I see electric/hybrid BYD cars more and more every day. Meanwhile, US/EU automakers are still struggling to offer anything barely competitive.
Classic innovators dilemma - it seems to be almost impossible to align incentives inside legacy auto to do the necessary revolutionary change. Every individual and sub group are internally invested and short term focused on their legacy frames, drivetrains, layouts, electronics, software and supply chains. That’s why you keep getting offered the same car, but now as a sub par EV. So they will lose, because they can’t adapt.
But there is still a lot to be desired in legacy EVs, but generally at least some of the brands are slowly moving in the right direction.
That's the sort of thing that sounds great to a legacy incumbent (yay think of the reuse!), but inevitably leads to building bad EVs compared to the new companies who are building reimagined EV-only platforms from the ground up. Handling, suspension, range, battery integration, software are always going to be better in an EV-first design. The incumbents are trying to have their cake and eat it too - building EVs, but not cannibalizing their main ICE profits.
So, they will lose. Its their kodak moment.
I still remember when ford was _super_ proud of their ability to push OTAs to their mach-e mustang and lightning. This was in 2020, not 2010 when it would actually have been considered innovative and cutting-edge.
> So, they will lose. Its their kodak moment.
Agree. It's only a question of how many years the decline is stretched out over. We'll learn a lot about the long term viability of US auto over the next 36 months as slate/teleo/scout start to ship.
Only from 2019 or 2020 I believe they stopped making ICE.
And when they do or did have incentives, they were not passed on to the consumers. My 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 had a $57K sticker. That’s not what I paid for it and cheapish leases are aplenty- but - when the federal $7500 credit expired, they simply dropped the MSRP by that much if not more. BMW and others are pursuing the same strategy in the states. The car was never worth near that much to begin with. They were and are jacking up prices and pocketing the change.
BYD is dumping.
Software explains a lot, dumping explains some of it but it might not be all of it
This then flows downstream to inconsistent and patchwork government support for the transition to EVs.
The short term incentives aren't all properly aligned for car makers to fully commit to build EVs and support the supply chain to do that.
You had some politicians like Justin Trudeau that tried to create a frame work that would guide and advantage capital toward investing in innovative green technology and future jobs, but then politicians saw the advantage in politicizing and opposing everything and they tore this all down.
Now China has continued to move ahead meanwhile NA remains at square one with increasingly backward technology, with no incentive to change.
It's going to get really bad!
It's basic supply and demand - the sales are tanking, and without subsidies nobody will buy them, and the car companies are realizing that.
A few models (Teslas, for example) do okay with the upper class, but the lower and middle class can't afford them, don't have anywhere to charge them, and have to drive too much to depend on them.
Even in a trendy, wealthy city like Boulder, CO which is all about saving the environment and going green there isn't nearly enough charging capacity for everybody to use EVs.
An EV is better than no car at all, but they're a downgrade from an ICE in most cases.
Beefing it up to the US/EU safety standards and even accounting for higher labor cost, it would be around $20k. I'm pretty sure consumers would be quite interested in something like this.
That's USD 17,750.
https://evdealergroup-byd.com.au/configurator/byd-atto-1?pos...
For sparsely populated areas or city to city driving plug-in hybrids should bridge the gap and allow people do most driving on electric and get the benefits of EV performance.
> An EV is better than no car at all, but they're a downgrade from an ICE in most cases.
Totally disagree. ~70% of americans live in single family homes. If you can charge at home which they can, and you dont have some edge case super distance driving needs, EV is better in every way.
Boulder is not a great EV town because everyone road trips all the time. 70% of Americans live east of the Mississippi where road trips are less common.
I also road trip around Colorado in my EV and it works great.
I bet the lower and middle class could afford a $10k BYD car though.
Imagine yourself being one of the top management guys in one of those legacy car makers, you've spent your entire life building what you "earned" in that company...Suddenly the company tells you that you will be sidelined so more resources that once thought to be under your control can be allocated to an EV project so you can be further marginalize in the near future. what will be your reactions? You offer to help in the project (by building junks with your legacy understanding on cars) or you do anything possible to sink that project.
The result is the same - your legacy carmaker company is fxxked.
It is not like just US/EU legacy automakers struggling to offer anything competitive - Chinese legacy automakers that have been in the exact same market for decades with direct access to the exact same supply chain and government subsidies are suffering from the exact same problem. It is not about regulations, market access or subsidies. It is just human nature.
Germany and the EU followed a similar path. We know how to build machines and industrial products; precision and detail are our stereotypes and trademark. However, we also grew comfortable, focusing on services and high-level strategy while we did not invest to fix energy prices, raw resource dependencies and labor/automatisation.
How long is China looking fo resources in Afrika? Despite China being huge and having plenty of?
China overtook Germany as the leader in industrial exports in 2018, and now in 2026, the gap is already to broad. China has mastered machine building, controls the entire supply chain, and possesses modern technology; all while maintaining lower labor costs and a massive workforce.
Even if the USA and Germany try to avoid Chinese products, the rest of the world will not. We are entering a new era: the mass production of affordable, precise machinery globally, powered by China. If regions like Africa buy their solar, wind, and batteries from China, their entire energy grid and the machines running on it will be Chinese. They will look to China, not the West.
For example, a German company making weaving machines recently noted their price must be €60k to stay profitable, while a Chinese machine of the same quality costs only €20k. Once technology reaches its peak, differentiation is no longer possible to justify higher prices. The car industry is next; cars are becoming a commodity with shrinking profit margins. This shift will make China incredibly wealthy over the next 20 years.
And it wasn't even out of the blue. The shit was written on the wall and despite that what happens? We in germany discuss bureaucracy, if we should change our energy grid, IF investments in cheaper energy is reasonable etc.
We can’t even build our own infrastructure anymore. Look at the SuedOstLink disaster: while China builds massive 'Super Grids' in record time, Germany has spent over a decade and billions of Euros just arguing about a single power cable. Because we are stuck in bureaucracy and 'Not In My Backyard' protests, our energy costs are skyrocketing, while China doesn't care but still beats us in renewables.
It’s the perfect example of a society that has become so comfortable it has forgotten how to actually build the physical foundations of its own wealth.
And adding on top of all of that: AI and Robotic progress is fast, so crazy fast than when its here, we might have solved the other issues i mentioned...
That's why Europe is mercifully free of Cybertrucks: they can't legally operate on roads within the EU, because they don't meet the safety requirements (one of your "little things").
ie, killing people and polluting the planet, mostly.