Chinese EV called the Seagull poses a threat to the US auto industry | Hacker News Reader

Chinese EV called the Seagull poses a threat to the US auto industry

apnews.com

22 pointsgeox31 comments

Must be nice to be a US autoworker. Almost no US industry gets similar protections. Certainly my job isn’t protected in the same way. And yet, a base Corolla runs more than $27k out the door, and I have no choice but to buy these over prices ICE vehicles.

Could restructure your life to not need a car. Or buy a $12000 used Nissan Leaf. Or take the bus.

Zero buses where I live, chief.

Not my problem, bro.

If you don't care about others, don't be surprised that others don't care about you, throwaway.

Hey, I'm a throwaway too. It's just I'm too lazy to save an hn password in a password manager. Cyberdisinhibitionism is real and noxious. I guess it's the price we pay for open forums, but I do wonder what the internet would be like without pseudonyms requiring verified, real, public identification with photograph,(without the threat of government retaliation or censorship). Would "pretty" people, celebrities, the rich, and men dominate discussions?

Almost none, true, but Boeing is definitely on that small list.

Oh and auto dealerships. Really the whole automotive industry given how much we spend on road infra. Also we give absurd amount of subsidies to the oil & gas industry.

Oh yeah, tax preparation too. Really we could go on.

Man, you never hear companies complaining about these kinds of economic regulations...

We buy used recent Corollas (4-5 years) at around $25-30k in my country. If it’s cheaper than that, it’s probably a salvaged vehicle or it a stolen vehicle from Canada or something. New Corollas cost around $40-50k.

The Chinese vehicles are now replacing those used cars. They cost $20-25k new and come with all the bells and whistles you wouldn’t get from Toyota. They are also assembled locally so, supports and parts are not a problem.

I purchased a hybrid Carolla for 24k 2 months ago, with features. I think you’re exaggerating a little. It came default with lane centering and Apple auto. For 24k for a car that can al slot drive itself, I felt like it was a screaming deal compared to any electric or ice car I could buy lol.

Sticker price, Corolla SE, with tax, title, and registration is around $27k. Maybe it can be negotiated down.

I do believe farmers (esp. cattle farmers) are almost fully subsidized by the government and can’t fail.

> Almost no US industry gets similar protections.

While that's true, few people realize just how many US industries are protected from competition by federal and state regulation and licensure requirements. These market distortions artificially inflate prices, reduce consumer choice, prevent innovation and stall new job creation (especially entry level jobs).

From needing a license to shampoo hair to 600 hours of mandated training to do hair threading: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/01/17/state-sued-over-u...

We can’t buy these or the Toyota Hilux in the USA bc of political reasons. American Automakers are not competitive anymore…so we need tariffs apparently. Ford would rather one spend 60k on a full sized pickup and finance it at an ungodly high interest rate.

A new f150 base is 36k, hilux is 25 base, they both go up to similar highs.

The interest rate thing is wrong, you can finance them for lower interest rates than most houses and educations. They're even often at 0%.

The other thing to factor in is resale. If you factor in the resale the total cost of ownership for many American trucks is less than most other vehicles.

0% where? The lowest I see is like 4.99%. Aside from the Tesla Model Y which is de-facto on sale right now.

You can get 1.9% from Ford right now: https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/pricing-and-incentives/

When rates were lower you could get 0% with a low down payment even.

Those rates aren’t coming back though.

Ford currently has several vehicles with 0% interest options.

Pretty sure the f150 XLT trim was offering 0% somewhat recently

In general they have a cash discount available in lieu of a rate concession. So no, car financing is definitely not cheaper than homes. To make a fair comparison one needs to look at offered rates by independent third parties.

The two aren't equal though, the cash concession does not make up for the interest.

You can't buy it because it's not available for sale yet anywhere. You can buy alternatives though: Dacia Spring, Citroen e-C3 and Volkswagen ID.2.

My favorite recent insult to that was seeing that Ford recently changed their old "Ford Fusion retired" page.

https://www.ford.com/cars/fusion/

The "Explore All Sedans" buttons goes to a page entitled... "The Family of CUVs and SUVs".

All I want is a reasonably good sedan and we can't get that anymore. I'm half debating trying to track down a Ford Police Responder/Special Service Plug-In when they start coming off-duty in a few years just to keep a Fusion alive.

It's absolutely not a threat if it cannot be purchased or registered in the US because it lacks certified homologation for road use.

You’re assuming those two are separate? Why get certified when the host country imposes a 100% tariff?

I think maybe you're confused. You can't legally drive some random foreign vehicle on the road in any US state without getting it through homologation and registration. Very few Chinese EV manufacturers did that before, but now other manufacturers certainly aren't going to now. So only rich American assholes who are willing to pay stupid amounts of money for specialty shops to bring random foreign vehicles into compliance for road use who will have Chinese EVs, or they'll simply buy them for use on private property only.

Ironic that a long time ago there already was a car from the east called Seagull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ_Chaika

this just seems like advertising under disguise.

This is a more expensive crappier dacia spring, why is it reported as a threat?,

It's not even launched yet and other articles are more balanced and mention existing competition as well: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/byd/362943/new-byd-seagull-wil...

This car would not even have been road worthy in the US or Europe in the 1990s.

It's easy to make cheap cars when you leave out several decades of safety features.

The Seagull, maybe not. But BYD already own the EV market in other countries with strict safety restrictions such as Australia, selling their pricier models. Price wise these are still comparable only with other Chinese manufactured cars such as Ora and MG. It will be the same in the US, without trade restrictions getting in the way.

Which safety features are missing in this model?

The expert quoted by the AP says changes to allow homologation for road use in US would only add a couple thousand dollars to the price tag. Unless your definition of "cheap" is extremely narrow, you might want to read TFA to get an understanding of why this vehicle is so inexpensive.

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