BYD is the primary battery supplier for most consumer electronics (you're iPhone is using a BYD battery for example)
Batteries are a low margin high skill industry. Battery makers in SK/JP/US/TW decided to go upmarket where margins are much higher and competitive moats stronger (due to R&D, IP, and/or procurement requirements)
[0] Probably $12500 with transportation, purchase tax etc
The decision would be made for them.
What we have done with subsiding expensive status symbols is so dumb but not shocking in the least.
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:750/format:webp/0*R013...
We accept that those are for-the-most part made in China, despite “funding a dictatorship”, because we realize that we can’t expect someone on median income to pay $3000 for a phone or $5000 for a laptop.
Much as I’d like it to be different, cars are also still critical to function in much of society. We want everyone in EVs ASAP.
Where would one get these good quality cheap EVs, even at some geopolitical cost..
You also made an error. Cars are essential. EVs are not the only type of car.
You do not understand the car industry. Giving them less competitive pressure will not increase car quality or lower sales price.
> ..and increasing density..
Increasing density during an already extreme housing crunch? Genius.
> ..and public transport.
I would love to see better public transport, but most voters are not ready to pony up the taxes for a public transit network that has enough fidelity to sufficiently replace cars.
> You also made an error. Cars are essential. EVs are not the only type of car.
Hydrogen is not happening, and staying with ICEs means screwing over the planet.
Subsidies and protectionism don't work the same way. Protectionism allows them to produce overpriced junk because the domestic market is required to buy it. Subsidies allow them to spend on R&D and build economies of scale which can result in sustainable competitiveness even after the subsidies are gone.
> Increasing density during an already extreme housing crunch? Genius.
How do you imagine housing supply is increased when substantially all of the existing lots already contain existing (mostly low density) housing?
> I would love to see better public transport, but most voters are not ready to pony up the taxes for a public transit network that has enough fidelity to sufficiently replace cars.
Higher density is a prerequisite for functioning public transport. Sending a mostly empty bus to the suburbs is basically useless.
> Hydrogen is not happening, and staying with ICEs means screwing over the planet.
The chances of converting 100% of new car sales to EVs overnight are zero. Meanwhile selling two 50MPG hybrids is about as good as selling one EV and one 25MPG SUV.
True, but so far most EV subsidies have been on the sales side, presumably for equality. Any manufacturer producing a vehicle ticking all the boxes will qualify that vehicle for a purchase subsidy.
> How do you imagine housing supply is increased when substantially all of the existing lots already contain existing (mostly low density) housing?
I am not saying we shouldn't increase density. I am saying that in the current housing crises we are already building as fast as we can given bureaucracy and construction capacity. This housing crisis has been one in the making for decades, it won't be sim-sala-bimmed away in a year or two. There is no "increase density" magic wand.
> The chances of converting 100% of new car sales to EVs overnight are zero. Meanwhile selling two 50MPG hybrids is about as good as selling one EV and one 25MPG SUV.
There are neither enough BEVs or PEVs to do that. But it is fairly certain we'll get to "full electric" a whole lot slower if we stifle the influx of cheap, high quality EVs.
Which is the fair way to do it. And then you have a sensible solution: Impose a tariff on products from countries that subsidize their domestic industries, then use the tariff revenue to create a tax credit for all products in that industry. Then you level the playing field while the other country pays for it.
> I am saying that in the current housing crises we are already building as fast as we can given bureaucracy and construction capacity. This housing crisis has been one in the making for decades, it won't be sim-sala-bimmed away in a year or two. There is no "increase density" magic wand.
There is no way to increase the housing stock by 200% over five days. There are many ways to make it happen faster or with lower costs, and get a significant increase over the course of e.g. five years. You do this by, for example, making it less time consuming to obtain professional licensing. Allow licensing through a written exam, like the engineers who design the stuff, instead of requiring long apprenticeships under now-scarce incumbents. Lower the licensing fees so more aspirants who don't currently have lucrative employment can get in. Publish free written study materials. You would have more tradespeople in a year or two and they'd start building more housing immediately thereafter.
Building more is also the only real solution and the only question is how long it takes. Taking longer is bad and speeding it up is not an impossible problem whose only solutions would violate the laws of physics.
> it is fairly certain we'll get to "full electric" a whole lot slower if we stifle the influx of cheap, high quality EVs.
You can thwart someone else's domestic subsidization attempt while still creating separate industry-wide incentives to make the transition happen faster.
Another good solution is a carbon tax which is 100% refunded to the population. Then it's revenue neutral but people who drive the most have the incentive to put their credit towards an EV and avoid the tax.
With the Russian gas dependence, shutting down supply meant industries would shut down and (with a freak winter) people might be unable to heat their homes.
If Chinese EVs become common in the EU market, it diminishes EU car manufacturing and then China does a rug pull and stops exporting to the EU.. American, Korean and Japanese EV manufacturers will fill the gap in marketshare, perhaps at a slight premium but still well below current EV prices. What horror.
And it isn’t like Volkswagen will roll over and die. They’ll just face market pressure to innovate and become more efficient.
I don’t like the direction China is headed either, but anyone with even an ounce of pragmaticness realizes that we still live in a world of global trade.
Also, the US is trading with China to the tune of $750 000+ billion a year. So, I guess they should cut off all that trade to stop funding their future adversary.. or perhaps it is not so simple?
> Oh yeah, the US is trading with China to the tune of $750 000+ billion a year. So, I guess they should cut off all that trade to stop funding their future adversary.. or perhaps it is not so simple.
Again literally just
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
The point is that we've made a mistake and we're in a pickle. We're dependent on our adversary and we should be looking to get out of that situation in a way that doesn't disadvantage ourselves further.
Are you just saying there's nothing that can be done? Just looking to change direction is a useful step.
That is not the thing I was giving a counterpoint to though. That was "EU trade is funding aggression against Taiwan" (with the implication that importing cheap EVs would increase the net inflow of capital).
> The point is that we've made a mistake and we're in a pickle. We're dependent on our adversary and we should be looking to get out of that situation in a way that doesn't disadvantage ourselves further.
> Are you just saying there's nothing that can be done? Just looking to change direction is a useful step.
But at least here, we aren't in a pickle. China has little leverage here, and they can't easily increase that leverage either.
Let me simplify my point: if China wants to massively subsidize the electrification of the EU's car population, why not let them? They won't reach global market dominance, and it both speeds up our electrification and saves our citizens' money. The only one's getting pinched are the shareholders of EU car companies.
I feel similarly about solar panels, even though China has achieved market dominance there. They cannot leverage their position there, because solar panels are not a prohibitively difficult product to set up a supply chain for, and the demand for them is somewhat elastic. It would slow down the closure of fossil power plants and maybe force a few old one's to reopen, but that's it. With EVs, buyers would just switch over to other brands and part of the global supply would get redirected as EU prices go up.
I worry much more about China's grip on rare metal processing and mid tier chip production. The rare metals go into "everything" hot right now, and everyone is so focused on high-end chip production that they're forgetting how many everyday products run on "low" density chips.
Yikes, there it is. All comes down to €. Why should current day greed be more important than the future?
> They won't reach global market dominance
Hmm, just like they didn't reach dominance in manufacturing? Sigh.
A couple years ago a comment like this would be [dead] in less than a couple minutes.
When someone says bullshit about mass manufacturing of cars, its hard to argue because we aren't mechanical engineers.
When someone says bullshit about running a website... guess what? Hacker News is full of programmers, venture capitalists, and website owners. Suddenly Elon Musk is speaking our language and what we see from Twitter is... uggghhhh....
Elon Musk hasn't changed much. All that's really happened is that he moved back into a proper technology discussion in a subject people around here are deeply familiar with. The standard levels of bullshit he spouts are insufficient when the audience here has a much deeper understanding of online advertisements, bots, user engagement, UI issues, and the like.
Designing something like Twitter isn't hard, and it used to be a pretty common design question that could be answered in 30 minutes or less. Instagram certainly doesn't need outside help to help scale stuff, let alone people specifically from Twitter.
This is not what I heard. I heard they hired up tons of prominent ex-Twitter.
>AFAICT, it was a frontend over a pared-down Instagram comment-system.
Do you use it? I do and it does not seem to operate that way. It is a more involved than that.
Yes they did rely on IG's infrastructure to help speed up development but this was a deliberate design choice and I don't blame them: They have this large asset of users and built up infrastructure, might as well use this advantage.
What's your basis on pretending to be the CEO? Considering the unparalleled success of Tesla/SpaceX vs any other competitor?
Both Tesla and SpaceX would be better off with almost anybody else on the planet at the helm.
Ditto SpaceX. If there was a viable competitor to SpaceX in the US it would have emerged in the last 15-20 years.
Market cap is one of the better ways to objectively classify companies, and Tesla has been continously doing extremely well. It has for years. Maybe you are smarter than the entire market.
> Both Tesla and SpaceX would be better off with almost anybody else on the planet at the helm.
Must be why all those other space companies not lead by Elon Musk are doing a lot better. Oh wait...
There are limited amounts of money that investors can offer, even in a country as rich as the USA.
If one lying company lies about their benchmarks, it prevents other companies from forming as one company sucks up the money. While the companies making realistic estimates fail to attract money.
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EDIT consider this: we got to the point where investors were spending on MoviePass, GameStop and such companies. Talking about realistic or useful models wasn't really in the works anymore.
That's not the case though. There are large, well funded incumbents that could have taken the approaches Tesla/SpaceX did, and they choose not to.
Their competition also hasn't been bought out. Both companies have made IP, tech, logistics, etc acquisitions, but iirc those have all been compliments, not competitors.
Edit - They've also sold parts of their acquisitions they didn't want, like selling Maxwell while keeping the DBE stuff.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/07/30/tesla-sells-maxwell-t...
SpaceX just lied about building the "Artemis" project and getting to the moon by....*checks notes*... 2025.
The problem is overpromising and underdelivering. There's no full-self-driving, there's no Artemis by 2025, etc. etc. Such lofty, unlikely goals not only attract money (government money, investor money, etc. etc.), they also suck out the oxygen for more legitimate technologies.
Everyone in the Industry knows no ones getting to the moon before 2028.
No other lander was suitable. You can see the modifications Blue Origin made post lobbying. And Dynetics.... If you truly believe that counted your entire comment is null and void
SpaceX would still be ahead. Artemis or not. You can go to Southern Florida and see for yourself
You can't just give yourself a pay-raise. Even if you're the largest shareholder, the controlling member of the board of directors, and CEO of a company.
If you accept the public's money, then the _other_ shareholders, even small minority stakes, have a say in the matter.
If you don't like the fact that Delaware looks out for smaller shareholders, you can I guess move out to other states or something. But for the most part, people accept the fact that public companies have rules that go above-and-beyond normal. Wanton acts of corporate corruption aren't tolerated in Delaware.
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The rule in play here is shareholder fiduciary duty. The Board of Directors failed to represent the needs of all of its shareholders like they are legally obligated to do. A large pay-bonus to a CEO who already controls a large stake in Tesla (who'd benefit from Tesla improving anyway) is obviously a bad move. No other CEO in history had such a large share-increase bonus.
In any case, looking out for the little guy is a deeply American value. We understand the problems associated with Tyranny of the Majority. If you want to fully own a company, then stay a private-business (like the Mars family), don't come begging to the public for public money.
you seem to have it backwards:
> Typically, the board chooses one of its members to be the chairman (often now called the "chair" or "chairperson")
Elon Musk, IIRC, was Chairman, Largest Shareholder, and CEO when the deal in question / contract was written.
Elon had a spat with SEC who removed him as chair, but Musk remained largest Shareholders and CEO after that.
So, yes, Chinese government give the same subsidies for Tesla. What does Chinese companies get in the USA? The most discriminatory and certainly illegal rule that is IRA under WTO. IRA subsides are barred legally from giving to companies, not just headquartered in China, but also any Chinese origin entity or any entity in the world that holds 25% more shares, and regardless where the product is made. And not just for end product, any materials, components made by Chinese entities or any entities in the world where Chinese entity holds 25% share regardless where it's made. Does your South Korean anode company board have a Chinese national and Chinese entity invested in your company? You are dead. For that Chinese board member, he/she is forced to resign, for the Chinese investment, is forced to be sold. It's the most discriminatory trade rule ever made. Then there is all the fearmongering, consistent witch hunt against Chinese origin companies and entrepreneurs by the government and congress. It's not even against a company anymore, it's against the entrepreneurs, the founders who got a Chinese name. Anything that has Chinese name in it, you get roasted, shamed, defamed, treated like cockroaches by people in congress. Right now, if you are Chinese person, want work on semiconductors, telecom, batteries, AI, mobile phone apps, internet, biotech, regardless where you are based, US government will defame you, wants everyone in the world to shun you off, to treat you like cockroaches. See what happened to tusimple, Zoom, G42.ai, or so many companies that I can't list here? On a tangent, Shou Chew was in congress and members of congress continued to shame his Singaporean nationality, not even aware Singaporean and Chinese are different. In China, Tesla and Elon Muskc got big publicity and essentially "encourage you to buy" message from the government. What does Chinese entrepreneurs get in the USA? I am using strong language, but this is the truth. No need to suger coat this.
And for Huawei, funny before the USA's witch hunt against Huawei, Chinese telecoms were buying from Ericsson, Nokia, Cisco en mass. And now god forbid we support our own companies when USA, and it coerces other countries to trying to just blatantly kill off Huawei, chop off its head. Huawei may sound like same name to you, but for us its 100K workers and families, who have kids to feed, grandparents to take care of. Then millions of people dependent on Huawei's supply chain, sales networks, service centers. It's one thing if a company doesn't innovate and got out competed in the market. It's totally another when a foreign government attacks the company with the goal of completely chopping its head off. Fair competition is fine, but only when the environment is fair. I am gladly buy an iphone if is better than huawei if they are on level playing field. But right now, I will gladly buy a mate 60 pro even if its weaker than iphone. Western media play up all Chinese people are super nationalistic blah blah. It's foreign governments that is attacking our people and families that is making people more nationalistic. US government has sanctioned more than 1000 Chinese entities, trade war, tech war, 10s of millions of people are directly or indirectly affected by US government. There is a joke on Chinese internet now that when US sanctions a Chinese company it's a stamp of approval. By the way, no one has accelerated Chinese domestic semiconductor supply chain faster than US sanctions. No one has promoted Chinese people to buy Chinese products better than foreign governments. Huawei essentially got a martyred brand image after the USA's treatment, the struggle to survive against all odds, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, the Independence Day story.