and logistics -- outside of big coastal cities its a lot harder to move them inland in bulk.

Thanks, my mistake! I did misread it as China having a surplus of EV cars instead of ICE cars. Either way Africa is a tough market. But I think my point about a stable electric grid as a prerequisite for EV take-up still stands.

As I understand it, the BYD hybrids have an ICE engine as an afterthought, and the battery is the primary energy source.

In contrast, most plug in hybrids in the US assume you’ll regularly turn the engine on in normal operation.

When you think about it the distinction is meaningless.

Because all that matters is profit right, not moving people to EVs

> Tesla is Apple and BYD is like One Plus (bad analogy because One Plus doesn't sell many cars)

Yeah, it's a very bad analogy, nobody on budget buys a OnePlus 11. A One Plus 11 is 1- just slightly cheaper than an iPhone 14 and 2- is technically on par https://www.makeuseof.com/oneplus-11-vs-iphone-14-plus/ - almost a counter example ironically

You can't compare Tesla profit with other car manufacturers. The numbers are not calculated the same way. If you take your Volkswagen to have something fixed within the warranty period, then the cost of repair is taken from the warranty repair pool associated with that model/year configuration, lowering the profit per sold car.

If you take a Tesla in for repair, they'll most of the time do a goodwill repair which doesn't come out of the warranty pool, and therefore doesn't affect profit per car.

They work out to the same number in the end, but per car profitability looks better for Tesla when trying to attract suck... outside investment.

>so how much it matters is debatable

What definition of 'matters' are you using?

They're producing more cars, still making a profit.

I work for a company that isn't the absolute most profitable per unit. My investments are full of companies that aren't absolutely the most profitable per unit.

Internal combustion engine uses only about 30-40% of the energy in gasoline, because it can't make use of the majority of the energy wasted as heat. Stationary power plants can use that heat.

Electricity transfer, battery charging, and electric motors are all over 90% efficient, with overall "well to wheel" efficiency around 80%.

Very wrong. I do hope they reach this level of consumption. But don't do it by relaying on cars as a primary means of transport. The car market should stay small even as the economy grows.

This can be achieved by systematically ban cars from cities. By investing far more into trains then into highways. By having good public transit even to remote places. And by encouraging small vehicles when necessary.