Comment by reacharavindh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reacharavindh | Hacker News Reader

The article is very light on actual useful technical information, and just tries to sing blind praises to that one guy who politically helped China think about electric vehicles.

It is good for the world that growing china uses new electric vehicles instead of gas guzzlers. But, the article fails to corroborate how the Chinese would be able to even compete in the global market. True, the Chinese already has the Chinese market. Considering the way their government works, that's a easy act.

Comparing indigenously built electric vehicles from China with globally acclaimed engineering prowess of Tesla is just silly at this point.

Are the Chinese cars superior to a Tesla in any way? (No details)

Are they better quality than Tesla in any way? (personally, I would be very skeptical)

Are they safer? Teslas keep scoring the best in crash tests. I can't find any data on Chinese cars..

When they start competing genuinely on technology, perhaps they may warrant a serious comparison. Not now. They don't deserve it.

We used to laugh at “Made in Japan.” Then they became really good at consumer hardware (cameras, music, cars, TVs). China manufactures some of the most sophisticated hardware in the world (smartphones, tablets etc). They do learn and iterate fast.

The one thing that makes me wonder if they can make really good electric cars is the software side. Japan fell from the throne in consumer entertainment hardware as they didn’t do software well. They still don’t. I think electric cars is a lot about software and batteries. Can China do really reliable, trustworthy, user friendly software? Without it I predict their cars will struggle.

For a more recent example, products made in Korea were considered cheap and low quality through the 1990s. Then Lucky-Goldstar became LG, and Hyundai introduced the ten year powertrain warranty.

>Can China do really reliable, trustworthy, user friendly software?

You should try WeChat, the most popular Chinese chat application. Apart from the legally-mandated spying, it's super user-friendly, and quite lightweight compared to the likes of MSN Messenger, Skype, Facebook messenger and Slack (uses only 10s of MBs of ram).

The kind of software the parent was alluding to is the type that tightly integrates with hardware. It's an order of magnitude more difficult to pull off, since the two must work well together in concert.

You're comparing it to old junk. Whatsapp is far superior to FB Messenger. Discord is far superior to Skype, etc.

Does Whatsapp even have a desktop client? It didn't last time I checked. And Slack isn't "old" junk.

They have space program and airplane development one so they probably have the rtos capacity.

On the other hand I would probably pay more for dumber tesla. Not connected, not self driving etc etc. Cars are too full of software. I don't want Playstation on wheels.

> Japan fell from the throne in consumer entertainment hardware as they didn’t do software well. They still don’t.

I've found this to be strange. Japan has produced some of the best video games over the years, especially in the early days of the industry. Games are some of the most complex pieces of software to create, with their extensive math and real-time requirements. It's never made sense to me how they didn't come to conquer the software industry in general.

I used to assume there's a whole world of quality Japanese software that never made it to the USA for lack of internationalization or something. But nowadays with everything open source, I can't point out any particularly visible/noteworthy Japanese projects or developers.

It's odd.

Apparently a huge contributor was the complexity of their written language.

English can be easily typed with a keyboard and stored in a 7 bit character. This meant the early computers could still store a reasonable amount of English, and were accessible to people straight away.

Kanji on the other hand is exceedingly complex. Computers had to get much more powerful before the systems which allowed typing and reading it worked well. The barrier for entry was therefore much higher for the average person.

developers in the Japanese market therefore focused on the areas of computing which didn't require written language - video games.

If you want to have a car with any power to weight ratio you desire, and have unlimited budget - Teslas shine there.

But for commuter boxes on wheels, I see no competitor coming anywhere near to BYD-Donfeng budget EV duopoly

Guess what? Other countries make things that are better quality, safer, superior to Chinese products.

However, the Chinese alternatives are cheaper, and in most markets that’s all that matters.

They just need to make a “good enough” electric car that’s cheap, and they’re all set.

>Are the Chinese cars superior to a Tesla in any way? (No details)

You could question if it is accurate for sure, but from this comment it appears that you have not even read the very first paragraph of the article.

Dont know what gave you that impression. I read the whole article. Here are the first paragraphs you refer to. Where does it tell the chinese cars are in any way superior to Tesla technically?

"At this year’s Beijing Auto Show, a retired Chinese bureaucrat bent down to run his hands over the hood of a sleek sports coupe billed as the world’s fastest battery-powered car, and he smiled like a proud father.

In a way, that’s exactly what he was. Two decades earlier, Wan Gang persuaded China’s State Council to throw its vast power behind the risky, unproven technology of electric cars. He advocated using government money, including subsidies, to help create a world champion industry that would surpass Western automakers. That coupe he was admiring at the April auto show? It was built by homegrown NIO Inc.

Elon Musk made a name for himself promoting new-energy vehicles, but when the history of the electric car is finally written, Wan may loom larger. Chinese drivers buy one of every two EVs sold, and the global auto industry is pivoting to adjust. It’s a revolution fomented by Wan, a former minister of science and technology whose achievements are even more extraordinary when you consider that he never joined the Chinese Communist Party. "

Hang on, just checking one thing so that I don't think either of us is going mad. Are you including the roadster that was sent into space as still being a battery powered car by any chance?

The article is reminiscent of propaganda pieces I recall reading in mid-80s in USSR newspapers about the supremacy of the communist system of governance. Not claiming that it is, in fact, propaganda, but the similarity is uncanny.

FWITW: I sincerely hope that China's EV industry rises to world level of engineering, safety, and all other things attendant to that. Preferably with with knowledge and expertise not borne from forced IP transfers and other shady/nefarious things. L

Well, the primary point - that he was not a party member, is barely relevant now. Xi has completely reversed all advances towards civil governance of Jiang-Hu period.

It is best to say, that now that picture being presented to the reader is the future that China has lost with coming of Xi, the revisionist clique, and other back-from-the-dead political fossils.

Hrmmm. Fair points. So, to make sure I understand you, you argue that the article is a "this could have been so much more/better/buckets-of-awesome if it wasn't for the stifling effects if the current ruling apparatus"? (I paraphrase woth the sole goal of to making sure I understood correctly)

true

And would it last

Who knows, unless somebody will forcefully push Xi and his groupies out of power, I don't see them losing power in any "natural" way. I also don't see anybody inside the party who simply have that type of character needed for political knife fighting. No such people left.

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