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Comment by Etheryte | Hacker News Reader

This is a stat that people keep bringing up while completely ignoring the fact that many of BYD's vehicles are not marketable outside of China because they're just rip-offs of other manufacturers' vehicles. See BYD S8 [0] and Mercedes-Benz CLK-Class [1] for one example, but there are numerous. This should tell you everything you need to know about this company.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_S8

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_CLK-Class

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You are choosing an example from more than a decade ago, at a time when not even Chinese people chose BYD vehicles. To wit the S8 sold 103 units. Things have changed. You are ignoring the fact that plenty of BYD's vehicles are already marketed and sold in Europe, other Asian countries, and Australia.

I just rode a BYD taxi (Uber) in Mexico city, I believe it was the BYD D1. Super comfortable, tons of leg space, minivan-style door. The driver claimed that after 100K kms the range was still within 1% of baseline.

In Austria, they have begun winning contracts with public agencies. Their offering is just good, not least due to their top notch battery tech.

Their marketing in Sweden is big: https://bydauto.se/

They claim to be the world's biggest manufacturer of "battery charging" (electric and hybrid I suppose) vehicles.

They look like high end vehicles and I've seen them around often... but never drove one so can't really comment on quality.

Extremely anecdotally, I saw their vehicles on display at a mall in Costa Rica.

I see a few BYD in New Zealand - was outselling model Y last year: https://thedriven.io/2023/06/09/byd-tops-nz-electric-sales-i... although numbers might be misleading: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38894690

NZ mostly buys second hand vehicles from Japan, so new vehicle sales numbers are low.

I have seen a few on the road in Costa Rica as well. There are not a lot of electric cars on the roads down there despite the tax incentives because they are too expensive for the average Tico. You also seen a decent number of Cherry, Geely, Great Wall and JAC on the road down there as well...among other Chinese makes.

They have a dealership where I live in a southern Japanese city now. Seems like a very bold move, Japan must be a very difficult market for a Chinese brand...

I'm visiting Australia now and you see lots of Great Wall trucks

The design can change as long as the tech inside is legal to sell elsewhere and does the job. I'd say the design is anyway the first to change because tastes may differ between continents (even between US and Europe).

The example you gave is for a 15 year old car where only 100 were produced and Mercedes couldn't have been too upset since they signed a partnership with BYD that year. Around the same time Tesla was selling Lotus Roadsters. In the meantime obviously neither still needs to do that. BYD will sell outside of China whatever they are legally allowed to sell on top of the growing sales they have inside China.

> This should tell you everything you need to know about this company.

If you're too focused on how they did business 15 years ago you might miss that they're passing by you today. Does Musk tell you everything you need to know about Tesla? Millions are still buying. If you don't buy BYD it won't be because they were copying the megastars of the time decades ago.

I'm not a fan of Chinese business practices but a lot of big companies everywhere started by copying more established competing products.

> In 2009 the car sold in 96 units, and only seven cars were sold in the full 2010 fiscal year. Production has now ceased. In all, the car sold in only 103 units

This is like saying we should ignore Tesla because the only car they sold in 2009 was a rip-off Lotus.

Speaking as an American, I'd love to see what the presence of low-end (say, $10k range) autos would do to traffic laws and city planning.

> This is like saying we should ignore Tesla because the only car they sold in 2009 was a rip-off Lotus.

No it's not like saying that. Lotus had a deal with Tesla.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/lotus-position

That’s right, I didn’t mean to imply theft of any kind. I’m mostly pointing out that both companies sort of outsourced the body design (BYD in a more questionable way) as they figured out how to grow. Both companies were quite small production-wise in 2009 and are very different today.

BYD also had a deal with Mercedes, for a brand called Denza, in the following year.

> that many of BYD's vehicles are not marketable outside of China

Yet, it seems like they're beating a lot of other EV makers across the world, and are producing top-selling vehicles in a bunch of countries. So seems it's somewhat working outside of China? Or I misunderstand what you mean.

The price outside china is very different. In Colombia for example their 10k car is 150,000,000 cop or about 35k.

This might have to do with Columbian import tariffs, it might also not be exactly the same car.

Hyundai’s early designs could charitably be called “derivative,” too. Even the early Japanese cars aped existing design languages.

I am not sure it is such a big deal to have a car that looks like a competitor.

Ford used to advertise Ford Granada that looks like a new Cadillac and costs less. [1]

[1] https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/AdwAAOSw~Chg93LK/s-l1600.jpg

That is a 2006 car and BYD is gaining market in Europe, Middle East and SEA also.

BYD is very marketable here in Brazil, and the sales are rising like crazy...

I think if they make a good product it should always be possible to hire a designer to make their cars look good without industrial design infringements.

Why does it matter if it’s a rip off or not? If a design is good why not reuse?

Because it demonstrates a theft of tech and design, which puts their credibility and integrity in question. Is the derivative safe (actually safe, not government-of-China wanting a feather in its cap rubber-stamp safe)? Is the derivative actually comparable (i.e. is the marketing a lie)? Aside from that, do we want to reward companies that steal other companies' ideas?

Please do tell me a company that has released something that is independently invented in its entirety with respect to “tech and design”

Such a ridiculous take on a technology forum.

It’s a waste of human energy to reinvent the wheel. Not to mention the example given earlier is irrelevant since it’s no longer in production anyway.

Please stop moving the goalposts. Iterating on the past is different from thieving entire designs, and you know it.

There is more to design than its surface appearance, and the car described earlier uses an entirely different drivetrain than the Mercedes…

I swear the stupidest takes on this forum called “hacker news”. Hackers who usually reuse the same exploit “tech and design”, lol…

> See BYD S8 [0] and Mercedes-Benz CLK-Class [1] for one example

I was thinking "come on, how similar can they be, the CLK has a really distinctive design", but nope, identical. Wow.

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