BYD launches cheaper Seagull EV with $9,700 starting price tag
electrek.co
electrek.co
They say the BYD dolphin is $13,500, but the on the road price of the Dolphin in the UK appears to be £25,000/~$32,000
I guess they are pricing for the market, but if they sold these cars for the ~£11,000 (Dolphin) or ~£7,500 (Seagull) they say they are selling for, it would sell like hot cakes. Sure there are some taxes and stuff, but that can't account for a 250-300% increase.
As it is at that higher price, no one is going to take a chance on an unknown (for the UK) brand when they can get an equivalent model from a brand they are familiar with (e.g. Dacia, MG (even if MG is Chinese, people recognise the brand)). Amazon has ruined it for these Chinese competitors (i.e. weird unheard of usually random ALLCAPS brands e.g. BYD, ALOOPTI, DFFUTRI etc etc from Amazon being absolute trash).
I drove a MG ZS EV for a month or two and it was actually pretty good so it is a shame that the reputation for cheap low-quality trash is so pervasive.
Australia has a long history of brand snobbery when it comes to car manufacturers. Most new entrants into the Australian market don’t make it long term.
Cars will remain a mode of transportation simply because there is a huge professional driver shortage.
One thing most forget: Travel and transportation that is car-focused ignores those who can't yet/anymore operate a car. Better public transport allows you granny to travel easier as well as your children.
You can't persuade people using money, at least not the kind of money cities can afford, as there are plenty of equally paid, less stressful and more interesting things to do with your life.
In my city of 600k inhabitants there's a shortage of around 100 drivers - and that's just to service the lines that are currently operating. That's approximately 80k people not having their transportation needs met.
The city is also cripplingly congested, but that's expected when you can't rely on public transportation.
We need a solution that doesn't rely on demographics like they were in the 60s or even 80s.
China meanwhile, is trying its hardest to remove its dependency on foreign oil.
Europe’s incentives are more aligned with China’s.
So if Europe decides to prevent Chinese EVs from coming into the market, China would do the same for European cars. This is why Chinese EVs are prioritizing Europe over US as a market. Plus the aforementioned fact that Europe wants to move off oil faster than US wants to.
China is lifting all foreign investment restrictions in all its manufacturing sector this year[0][1].
[0] https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/china-to-remove-all-restri... [1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3254259/c...
Dependency on foreign oil is obviously one reason, but let's don't miss the big picture here
China is trying its hardest in all sectors, everything. With over 1 billion people that are just dead poor, there is no choice but to compete the hardest with everyone on everything. Semiconductor, ev, 5G, bio tech, AI, ship building, high speed rail, internet, solar panel etc, the list goes on and on.
Is there anything China is not trying its best to compete?
But in the grand scheme of things, the Chinese just want to secure their future and finances, just like anyone else.
There is no way for China to be energy independent. The choice is really just choosing importing what kind of energy from which countries.
Imported energy is not a bad thing. It is actually a great way to balance trade. You can't expect the Chinese economy to run a trade surplus like hundreds of billions $ each year with the US and EU. Buying US natural gas is pretty good as long as you have a solid reliable alternative plan, e.g. Russian energy.
ICE car sales requirements are going up drastically this year, meaning most new sales could be EV within 5 years, and they could sell EVs at such scale after that that a ban on gas cars in cities would convert the rest of the fleet in another 5-10 years.
Once you have cheap, abundant energy all the industrial segments are highly motivated to switch.
No, China will not want that.
Being the largest oil importer from the highly unstable middle east provides an unique opportunity to get involved in the regional affairs. Stop buying middle east oil is like giving up the support from a huge chunk of developing countries. Let's call it suicidal.
US oil/lng imports from MENA down to ~1/3 of peak. IIRC below PRC current imports which exceed record US highs. Meanwhile US is now net fossil exporter and direct competitor. Same with PRC EV/green exports will be antagonistic to medium/long MENA fossil/lng exporters interests. Being current/historic best customer, how much energy does PRC have to import to get MENA to swap US military bases with PRC ones? And for how long? My guess is too much and for too long. PRC enduring interests in MENA is for energy security anyway, once that's gone, their essential interests will dissapate, much like it has with US trying to move from CENTCOM to Indopac post shale/lng independance.
But realistically, PRC will be dependant on imported fossil for industrial inputs for a while, the important goal is to wean off strategic sectors like transportation 7/14millionbarrels and use domestic oil of 4mb for mainly industry, with 3-4mb gap filled by imports - i.e. energy security/independance goals is changing energy mix to 7mb per day, 4mb domestic, 3-4mb imports vs current 10mb imports out of 14mb consumption. That gap of 4m is still large enough to influence select exporters strategically if targetted instead of current 10m distributed imports. But medium/long term that's a bribe for RU cooperation.
Like if PRC really wanted to gain influence with MENA, they'd start a TW war and escalate to hitting US oil and lng plants and disrupt US exports to put MENA fossil export back on top. Many would also call that suicidal. Long term PRC best to learn from US and avoid MENA drama and sell EVs / electric / renewable infra to rest of world.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-set...
Huawei's net gear is alread being replaced with brands like Nokia and Ericsson. And car tech is becoming much more advanced so that it can also be used to spy on people.
So the tech is there. And then it comes to trust. Will they not send data when they sell cars outside China?
Cooperating with this evil is like driving into a brick wall to demonstrate how much freedom you have.
Every American has been fed so much propaganda that they see this as good vs evil fight.
Meanwhile, when I visited China, people there only saw this as a political fight. A theater for economical gains. That's it.
But in order to sell the American public on their actions, politicians have to demonize their foreign opponents in every way possible - often portraying them as "evil".
Mainland China is still cut off from knowing a big chunk of human thought. Realism - the school of thought you're describing - is the Marxist mode in a place you can't vocally disagree without serious consequences. No wonder it's what you heard.
We have an almost negligible amount of oil, very far from covering our own consumption. We are very reliant on imports. It should have been our utmost interest, not now but already a decade or so ago, to tell our car industry to wake up once and for all and electrify. Instead, they doubled down on ICEs. Every day we have news in major newspapers, I suppose subsidized by Stellantis and Volkswagen, dwelling on how much EVs suck (full of fallacies like they will always be expensive, they actually emit more CO2 than ICEs if you consider manufacturing, sales are going down in X country - when actually it's invariably the first or even second derivative which goes down -, etc.) - it's pathetic.
We have rampant inflation (to a large extent, precisely due to reliance in fossil fuel imports and the stop of inflows from Russia). People complain that even the lowest-end ICE cars have gone to €20K while anything more or less considered midrange is €30K, when only a decade ago sub-€10K cars and midrange €15K cars were a thing. European ICE cars are ridiculously uncompetitive so most people who want an EV and have the money buy a Tesla.
And the response when someone wants to bring cars at the prices people want is to slap large tariffs... hell, I'm far from a free-market believer and I generally support tariffs as a way to support local industry and avoid external dependence, but this must be the paradigmatic example where they are a bad idea, with our industry only wanting to cling to ICE and being patted in the back for it. What do they want the EU to become, a country stuck in the past where you can see a fleet of cars from decades ago, like Cuba? Do they think it can even work? It's not only China, when Tesla releases the Model 2 it will be game over for the EU car industry anyway.
They are already very late, any measure that doesn't focus on "Electrify. Yesterday" will only deepen an already dire situation.
There is no conspiracy here (in my opinion) or attempt to flood the global market; but rather a giant internal economy (that most people ignored because China is kinda enclosed in its own bubble) is now getting exposed and it's showing how far China has come.
Another one is rails: China makes a lot of rails. A shit-ton but since these can't be sold to consumers, China created the "belt and road" thingy so that they can export their production.
China has a lot of excess capacity. They can out build the West, the developing world and India. They were just busy building inside but now that they need new export markets and have mostly finished building inside, they are looking outward.
The next few years will be interesting.
They're dumping on external markets. Tariffs will put a stop to this.
We'll likely want tariffs if we want to give our domestic auto manufacturers time to adapt. And domestic automotive industry is important to maintaining a manufacturing base for defensive purposes during wartime.
> They were just busy building inside but now that they need new export markets and have mostly finished building inside, they are looking outward.
Their domestic market is saturated and experiencing economic headwinds.
They're looking for external buyers because their internal economy has slowed. There wasn't enough real domestic consumption to prop it all up.
> They can out build the West, the developing world and India.
For a while. India, Mexico, Vietnam, et al. are ramping up.
Patrick Boyle has a fantastic essay on this:
> Europe levies a duty of 10% on cars imported from China. That compares with duty of 27.5% in the United States, and China's manufacturers have taken advantage to carve out a significant and rapidly growing foothold in the European
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/13/cars/europe-china-electric-ca....
Of course, Europe is more than just the EU. And I don’t think the EU will shy away from protectionism, since China does the same. But in that case I’m sure BYD will just open up a factory in one of the cheaper EU countries (if they haven’t started that already).
Yes, already happening in Hungary.
https://www.byd.com/eu/news-list/BYD_to_Build_A_New_Energy_P...
Also known as "<Country> First" policy, wasn't too long ago (and presumably still is) that such policies were/are heresy.
Note, I agree with protecting domestic economies; I am all for America First, Japan First, UK First, France First, et al.. I'm just amused the same people who screamed "Orange Man Bad" turn on their heels to advocate the same policy just under different words.
Regarding cars specifically, which group do you think is bigger: car buyers that would get a $20,000 gift from the Chinese taxpayer (and likely spend those savings in the domestic economy) or people employed in car manufacturing?
China is hitting that demographic cliff much quickly than Japan did, so I wonder what that will mean in a decade or two. Maybe they will turn more attention to robots next.
Given that they've only 1 year something ago emerged from COVID-related restrictions, a shift to an export-focused strategy would require substantial time and effort in research, planning, and marketing to become competitive internationally. While BYD, as one of the earliest players in the EV market and with existing facilities in Mexico and the U.S., may be a step ahead, I believe they're just at the initial stages of exploring overseas opportunities. The EV market competition is likely to intensify in the coming years, but it's still early days for Chinese EV makers in the global arena.
The USA exports $50b of cars but imports $150b of cars, you can’t call it a net exporter.
I didn't say US net exporters, I said some US auto companies in segments RoW demands makes significant % of revenue from export market. Which will likely be same for PRC - most producers / models will stay domestic. The few that ventures abroad for export share has no reason not to aim high. In that context 10% is not excess capacity, it's just the beginning.
I don't think it'll matter as much as people think. They still have high unemployment and a relatively high rural population. They still have lots of excess human capital to draw from.
In terms of what rails transport can process versus container ships, it's barely useful.
They downsized one road one belt loans to a minimum last years. Most likely because countries can't afford those predatory % ( the details are also not open).
The years that China had "interesting" growth are over. Perhaps EV's, who knows.
Plane: very small load, fast ( 1 day)
Train : small load, slow ( 2 weeks), obstructing regular traffic for long trains
Containers: huge load, slow ( 1 month)
The world is a bigger market.
They now have a competitive advantage in EVs. Of course they want to export.
Its really an awful piece of branding