BYD's electric supercar jumps over potholes and spikes
drive.com.au
drive.com.au
The big feature 2 years ago was car starting to sprout LIDAR bumps but now that feature has become de rigueur enough that car brands need to figure out something new to stand out, hence the big push to advertise their active suspension.
Nio's new ET9 is showing off their car doing tricks like bouncing a soccer ball (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Ezjmz63U8), driving with a stack of glasses on it's hood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEr_sNp7XLM) and syncing the suspension to a movie (https://www.tiktok.com/@autogefuehl/video/745225999151335350...). Yangwang is showing it leap the car in the air. At the end of the day though, the more Hertz and more acceleration your active suspension system has, the smoother it can dampen movement inside the cabin and Chinese consumers are already getting very picky about how well specced the active suspension systems are.
In another 2 years time, Nio/Yuanyang style active suspension will have trickled out into enough midrange cars that it's no longer an exciting feature and Chinese car brands will figure out the latest new thing to compete. Meanwhile, American car brands will be barely half way through their model cycle refresh and just starting to think about incrementally adding a single feature or two and maybe adding a new curve to the body somewhere.
There's a 100% tariff on Chinese cars. Of course we have no idea.
Americans have no reason to care about that. Their legacy car industry is now only a vestigial part of their economy. It's an acceptable casualty when the brunt of their economy is finance, tech and services, plus owning the printer to the world reserve currency and the largest military in the world by a long margin along with large fossil fuel reserves, giving them leverage over China and the Chinese economy in other more important areas while their car industry can coast into irrelevance letting their allies Japan, Korea, Germany race to the bottom in selling American consumer cheap cars in exchange for those sweet USD. They'll be fine.
On the other hand, countries like Germany where the legacy ICE auto sector is a large slice of the economy and don't have energy independence, don't issue the world reserve currency, don't have a strong military, don't have a leading finance and tech sector, but have a ballooning welfare deficit and unions fighting against the inevitable change to EV, will be less fine and more at the mercy of bullying from world powers along with a reduction in standard of living of their workers/citizens.
Not saying there's no tasteful way to stably approximate that state though (and even not requiring stepping on other's toes, which may actually help in combination with the right narrative).
That's reductionist. I never said anything about outsourcing everything. Ford and GM aren't going anywhere but it's clear their importance is dwindling and will just be allowed to be on life support in the future rather than a core part of the US economy.
To expand into EV means you need to let go from the declining ICE sector and unions are fighting against such job cuts meaning there's less money left to go to EV expansion. Is putting 2 and 2 together really that difficult?
I see this as hyped research, that's all, and it's good for everyone.
Active suspension apparently quietly was in luxury cars for a while...
But that's nothing compared with mexican topes.
This is insanely cool.
Not mentioning the implied tech.
Of course you know it's a Chinese brand. The internal mindset shifting happen so naturally...
Forgive my cynicism, but I dislike products like that because it represents the polar opposite of what the world needs right now.
Your assessment of anti-sinoistic sentiment is on point tho.
Bars that always turn out as a hypocrytical pretext to end the discussion prematurely. I say hypocritical because once there eventually is someone who dares to jump it and offer the same criticism the bar gets moved.
No, I don't need to be a saint, a monk and carbon negative to say that in a world moving towards human extinction a jumping supercar should not exist.
Aren't you you the one setting up imaginary moral bars for what kinds of features a car should or should not have? And for what people should or shouldn't want in a car?
Aren't you the one believing "we're only allowed to combat human extinction" if we jump across your imaginary moral bars?
I say that I personally think that people developing/selling/buying such a product are immoral (to me) and doing a disservice to humanity (in my eyes). Do with that what you will.
Now I am not a fan of banning things, but if you are at a mountain hut with a weak solar battery and one guy keeps plugging in a toaster because he doesn't want to chop wood, I am all for banning the toaster.
The world is not a place of unlimited resources and those who pretend it is while they make others pay the price are (to me) the lowest form of life and undeserving of any form of respect.
Ah, the benefit of having a Chinese CEO, they tend to want less public attention to themselves. "Man don't want to be famous, like pig don't want to grow big" as people say.
That, plus the fact BYD's founder/CEO (same guy) was not as flashy (reads "Unhinged") as Elon Musk.
The man traveled to the US back in 2017 and publicly criticized how US utilized their tax incomes etc see [Link 1], then just few years later he lost half of his wealth for criticizing Xi Jinpin [Link 2].
So, apparently be a communist lapdog did very little in helping him gain political shield.
[Link 1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/18/chinese-billionaire-jack-ma-...
[Link 2]: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/12/business/china-jack-ma-we...
Why would you assume Elon Musk himself would immune from such "disappearing" if they pissed off someone powerful (like Xi Jinping or someone from other nations)? Have you see the man desecrate Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin? If he likes to critic politician, why the redline?
In 2025, this has to be a praise.
A car can't be steered when it is airborne.
It does look cool though and probably having a lot of cars jumping over things on the highway would not end well. But it is neat technology.
Mercedes GLE 450 4Matic bouncing itself out of sand
I didn't drive in China, but I've been driven multiple times and the highways and main roads seemed solid.
(Awesome tech! Or at least CGI ...)
Luxurious.