Why China's electric car industry is leaving Detroit, Japan, Germany in the dust
technologyreview.com
technologyreview.com
But this article is vapid click bait with nothing backing up its headline. The manufacturing of cheap junk that doesn't meet safety or reliability standards and stealing IP to bypass research and development is hardly leaving established car companies in the dust.
"Cheap junk" is what we said about Japanese cars in the 1970's. Chinese companies can develop the important EV technology then increase reliability, safety, etc when it comes time to export.
In the meantime, I think they are racing towards EV's to address the pollution in large cities and reduce imported oil.
Going from your first sentence (which is correct) to the second is... not trivial. I mean, clearly you have proof it's not impossible, but there's a lot of really difficult work between the two. For that matter, I think that it was easier for Japan than it will be for China, just 'cause the American car companies of the '70s were focusing on 'big and loud' and not putting a lot of effort into what a fan of Japanese cars would call 'quality' or safety, reliability or price.
I think established automotive companies are doing a much better job now, and that it's going to be really difficult to beat them on anything but the last criteria, and I think that even just winning the last criteria without sacrificing too much of the first three will be a challenge. (certainly not impossible; in fact I bet they will get it eventually. I'm just saying, this is a decidedly non-trivial undertaking)
But... I've been hearing about efforts to bring a fully Chinese car to the US market since the '90s. I mean, sure, it'll happen eventually, but having heard it so many times makes it hard for me to take any new pronouncements seriously. Clearly, there is something difficult involved
But the possibility doesn't imply the inevitability, and I still ultimately agree with your conclusion. I also have been hearing about Chinese cars for about 2 decades now, but I haven't yet seen a serious effort to build quality cars that are suitable for the US market.
You have to look at overall trends. 25 years ago China manufactured hardly anything exportable to the West. So like Japan before it it started at the bottom of manufacturing and since then has been steadily moving up the value chain.
Now the government has a goal of first switching to EV's internally and then making them good enough to sell to the West. There is no reason to believe they will not be able to succeed.
You know, you are making the same mistake that Detroit and US manufacturers of all sorts of goods made when the Japanese first showed up, namely that they would never be able to match American skill. But they did, and countless US companies either went out of business or moved their manufacturing to China.
Nearly every non-Chinese transit agency that has purchased a Chinese-built mass transit EV has either severely downgraded their orders or cancelled them outright due to the abysmal quality of the vehicles. In states like CA, the vehicles are so unreliable they would be classified as lemons if purchased by consumers...
(And for those who don't believe me, read up on the 2 Canadians who were disappeared last week for non-crimes as a result of Canada-Chinese tensions.)
Link? And does that go for transit companies outside the US? And for all the different Chinese bus companies, not just BYD? And what are the quality trends? Given the Chinese companies are competing with each other, I would expect quality to go up over time.
Over the two years I noticed that it didn't hold up as well as I would have expected: The power windows quit in the down position. It ate batteries. The engine accessories weren't engineered by anyone who had ever owned a car before (belt tension was a single bolt rather than an adjustable idler arm).
I'd probably buy one again, but not as my only car, and with the understanding that I'd be putting a lot of effort into maintaining it.
Your experience sounds absolutely terrible and I’m not sure why you’d buy another. The most basic Honda or a little French/Italian car would surely do. The Germans cars command a premium.
'The race to mine the deep sea’s riches '
Citation needed. Any datapoint to back up the claim that transport cost is very relevant?
I think there's a popular conception that it should be cheaper. Just like if I use oil in Saudi Arabia it should be cheaper. But if I live in Saudi Arabia and I've got a bunch of oil to sell how much should I charge for it? Should I charge non-Saudi's the same?
There's an assumption that the answer to the second question is "no". I don't think that's how it works.
I don’t think this is far from decided.