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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

They have to or China's battery and car makers will crush Japan's auto industry.

Look at the numbers outside the US. Only 10% of US new cars are electric, but worldwide, 20% are. Most of those are from China, and they're cheap.

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China has already hit 50%+ new sales of plugin electric and plugin hybrid. The sticker price of electric cars has almost reached parity with ice even without any kind of subsidy then fuel savings are an additional bonus. Japan and other legacy car manufacturers have an extremely limited time left to catch up but they and their governments dragging their feet trying to protect an industry that is about to crash.

This is an interesting note because American electric cars (like Tesla) are super expensive.

This is a huge problem. US automakers treated electric cars as a premium product. This is very clear for vehicles available in both electric and IC.[1] That premium has been decreasing rapidly. There's now a glut of used Teslas. In the commercial sector, though, the Ford Transit is slightly cheaper in electric than in IC.[2]

[1] https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/f-150-lightning

[2] https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/e-transit

And cheap quality.

I really don’t get the purpose of a comment like this, who is this for? Have you ridden in a Chinese EV? They don’t “feel” cheap. This type of rhetoric is pretty much the reason other companies are lagging behind. After all, why compete with a “cheap” competitor? There may have been a time when quality of Chinese vehicles was questionable but I’m not sure that’s still the case.

If it weren’t for the protectionist tariffs the west has imposed on them, I would seriously consider a Chinese EV, maybe a Zeeker or Byd.

It was the same in the past with Japan and South Korea. What they produced was considered cheap quality but they kept improving till it no longer was.

Even if a car doesn't "feel" cheap, that doesn't mean it's reliable. AFAIK, that's still a big unknown for the Chinese brands, and long-term reliability isn't something Chinese brands are known for.

Everything is made there but we don’t know how reliable their products are?

Their products are unreliable so we have to hit them with import tariffs?

They're probably similar reliability to "American" brands except they spy on you more atrociously.

I've ridden in a BYD ev, and I assure you they are not cheap quality.

our companies are sclerosis compared to the energy in Asia

You made an account in 22 just to write this comment?

online marking bots are incredibly sophisticated and long reaching.

this was just one of the low effort, "chorus effect" ones. the real opinion movers will be with accounts that have a lot more traffic and look legitimate.

The American market was swallowing the same hubris back in the 70s when Japan exports started flooding domestic soil. Then the narrative flipped from "cheap quality" to "affordable" and "reliable", eventually forcing Detroit onto its knees and into bankruptcy.

Yes, but American cars back then really were total junk. The Japanese imports were not only smaller and much more fuel-efficient, they performed better and lasted much longer and were more reliable.

These days, Chinese stuff still isn't really known for top quality, and Japanese cars haven't lost their quality edge, though you could argue they've fallen behind on adopting the latest technologies (electronic systems, and EV) because of their conservatism.

Yes but the success of BYD also comes from big government subsidies. I'm aware that Tesla also received government money but what China is doing is unfair trade (at least that's the justification for tariffs). Also it's not like there's no competition. A Hyundai Inster costs 27000$ while a BYD c-segment atto 3 goes for 44172$. The BYD is a better car but not by that much imho.

BYD received 'subsidies to the tune of “at least” $3.7 billion' [0]. That is 1200 USD per vehicle. China subsides EVs way less than the US or EU. Atto 3 price in China is 119,800 yuan ($16,644) [1], in Thailand 799,900 baht(23,674 USD) 8% tariff and 7% tax included [2]

[0] https://electrek.co/2024/04/12/china-gave-byd-an-incredible-...

[1] https://electrek.co/2024/03/04/byd-slashes-price-on-its-best...

[2] https://moneyandbanking.co.th/en/2024/115525/

You say this as if there's single large auto maker that's not subsidized to death.

Here's $841m from Japanese government to Toyota in 2023: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/japan-...

Here's $20k+ from Japanese government for each hydrogen vehicle sold, announced in 2014 (Toyota was the sole beneficiary, their FCV wasn't even launched at that point): https://www.reuters.com/article/business/japan-readies-fuel-...

Here's Subsidy Tracker listing more than $2B to Toyota from the U.S.: https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/toyota

Here's Japanese government announcing $20B subsidies for clean hydrogen production over the next 15 years: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Energy/Japan-to-spur-clean-...

That's just what I gathered from three minutes' Googling. Feel free to look at Tesla, GM, Ford etc. on Subsidy Tracker. Then search for subsidies to German auto makers.

Stop falling for this "they subsidize their businesses!!!" geopolitical nonsense.

what China is doing is unfair trade

Dude this is the way the game is played, all the talk of free markets is just rhetoric. Look at Boeing vs Airbus, oil companies, tax breaks etc. For any country - when it suits them they'll talk about tariffs, and when it suits them they'll talk about incentives, and when it suits them they'll talk about the shining beauty of the free market.

Agree. There is no such thing as international fair trade.

> I’m aware that Tesla also received government money

Tesla received a loan from the US government, which they repaid in full, with interest.

All other US automakers except Ford were bailed out - ie they took many millions of dollars without paying back a single cent.

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