s just a certain mindset which can’t look past the lowest possible price.
Also sometimes you have few big companies dominate local market to detriment of choice, even if your plan is on getting further away.
The polish company I mentioned was infamous for using still in education students especially from an university where its founder was a professor, and for his motto of "you can replace any specialist with finite number of students, and the number is usually one". I met some of them later who worked there for first few years only to setup conditions to jump ship.
But along the line I heard how few big outsourcing/consulting companies dominated IT hiring in bunch of cities in Poland, with Warsaw being the odd one out because suddenly you had to fight for candidates with 100-150 person "minnows". I imagine without such minnows finding sensible work would be way harder
It's not just that they do what they are told, whether that is low quality or high quality.
It's that if you don't have a way to measure quality yourself (you're not an expert), or if you don't ask for exact specific features/qualities even if you offer a high budget and ask for high quality, manufacturers absolutely will cut corners, do stupid things, etc. to increase their own margin at the expense of quality and just hope you are none the wiser.
The US had the same culture in certain periods and certain industries, so I am not suggesting it's some innate Chinese characteristic. The meat factories exposed in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, where he documented unsanitary conditions, spoiled meat, rat infestations etc come to mind.
But one cannot just ignore that the China of today has had problems with fake baby formula, fake alcohol, fake medicine, fake everything and expect that that doesn't make its way into manufacturing of other classes of goods.
I wish China didn't have such a hostile government to the West. Because I'd love to buy a BYD car and see this for myself, or try the Xiaomi car that MKBHD was so keen on. But because of the hostility I kind of get why there are bans.
>I wish China didn't have such a hostile government to the West.
In what way are they hostile? I am also part of "the west" and they never threatened us.
The west != just the USA.
Are western companies able to freely compete in China? Last I checked, no, they need local partners at best, or are blocked completely at worst. And not just American but any outside company.
What their government does in regards to local industry is effectively what donald trump is attempting to do with the US economy. Except they do it well.
And I don't approve of Trump doing it either. And I'd certainly call it Trump being hostile to the entire world.
I consider you as a victim of the brainwashing by your main stream media.
there are tons of western cars on Chinese roads, tesla was given free land and close to interest free loan to build its factory in Shanghai. there are numerous apple shops in China. guess how many Chinese cars are driving on US roads, how many Huawei phones are being sold in the US.
if you are open to the idea of jumping out of your comfort zone of your favourite brainwashing media, some westerner actually went to China and counted every single car at an intersection for 30 minutes with all brands summarised. over 40% are western cars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZKbEj39gEw&t=1496s
again - it is not your fault, you are the victim. I just feel sad for you.
> And not just American but any outside company.
Would you call that "hostility to the West"? Sounds like an attempt to protect their own interests.
It's benefiting from the globalized market without freely competing in it. It gives them a massive edge in many industries and the world couldn't say no because of cheap manufacturing.
And certainly hostile when you add currency manipulation onto it as well.
>It's benefiting from the globalized market without freely competing in it.
Ha, very rich criticism considering the US economy and stock market has been benefiting 1000x more from said "globalized market without freely competing in it", by printing money and exporting its inflation across the world with dampened consequences domestically, then using said printed money like liquid gold to buy valuable assets around the world (like real estate and innovative companies) thanks to its status as a reserve currency (something Charles De Gaulle complained about since the 1950s), a unique US cheat code enforced thought force via its massive military.
>And certainly hostile when you add currency manipulation onto it as well.
Again, very rich criticism considering the US's abusing its status as the reserve currency for its own benefit, see above.
This is now limited to only some restricted industries: https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/zcfb/ghxwj/202504/P020250424307... Yes, the list is long, but it's a significant improvement to the before times when all industries were off limits save for a few exceptions where foreign investment was allowed. Notably, the car industry has been mostly unrestricted for a few years now.
It's a myth. It depends on what the company does.
Internet services? Yes, you need a domestic partner, because you'll disseminate information to the public.
If you're in the automobile industry, you can import cars to China. China was Porsche's largest market until 2025, and all Porsches are imported. It used to be that a Chinese partner is needed to manufacture cars in China, but Tesla did not need one, and that policy was dropped. Anyway, it's nowhere close to the complete ban the US placed on Chinese cars.
In many other industries, you can create a foreign-owned company and operate in China.
>Are western companies able to freely compete in China? Last I checked, no, they need local partners at best,
Tesla operates Giga Shanghai fully independently and competes freely.
>And not just American but any outside company.
So did Italy, Germany, Japan and Korea to build up domestic auto industries otherwise Detroit would have steemroled them.
Giga Shanghai is the exception the proves the rule. It's one of the few, if only, foreign businesses that operate without a joint venture with a local company.
Again, nobody forces you to open your business or manufacture your stuff in China. Plenty of companies do not, like Google.
Companies abided to ruthless Chinese rules because they were greedy and wanted to exploit the Chinese slave labor and also get access to Chinese market, but the CCP didn't put a gun to their head and forced them to come to China, they decided that themselves for the sake of the holy shareholder growth. And now, 2 decades after you've made your money, you're complaining over a consensual arrangement?
And trade is always gonna be asymmetric, with rules in foreign countries that don't exist in the US. That's why the EU fines US companies regularly. China isn't much different. You want to operate in China, then you gotta follow the CCP rules. You don't? Then just leave. Easy.
Lots of countries are like that though. America has an unusually free system where anyone can do anything for better or worse, but Walmart failed in Germany by ignoring all the local processes like employee protections. (But I hear Aldi is taking over the UK!)
Employee protections aren't hostile, blocking Facebook while exporting Tiktok is a hostile trade imbalance.
>blocking Facebook while exporting Tiktok is a hostile trade imbalance
The US also threatened to block tiktok unless China sold it to a local US oligarch(the Oracle guy). The US is no saint here. And good luck getting people to shed a tear for China blocking Facebook. Good riddance to both of them.
The Tiktok we get that's full of slop isn't allowed in China either. China has a completely different set of content on its TikTok. Trade imbalance is a skill issue and within the country they compete fairly.
China is just as much of a guilty party as the “west” could be. From massive corporate espionage, open stealing of western IP, blocking western companies from entering markets. It is foolish to think they are not at some level an adversary. I would still absolutely buy a BYD car but China plays the same game, maybe even better, and that the west has also played for decades.
>From massive corporate espionage, open stealing of western IP, blocking western companies from entering markets.
"the west" did the same. You can't play fairly if your opponents never did.
Did I not already say that? Both are just as guilty but your original thesis is simply wrong. Sorry.
Why is it wrong? China is just playing the greedy globalist capitalist game the west has created, but they haven't bombed foreign countries or kidnapped their leaders like the US has, so from that perspective China is not a military threat to us, they're just ruthless competitors. So you are the one who's wrong.
Whataboutism is a weak argument. China is an equal player on the world stage when it comes to propensity to harm. From the many human rights violations over the years, how they orchestrated the takeover of Hong Kong, frequent border disputes that continue to happen and the continuous posturing of naval fleets. I am not saying one is better or worse than the other but don’t confuse yourself, China is absolutely a threat to global peace.
>Whataboutism is a weak argument.
Whataboutism is the magic gotcha card invoked when people have no answers to the absolutely fair question "why is X allowed to do Y but Z is not allowed to do Y".
If there's no hypocritical double standards then you'd have an answer instead of calling whataboutism.
>From the many human rights violations over the years
Their problem, not ours. Just don't buy stuff made in china and write to your politicians to stop sending your manufacturing jobs there out of greed of stonks go up like they've been doing for 30 years, if you want to do anything about it.
>how they orchestrated the takeover of Hong Kong
The British gave it to them. US also took over several overseas territories. Where's the hubbub there?
>frequent border disputes that continue to happen and the continuous posturing of naval fleets
Again, their problem to deal with not ours. I don't want to police and get involved in centuries old conflicts on other side of the planet that have nothing to do with us. I only care what happens in my backyard. Feel free to go join the Indian military and help them fight China if you actually care that much about it.
>China is absolutely a threat to global peace.
Then US is an even bigger threat. And still I don't want to go to war with them.
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The hostility is a result of a long reading of history. If you think Chinese leadership has forgotten European colonialism, you are mistaken. If you want to understand how deeply the maximalist mindset runs in Chinese culture, look up what the name of the country - zhongguo - means. I love Chinese culture, and lived there, but make no mistake about how clear eyed their leadership is about competition with western hegemony.
>If you think Chinese leadership has forgotten European colonialism, you are mistaken.
You are mistaken to think I forgot that. The west is the one who is mistaken if they think all other countries and cultures forgot that. If they can, they would gladly enact revenge over Europeans and whip them. Which is why it's best to arm ourselves to the teeth and ensure they'll never be in a position do that. So no, i haven't forgotten, the west has.
>but make no mistake about how clear eyed their leadership is about competition with western hegemony.
Isn't hegemony what US leadership has been doing since WW2, increasingly more vigorously and more intensely today? Except China is doing without bombing other nations and kidnapping their leader. So in this game China is the righteous ones.
BYD cars in China are not very good. But to export them they need to be higher quality to meet criteria. I would never buy one in China. Happily own one outside of China.
I have a Chinese EV too, an MG4 built by SAIC. It’s a really cheap car, significantly cheaper than its non-Chinese counterparts like the VW ID.3 or (roughly) a Hyundai Kona.
The factory rust protection was maybe a bit on the lighter side, but everything else on it looks completely normal. The drivetrain is simple (no heat exchange mechanism between battery coolant and motor coolant, a slightly whiny motor), but also genuinely competent and modern for a 2022 design (a mature skateboard RWD platform with a thin CTP battery with large cells and generous cell/coolant heat exchange). There are no obvious wtf solutions, nothing that would look too thin or too flimsy. The infotainment and the SW of the car does have the occasional funny moments, but all that is happening on what looks and feels like a solid piece of hardware.
Cars only show if they're well made after like a decade? These are not washing machines or something.
Sadly that's also why it's hard to buy a new car, you only know what's a quality car years down the line.
First impression matters though.
The point is that you can't tell anymore just by looking underneath and counting the wtfs.
I have a friend who's a big Honda fan, amateur racer, a true "petrolhead" but with an intact brain. Runs his own shop. Naturally there was a barrage of jokes when I rolled up in my new Chinese EV, but then we put it up on a lift and there wasn't really much to joke about. The platform looks boring and mature. Things are where you'd expect them, they're the right size and shape, you can tell why they're there.
Obviously, the motor/reducer bearings in my car may fail in a few years (like in the Kona Electric or Škoda Enyaq) or the charging circuitry may fail (like the ICCU in the Ioniq 5) but then we're already comparing it against legacy manufacturers, and that's a pretty good position to be in.
From what I've seen of youtube teardowns by mechanics, Chinese cars often have the air of modernity and future tech about them, but under the hood, they like to use technical solutions that were abandoned by European manufacturers a decade ago or more, leading to the cars not being competitive in driving dynamics to what you would get from an euro manufacturer for perhaps slightly more money.
> ... for perhaps slightly more money.
European cars are incredibly expensive these days and have been for a while compared to imports.
About 7 years ago I was looking for a new car and had only owned and drove VW cars. Naturally, I looked at VW, the Golf in particular. With all the bells and whistles, it came to about 35k EUR. A Civic was about 11K cheaper. Guess what I bought?
There was nothing in the Golf that could justify the extra cost. Nowadays is the same.
More fun driving dynamics aren't worth the extra twenty thousand dollars you need to buy the equivalent European car, let alone the ridiculous lifetime costs of ownership, such as maintenance.
I mean, seriously. I can buy a shitty Argentine-made base model used 5-year-old VW Amarok with 70K km on it for the same price as a brand new Chinese-made Changan Hunter (whether gas or REEV). The second one is also going to be far, far cheaper to fuel (if you choose the REEV), maintain and repair.
Let's not even talk EVs. Europeans exited the market before it even began. European brands only start to show up at around what, the 70-100K dollar bracket? Sure, the Porsche Taycan is cool and all, but I've never seen one. Meanwhile, BYDs, Deepals, MGs, and a million other random brands are only growing more and more common with each passing day.
> Let's not even talk EVs. Europeans exited the market before it even began. European brands only start to show up at around what, the 70-100K dollar bracket?
The ID.3 starts at like 35k USD here in Europe. Škoda Elroq and Enyaq, both under 50k USD.
>Sadly that's also why it's hard to buy a new car, you only know what's a quality car years down the line.
Not always. Sometimes the components are a lot older than the car and have earned a bit of a reputation. The powerplant in my car is like 20 years older than the model year. The underlying platform is nearly as old as well. All proven to be boringly reliable.
I guess this changes in the EV era with faster rate of iterations compared to the ICE era. More lessons still to learn with the EV cars I'm sure. Meanwhile a 4 cyl compact car is practically a commodity and aside from safety widgets like backup cameras, have been relatively unchanged for 15 or 20 years.
I think it depends on the car. I've seen VW products fall apart in months after sale, we actually had a Mk5 golf that went back to the dealer three times in it's first year for fuel system faults.
There are a lot of low price bracket Chinese imports (MGs mainly) that seem to have severe rust issues that are present at delivery.
And Toyotas a few years ago had a problem where certain colour cars would have their paint fall off in huge sheets as the primer was incorrect or something.
I do agree in principle that most modern cars should be pretty good for their warranty period/first owner, but I've also seen some egregious edge cases!
A few years back my wife had a Toyota that had serious electrical problems (all instruments would stop working) that was eventually traced to a faulty sunroof combined with a terrible design...
> Cars only show if they're well made after like a decade?
Unless you have a wet belt in your Puretech engine that will blow up in 5-8 years...
Mechanics and enthusiasts around here (Spain) call this engines "pudretech" (rot-tech)...
So in the first 5 years, no reason not to buy it. Basically proving the point I was making
What will you do when you want something different? Used car values are partially a function of their expected remaining lifespan, and if the car isn't trusted to last it is worth less.
I’d be stoked if a washing machine lasted a decade.
How so, not last a decade?
I had AEG Lavamat 1055 about 35 years (from 1982), worked well without hitch. It was quite small, top loading model etc. Fast spin-dry w/ variomatic (shaking also while spinning). Laundry out of it was quite dry already.
Then 2017 building plumbing had to be redone and gave reason to remake bathroom completely and replacing old equipment. I would have bought Miele model but it didn't fit reserved place and I ended up buying Electrolux instead.
That's now month short of 9 years and I have no reason to believe it will not work well at least another 10 years to come. regardless advertised 10 years warranty.
This current one has more electronic parts, but now searching by its model found only fault codes all seem to be user errors, overfilling, water hose not open, draining filter clogged etc. All non issues whoever bothers knowing how to maintain and operate that thing over years. No complaints about issues with electronics problems.
These were first used by a couple and later single (me) needs which are usually once a week plus twice a month washing 4-5 uses single day. Which becomes bit over 100 washing in year.
That's just 1000 washings in 10 years and 3500 in 35 years. For a family washing every day once it would be 3563 uses in 10 years.
If washing machine isn't badly kept against instructions and it isn't cheapest knock off plastic rubish, why would be a surprise if it doesn't last at least that 10 years use washing family laundry. And last many decades with single or dink use?
Be thankful you didn't buy Beko. I had a horrible uphill battle trying to get them to honour a 2 year warranty in Ireland after about a years usage.
After they finally engaged with the warranty, they had someone come out to 'fix' it once every couple weeks until I gave up and just bought a different brand washer/dryer.
I'm now sworn off Beko, and will happily tell everyone I can about my terrible service :)
That's also a bit 'you get what you pay for'? Especially with large electronics/cars typically it pays off to go for the more expensive ones. Miele here as well and well past a decade
And there are still parts too
Yes. But. There's many companies that build up a reputation then cash in on that reputation. Eg Mercedes in the 90s. So you could end up paying more for cheap rubbish.
It would be nice if the EU or someone introduced an energy star type system for reliability and repairability so that consumers could have some kind of idea what the quality is likely to be.
Miele makes darn reliable appliances, I've had two Miele vacuum cleaners from -88 and still both work fine. Used weekly, one at home and when I sold summer cottage to my brother & his wife I gave one to them, they still use it there.
All parts still available and when I bought new hose few years ago from service I asked if they still are willing to fix it if it went broke answer was. Sure absolutely, just bring it here and we make it work again. I've just bought once new floor nozzle that was worn out and that hose because it grew leaky from ends. Third party dust bags are available and very cheap.
Not anymore. I bought a brand-spanking new high-end Electrolux dishwasher and discovered it had a flimsier construction than the 20 year old one my mom has at home, that was an absolute bargain bin purchase.
I expect companies to honour their legislatively required, and their advertised, warranty.
> How so, not last a decade?
Maybe it’s me then. We just don’t get that long out of them. We have tried Fisher and Paykel and Samsung. Never had more than and year warranty either.
They do run at least once a day often more, but that’s not enough to explain it.
I understand that while small kids or baby then there is lot of laundry. But I've heard some people wash same fav clothes every day just to be able to use them fresh clean every day.
Gosh, but there are other ways to solve that issue like having bit more of fav clothes, so that you dont' have to wash same cloth every day but instead was a bunch of them end of week. Need white shirt every day at work, buy at least 10 of them, use one each day, wash & iron weekend, put on pile1 and use from pile2 next week rotating for even use and to have some redundancy, then pile1 week and so on. Get more trousers etc. whatever you need. This is what I did when had job where dress code told what to wear in office.
And kids, buy them more fav clothes too if it otherwise becomes fight what they want to wear daily.
But each to their own. Above is just my view and how I learned when I was kid looking my parents, and how I've done also.
I used to do this. Commuting by bike means gross damp sweaty clothes.
They get permanently smelly if not washed promptly.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Whirlpool-3-3-cu-ft-White-Commer...
This would probably last a couple I expect
I'd be disappointed if it didn't. My Bosch is running for about 13 years right now and just as well as when I bought it. Maybe it helps I'm in the EU and there's a law stating you have right of compensation if it dies within a decade...
Look into Speed Queen. They're known for being well-built commercial-grade machines.
Cars can still show that they're poorly made pretty quickly.
> VW ID.3
VW ID.3 is designed by a Chinese team in China, built in Shanghai backed entirely by the Chinese ecosystem.
You need to be totally blind to consider vw being able to design & produce such a car on its own. let's be straight - the software in the car is not something Germany can build on its own. That 20 years gap won't be filled overnight.
This is false, the ID.3 was designed primarily in Germany but they sell a model customised to the Chinese market. They're two different cars from different production facilities.
All the control modules for the German model at least are manufactured by Bosch and Valeo in France and Germany - where the software is also produced.
As an aside, Bosch produces control modules and the underlying software for just about every western car manufacturer. 80%+ cars sold worldwide use their traction control system for example so I'm not sure where this so-called gap is.
The kind of software needed in a car (minimal or ideally none at all except for DME and CarPlay display) is indeed not something that Germans were able to build on their own in the recent times.
That would be the case for the new China only Audi E5/E7X - they are just using the word AUDI on the car and not the iconic 4 rings.
It is made by SAIC using their factory and EV platform - it was just cheaper to outsource it and meet the deadlines and pricing.
> software in the car is not something Germany can build on its own
Chinese can't either. BYD is a joke. Zeekr is close, but still not quite there. Soon they'll be unstoppable tho.
Not according to what I've just read. It's sold in china via a joint venture with saic and seems to have been slightly redesigned for the china market.
What the hell are you talking about? Why are you lying?
ID.3 is a MEB car, its production started in Zwickau (Germany) in November 2019, two years before it even arrived to China, and one year before the SOP of ANY MEB car (ID.4 was the first one) in Anting (Shanghai).
>rust protection was maybe a bit on the lighter side
Iv seen MG cars in Poland come pre rusted straight from the dealer.
Genuinely?
>The control arms, subframes, etc all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear.
While I think the "chinese quality bad" narrative still applies to many Chinese brands, this isn't as universal as it was in the past.
I think my eyes were first opened when I bought myself a Huawei phone(before the Google ban). My first few smartphones had been Samsung, I've always felt the term "planned obsolence" was the best way to describe these phones: After just a year, the phone felt considerably slower, and after two it was almost unusable.
Huawei flagship phones were similar in price to Samsung, but I felt they lasted way longer.
I have had a fairly good run with a lot of these Chinese phones. Huawei when we could still get them was great. Xiaomi is great build quality but they are rotting out their OS with too much bloat and up sell. Oppo has been brilliant in that they are built well, cheap and allow you strip out anything you don't want.
I had one of the last available Huawei phones, the P30 Pro, for 3 years. The only reason I had to get a new phone is because it got stolen.
>Xiaomi is great build quality but they are rotting out their OS with too much bloat and up sell.
I've tried Xiaomi phones in their stores a few times. I feel like they're trying to copy the look and feel of iOS in a way, and I generally don't like the iOS UX.
Pre google ban huawei phones were incredible. 2-day batteries, great screens, fantastic cameras and an awesome price. I had a Samsung after my last huawei and it felt like a solid downgrade, even though the samsung was way more expensive.
FYI, if you are looking for a post google huawei, check out honor phones.
That's exactly how Chinese android market works, every phone/pad is No.1 upon release and within a few week's PR campaign. After a couple months a new one is released with another No.1 bla-bla, while the old one goes on life-support.
Also have to mention their ads, built into the system, when every app opens, when you switch back, f*king everywhere. The funny thing is if you switch language to English or use it overseas, some of the ads will go away, ironic.
MG ZS EV and BYD Atto 3 have a lot of issues in NZ/AU, so it's not without a merit. I'm sure they improved with latest models tho.
Oh man I miss my Huawei phones. I had an Oppo at one stage too.
As an aside the best phone I ever had was a HTC One X, another brand that I sorely miss.
Vertical integration matters. If BYD controls much of the chain from the mine to the ship, they’re not paying everyone else’s margin along the way. That can translate into more car for the money.
I own a BYD Tang, so I’m biased, but the value for money has been hard to beat.
Scale probably helps too. When you sell millions of cars using many of the same parts, availability is better and parts are more likely to stay affordable than on low-volume models with lots of redesigns.
Vertical integration is a double edged sword. When your car is a decade old or more, and stuff starts breaking, the only vendor that makes parts for it is BYD - and its up to them if they bother selling to you, at what price, provided they still make these parts at that time.
Time will tell how cheap and easy will they be to maintain, which affects residual value at the end of the lease, which affects payments.
Nobody pays sticker price for new cars as a lump sum. If BYDs (or whatever car) are impossible to maintain, that means nobody will want them used, and residual value will be low, which means BYDs will cost more to the end user to own than a more expensive car by a different manufacturer.
Which seems to be the case for now in places like Germany, but we will have to wait and see how the situation develops and the second hand market builds up.
Additionally, vertically integrated companies don't get to tag along on innovations produced by upstream suppliers. Many EV companies will effortlessly have their range increase by a couple % each year, with battery costs falling, just because they can adopt the improvements of CATL/Panasonic/BYD etc.
The aftermarket would jump after such an opportunity in such case
> Vertical integration matters. If BYD controls much of the chain from the mine to the ship, they’re not paying everyone else’s margin along the way. That can translate into more car for the money.
This is interesting. Wasn't the idea in Europe (and maybe elsewhere, too, no idea) that outsourcing components would lead to economies of scale? After all, a Mercedes or BMW or VW seat is still roughly a seat?
It's interesting to me that we seem to switch back and forth between the two models, each time saying the new approach is "better".
Outsourcing to somebody that can drive higher volumes for components can be cheaper, as they can amortize the manufacturing equipment over more widgets. If a car seat is just a car seat, then outsourcing makes sense. However, if you need to customize it or add some other value (heated seats, electronic movement, etc) then unless everybody is doing the exact same thing, you need to bring at least some of the components in house and/or pay for it.
The same is true in many industries. TSMC has dominated fabing chips because they scale wafers over many more customers, whereas intel mostly only focused on its own chips. The results was more expensive all around. (Intel also had to deal with bad western accounting attitudes to CAPEX spending, which IMHO is a huge reason so much manufacturing left North America, though lower costs also played a role).
VW, Mercedes and BMW also squeeze their suppliers very hard, and they operate with razor thin margins. So I agree and wouldn't say that doing everything in house is always going to be the cheaper way
My family operated a business on exactly these razor thin margins. You always live on the razors edge. You're unable to invest into the future, unable to improve your processes, and god forbid there is even a minor disruption. I don't think it's sustainable. We've since faltered, as have our many of our competitors and suppliers.
Having an adversarial relationship with your suppliers is not necessarily the best arrangement. It means that suppliers will nickel-and-dime you for every change and ship minimum possible quality to you. The cost of loss of agility and quality will impact your bottom line.
The value in being a supplier is you make the replacement parts when they start breaking in 5-10 years. The real money is in selling to every auto parts store in the country.
It does also just depend at what scale you operate at.
If you're already at a huge scale there isn't really a significant scale advantage by outsourcing to somebody who doesn't just sell to you.
And also the simplicity of the products. You don't need to design a different engine for each car, you just vary the number of cells and change the motors. Your battery division can keep pumping out batteries, regardless of what models you make. If you design a new model, you can keep using the existing lines. It's perfect for mass production.
People talking about Chinese manufacturing all being junk are completely stuck in the past.
My grandfather in the 1970s used to complain about crappy Japanese tools. By the 1980s they were world-class. Same is happening with Chinese manufacturing.
There is a joke just about that in Back to the Future (1985)!
In BttF2, it is taken to the logical extreme and Marty's boss is Mister Fujitsu-san: https://youtu.be/UlEFqR4SaVA
It also recurs in BTTF3 with Marty and 1950's Doc needing to replace a single Japanese-made IC with a large vacuum tube assembly.
My great-grandfather used to complain about crappy German tools.
My great-great-grandfather used to complain about crappy Scottish tools.
He was English. I am not sure you can buy as much as a paperclip made in England now.
Has to be said that nobody on this side of the pond ever complained about the quality of American Snap On tools though, just so long as the boss was paying for them.
Some of the old Sheffield toolmakers are still going: https://www.crownhandtools.ltd.uk/
The UK has mostly moved up the value chain. We make satellites and turbines now.
I’ve seen people say stuff made in china is junk while holding their iPhone. People say the dumbest things.
And they have really good designs (after all, they are taking inspiration from the most succesful european cars. I saw the station wagon the other day, it's amazing. the octavia EV as it should be.)
The problem is always going to be: what's going to happen in 10 years, or whatever, after warranty expires?
The problem with vertical integration is for the customer, and it's repairs: traditional manufacturing is more expensive because you have a constellation of companies manufacturing pars with official and unofficial second sources. While this increases the overall cost of the vehichle, it decreases the final price of every component because the customer (independent mechanic) can choose to use a different source. The market working as intended.
BYD is currently the only EV i would consider, because it's the best value and the engineering quality is indeed high, but because i want to own, not rent, i'm preoccupied of what's going to happen in X years.
Yes, it's the same fear we had three-four decades ago when toyota/suzuki/kia entered the european market, that bet paid off but also because cost of repairs went down over time as they were also traditional manufacturers. (Yet for some exotic components you still must go to the OEM, and pay 2-3 times the equivalent sensor/component for an european car.)
However, with vertical integration you are always at mercy of the manufacturer. Better engineering, yes. Better integration, better efficiency, but you will suffer for repairs if you can't have second sources.
Think apple. (and tesla. but tesla is shit quality)
Or john deere.
I think we're going to have to accept that the EV market and technology is moving fast enough that cars behave a lot more like smartphones, or buying a computer in the 90s: one that's ten years old is going to look ridiculously dated even if it's still working fine. It's not unreasonable to estimate than in 10 years the average range will be 50% more or even double current range.
I've got a leased one on order as a result. Let someone else eat the depreciation.
my car is already 12 years old, but has at least 5 more under its belly. Has long paid for itself.
It would cost me considerably more to keep changing it with something i don't own and as a result always be unconfortable with (and also keep paying until the end of time).
But that's kind of beside the point: ex-lease are also being sold somewhere, nobody wants to lease an old car and nobody in their right mind will destroy a perfectly good car just because it's too old to be leased, so i think my point still stands.
>I have to say I'm super impressed with how heavy duty everything is.
But do you actually have a frame of reference though?
It's really easy to make stuff look good and then have it suck because someone in some other department nerfed it.
I'm not saying they're bad but HN is not a community I trust to make such assessments.
Putting a slick plastic cover over the engine so it doesn't look grimy is easy. How do you fake it so it looks good to a CT scanner though?
"chinese X bad" is really ignorant. One in 6 people on the planet lives in China, it's a gargantuan country that is the world leader in manufacturing. You're going to have a high variance of quality output for the mere fact that the overall output is massive.
People often equate low-value Chinese manufacturing that focuses on low cost with their manufacturing quality across all fields.
I feel that in the west we have been fed a version of China that doesn't necessarily reflect the true image of the country.
Does the true version have slave labor, reeducation camps for minorities, needing permission to travel, running protestors over with tanks, and gutter oil by any chance?
There are these things, but also that daily life does not feel very oppressive at all. Very different from Soviet Russia or the GDR.
This could be mostly due to the fact that China has been on the rise, economically. So people mostly see the system working, and mostly in their favor. We'll see the real oppression once that changes.
I don't think it's anyone (lay person)'s fault. As a chinese person moved to European in the early 2000s for the longest time I wouldn't touch a chinese product (although I'm very proud of the progress made in terms of industrialisation).
Things changed in 2012 when I bought a 'cheap-ish' Huawei phone, it was nothing of a flagship, no performance but it was really solid product. Very light and well built too. How ironic that was my first ever experience of buying a product exported to Europe.
BYD are genuinely decent cars. And they've skyrocketed in popularity across parts of the world.
In the UK the major car dealers are franchises, and you tend to see for example a Ford garage next to a Toyota garage, and they are operated by the same company. Most of these places have closed one of the branded ones and turned it into a BYD franchise dealership. Theres so many of them across the country now.
I'd take a BYD over something like a Tesla thats for sure - far better cars, it's not even a fair comparison anymore.
I dare say they'll struggle a little more in the US with the whole "China bad" propaganda engrained into society, which is likely why BYD have gone for the agressive expansion in Europe instead.
> all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear.
“No wonder this circuit failed, it says made in Japan”
“What do you mean doc, all the best stuff is made in Japan”
It will be interesting to see if they can overcome the horrible resale value. The market seems to think these are disposable one owner only vehicles.
You cannot just eye ball a part and say is "high quality"
I'd rather own Chinese everything over American. Everything America makes is slop and corners are cut for profits so the owners of companies can own their third home and maybe a yacht. The truth is Chinese engineering quality exceeds the West in almost every domain at this point.
I'd move there given the opportunity, the business owners of America are willing to poison and put the lives of their fellow citizens at risk for literal pieces of paper. I'm ashamed to be American.
I agree with the quality of some of the stuff coming out of China but when it comes to poisons and risking the lives of citizens, I have some bad news for you. That is how they undercut so heavily by foregoing those standards.
China has moved beyond being a "value" manufacturer and they've cleaned up a lot.
In China, they hang those that are responsible. In US, they get slap on their hand.
Or they get cabinet positions.
Ha, yeah that is a fair point.
Not saying you are wrong about many US business owners but having travelled in China I can tell you that Chinese companies have no qualms about poisoning their neighbours for enhanced profits - my guide there said it was what he hated about his country. Money drives ethics pretty much everywhere I reckon.
This one of those if both country are spying on you, pick the foreign spy since their gov can't touch you. If industrialist from both sides poisoning backyards, pick the one that isn't doing it in near you.
Imagine glazing the country where a dozen companies were caught mixing melamine into baby formula, hospitalizing 50,000 and killing 6.
This happened in 2008 by the way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
I disagree with 'glazing' China but the USA really isn't much better
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis
The US is systematically winding back a plethora of health/safety regulations that prevent this sort of stuff.
[flagged]
Wow you're literally seething haha. Kidney stones flaring up again?
Don't forget to put flowers on the tiny graves.
This was stated about the key: "Folded into the base is a mechanical backup key, a flat metal blade in a hinged housing."
I own a BYD: this is not true. The key is not hinged; rather, the entire mechanical key pulls out when a small clip is unlatched near the top of the assembly (you can see it in the CT). I assume the circular hinge-looking mechanism in the CT is just a by product of the plastic/metal weld process.
Nonetheless: very cool tech demo!
I wasn’t surprised by the backup key, but rather by how empty it was. I really wish key fobs were smaller. They are quite bulky in a pocket and bigger than all my actual keys combined.
If you own a 3D printer, there are oftentimes STLs people publish online to shrink the size of the fob.
Made my keys much less bulky
Now that’s an idea… I found one for my car, but kind of hate it.
I don’t have a 3D printer currently. I did help my cousin’s kid by one and they told me if I ever wanted to print something to let them know, but I have a feeling I’ll need to design my own with some trial and error.
I’ve hesitated buying one, because the idea of having a machine to melt plastic in my house seems like a bad idea when it comes to air quality.
Depends on the plastic, but even the most benign ones put out very minor amounts of fumes if YouTube testers are to be believed. Note that fumes in this case just means that they are seeing changes in AQI meters, which is something that can happen with too many people sitting in a room.
If it’s something you worry about, the enclosed models frequently either come with, or can be fitted with a carbon filter, and if you are really worried, you can use dryer vent to get it outside.
With the most popular plastic (PLA) at printing temperatures, there isn’t any data showing toxic byproducts. When you get into things like ABS and resin you have to think more about fumes.
Do not print a key fob out of PLA. It will not survive summer car temperatures. A better choice is PETG, or ABS and ASA if you have an enclosed printer that can vent outside.
You leave your key in the car? And you don’t run the air conditioner when you are inside?
> run the air conditioner
Look at Mr. Moneybags here with his car that has the AC add on and still functional!
FYI my local library in suburban Pennsylvania has a 3D printer for public use. Check yours.
It was suspected in the past that Lumafield used AI to write the descriptions of previous scans. It is possible they are still doing so.
If it's AI then I'm surprised to see it make this mistake:
> None of these components is particularly extraordinary in isolation
Why is that a mistake?
I'm guessing parent-poster is saying the "is" should be "are", on the basis that the word "components" is plural.
That said, I didn't perceive a problem either, and my self-diagnosis is that "none of the X" feels like it could be evoking a singular item that failed to be found.
Yep, I think the singular is ok, as it could be just one. Seems like it could be both.
Cambridge says...
> In formal styles, we use none of with a singular verb when it is the subject. However, in informal speaking, people often use plural verbs...
Collins says:
> Since none has the meanings “not one” and “not any,” some insist that it always be treated as a singular and be followed by a singular verb: The rescue party searched for survivors, but none was found. However, none has been used with both singular and plural verbs since the 9th century. When the sense is “not any persons or things” (as in the example above), the plural is more common: … none were found. Only when none is clearly intended to mean “not one” or “not any” is it followed by a singular verb: Of all my articles, none has received more acclaim than my latest one.
> "none of the X"
But it was "none of -these- X" which (to me, at least) is a secondary signal for plurality indicating that "are" is (doubly) preferable to "is".
(I don't find "none of these components is ..." to be egregiously wrong but it definitely gives a brain hiccup where the "... are ..." variant is much smoother.)
Having a mechanical key hidden in the electronic key fob is nothing new, it’s common on many cars.
I guess my intent was not to point out that it has a mechanical key, rather that the description of the key on the webpage was wrong (it is not hinged).
The mechanical key fallback pattern is standard across the industry for sure.
It's entirely possible that the BYD key they scanned and the BYD key you possess are of different designs.
Possible, but I doubt it.
Article says key fobs are the same across all their cars and this looks the same as mine for a Sealion 5, there is no hinge for the key you just pull it out.
Likely the article authors just assumed from looking at the scan, if they’d actually tried to remove the key they would have realised their mistake.
This: different markets get different style keys.
Before keyless became defacto standard, most keys were fixed on a hinge - you'd first unlock your car by pressing a button on the fob, then swing the key open and use it to start the car.
Nowadays the physical key is only a backup, safely stowed inside the fob. It is meant to be pulled out only in an emergency.
Mercedes changed to the IR key in maybe turn of the 90's. The plastic blob would be used to turn the ignition like before, but the locking part was electrical (optical). There was still a metal key that could be pulled out and used on the exterior locks if the central locking was out.
When keyless start came, there was a dummy button that fit in the ignition lock that could be pushed to start. If there was a problem, you could pop it out and use the key as before.
IIRC, all that, so may have mistakes. Just crossed my mind that they went a few decades between no metal ignition key and keyless. MB being MB, I wouldn't be surprised if they still had models with that same "old" system and keyless as an option.
Ah, I misread your earlier revision's enthusiasm at the end as being about the mechanical key, not the CT scan.
I remember playing with my parent's VW key fob as a fidget toy in the 00s. Little spring loaded switchblade style mechanical key.
My 2015 Honda had that and my new car does as well.
And yet my Hyundai key fob, despite being the largest fob I've ever seen doesn't do this :/
Yes sadly the Hyundai and Kia key fobs of EVs (at least EV9) don’t have the mechanical backup key in the fob anymore. So you need to carry it on your keychain. Don’t leave it in your trunk. If the 12V battery does out you won’t be able to get into the car.
I have a Kona EV, so you can add that as a data-point.
Anecdotally on my Hyundai ionic hybrid from 2018 it does have a mechanical key in the fob, but it is very non-obvious. It’s physically the same piece as the keyring section at the top of the fob. There is a small catch you release to remove the key from the plastic fob body and it slides out the top.
All this to say Hyundai certainly knows how to do this. If they didn’t do it, it is almost certainly a deliberate omission.
The mechanical key has a hinge (to be able to operate it), but it’s not “hinged” to the fob.
https://youtu.be/0aspbvdCXqs?si=9pcToYeg4EcoHfPJ
> The last company to vertically integrate a car from raw material to finished product at this scale was Ford. Today BYD’s system runs all the way from the lithium mine to the port.
Both BYD and Tesla claim to produce around 75% of their components. Ford is at around 25%.
Tesla is indeed smaller in scale (cars/year):
I assumed this was referring to the early days of the Ford assembly line
Yes, Ford claimed up to 90% in the 1930s when they were producing up to 1.4M cars and trucks per year. (Down to less than 400K in the worst of the depression.)
I suppose it makes sense, back then you wouldn't think there would be an existing supply chain of companies like Mopar just waiting for a car manufacturer to spin up and start buying their stuff
The original Ford plant to raw ore, coal & limestone as inputs. There weren't any Mopar's, but Ford didn't have to build their own steel plants...
The original Model T plant (the Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit proper) was not vertically integrated, and in fact most of the "running gear" (all the complicated stuff, basically everything but the coachwork) was purchased as parts from the Dodge brothers (who owned a plant at what is now Detroit/Hammtramck Assembly -- formerly Dodge Main and then GM Poletown -- a GM plant making EVs like the Sierra and Hummer EVs) and merely assembled by Ford employees (albeit in an admittedly revolutionary assembly line process that changed capitalism forever).
The Highland Park plant was Ford's play to cut the Dodge Brothers out of the process by machining most of his own parts. The peak of vertical integration would be the River Rouge plant which, as you say, machined all its own parts from iron and steel made on-site from raw ore (but never made the Model T).
They would go so far as to license components for in-source production from suppliers who couldn't meet the needed volume.
Still lower than farmers and their horses. :)
So BYD for cars and Samsung for phones and consumer electronics more generally (from fab upwards).
In fact, I believe Samsung is the only company on the planet that can design & build a state of the art smartphone from scratch - silicon/fabrication, SoC, battery, baseband, camera sensor, memory, and display.
What other high tech vertically integrated producers exist in this group?
While I could have sworn RIM put out their own modems (which Qualcomm used to make life difficult for them, especially as the world transitioned from 3G to 4G), and did their own hardware and software, I can't currently find a source
Qualcomm makes life difficult for anyone who has to deal with them.
And now it appears Microsoft and Nvidia are gonna make life difficult for them in the computer market.
They are "more" vertical, but they too have vital suppliers that they could not do without. The semiconductor supply chain is deep. Everybody knows ASML, but there are countless others that produce raw wafers, etching machines, special chemicals and so forth.
IBM
IBM no longer has fabs (spun off as Globalfoundries and later sold), and no longer manufactures PCs (sold to Lenovo?), but it does make mainframes I guess?
I am still amazed that IBM is pushing their POWER processors forwards for things like their System Z Mainframes. From what I have heard they are still really fast with I/O and general shifting of data but I'm not sure how much better than is than the alternatives.
Wouldn't be surprised if that finally gets sunset in the next few years.
POWER still exists? That's kind of neat. I had a POWER 1 rs6k way back. Almost wish I'd had room to keep it just as a sort of museum piece. The processor was several chips on one or two large PCBs IIRC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER1 IRC.
I know, they are up to the POWER 11 spec now. It is the definition of a brilliant architecture that was simply out run by others (x86) that could push their mediocre setups far better than they could.
I thought GlobalFoundries was AMD's fab division spun off.
Precisely. IBM paid them to take their fabs away (yes, they paid them, not the opposite, they were so obsolete that it was basically a waste disposal operation)
was there some regulation preventing them from just shutting the plants down and selling off the real estate and equipment? severance payments too high?
IIRC they had an agreement that Globalfoundries were to take the fabs and further develop them to shrink to better nodes. I think it was less than a "take this crap off of us" and more of a "we still need fabs, so here's some money and please continue running them for a while". GloFo then utterly failed at competing with TSMC, Samsung and Intel which was quite a problem for IBM. In general if you have a certain design you can't immediately port it to a different fab, you need to engineer it around the constraints of the fab node and process
Yes, more specifically IBM -> AMD -> spin off.
They are mainly in services now, no?
In 2021, the majority of IBM's "Global Technology Services" was spun-off as an independent company named Kyndryl.
Oh, I love the 2 sides of HN... Here everybody's ready to buy a BYD and even move to China, due to the sheer quality of the product (for the money) and the integrity of the people, totally forgetting about the 'social credit system' and the data that these cars might be sending or being exposed to having the car remotely disabled. Not to mention the repairability... Just a few days ago there was a popular post taking a modem out of the RAV4. Bet you can't do even that on a BYD without rendering the car non-functional.
That pot&kettle contest between the US and China is really heating up!
You might want to switch from "social credit" (which was a failed local project from over a decade ago) to "blacklist", or just criticize the overall surveillance system, which is pretty invasive.
I'm getting a bit tired of people posting on social media websites and then pretending they are not a part of them. "Reddit" did this, "HN" did that... let's just admit that we're all chronically online people who get irritated whenever we stumble out of our bubble and more than one person dares to disagree with us.
> totally forgetting about the 'social credit system' and the data that these cars might be sending or being exposed to having the car remotely disabled.
No problem with building the same surveillance state at home though right? At least China's on the way up while the US is slowly declining on virtually every aspects.
American companies have been harvesting my data for 20 years, why wouldn't I give some to China? I interact with 0 chinese software in my day to day but dozens of american companies are harvesting and targeting me every single day since I started using internet.
The free market isn't fun when you're not the ones making all the money and dominating countries you determine to be inferior?
I really don’t understand why this social credit concept has become so widespread. It does sort of exist but not in the big government breathing down your neck kind of way.
Here’s an example - you can rent e-bikes and power banks at low cost, they are everywhere. If you don’t return an e-bike or power bank after using it, not only will that company charge you, but you’ll likely get blacklisted from renting more, even at other companies.
This is a good thing, no???
Well it depends what legal protections are there to back it up. If you get threatened with blacklisting without recourse, that seems like a bad thing.
Feels like its the same poeple saying locked down OS stores are great because security and chrome engine in all browser is fantastic because then everything is standardized.
But worse because here we are talking deep human topics.
Such long period of peace made people forget about how the world work. And clearly studing history in school ks not working. I guess in the US they are getting a new shot right now to remember.
That sounds awful. What if you have a dispute and they're the ones in the wrong? You can no longer just take your business elsewhere.
understandable that people might have fears like this since this happens a lot in the west in my own experience, but in china you can always argue with them and the customer service is usually way better, or you can drop the nuke by reporting to the authorities.
Well then we can unpack US and all the crap thats happening there. From an outsider, there ain't much difference China vs US, just different shades of brown. Comparing those 2, China is definitely more friendly to Europe, US gov publicly stated they want to break EU and make continent weaker FFS.
Nobody is moving to China just because they make good cars now, I have never seen anybody stating that so no idea why the hyperbole. But good (enough) cars they do make and various other products, ignoring facts ain't a smart move in any case.
Removing modem may kill new BMW as well as new Chevrolet and so on, so that argument is... weird. Expect more integration and dependence on online, like it or not. Repairability goes against primary incentives of all car manufacturers, they get significant revenue from official repair shops, often more than from sales themselves. Definitely true for that BMW, have a friend quite high in their sales team in Munich and he stated that few times.
Isn't the social credit system mostly a credit score, similar to the one implemented in the United States? As someone living in a European country without such a thing, I also find that one pretty dystopian.
About the data sending, wasn't there a quite recent incident where an American car manufacturer was leaking the real-time position of all their clients' vehicles? Aren't US telecoms selling position data of their clients? Isn't the US filled with surveillance cameras managed by a private company keeping track of every car?
Do you base your last statement on anything, or is it just a hunch?
What country do you live in? They probably have credit records. Here in Finland you definitely do. They don't break it down into a single score, but lenders can see how many debts you've defaulted on in the past.
https://www.oikeuspalveluvirasto.fi/en/financial-and-debt-co...
Not social credit score, this is something different.
Yes, it is a literal credit score, which the grandparent comment claimed doesn't exist in "a European country".
Social credit score affects all your actions as a citizen, and can restrict your liberty as a citizen. E.G: a cop don't like you because you sleep with his sister, they charge you on false pretense, and now your internet is more restricted or you can't take some trains.
Banking credit score only affect your ability to get a loan. You sleep with a banker sister, and... they can't do shit because there is no money trail and you can apply for a loan elsewhere. You will only be rejected for a loan if fail to pay some of your existing loans. Reasonable.
> wasn't there a quite recent incident where an American car manufacturer was leaking the real-time position of all their clients' vehicles?
You might be thinking about GM:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/...
From what I read it's mostly a credit score and blacklist system. In the 2010s there was a project to use it to reward and punish people for some everyday stuff based on whether it did or didn't align with the party's morals, but it got scrapped. That's the part everyone thinks is going on over there.
I agree it's dystopian, but I live in Germany and we have a similar thing called "Schufa". For most people it mostly means that if they default on a credit, they'll be less likely to find an apartment. It differs from the US one in the sense that banks don't require you to get into debt before they trust you, that whole "build your credit score" nonsense.
No, the social credit system can restrict your basic freedom, including the freedom of moving, without a judge being involved.
The fact you are casually talking about it is infuriating.
It's like taking about the yellow star and stay "isn't it like the pins in the US".
I see, thanks for the correction. Aren't people put in ICE detention centers and offshore prisons indefinitely with no charges and no judge involved, though? Or is that OK because they aren't citizens?
I'm not American. And the discussion is about the credit score system.
We were discussing cancer, and instead of talking about it, you tried to avoid saying bad things about it and answered "isn't diabetes bad as well?".
I assume now you are a China propaganda account and will stop answering to you.
The discussion was actually about privacy and human rights concerns when moving from western manufacturers to Chinese ones.
Nothing can restrict your basic freedom in the US though, right? lmao
American believing in the most base propaganda regurgitated by their government for the last 50 years is the funniest shit ever. You're implementing the same thing at home right now, not even secretly, and there is not a single protest, nothing...
If americans were 25% as critical with themselves as they are with China... Flock cameras, Palantir, 48 hours ago, one of trump's best friend:
> Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison: "Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on"
I'm not American, and my answer solely focuses on the fact the social credit score is the most dystopian thing ever created by modern dictatorship.
Which is an answer to guy saying people idealize china these days, thanks to effective propaganda from the regime.
Want to criticize the US? Go for it. That's just not the topic.
And until you can wear a Tiananmen Square t-shirt in a public street in Beijin, any good thing China is doing is moot for its population. It's still in a dictatorship.
It would be naive to think HN is not immune to influence operations. The people singing praises to China are not necessarily people.
Even more naive to think that the HN crowd is any more immune to propaganda than the non-HN folk.
lol, every single american repeating "ChInA bAd" on every single thread mentioning china like automatons, while not being able to locate it on a map or name three living Chinese people", and having the audacity to talk about being under "influence"... the irony
China's living rent free in your collective mind for 50+ years while they just chug along and slowly catches and surpasses you in most aspects.
They are probably people, paid for it. The comment are too well made.
But also some are just real people from HN that are the worst kind of dumb : uneducated but smart, so they think their opinion is valid.
This is where the "history at schoolis useless" people show their true color.
If you don't want the car to be sending data, you can remove the SIM from under the armrest.
I frankly could not give less of a fuck about China spying on me. Spy away. At least they don't communicate their findings with my government. What I do care about is my own government spying on me, or domestic companies spying on me and selling that information to my government.
The "Two sides" you're spotting is US posters vs non US posters. It's not exactly a secret that the US has long had a propaganda process going against China with their own citizens. From the outside it's weird how 'cult like' some parts of the US education system come across with things like this. It's similar to the whole socialism = communism = bad fear embedded into US society.
The US obviously isn't the only one guilty of this kind of thing, it just happens to have been one of the most effective.
"You wouldn't CT scan a car!"
Actually, yes, we would: https://www.kmoser.com/ctscan/
For those interested in EV drive-train tear-downs, Munroe Live has some wonderfully detailed videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfDuyqmsts , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeZzEg3GIcg&list=PLkiDlGyJnp...
Nice.
Those are small parts, though. The interesting part is the E-axle. BYD builds a unit with an integrated motor, differential, axle, and wheel hubs. That, plus an electronics box and battery, is the power train. This simplifies vehicles considerably.
There are E-axle teardown videos. There's no big secret about how to do this. Copying this is hard for Detroit, because they have a huge investment in "engine plants". With this design, BYD doesn't need standalone engine plants.
Tesla ought to be doing this, but they're into performance, not cost. They want to put two or four motors in a car. BYD does make supercars, to show off, but their volume products are reasonably good cars with E-axles and lithium iron phosphate batteries, which work fine. (It's not clear that Tesla is even into car design at all any more, but that's another issue.)
Detroit ought to be doing this, but they insist on making electric cars that are modified gasoline cars. Ford has an electric Mustang, an electric F-150, and an electric Transit. Chrysler doesn't even make cars any more, just one minivan. GM has a good Bolt now, which they are killing to appease Trump.
GM has several EVs that are ground up designs. They look just like the ICE version but that is cosmetic, everything else is different.
Now if only GM's executives could stop snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
> Tesla ought to be doing this, but they're into performance, not cost.
not as much anymore. model s/x discontinued.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/tesla-kills-models-s-an...
> BYD builds a unit with an integrated motor, differential, axle, and wheel hubs
So wait, the whole axle is solid then? Like a 1960s pickup truck but with all the weight of the motor and gearbox hanging off it too?
That must give it ridiculous unsprung weight.
it's not really like a 'live axle' from an older truck, it's more like a de-Dion style suspension (or dead axle).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Dion_suspension
you still see these in velocipede-style vehicles commonly.
and to your point : a dead axle is an effort to reduce unsprung weight compared to a live axle; it also lets you actually use alignment as a remediation for asymmetry issues rather than just pre-delivery straightening.
Ah, like on my old Volvo 340 ;-) They were fun, all that weight at the back (the diff and gearbox were bolted together under the rear floor) gave it excellent balance. Bit of a shame all that 50/50 weight distribution was only pushed along by a 1.4 Renault engine then, I guess.
Have you ever seen the Jaguar IRS setup? It's more like a twin-wishbone suspension *but the driveshaft is the upper link!* It's in compression and stops the hub tilting out, and the rear brakes are inboard to reduce weight even further.
On the platforms I've worked with, the weight isn't the issue so much as the quantity of expensive and vibe sensitive parts that are unsprung.
Looks like they do in-hub motor for buses and in-differential(like everyone else) for passenger cars?
You have some false beliefs about Detroit’s product lines.
Fords mustang mach e is unrelated to the gas one. Totally different platform. It was designed from the ground up as an electric platform. The electric F-150 was a shrewd bet that didn’t pay off, but a pretty defensible decision to try to electrify the most popular vehicle in North America without changing the outside look too much. Under the sheet metal it doesn’t share a lot of drivetrain parts with the gas truck.
Chevy makes full size electric trucks on an all electric platform with three truck/SUV models across three brands. The bolt was cancelled in 2022 with the last one produced in December 2023. They have restarted production of the Bolt for the 2026 model year. The Bolt is also built on a platform designed as electric only. The factory building the Bolt is being tentatively retooled next year to build higher margin cars as a result of Trumps tariffs. I don’t see how any of that has anything to do with appeasing Trump.
Stellantis is its own mess, and they suck at designing all cars regardless of energy source.
True, the Mach E mostly just shares the name. The E-Transit really is the same van with a different power train. It ought to be taking over fleet sales, but it only sells about 12K units/year, vs. 162K for the fuel powered version. The Ford electric F-150 was overdesigned and overpriced.
Comments on the Bolt indicate it's being killed due to "changes in the political environment."
> Fords mustang mach e is unrelated to the gas one.
That is right! Some might even go as far as to call the electric Mustang an abomination, a disgrace of the Mustang name.
>This simplifies vehicles considerably.
On the contrary, this much integration makes repairs nearly impossible, meaning you might have to swap the whole unit(for a lot of $$$) when something small inside it inevitably breaks.
Check out the articles published by EVclinic that cover such cases.
Aftermarket EV repairs are already big business due to how difficult and expensive the OEMs make it.
On the other hand: If the assembly is reliable-enough, then repair isn't normally something that needs to be pursued in the first place.
Like Honda engines on their myriad pedestrian cars. I'm sure there's exceptions, but the engines tend to be ridiculously reliable. The rest of the car often fails (due to age and/or rot and/or deferred maintenance and/or crash) and leaves a very good engine behind.
Accordingly, junkyards are full of Honda engines that work fine.
Thus, there's very few people rebuilding them. They certainly can be rebuilt, but it usually just doesn't make financial sense to strip it all down and freshen everything up.
So when an engine does fail on an otherwise-working Honda daily-driver that is actually worth repairing, then the usual move is to swap in a used motor.
---
So if it's reliable enough, and there's also critical mass, then it doesn't matter much if the BYD drivetrain unit has easily-repairable components.
>So if it's reliable enough, and there's also critical mass, then it doesn't matter much if the BYD drivetrain unit has easily-repairable components.
True, but swapping ICE engines was such an easy fix because of the modularity of powertrains that detached the messy hot rotating vibrating part(engine block) from the electronics and the rest.
These new ultra compact EV units are like if the ECU, catalytic converters, and starter motor would be built inside the engine block.
Here's a teardown of a recent BYD rear drive unit, performed by Paul Turnbull -- lead engineer at Munro and Associates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfDuyqmsts
In very broad strokes: It's just a BLDC motor, some driver components for those spinny-bits, plus some water cooling passages and gears. A surprising number of these parts are identified as having been provided by Borg Warner.
That's nothing like what you describe at all.
> pedestrian cars.
That's an interesting turn of phrase ...
Thanks. As the owner of a 14-year-old Honda that is equipped in the most lavish of trim options, I found great pleasure in selecting that particular subperlative.
Most of those stories are 1/ crashes and 2/ hybrids. Again, with rare exception, manufacturers are just making gas cars with EV power trains. Tesla and BYD are making next gen transport. Are you old enough to remember when TVs broke so often that TV Repairman was a job? One day we will look back on car mechanics the same way.
I do remember the visceral joy of trying to keep a supercharged Camaro on the track, but those memories are overwhelmed by the terror of “what is that noise”. Now I drive a Tesla that accelerates faster than that Camaro, handles better, and hasn’t been to the shop once.
If I win the lottery I will buy another Camaro and a Corvette and I’ll work on them for fun, and kids will look at me the way I looked at old men who take care of antique steam engines and traction engines and take them to fairs. That sure is a lot of noise and smoke and doohickeys for very little speed and power!
I own a Model 3 and I like driving it, but I scratch my head at everyone who claims there are no mechanical problems. I'm glad you didn't have any, but there are some repairs that are almost obscenely common.
In the past year, the heater failed (PTC Heater had to be replaced), and the lateral link ball joint ball joint had to be replaced. That is about CAD5000$ worth of work. There is also an issue with a wire in the rear center seatbelt that broke (but after a check, it doesn't really have any safety concerns wrt airbags so it is OK to leave as is), and the top roof glass cracked. (I also had to replace the front windshield, but that's normal in Calgary and I don't hold it against the car)
I'm not "rough handling", I have a Toyota Sienna without any of these problems. On the bright side, the battery has no problems and no imbalances so fixing it will keep the car running for years (hopefully).
I bring this up because I find it very annoying that people were painting hagiographies of these cars when they have real issues. None of the issues above should be happening. Moreover, there are no 3rd parties providing parts (supposedly because of patents).
In the end, I'll never buy another gas car again but my cute tiny car has a bigger turn radius than my Sienna. It's lost more value than my Sienna. I agree with the poster who said that it isn't even clear if Tesla is interested in cars anymore.
If BYD is also creating cars that are expensive to maintain, then hard pass. I'm ok with having legislation to fix this.
My Model Y headlight failed. Bought the ballast for like $125 on eBay. Had to take my dang front of the car apart, but Tesla had a really nice manual online. So it has pros and cons for sure!
> manufacturers are just making gas cars with EV power trains. Tesla and BYD are making next gen transport.
From what I see online, Teslas, especially MS/MX, are actually quite like an EV-swapped Toyota than anything futuristic. A lot about their cars(exception being CT and Semi) are ICE-mass-market-car coded. They're car equivalents of ARM PCs in ATX form factor like NVIDIA's DGX Station, opposite to the likes of trashcan Mac Pro.
MS/MX have been discontinued. Their basic design was ~ 20 years old (2007)
I think model 3/y were more clean slate designs.
Yeah, so like, a PowerMac G5. But not like Mac Mini or iPhone.
In what way?
>Most of those stories are 1/ crashes and 2/ hybrids.
No, they're faulty coolant seals of the electric motor, wrecking the power unit.
>but those memories are overwhelmed by the terror of “what is that noise”.
I just turned up the music till the noise went away. Problem solved.
>Now I drive a Tesla that accelerates faster than that Camaro, handles better, and hasn’t been to the shop once.
Good for you, but do you know there's a whole lotta other EV brands out there? And many are not as well and reliably designed as your Tesla.
>I do remember the visceral joy of trying to keep a supercharged Camaro [...] If I win the lottery I will buy another Camaro and a Corvette and I’ll work on them for fun
Nice story, but what does all this have to do with the parent you're replying to? Did he mention ICEs anywhere?
> turned up the music till the noise went away
I viscerally hate people who do or seriously suggest this. First, ignoring any strange noise in a car almost always leads to more expensive and stressful repairs down the road. Second, how the hell do people hear a noise and are simply okay with not knowing the source? Not understanding the situation and not being able to make any kind of informed decision?
>I viscerally hate people who do or seriously suggest this.
It was a joke mate, chill.
Then we’re good, I only hate people who suggest it seriously. I know some IRL.
The eternal conflict between "design for manufacture" and "design for maintenance".
Apparently both can be done together, it's just that it takes a bunch more effort so most places don't bother.
Why would it be less repairable? Power electronics are still modular and are easily swappable. Mechanical parts are more integrated, but they so simple that they can last for decades.
And once they give out, you can just replace the whole unit for maybe $2000.
EU added "cybersecurity" requirements in response to Comma.ai that means that a lot of ECUs going forward use signed messages AND often crypto key pairing against an onboard security auth box. The pairing process often require something like a scuffed up manufacturer rental Panasonic Toughbook with weird half baked apps and passwords. The car would refuse to drive or whatever if the owner wouldn't play along with that game.
> Power electronics are still modular and are easily swappable.
Depends. These parts are custom designed, physically, and difficult to find off-the-shelf replacements for.
The heater fan-controller on my wife's SUV died. This is simply a current-limiting device: receives (I assume) CAN signals from the dashboard rotary encoder and determines what current to send the fan.
While I could have dragged my 'scope to the car, determine what signals it's getting from the dash system (all integrated, btw), it was easier to find one in China and wait six weeks.
(I may have chosen the first option if this happened in the winter, but in summer the heater is never used anyway).
>Power electronics are still modular and are easily swappable.
Only if someone makes and sells those power electronics to you along with the appropriate DRM tools required for calibration and pairing with the other electronics of the car. Otherwise you're shit outta luck.
>Mechanical parts are more integrated, but they so simple that they can last for decades.
Simple != decades of reliability, when the design and manufacturing quality are piss poor in the race to the bottom for cost cutting and shareholder returns. Timing chains were also supposed to last a lifetime but plenty have been recalled due to know timing chain issues from manufacturing quality.
VW and Kia/Hyundai EVs were found to use custom dimensions motor bearings that can't be bought on the open market from anywhere, so only the OEM and their dealers can get them via their supply chain.
There is nothing terribly complicated there. It's just an AC motor ("brushless DC") with a classic 3-phase inverter and a resolver. There are plenty of companies that make controllers for this kind of setup. Granted, they are typically not powerful enough for SOTA drivetrains, but it's a question of time.
Power electronics will need to fit into the footprint of the e-axle. Or maybe you'll need to manufacture a new housing. Both are easily doable for small companies.
> VW and Kia/Hyundai EVs were found to use custom dimensions motor bearings that can't be bought on the open market from anywhere, so only the OEM and their dealers can get them via their supply chain.
Again, an independent manufacturer can easily make them.
>Both are easily doable for small companies.
As cheap as the mass produced ones with the economies of scale? I seriously doubt it. You're talking about a car ECU. Go see how much ECUs cost that don't deal with power electronics.
>Again, an independent manufacturer can easily make them.
Yeah but again, for how much? You can make anything if money is no option. But if cost is too high people will just scrap the car and buy a new one.
> As cheap as the mass produced ones with the economies of scale?
Of course not. This has _never_ been the case. You get spare parts from manufacturers initially, usually at a higher price (buying new bikes and parting them has been a thing for decades). When manufacturers stop producing spare parts, you can cannibalize existing cars that are taken off the road for other reasons (crashes, severe cosmetic damage, etc.).
This is enough to last you at least 2 decades. And after that time, maintaining a car makes sense only for sentimental reasons. If there's demand, there'll be supply. There are companies that are _still_ making new parts for Trabants!
> You're talking about a car ECU. Go see how much ECUs cost that don't deal with power electronics.
You don't have any idea what you're talking about, do you? ECUs on EVs do NOT deal with high voltage directly. They are just regular computers that run off 12V and output control signals over CAN lines, just like on regular gas cars.
The drivetrain on EVs is now integrated, with the power inverter sitting next to the motor to minimize transmission losses. It usually exposes a simple CAN-based control interface with a bunch of diagnostic data and YUGE high-voltage power leads.
As a result, you can buy EV conversion kits that reuse Tesla motors and power electronics. E.g.: https://kaizenmotoring.com/complete-tesla-swap-guide/
If anything, EVs will make it easier to repair stuff once the technology slows down a bit.
>It usually exposes a simple CAN-based control interface
And what do you do whan that is locked out via DRM?
Get a replacement that is not using it. Power electronics are no longer something exotic.
I don't have so much knowledge about EV repairs, but I got burnt by this on ICE cars already - had a car fail a regular fitness test on suspension bushes, they weren't replaceable without replacing the whole arm(s). What should've been a $40 part was being quoted as more than the cars value.
(I'm not sure if there was a way around this, there may well have been but I had other things going on and sold for scrap)
FWIW, this has been my experience since 2003 when I had to get suspension work done. Doesn’t matter if it’s a BMW or Honda, dealership or indie repair shop, the story I have heard consistently is that the bushing is part of the arm for structural integrity, stability, <reason I can’t remember, truth or crock>. Bushings typically fail faster than the arm does, and this repair is expensive ($1000+ for performance cars, not that much cheaper for Civics).
The “Design for purported Safety vs. Design for Saving Dollars” principle at work.
> repair is expensive ($1000+ for performance cars, not that much cheaper for Civics)
I can almost guarantee the lion's share of this is shop labor, not parts, and pressing a bushing out and back in would be more expensive after accounting for that labor than just swapping the suspension arms. This is often the piece that gets missed in these discussions of "why am I replacing this huge assembly for a tiny part", if the whole assembly is coming out to deal with that tiny part anyways and shop labor is $200/hour it's cheaper to swap the assembly a lot of the time.
Try getting any repair beyond routine maintenance done on a car in the US for under $1000 these days. Car maintenance is one of the things I'm happy to DIY in most cases because the delta on costs is massive and as someone that works on computers all day it's vaguely enjoyable to get angry at a mechanical object for a change.
I’ve moved in to doing my own plumbing, electric, HVAC. Tend to keep new enough cars that they don’t need much, knock on wood. But it’s not uncommon in “making” $500 an hour or more doing electric or HVAC.
In my area, no tradesman is willing to even get out of bed for less than $1000. They have more high dollar work than they know what to do with and some of them don’t even pick up the phone anymore. You have to be made of money or learn how to DIY everything.
and pressing a bushing out and back in would be more expensive after accounting for that labor than just swapping the suspension arms
Really? It's literally a few minutes (a few dozen $ at $200/hr, or $3.33/min) for any shop with a press. Removing the assembly from the rest of the car is going to take much longer.
Instead of $40 part it is $150 part. Very easy to replace. Less than 1 hour labor for both sides.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/jeep,2012,grand+cherokee...
That particular example is a labor arbitrage issue - it's a better value to have a $500 assembly with $250 labor than a $50 part with $600 labor. If you have the know-how, BYO labor is the magical way to save on this sort of thing.
The worst practices with cars is when they make it too tight or engineered to work on. Ford was kind of notorious for this - some dealers would do cab lifts for routine-ish work to save labor hours. I had a 90s Cadillac that required un-mounting and tipping the engine to change the rear spark plugs, unless you bought a really expensive tool.
> (I'm not sure if there was a way around this, there may well have been but I had other things going on and sold for scrap)
I've heard of people (who own a press) simply pressing out the existing bushing and pressing in a new one.
The trick is to get a new one - typically you'd have to press out the existing one, then run around town to find a match.
that's the reason why BYD provides lifelong warrant for their batteries, motors
Which is a scam. As with all car brands, that so called "lifetime warranty" has so many asterisks on the fine print and is only valid if religiously you stick to the manufacturer recommended regular service intervals where they rip you off at every visit.
https://x.com/teslaxander/status/2062110635257700829
> if religiously you stick to the manufacturer recommended regular service intervals where they rip you off at every visit.
That's something you're supposed to do for any and every car. I had to do it on my Japanese cars to keep the warranty.
Also, the last people I want to hear complaining about being ripped off by dealership service intervals are Germans. At least for Chinese cars, you do it for the warranty. For German cars, you have to bring it in for the services at the specified interval (or, in many cases, even shorter intervals!) or else it will blow up in new and exciting ways and basically total the damn thing.
Oh, and the services for German cars start at around 1500 euros. Hope you're rich!
have you ever done any research? My BYD B5 (Denza B5) cost 40 usd per service, every 10000km
There's a reason everyone calls them mobile phones with wheels.
Edit: I agree with you and upvoted your comment which I feel was unfairly downvoted. But economics are going to win here, only a tiny fraction of the user base of cars (or phones) tinkers with them.
People don’t want cars they can tinker with, they want cars they can get repaired instead of replaced when something breaks….
People actually want a convenient and cheap service for getting around. All other considerations can be derived from this. If it was cheaper to replace the car than get it serviced, they would replace it. Currently this is almost never the case of course, but if it happens in future, watch people switch behaviour instantly.
> If it was cheaper to replace the car than get it serviced, they would replace it.
This is doing a lot of work but I'm going to go with a charitable interpretation. I seriously doubt that we'll ever hit a state where replacing a 2 ton vehicle is cheaper than repairing it. And if we do, I'll have to re-evaluate my charitable interpretation, because something shady is likely going on.
The crazy thing is people don't even repair things that are cheaper to repair than replace. Our countertop icemaker broke and my wife wanted to throw it out. I fixed it with 20 minutes of time and a $15 motor from Amazon.
I think the broader trend isn't what's cheapest, its what is easiest, even if its more expensive. People in large part have no idea how to repair anything they own. This mass ignorance is leading to some pretty poor market incentives.
>I think the broader trend isn't what's cheapest, its what is easiest, even if its more expensive.
I don't think this is true. If this is the trend you're seeing it's probably because you're sampling through people with relatively high disposable income(or who don't mind endless credit card debt), who can just afford to throw away broken things when it's just a rounding error of their income.
But if you look at lower income people(with sane spending habits and financial literacy) you'll see how they first ask around if something can be repaired before they claw money from their checking account to buy something new.
My local facebook group is full of students asking if someone can fix their macbooks for cheap as they can't afford a new one or what Apple is quoting them, which is close in cost to buying a new one.
My minimum wage gf still had her barely functional Windows 7 notebook up until a year ago because she didn't feel like spending money to buy a new one if I could just keep fixing it.
Some broke people try not to buy new things if they can, but some are broke because they can't stop buying new things.
A lot of it does come down to a cost / benefit analysis where time preference is extremely overweighted due to an abundance of seemingly free credit and, shall we say, a tragic dustbowl famine of available cognitive resources.
It’s a culture of learned helplessness, which you demonstrate.
Excuse me? Describing people’s motives and reasoning has no bearing on my own. I’ve repaired multiple components on my own vehicle. Your mentality on the other hand is entirely typical of the reason I avoided this cesspool of a website for many years.
Weird. Reading your comment, I had similar adjectives about HN posting.
Learned helplessness (according to Wikipedia) is about being convinced by your environment that you are incompetent. Part of the feedback loop of the culture is not just the helpless and their helplessnes but the factors that teach them that they are.
well, people want to have enough money to do what they need to do, of course, so they will choose things that they can in order to minimize cost and time spent, and increase convenience. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to own things that can be repaired. Owning repairable things is also valuable. I don’t think anyone actually wants to “own nothing and be happy”. But they might be able to be coerced into it, sure.
>There's a reason everyone calls them mobile phones with wheels.
Which is why I'm so baffled how and why the EU has spent so much time and effort regulating batteries and charging ports for phones, but still ignores this massive issue of ease of repairability and right to repair of personal vehicles that has been plaguing car owners since the ICE days and is now only getting worse with EVs, that's costing us a lot more money than what's costing users to pay Apple to replace your cracked display and dead battery.
It feels like they just keep going for the lowest hanging fruits to score easy wins that don't impact local industry, while ignoring the entire forest behind them.
Jarvis, pull up on the central HUD how much the EU car industry spent on lobbying in the EU over the last 15 years.
The EU is beholden to the Germans, ease of repair would wreck the profit margins of VAG, BMW and Daimler both because of reduced after-sales profits and due to cost increases to manufacturing and engineering.
The EU has scored wins there though.
The mobile phone industry turns product into landfill on a yearly or more frequent basis.
People might do a yearly model swap on a car, but the car itself stays on the road for 10-20 years.
Changing how it's built needs to be done cautiously, but also has a much longer payback period.
Any electric gear with the battery as its main wear part. Ebikes. Sit-on mowers. Cars.
This is about so much more than cost. Agency, autonomy, environment, efficiency, geopolitics even.
I refuse to buy drm'ed gear. The exception is second hand where I can reliably avoid the drm with little effort. At its simplest, that means never using specific drm'ed functionality. At its most complicated, that means mitm'ing an encrypted can bus.
Even older chemistry EV batteries last over 200k miles.
Given that so far in my 20 years of driving I've only racked up around 80k miles, that 200k "wear part" will out last the rest of my time on earth.
There are lots of parts on a car that will likely wear out faster than the battery on a modern liquid cooled large NMC or LFP lithium battery. You should be able to get over 200,000 miles on the battery. You probably won't get near that much from the suspension, etc.
Absolute BS. Wear parts are the parts that move and EV batteries are notoriously long lived unless they're Broken As Designed (Nissan Leaf).
Because the masses don't drive every day, they bike and use the train.
I’m very confused as to why this is downvoted but I tossed you an upvote since I do my best to work against the constant brigading I always see on this forum.
>I’m very confused as to why this is downvoted
HN doesn't like like opinions that don't paint EVs in the best light possible. It's like a religious cult in some regards.
BYD is indeed producing cars by the millions now. Any quality issues would be very apparent at this scale.
Also worth noting that they are very advanced in applying robotics and automation in their factories. Anyone assuming that this is all underpaid Chinese workers doing things manually would be mistaken. And that also means they are very good at maintaining the same level of quality through their production process. So, this is not surprising.
Also in general, the Chinese car market is insanely competitive right now. There's just very little room for manufacturers that deliver low quality products with lots of warranty issues.
> This prismatic cell is NOT a Blade, but it does share the same chemistry.
Kind of surprised that the part that is perhaps the most "BYD" of the entire car, isn't actually the same cell that the BYD Blade batteries use, which was what I was most excited about seeing :(
LFP prismatics are dirt cheap, I actually thought that was cooler -- it's rare to see a car part for a specific brand that is so close to a COTS equivalent.
I wonder if they simply couldn't fit it inside the scanner?
From what I can find online, the biggest blade-cell dimension is 9.6cm, but I'm having a harder time finding the size limitations for the scanners.
> I wonder if they simply couldn't fit it inside the scanner?
As far as I know, the cells they use for the Blade does look more or less to what they actually scanned, I'm guessing it's the same size as the actual cell they used. Makes sense they couldn't fit the entire Blade assembly, as it's lots of cells put together, but I don't understand why they couldn't use the real thing instead of something else...
Folded into the base is a mechanical backup key, a flat metal blade in a hinged housing. It reads warmer than everything else in the scan. It exists for the moment the battery dies or the RF link fails. Every BYD keyless entry system includes this fallback.
It's simple things like this which incumbent manufacturers need to avoid losing sight of.
Nearly every manufacturer does this though? It's often simply done in such a sleek way that customers don't even know it's there.
My 2019 Ford has this as well, this is not novel.
My 2014 Fiesta did too.
My 2005 saab
Huh? What keyless car doesn’t have this (except Tesla, but they’re an odd one, and I guess not an incumbent manufacturer…)
The Volvo EX30/EX90 and Polestars 3/4/5 don't have a backup physical key or even buttons on the remote to force an unlock. That works exactly how you'd expect :)
All you need to know is that BYD cars are good enough that the US had to effectively ban them.
I don’t think BYD would be a hit in the US as they are in Europe. It’s an entirely different market. They may be relatively successful just not to the point of taking an important market share, they would probably be like Mazda. Many of the subsides for Chinese EV ended this year too, and they are now realizing price alone is not a differentiator. So even if BYD eventually makes it to the US, they will be priced close to other brands like KIA and Tesla, but without the advantage of the brand and strong local presence. So no, there’s no concerns with BYD and we may see them sooner than later in the US.
BYD only entered the Australian car market in 2022.
They are now the 2nd biggest seller after Toyota (https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/insight/byd-overtakes-rivals-...).
They are also priced much lower than KIA and Tesla.
FWIW I now own a GWM Cannon Αlpha PHEV pickup. Have also owned a Jeep Wrangler - the tech, build quality and reliability is not even on the same planet.
I can't imagine how the US manufacturers would compete with the Chinese ones on a level playing field. Not from the US, but it's hard to see how any administration would allow that. Would be the end of the local industry.
In Australia, the cheapest BYD EV is cheaper than the cheapest Toyota.
US manufacturers' niche is half-ton and above trucks. Even mighty Toyota's offering is playing distant #4 in that market with Nissan capitulating after 20 years of trying.
The BYD Shark 6 is already a hit, and the upcoming Shark 8 is aimed squarely at the ginormous US-style truck crowd.
https://bydautomotive.com.au/shark-6
https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/byd-shark-8-co...
Fun fact: Australia's most popular vehicle has always been utes (aka pickup trucks)
Last year it was the Ford Ranger.
They're selling well just 5 miles from El Paso with reportedly much interest from US customers.
The U.S. Wants to Ban China's High-Tech Cars but They're Already Here in El Paso - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48363751
* WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/chinese-cars-byd-geely-u-...
> It’s an entirely different market
One without cheap cars or EV's, even though that's what people want and need now.
BYD is not just zippy little city cars. The BYD Sealion 7 SUV (EV) and Shark full-size truck (PHEV) are incredibly popular in Australia, which is a very similar market to the US, and I'm sure they would sell like hotcakes if allowed into the US.
https://bydautomotive.com.au/sealion-7
https://bydautomotive.com.au/shark-6
It's worse than that. Trump's tariffs have knee-capped North American auto companies right when they needed to be upping their game. The auto sector is tightly integrated across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Or was... Now there's tariff's on every part and frame that crosses a border. The American plan seems to be to put up a wall and force Americans to buy domestic while nobody else in the world buys American cars.
The lada and movkvisch of car brands with people willing to cross the wall to buy BYD in Mexico
Potentially predicated on anti-dumping rules.
I am torn on this. Anti-dumping is one thing, and yet disruption was an overused keyword for a long time in Silicon valley.
1. Huge scale subsidies like this are effectively a manufacturing attack. This is mean at the level of international politics and yet the world recently seems to be waking up to the idea they were handing over every practice of manufacture to China.
2. On the other hand, while the Chinese car companies are finding their footing they have not yet perfected the bullshit tiered marketing approaches that see relatively cheap to manufacture features gated to "high-equipment level" cars.
For example, now even the cheapest cars can have 360 degree parking cameras. Of course, the Chinese engineering level remains to be seen but many would argue this is competition in the market.
I want to buy a Chinese car and I am annoyed that my protectionist government won’t let me. Lowering transportation cost would be the most impactful thing to my budget.
All that serves to do is ensure the American car industry falls far behind by being coddled into a lack of competition.
Toyota showed the world the Toyota Production System. What Tesla, Kia/Hyundai, and Chinese EVs have shown American automakers is how much vertical integration can be an asset, especially with the lower part counts of electric vehicles.
The model where every part is contracted out to parts manufacturers is proving to be antiquated.
Totally agree, this protectionism killed the Australian car industry because eventually you just can’t compete.
Protectionism by who? By definition protectionism cannot kill your own country's car industry.
I’m not sure why you think protectionism (by the local government) can’t kill an industry. It happened to American steel as well: the American steel industry was “protected” while foreign steel companies innovated their production processes.
The timeline goes like this:
1. Government gets pressured by industry to protect domestic industry from outside competition
2. Domestic industry stagnates as it has no reason to make competitive products
3. Time passes, quality/value gulf becomes so large that it becomes impossible to catch up to competition. It becomes impossible to export your goods and even domestic customers look elsewhere.
If the USA dropped tariffs and bans against Chinese car companies, American car companies would need to improve rapidly to survive. Instead, they’re selling us $50,000 decade old dinosaur designs like the Chrysler Pacifica.
This literally already happened to them with Japanese cars. And let me tell you, you don’t want to drive a Chevrolet from before Honda and Toyota sold cars in the United States.
Not protectionism related, but look at the MacBook Neo competitors shown off by Dell and HP at Computex. Competition drives innovation and cost reduction for consumers. Apple forced HP and Dell to make an affordable aluminum chassis computer for the masses and consumers are the winner in the situation.
It's also said to be one of the ironic long term impacts of the Jones Act (of 1920) in the US. The Jones Act among other things requires all US flagged ships at sea to be manufactured in the US in a hope to protect US manufacturing of ships, but instead in practice just became that most non-military ships just aren't officially flagged as US ships ever. For instance there's generally only one or two US flagged cruise ships in existence in a given year, they get US flagged through manufacturing loopholes (primarily constructed where other cruise ships are, but with enough "finishing touches" in the US to count as US manufactured), are smaller than the average cruise ship, and mostly only exist for Hawaiian island hopping cruises. (This is due to another quirk in the Jones Act that ships traveling directly between two US ports need to be US flagged. Most cruises can easily stop at a non-US port in between US ports, such as various Canadian, Mexican, and many Caribbean island ports, but from Hawaii the next non-US ports can be quite a bit more travel time and traveling to Tahiti and back just to see two different Hawaiian islands can be a bit much.)
Since the closure of Jeffboat in 2018 (among others), there's no non-military ship manufacturers in the US for anything even resembling cruise ship size (and even before that manufacturers like Jeffboat were mostly only making cargo barges) and the US military contractors have basically shrunk to a duopoly. Probably not the 100+ years later expectations of the Jones Act authors.
> 3. Time passes
Correct, protectionism still saved the industry for years, it did its job perfectly.
Look at the car makers in Europe, they had decades to produce affordable electric cars, even lawmakers pushed their own population to buy electric cars with timelines and incentives, and they still failed miserably. How?
Tariffs are a last-ditch effort to buy more time. If you fail to use this time effectively, you will close shop. If you don't have tariffs, you close shop today.
Europe sells gasoline shitboxes for €30K when China could easily sell EVs for €20K, Europe (and the US) already lost.
> protectionism still saved the industry for years, it did its job perfectly.
This is under an assumption that the alternative would have been eradication of the industry, as in, “if we don’t protect the industry it will go out of business.” In reality, leading an industry to be more competitive is a lot better than protecting them from outside competition in the long term.
What was the economic value of protecting US steel for half a lifetime and then letting it turn into a dead industry? Wouldn’t it have been better for that protectionism to be more in the form of encouraging competition so that US steel companies were still thriving today? If the end result is going to be a dead industry why invest in protectionism at all?
It’s funny that you’re talking a bunch of smack about European electric cars without looking up sales numbers. The Volkswagen group EVs outsell Tesla in Europe. The top selling EV in Europe is a Skoda. VW and BMW are the top two EV companies globally besides Tesla and 4 Chinese brands.
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/06/01/europe-ev-sales-report-...
https://autovista24.autovistagroup.com/news/which-brand-sold...
yes
and it's not just the end product, it's the process. China has built almost entirely automated car factories. They're already 10+ years ahead of what's happening in the US/Europe.
Just like Japan was 10+ years ahead of the US when they started selling cars in America.
The best thing that could happen to the US auto industry is if the US government allowed China into the US.
BYD biggest innovation may be organizational more than technological
What can you say about it?
this is a very interesting comment. care to elaborate on it?
I wonder why window switch panel uses 14 pins socket. Wouldn't it be simpler to use 3-4 pins with serial protocol?
I'm having a Seal delivered next week, really looking forward to it. My friend went from a M3 to a Seal. She does a lot of miles. She says they trade blows, there's things that felt better in the Tesla and things she prefers in the BYD.
My take: China is now producing cars of such good quality that companies are putting CT-scans of their cars online ..
Been driving Tesla the last 9 years .. entirely possible that my next car will be a BYD.
Back in the days the Chinese used to copy from the German automotive industry. Now it's about time the Germans start to learn from Chinese engineering.
Genuinely impressed with the article. We need more such articles that re-invigorate our engineering curiosity. Kudos!
> Fourteen pins in two parallel rows carry every signal this panel produces to the rest of the vehicle. Automotive connectors are among the most common failure points in modern cars: corrosion, fretting, and thermal cycling work on these joints over years of use. One connector failure on a module this integrated takes out mirrors, windows, locks, and child safety all at once.
Pack that shit full of silicone dielectric grease, check it every year or two, and it should be good for decades.
This sounds like copy written by someone who hasn't actually spent a lot of time with the automotive world and in trying to sound like they have.
Electrical connectors on automotive harnesses are far, far more reliable now on modern cars than they ever have been in the past, even with the increase in number of such connectors.
Companies like Delphi and Amphenol put immense engineering effort into the way modern connectors are designed, with weather sealing and contact plating that is way better than anything pre 1990's-ish was. Plastics really got way better after the turn of the Millenium compared to what they were before- I remember working on 1980s cars in the early 2000s (so, 20 year old cars) where connectors would ofter crumble in your hands when disconnecting them, or have completely corroded terminals, terrible sockets that yield and wouldn't keep continuity, etc. Compared that to all the cars I've worked on in the last 20 years where connectors have just not really been a worry (among the brands I've work on, at least). The electronics / sensors / modules themselves are much more likely to fail than the connectors they attach with, in my current experience. The only time connectors seem to fail is when cycled roughly/wrongly by people doing service incorrectly. Failure in place? Rare.
Anyone who thinks automotive electronics were more reliable in the past, live a bit with the electrical systems of a car from the 1970's thru the mid 1990's and report back to me on how that goes. Bonus points if it's Italian or British.
I think the point is that all those "dumb" switches, terminals or cables that get worn out can be replaced relatively easily (ie you need a multimeter and some patience to find the bad one). But if something in the integrated module fails, well good luck repairing that. These things are probably designed to be replaced as a whole, which is fine if you can get a new one. But as the cars get older, this is going to be a problem.
Strong old-man-yells-at-cloud vibe, I know. ;)
Yes but specifically, in this article, the passage is written about a harness connector on a door window switch module as follows:
This just reads weird to me.Corrosion on an interior module connector is not as much of a concern these days unless the car is in a flood or the door card sealing is broken due to something like a poor repair job.
Fretting? What would cause fretting on pins of a connector that never gets touched by a human after it leaves the factory. It is a static connection, it doesn't get plugged and unplugged.
Thermal cycling? It is inside a door panel... not near a hot exhaust or inside an engine. It sees normal interior temperature cycles.
An actual Closures Engineer would more likely call out vibration shock during door slam in a closures FMEA as a potential electrical window switch fault hazard resulting from the connector loosening if the chosen connector lacks sufficient mechanical fastening moreso than anything..
Saying that connectors themselves are "among the most common failure points in modern cars".... just sets of flags to me as overly flatulent, generated puff writing. "Oh I need to list three things about connectors (thinking).... Corrosion -Fretting- Thermal Cycling-!! and this makes connectors among the most common failures in modern cars (no sources cited)".
(I'm a former automotive engineer.)
In addition I'll give one more criticism:
Above that reads this bit:
Integrated door switch modules have been more common than not on cars for easily the last 15 years now, and I don't think this in any way exemplifies BYD's "Vertical Integration" or "favoring fewer subassemblies" (these two things actually don't even necessarily imply each other!!). There are plenty of cars that use such assemblies and the companies outsource to tier 2's for the actual manufacturing - Mercedes and Valeo, for example. Because they don't actually take apart the module and look for, say, a logo on the silkscreen of the PCB, I don't think the author actually confirmed if BYD 'designs' (let alone manufactures) the complete switch unit in-house. They could. I'm not saying they can't. But...But this whole article is written from a weird authoritative viewpoint when really I think it should back down a bit and just describe what the damn CT scans show.
This was a super cool article. Very well done. Thank you!
Thanks!
Time to start learning Mandarin
> Time to start learning Mandarin
Mandarin has been on the curriculum at my son's school for the past few years. Prescient planning imho.
Communist revolution put China behind, but they are realllly catching up fast.
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CT scans of BYD car components. BYD is fully vertically integrated at a level unseen since early 20th-century Ford.
Previous lumafield blog posts have been full of amazing graphics and knowledge.
But this one seems to be "state the obvious" and "recant political talking points with no new evidence".
This looks like a stealth advertisement for their CT scanning business. There is nothing educational of value for the general public here.
The only reason you would do this is for competitive analysis and I assure you the other car companies have already analyzed these parts.
Yes, that’s exactly what it is. On the other side of it though, so what, we get to look inside stuff with a cool scan. They’ve been doing these posts for several years now, and they’re all interesting.
The part where they highlight the rippling in the lithium battery was interesting. They mention it can accelerate degradation over time. It's unclear if this specific example is within tolerances, but I have seen in other CT scans how dramatic the lithium rippling can become.
But overall, yeah, this is mostly an advertisement. They have other videos on their YouTube where they scan random items.
I would say that there’s quite substantial value perhaps not to the general public but to the general HN user from their reports. I was very excited to see them have a public scan of an LFP battery because the previous scans they did of batteries were very informative on which brands to trust and the level of inconsistency that can exist. Their analysis of BYD’s battery design is very useful to someone who is looking to understand LFP and the levels of quality control necessary to have safe batteries. The reports are a bit of a “How it’s Made” but written for the target audience of engineers and has similar utility.
It's called content marketing, and there's nothing stealthy about it in particular.
There actually is a company who does this. full tear downs, of cars top to bottom. Interesting stuff
https://www.jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-company-that-tears-...