Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by pcurve | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

pcurve

Gotta start somewhere. No one is laughing at Chinese cars any anymore

View on HN

Mainly because they're nowhere to be found outside China?

You see them in some MENA with loose import laws. They’re ugly as sin but they’re the cheapest new cars you can buy.

They are rather popular in Russia, especially trucks. And their market share will only increase now.

Don't know where you are from but in the UK MG are outselling a whole bunch of the big car makers. I think possibly even the 3rd biggest by sales volume at the moment.

The age of the Chinese car is coming. I think in the transition to electric cars they are going to take a big chunk of the lower end of the market. I get a feeling this is why a lot of mid market brands like Mazda and Volvo are trying to push into the upper end of the market.

Cars like the MG4 are getting rave reviews for example.

Volvo is bought by the Chinese

Cheap shit outsells expensive stuff. News at 11

Japanese cars were cheap shit till they took over the world. Korean tv/devices were shit till they took over the world. Same is going to happen with China made stuff.

Were japanese cars cheap or did the oil crisis give them a foothold?

Both. The important thing is that in the beginning they were considered inferior to American cars in all relevant respects, so they were not taken seriously. The oil crisis happened to highlight one of their key strengths and accelerated their adoption. But it’s highly likely the same end result would’ve eventually happened anyway because the incumbent American automakers were unwilling/unable to respond to the threat for several decades.

Exactly, Korean cars, Taiwanese semiconductors, and Brazilian jets are also good examples. Seems like GP is not yet acquainted with Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation.

I drove both the ZS EV and MG4 and neither one felt like "cheap shit". In fact they felt more premium than some more expensive EVs - and you could see a lot of parts from VW, which shouldn't be surprising as VW is part owner of SAIC.

I leased a MG ZS EV recently and was quite surprised at the apparent quality. Sure there were some cheap-feeling bits like the glove box and panoramic roof shade, but generally it felt solid, felt we'll put together, and drove reasonably nicely (corners were not it's best bits, but otherwise pretty good)

The self driving features were utter shite though

OTOH the MG3 (1.5L ICE) is a piece of garbage. The engine vibrates/rattles like an old tractor. The 4 speed transmission revs like mad at the slightest incline before going up a gear and almost stalling the engine with the huge jump in gear ratio, and causing heaps of knocking until the engine crawls it way above 2.5k RPM only to do it again with the next gear.... The suspension was horrible again, much too soft making the whole car bounce up and down long after hitting pot holes (I'm taking seconds.) The interior quality was quality was okay for the price of car but definitely very plastic-y. Seats were like seats on LCC planes. Good thing it was only a rental.

The MG3 has absolutely nothing to do with the ZS EV and the MG4 though - it's based on an ancient platform that was made long before SAIC started putting money into MG and into their electrification. While I'm not surprised your experience with the MG3 was poor, I don't see how that's relevant to their current EV vehicles.

The one thing which made the MG4 feel cheap to me was the dash board. It looked to me like it was using programmer graphics, waiting on the design team to decide how to make it look nice. Mismatched icons and text sizes everywhere. Someone said shipit and they went to production.

Other than that it was a fun easy to drive little car.

> The age of the Chinese car is coming.

Globally, I'd say Japanese cars had a pretty good run.

However, they — Honda and Toyota atleast — seem to be hesitating with the EV transition. It's not like they don't have the engineering prowess.

Japanese engineering has always fascinated me. It seems to be both revolutionary and conservative at the same time.

Because good process design doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Like how Toyota was the only car maker able to keep going through the silicon shortage because they recognized the limits of lean manufacturing and that chips are not commodity items, as much as we like to think of them as one. So despite having everything that was a commodity as JIT lean manufacturing they still kept a massive stockpile on stuff that might become hard to source on hand.

TIL, thank you. A bit more about Toyota and silicon shortage: https://www.autoblog.com/2021/03/09/toyota-how-it-avoided-se...

There's a limit to what they could handle. They're hit by the shortage like everyone else now.

Polestar and MG are two very popular Chinese brands in Europe.

Isn’t Polestar a Volvo?

Volvo is owned by Geely.

Personally, I'm not sure those count as an example of China's design prowess, since those cars aren't designed in China.

I think that most conversations about where cars are designed or made aren't very clear cut with the _exception_ of a lot of Chinese brand cars, which is an interesting commentary in and of itself.

For example, Polestar cars are designed in Sweden on joint Swedish-Chinese engineered platforms and made in China.

Most vehicles are highly globalized like this until you get to the Chinese-market ones, which are designed (or "designed," depending), engineered, manufactured, and sold just in China.

The now public Volvo Cars is majority-owned by Geely. (Volvo Cars, not Volvo.)

Volvo makes trucks, buses and construction equipment. It's one of the largest manufacturers of heavy-duty trucks globally, including e.g. the Mack brand. Geely owns 8.2% of Volvo. I think it's still majority Swedish-owned, but I'm not certain.

They share the Volvo brand via a long-standing agreement.

And fascinatingly in China there's a construction machine manufacturer who uses the brand... Lovol.

Of course there is.

They should advertise their products as being quieter than the competition.

Also I would add that Geely really revitalised the Volvo car brand after Ford almost ran it into the ground. The Geely Volvos have a much clearer (and better looking IMO) design and are strongly pushing into the luxury market.

> I'm not sure those count as an example of China's design prowess, since those cars aren't designed in China

How about manufacturing prowess then? A number of Volvo/Polestar models are only made in China.

Design is far easier to outsource or hire lead designer from Germany/Switzerland/Italy while bootstrapping talent locally, compared to manufacturing. KIA went this route to good effect by hiring Peter Schreyer.

Polestar is a joint venture between Volvo (majority owned by Geely anyway) and Geely themselves. Their cars so far are indeed made in China, with a US manufacturing facility coming online soon.

I’m not sure if they share a platform with actual Volvos but yes Volvo owns the majority share, followed by Geely.

All Polestars are manufactured in China as opposed to other Volvo models, lots of which are still coming out of Sweden and Belgium if I’m not mistaking.

Polestar currently have production in China but will later also be produced at some Volvo factory in the US.

The Volvo XC40 EV is also currently made in China, in the same factories as the polestars. As far as I can, these are the only cars exported to the USA (other Volvos are made in Europe).

China sells some to Australia and other countries. You won’t see many of them in the USA due to huge tariffs (reciprocated by China), but any polestar you see was made in China (by Geely).

This is an extremely dated take on where Chinese cars are sold - you haven’t visited or paid attention to what is happening in the European auto industry recently. Xpeng, MG, Ora - lots of new Chinese car brands on sale across Europe, and often offering better electric car range for less money than say a VW ID 3. We just don’t see them in USA as politics and tarrifs have prevented it to a large extent.

If you are curious - tons of videos by British/European YouTubers reviewing Chinese cars on sale in Europe today.

Here’s a review of the Xpeng p7 by famous uk auto publication Autocar, as another example. On sale in Norway and several European countries:

> https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/xpeng/p7

The mg 4 on sale across Europe:

> https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/mg-motor/4-ev

The ora cat on sale across Europe:

> https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/ora/funky-cat

> polestar (Gheely, also on sale in U.S.A.)

Etc etc. there are a lot more coming too, and the traditional big European auto makers are extremely scared of competing at entry level with these brands who already offer more tech and range for less money on their entry level EVs. Just like the Koreans managed (KIA, Hyundai etc), these brands will eventually crack how to style for western audiences too. Polestar already has. The MG is extremely competitive especially at low price.

I've generally found most mainstream attitudes to China being a decade out of touch. There's still the perception that "China only makes cheap trash" when even a cursory glance at all the stuff in their house will show them that half the stuff is made in China, and that you can get practically any quality made in China - as long as you're willing to pay for it.

They are. The MG SUVs are sold here in Spain and they are selling like hotcakes. They look nice, they have every modern feature you need as standard equipment (apple carplay, dual-zone A/C), 5 star crash test, all for a laughably low price (13k EUR, cca. the same in USD). Every car that has the same equipment (and looks) cost at least double, or triple. I think they are using Spain as a test market and will expand soon.

There are tons of Chinese cars in South America and lots of Geelys in Brazil. I've being seeing electric JACs lately.

I've also been recently to Uruguay and saw lots of gas BYDs, which quite surprised me, because I thought they only made electric vehicles.

Not? They are still laughing at Tesla

That's because Tesla is a company that advertises itself as saving the world, curing cancer, crafting a backup plan for humanity...

Then you see the thing and it's ugly as sin outside, you get inside and it's cheap and empty with an iPad sticked there to save money on components.

The richest country on Earth can't possibly have that as their flagship car brand. China however considering where they were just 15 years ago, you look at a 2022 Geely and it feels like it's attacking the Japanese brands positioning and by the end of the decade they could take on the Germans. They will never be able to attack the Italians but Ferrari and Lamborghini are special and nobody can touch them anyway.

Lamborghini is German through and through now. VW owns them.

> Lamborghini is German through and through now

Just because VW has a controlling stake in Lamborghini doesn't make Wolfsburg the capital of supercar design. For a whole bunch of reasons, mostly cultural, it will always be that triangle between Florence, Milan and Turin.

Foxxcon might become big enough to buy Apple one day. Still if you were to visit the 2 HQs, and the 2 cities you'd understand where the devices are designed, regardless of the cap table and who owns who

Wolfsburg? Doubt it. But Ingolstadt? A bit more likely. The Audi R8 shared quite a bit with one of the Lamborghini models (can't remember the name).

And don't forget the SUVs

I don't know, when I look at an R8 I can sense that it was designed in Germany, whereas if I look at a Lamborghini Aventador it's clear it was designed in Italy.

The new Corvette C8 feels like it comes from Italy as well. In fact the Corvette has been Ferrari-zed both in external design as well as engine positioning

Stylings and interior obviously differ, but R8 has long shared engines, drive trains, and chasis with Lambos. Engine is from Lambo, but I believe the drive train might be Audi-first?

Design is the most important thing for a supercar.

The Ferrari 250 GTO is getting smoked by Hyundais and Subarus nowadays.

Of course once you are done showing off you have the small inconvenience that you have to drop down and look at your car near the 250GTO.

Same thing for Teslas

Where does Tesla advertise itself at all?

Via the loudmouth of the fraudster at the helm

They're building Teslas in China. Almost all Teslas sold in Europe come from China, because they're of a much better build quality than US-built Teslas.

The ones from the Brandenburg fab sure are.

Really? When did we stop?

Check out Polestar. Also a Geely brand, as it happens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polestar

Polestar is still Volvo-style engineering. On the other hand, most Chinese-style engineered cars are pretty shite (Geely, GAC, Hong Qi, etc).

Edit:- shite, not white

Polestar cars are designed (at a component level) in Gothenburg, Sweden and manufactured in Chengdu, China.

Maybe you haven't seen the newer cars like the Zeekr 001 which is amazing (Zeekr is one of Geely's sub brands). Nio ET5, Xpeng P5, BYD Seal, are also very attractive cars aimed squarely at Tesla.

I had a polestar v60, sir, and that thing is no Polestar.

I had a Volvo V90 with the Polestar software upgrade, and I’d say we are both fortunate. It became much more driveable with extra power in all the modes. Perhaps Volvo would have sold more units if it was standard instead of $1500, but at least it wasn’t a monthly subscription.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com