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Comment by jfkrrorj | Hacker News Reader

Chinese have far better and cheaper EV cars. Getting spare parts for Tesla in Europe is a nightmare!

Most European EV sales that aren't Tesla are European brands like Volkswagen Group (VW, Audi, Skoda), BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis (Pueguot, Fiat, Opel), Renault-Nissan (Renault, Dacia, Nissan), or Korea's Hyundai.

The only Chinese challenger brand that has some traction is Geely via Volvo.

You can see this in EU EV industry data as well from JATO (the EU's auto industry trade group) - https://www.jato.com/resources/media-and-press-releases/euro...

> The only Chinese challenger brand that has some traction is Geely via Volvo.

Probably depends on the country? I see a ton of BYDs on the road here (Austria).

I'm not sure about Austria, but these are the cross-EU stats [0].

And in the largest EU markets (Germany, France, Italy, Spain), it's overwhelmingly local players.

Chinese players have started gaining some traction, but that's overwhelmingly Geely via Volvo. And Geely began their expansion abroad largely due to domestic competition within China, with most consumers preferring either a BYD or a Tesla.

[0] - https://www.jato.com/resources/media-and-press-releases/euro...

That link talks about H1 2024 and says this about BYD:

> BYD registered 17,000 electric cars - 14,000 more compared to H1 2023. In fact, BYD’s rapid growth allowed it to outsell Nissan, Smart, Toyota, Polestar, Citroen, Dacia, Ford, Mini, Porsche, and Mazda. As a result, BYD is now Europe’s 16th best-selling BEV brand - the second Chinese brand following MG, which held 8th place in the BEV ranking.

Would be interesting to know how H2 did.

> Would be interesting to know how H2 did

We'll see in a couple months, but probably not well, because EU EV sales shrank overall in 2024 [0]

> That link talks about H1 2024 and says this about BYD:

Yea, but primarily this - "BYD is now Europe’s 16th best-selling BEV brand".

It's total sales are still dwarfed by existing giants in the EU market, as the H1 24 sales data has shown. The brands it outsold are those that didn't really target EU BEV sales (eg. Ford, Renault) or are conservative in their EV approach (eg. Nissan, Toyota)

The only Chinese firm that has kind of cracked the European market is Geely, and that's because they were able to leverage Volvo to sell a rebadged Geely as the XC30.

[0] - https://www.motortrader.com/motor-trader-news/automotive-new...

Germany: 2.891 new BYDs compared to 232.886 new BMWs in 2024. I haven't seen one yet, even though I usually check for new cars.

I see a bunch of them in the Netherlands. Dutch people have no allegiance to anything but their wallet and like experimenting.

yeah, seems „a ton“ is relative:

https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/993281/umfrag...

might be because other brand‘s cars aren’t always recognizable as EVs…

Well the Seal is the third most sold electric car model in Austria. Does not surprise me I see it.

There are significant numbers of MG cars (SAIC Motor) on the roads in the UK. I see more of them than Polestars (Geely/Volvo).

Even then, the overwhelming majority of sales are either Tesla, VW Group (Audi, Skoda, VW), BMW, or Hyundai [0].

European automotive groups like VW will own multiple badges/brands so it won't be as prominent but they continue to retain dominance

[0] - https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/official-figures-s...

BYD is currently hampered by 45% EU tariffs. BYD vehicles should be much more cost competitive once they have a factory in the EU.

BYD is planning on a second factory after the first in Hungary is operational (2H 2025, ~1-2 years ahead of schedule).

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/new-by...

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/byd-wi...

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas...

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chines...

It's 27% for BYD and it was introduced end of October 2024, I guess it had no big effect on sales.

There’s BYD garages popping up all over the place though. Not seen many on the road yet…

I see tons of electric bikes from China.

Electric Bikes maybe. But Electric Bikes ain't competing for the same market share as a car.

End of the day, the biggest EV sellers in Europe remain either Tesla or European conglomerates.

And this is the same story for just about every large economy. No country wants an outsider player selling products that disadvantage local players.

> Most European EV sales that aren't Tesla are European brands like

Bikes are still "vehicles". Problem is that stuff like Tesla are luxuries, we simply can not afford that! Bikes are an alternative on the same market.

An alternative that is heavily advertised by our governments! If there is a significant difference between car and bike, you should tell our government!

Not everyone has resources to treat their car as an IPhone!

Absolutely, yet at the end of the day Electric Bikes are not treated as EVs in colloquial conversation and are not a direct substitute for a Car in most cases. And I'm sure yk this too.

It is direct substitute! You can absolutely carry family of 5 and furniture on bike! See Denmark and India!

> You can absolutely carry family of 5 and furniture on bike! See Denmark and India!

I can't speak to Denmark, but in India people resort to buying electric bikes because of income. The moment they earn enough to pay for a car loan, they go for it, as people in my ancestral town have done.

That said, even in India, most 2 wheeler/electric bike sales are largely being driven by Ola - India's Uber/Tesla/AWS - because they are subsidizing Ola drivers to buy Ola Electric bikes. And that is what is driving most E-Bike sales in India.

That, even in India the sale of electric bikes has fallen significantly [0]

At the end of the day, in a market like India, if you can afford a car, you buy a car. And if you're buying a car in a market like India, you'd tend to prefer an SUV due to the negative stigma against sedans ("sedans are for p*ssies" mindset is the norm, and drives the popularity of vehicles is HC as the Mahindra Thar) [1][2]

The same mentality exists in the Indian 2-Wheeler/Bike community, with the KTM being treated as the gold standard.

The same "macho" style mentality that makes Pickup trucks popular in North America and Thailand is the same one that exists in India for SUVs (ICE or Electric) or Two Wheelers.

IMO, EVs and especially EV Sedans have done well in the Chinese market because the status symbol ICE car in China has historically been the Audi A6/A8, but in India the equivalent ICE car status symbol wise has been the Jaguar Land Rover [3]

[0] - https://www.cnbctv18.com/auto/electric-two-wheeler-sales-dro...

[1] - https://motoroctane.com/news/267798-why-is-everyone-buying-s...

[2] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/why-the-mahindra-tha...

[3] - https://www.cartoq.com/indian-politicians-and-their-land-rov...

BYD

Getting service for a Tesla in the US can be pretty unpleasant. They’ve gone from truly excellent service to not wanting to interact with their owners and managing parts availability quite poorly.

Absolutely terrible. I had to wait 2 months to get my Model S in for routine service. The day after, the battery pack heater failed and the vehicle would no longer fast DC charge. I was told it would be another 2 months until the vehicle could be looked at. I bought the part myself (1038901-00-K) and replaced it for ~$200 (requiring me to learn and perform the HV pack isolation procedure). Do not recommend.

Don't worry, everybody else is following suit and not selling parts for new cars either. My friend just bought a new GM vehicle, and it sat in the bodyshop for 9 months after someone hit the bumper at 5mph.

There's also the recent story about a guy running a limo business who couldn't get a bumper for his Cadillac, and had to keep making commercial insurance payments, and of course the car payment, while the car sat and could not be used. https://www.carscoops.com/2025/01/gm-keeps-86k-cadillac-lyri...

With a legacy car maker, the service centers are independent (sort of). They have phone numbers, they answer the phone, and they want your business. If your car is drivable but needs a part, you can ask them to order it, and they will do so. Tesla service centers do not answer the phone, do not answer email, and generally could not care less about you unless you have an appointment made on the app. And they do not reliably answer messages sent via app. And, while their people might notice that they don’t have a part a day or two before your appointment and tell you this (by in-app message) and advise you not to bother bringing your car in, the automated workflow part of their app does not understand this, and there is a chance that you will get stuck and your car will never get fixed.

You can bypass this process to some extent by walking into the service center without an appointment, hopefully getting a friendly person, and having them ask you to make a service appointment while you stand there (using the app on your phone) so they can then log in, find your service appointment, and attempt to get the system to let them order parts while you stand there (a process that may or may not require a tiny amount of actual technician time because, while Tesla has all kinds of telemetry, this telemetry does not integrate at all with the system by which service centers decide what parts are needed).

Other than BYD, I would be very worried about getting spare parts for Chinese cars as well. Most of those car companies are in a very bad financial situation, in a country where the rest of the country is saddled with a crazy amount of shadow debt as well.

Europe has instituted tariffs for Chinese vehicles up to 35%. Given the low cost of Chinese vehicles, this may not be a big barrier (like in the US where it's 100% tariff).

Other than that, I completely agree - and hope that Europe manufacturing can catch up to China on EVs.

Completely uninformed statement. Its impressive what they achieved in such a short time but neither the xiaomi nor the BYD Seal is anywhere close to what it is mimicking.

Most people don't need or want FSD. They want an actual steering wheel and an actual stalk in order to activate turn signals. They want reliable well-made electric vehicles that don't take long to repair.

Musk has spent many billions of dollars building something his target market doesn't require. Tesla does not currently have product-market fit.

Musk should resign his board and CEO positions and stop interfering with internal decision-making. And refrain from rumored ketamine use.

people might even want fsd if it worked… except of course it only works on the highway and my 1986 hyundai had cruise control that did 93% of what tesla’s “f”sd does

Look up videos on YouTube before commenting

that's funny :)

> They want a steering wheel and stalk in order to activate turn signals.

They just brought that back in the Juniper refresh.

>Tesla does not currently have product-market fit.

Yet, it sells the best selling car on Earth.

That’s largely as a result of its branding strategy (single brand, only two mass-market models). There are 19 production vehicles based on VW’s MEB platform, say, most of them very similar. This is fairly typical; all of the big car manufacturers have at least a couple of brands, and many models, and some (notably VW, Stellantis, GM) have _dozens_ of brands, largely with shared platforms.

> Yet, it sells the best selling car on Earth.

A lot of that is selling just 2 mass-market models. And it only barely beats out the Toyota Corolla, except that Toyota also sells the third highest volume model (the RAV-4) and the 8th (the Camry).

>It only barely beats out the Toyota Corolla

"Only" does a lot here.

The Corolla is the #1 product of a century-old conglomerate. Tesla started mass-producing cars less than 17 years ago.

But when you add up sales for all models from each company, there are 12 companies that sell more cars each year. Market share is 11.07% Toyota, 6.41% VW, 4.87% Honda, 4.82% Ford, 4.56% Hyundai, 3.84% Nissan, 3.77% Suzuki, 3.53% Kia, 3.48% Chevrolet, 3.47% BYD, 2.67% Mercedes-Benz, then 2.77% for Audi and Tesla, and bringing up the rear of the top 15 is 1.85% for Renault

Yet, Tesla makes more profit than most. It's like saying Apple has no market-fit vs Android because it's far less popular… until you realize it's a strategic choice to sell fewer vehicles but at higher margins.

Tesla hasn't started going down market with cheaper cars. But they've said new, cheaper models will be released by June 2025. We'll see what happens for the cheaper and higher-volume segment of the auto market.

But for now, Tesla has the most popular model with the highest margins.

It just shows how uninformed you are! BYD Seal is 2000kg car, we do not want that! Europeans want EVs that are maybe 600kg to do shopping and drive around town. 80kms on single charge and 50kmph are quite acceptable parameters.

If I can remove car battery, put it on a cart, and take it to my apartment on 10th floor via elevator, even better! I need to charge it over night!

If I could spare $50k on new car, I would buy ICE before they are banned!

Who is we here? Europe is a big place with a lot of countries which are very different from other European countries. Here in Sweden that 600 kg 80 km/charge 50 kmph car would not do so well since it would run out of juice on the way back from the supermarket for a substantial part of the population, it would get stuck in the snow in winter and does not have enough power to keep the interior are a reasonable temperature when outside it is anything but reasonable. It might sell in Stockholm but then only to affluent citizens who'd use it next to their other two or three vehicles.

I'm all in on thinking modern cars are too fat but "maybe 600kg" is an absurd suggestion. That's less than a Smart Fortwo. There'll be a market for that but it's not what "Europeans want".

But most cars we had in the 80s were less than 1000kg, and that was fine.

Context differ from country to country, and from cities to countryside within countries, but in places where most of the population is concentrated in high-density cities, small cars or alternatives to cars are much, much more desirable than 2000+kg SUVs. Case in point, in France: more and more city centers just drastically reduce cars lanes and accessibility.

Ah yes, buy cars from an actual brutal dictatorship.

Is that a sarcastic remark about the USA?

No, are doing whataboutism and ignoring how horrible China is?

Even if this were true, I'd be willing to pay more to avoid financially supporting the CCP.

There are a lot of people in Europe that prefer CCP over what the republican party has become.

That's what they think, at least.

When push comes to shove, it'll be less clear.

China ATM seems to be a smaller threat to Europe than US.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some level of EU-China rapprochement as a result.

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