Two Chinese EV here in Brazil. One BYD Seal for me and one Geely EX5 for wife and son.
They're amazing super quality cars. Cheap maintenance. There's no other can compete for quality + price. We was explored for decades from ocidental companies. No more.
Out of curiosity - how exactly does BRICS affect the entire situation? I don't know much about how it's structured and what it brings to member countries.
I'm asking just because BYD is building plants and selling cars in Europe too, despite EU's tariffs on Chinese cars.
Do you think Brazil wouldn't be an interesting enough market for Chinese automakers without BRICS?
I read some horror stories chinese ev dealers charging $700 nzd to inspect exhaust system so your warranty stays valid (legally you can do maintenance in independent shops, but it’s rare). Coincidentally extra long warranty on car that has nothing to break is milking machine IMO. Over that period it costs more than competition.
In the UK there's been a large increase as well as they're rock solid for a lower price. Am I odd for not considering one due to security concerns? I just can't wrap my head around buying what is essentially these days a smartphone on wheels from a hostile state that is probably sending data back to China. Car privacy these days is already bad enough.
For the average person in the US or UK, this is probably an improvement over having a domestic car brand doing the surveillance and funneling the data to agencies and politicians that actually have incentives to infringe on your rights or crack down on you for political activism that goes against the current regime in power.
> from a hostile state that is probably sending data back to China.
In terms of data privacy which state isn't hostile? I'd like an EV which is not connected, but out of available choices, I don't care if it's China or the US or someone else.
I probably even prefer China since they usually collect data but not on a personal level. It feels like the US products say "link to all accounts, tell us everything about you", while the Chinese products are monitoring things in a more generic way.
I own a BYD, in another minor western aligned country..
I assume that all players are spying on me. Americans, Chinese, they are effectively the same. I just comfort myself by telling myself that if they both have my data then there is less leverage over me overall.
yes USA can be protectionist, and it can also be paranoid. Especially when it involves millions of 2-ton autonomous robots operated exclusively by its major economic and geopolitical rival.
That link says the ban comes into effect for model year 2027. And it applies to cars with software and hardware from China. The cars themselves are fine.
could have banned the practice, demanded literal hardwire controls around it, etc. ensured that the customer cannot be pressured into enabling it all (so the vendor can't just disable unrelated functionality).
heaven forbid, demand selling infotainment-less configurations, or agreeing on a communication standard for real tablets and smartphones to communicate through.
instead, no, it's the chinese cars that should go.
We need to let them in at a limited capacity and our domestic companies need to feel the heat.
The geopolitical risks are real. Stronger foreign companies can kill local ones if there's no stopgap or means for local companies to catch up. The cars are microphones for politically exposed persons (which most of you are not). If there was ever a hot war, these cars can turn into remote bombs and take out key infrastructure.
But in the here and now, we need Ford and friends to grow up and face real evolutionary pressures.
American consumers like big SUVs. But they also want cheap and modern, and once they see what else the market has to offer, they'll use choice to force the hands of American auto.
I agree that we’re subsidizing these companies at the cost of the consumer, but I highly doubt they could compete on a level playing field. The competition would be between foreign suppliers. The consumer surplus could be redirected more productively but that number would be diffuse and not easy to measure.
Of course the simple answer is don't be hostile to PRC and PRC won't be hostile back. If security sharing concern (read FVEY circumventing domestic security laws), then bring Huawei back and I'm sure PRC, a surveillance state would be happy to spy on UK citizens on MI5 behalf just like the NSA. Or if you want to be spied on less, get a PRC car who are more likely to limit reporting to your home gov on strict lawful interception requirements... plus they literally won't have as much compute as US to track your everything, and whatever little compute they have, they're wasting tokens on microdrama videos. Like all those future US data centers going to be doing something. This comment 43% satire.
BYD is available in both South Korea and Japan and making inroads. The biggest barrier is a deep distrust of Chinese brands, not tariffs, plus in Japan's case favorable tax treatment of "kei" (light) cars, a Japan-only segment that BYD has just entered.
Surprisingly I have seen imported BYD Atto at 100% tariffs or so and Olectra buses which are actually BYD buses , probably CKU imported into India. Auto sector employment in India is seriously important as is the need for capturing a fair value even of EVs locally while on the other hand Oil & Gas imports have always been the biggest import bill and Forex drain so there are good incentives to move. It is just they do it slowly and in their own ways and the handful of capital intensive companies who tried getting LFP manufacturing into India failed as China scale cannot be replicated in India due to differing political systems and cultures, even today
India’s approach has been to allow the competition but at a tariffed rate that makes the imports slightly more expensive than the domestic products. This ensures local industry doesn’t get decimated but also doesn’t get complacent without competition. The consumers get the option to buy BYD, but it won’t be cheap.
You mean the countries that still have native automotive industries and an understanding of the strategic value of heavy industry in both economic and martial terms?
How do Chinese owned industrial factories in Brazil differ, apart from being more efficient and able to pivot to new markets better? Which seems like useful properties in a war footing?
Do you want your war munition manufacturers to say "we'd have better short term bonuses if we didn't manufacture what you need but instead just kept manufacturing our old stuff with no regard for the nations future"?
> How do Chinese owned industrial factories in Brazil differ, apart from being more efficient and able to pivot to new markets better? Which seems like useful properties in a war footing?
The factory stops being efficient and easily pivoted the second the people running said factory want it to stop. That, in turn, depends on how friendly you are with the country running said factory.
Let's say there's some sort of negotiations going on between the country that hosts the factory and the country that operates the factory, which, in this case, means a country with a government that has a very deep cadre system that gives them control of almost all enterprises, state-owned or otherwise.
The negotiations (whatever it is, let's just say they're economic for an example) reach an impasse. You are the country that has control over the factory. Sure, the host country has the factory, but they don't have the institutional knowledge, intellectual property, or supply chain deals that your firm does.
Do you ignore this leverage? Hell no. You say "it'd be a real shame if we had to find a new place to make our products for your market", which would imply a serious loss of employment in the region and a massive factory complex sitting empty and decaying.
Unless you're talking about the sort of relationship the US and Japan have, the factory's host country now has to consider that possibility.
> Do you want your war munition manufacturers to say "we'd have better short term bonuses if we didn't manufacture what you need but instead just kept manufacturing our old stuff with no regard for the nations future"?
That's literally how pretty much all industrialized and post-industrialized nations' defense manufacturing sectors work to one extent or another. Some munitions and defense systems are incredibly complex. You can't just move the knowledge about their manufacture over in a few corporate wiki pages; you have to have the greybeards teach the young guys by doing. This happens all the time, particularly with nuclear weapons. If you don't do that, the greybeards retire or die off and no one knows how to make this system that the military has speced, tested, approved, and gone through the bureaucracy of acquisition for. This means they either do without or get to start over from scratch at tremendous cost.
Exactly the countries where brand loyalty has a culture status. If you let go of that, there are only a few sensible economic options left, BYD high on that list.
US car makers can be cheaper too if they put workers in slave-like conditions, even aside the Chinese govt subsidies and investment.
One example from Brazil since that's the topic:
> Brazilian prosecutors have filed a lawsuit accusing electric carmaker BYD of human trafficking and keeping its workers in “slavery-like conditions” in its biggest market outside China.
> The investigation found the Chinese workers were brought to Brazil under false pretences and their visas did not match their jobs.
> Prosecutors said the workers were found working in “slavery-live conditions” and with "minimum comfort and hygiene”, calling them victims of international human trafficking
> The workers were forced to sleep on beds that did not have mattresses and as many as 30 people shared a bathroom, MPT alleged.
What you linked to is of construction contractors building the plant, not assembly line workers. It's a blurry line and certainly affiliated with BYD, but car assembly itself is moving toward 'dark' factories, populated by robots that are indeed kept in slave-like conditions, unpaid and worked beyond humane shifts.
As a side note, counterintuitively BYD has a lot more workers per car vs a lot of their competitors, but that's because of their extreme vertical integration where most are assembling upstream parts.
Cheaper but not cheap. US can pay literally 0 and still be substantially more expensive than PRC, labour simply rounding error ($500-$1000) per chassis.
BYD cars are cheaper because China just has the most expertise at building things at scale and because they're making many formerly discrete car parts entire modules, which are cheaper to manufacture.
There's also been plenty of reporting of 'slave like conditions' at Tesla, GM etc.
No, it can't. If PRC makers NEEDED low wages to undercut pricing vs west sure. But PRC EVs selling far above domestic MSRP, more than enough to cover wage differential, i.e. lower wages isn't doing the undercutting, it's enabling more profitable extraction. Reality is western competitors are simply not competitive regardless of wage differential when most structural competitiveness come from vertical integration. It doesn't help west is paying more to build worse. And paying less to build worse also not going to close gap.
Can be, but likely aren't to any greater extent than in the West without substantial evidence. And so perhaps it should not be the first reason listed for why it's cheaper when there are perfectly reasonable explanations outside of the constant 'China bad, evil' orientalist shtick that just shows how scared we in the West are of actual competition, accustomed to exploiting the world for half a millennia.
BYD in China shows off their factory towns for how wonderful the workers live. Its a modern day Hershey. It might be more of a Brazil issue than a BYD issue.
BYD is cheaper because BYD engineers are smarter, have higher IQ and able to vertically integrate components to cut overheads.
in the US auto OEMs are mainly putting parts together, made by different suppliers like ZF, Bosch, Lemforder etc etc. Its assembly work and it split across hundreds of legacy car component suppliers
> BYD is cheaper because BYD engineers are smarter, have higher IQ and able to vertically integrate components to cut overheads.
Lol, I wonder why. It really is a mystery. Why did we once rule the world pre-1970's and have been waning and decaying ever since? Gee, maybe these Chinese geniuses can figure out the reason for us.
Assuming the blue wave continues for 2 more years, I've been wondering if the Democrats are going to open up America to Chinese EVs as a way to punish Elon for his engagement with the GOP
American auto unions largely aren't competing in the EV space. 80%+ of EVs sold in America aren't built using American union labor - Tesla at 60% sales is non-union, Rivian at 10%, Toyota imports EVs, Ford and Chevrolet build the Mach E and Equinox EV in Mexico
It doesn't refute GPs point. If foreign EVs are better than ICE vehicles manufactured by union labor, the unions are going to have a problem letting the foreign EVs in.
USA bans the onboard Chinese automotive software for national security reasons, effectively banning Chinese cars. This isn't a partisan political thing, Biden was the one that signed the Secure Equipment Act and Connected Vehicle Restrictions.
For all the talk about data and technology sovereignty in Europe, you would think they would take that more seriously too. Instead Europe is flooded with underpriced Chinese cars that they have no control over.
> Instead Europe is flooded with underpriced Chinese cars that they have no control over.
Please someone fact check that, as far as I know there are import taxes on Chinese EVs, and protectionist measures. The only "loophole" I know is for vehicles built in the EU, which is fine as it employs local workforce.
The link says restrictions on software take effect in model year 2027 and hardware in 2030. So those rules are not in force yet right?
And if this were really the issue, why wouldn't BYD build vehicles with swappable control software and hardware? Ship unfinished vehicles to the US and install approved electronics in them?
There's also the 100% tariff to overcome. But I'm sure with a friendlier tax/tariff regime, Chinese companies wouldn't be opposed to bringing 98% complete vehicles from China to the US and then finishing them with American comms equipment.
Dated take. China and BYD are doing a lot of things right that make this possible. A recent article showing how they're consolidating parts that passes the buck to consumers is a great example as to why they can sell 20% cheaper and still have higher margins.
No it's what happens when smart state intelligently subsidizes to bring down structural costs, while retarded state foolishly subsidizes to keep pork barrel jobs program going as legacy processes fall into uncompetitiveness. We had 30 years of PRC shock evidence now - everything PRC made cheap, remains cheap long after subsidies, because they structurally lower price floor vs western competition (generally) haven't.
What kind of vehicles are people replacing with BYDs? I always assumed Brazilians drove mostly "legacy" VW or Nissans, but I looked at VW's Brazilian website and you all seem to have most of the same vehicles that are available in Europe and North America, including the ID.4!
> How are they being received generally in Brazil?
Very well. Not only BYD but also other brands like GWM and Geely.
> What kind of vehicles are people replacing with BYDs?
Combustion cars with the same price, they are not replacing other electrical vehicles because the Chinese brands are way cheaper yet they are good cars.
> I always assumed Brazilians drove mostly "legacy" VW or Nissans
Nowadays we have many models from different brands.
In the past the fleet was basically VW, Ford, Chevrolet and Fiat. In the late 90s and early 2000s the Japanesne (Honda, Toyota and Nissan) and French (Renault, Citroën, Peugeot) became popular, and then Hyundai also became a success here. Recently, the Chinese brands are becoming more popular, especially Chery and the ones that I mentioned before.
> including the ID.4
But I never saw it here, even though VW is a very popular brand here.
Hence my surprise to even see it for sale in Brazil and the reason I brought it up. After looking at their lineup, it seem like VW has moved away from their historical approach of providing cheaper, older vehicles in the Brazilian market.
> historical approach of providing cheaper, older vehicles in the Brazilian market.
I think most of the established brands have stopped doing a lot of that, but it used to be very common. VW would build some models in Germany for several years, mostly for sale to higher priced markets; when it came time for a new model, the old production tooling would go to South Africa, Mexico, or Brazil where it would continue to be built (and refined) for many more years. It's great for parts availability too, and sometimes there's nice improvements available with parts that were designed after the model left my market.
But now it's more common to have completely different models for lower priced markets, or build a global model with different options in different markets. Soemthing, something, model consolidation is expected to reduce costs? But BYD (and others) are making big inroads into low cost markets by building models that are more affordable and using that volume to maybe move into higher priced markets over time.
Funny because I live in Hungary, the country with the highest VAT in EU (27%), and BYD is not the cheapest at all. Neither in the EV and ICE (hybrid) category
some models also charge much faster, and go further than Western alternatives
cheap, fast, good, its a rare moment to pick all three and the market is
most reservations about EVs are based on range anxiety, charging time and cost. only people with a certain level of advantage will pay to experience inconvenience, and that issue disintegrates at a certain threshold for a much broader population
To be clear, that's CLTC range, so closer to ~400'ish miles EPA. Still, very good. I think there are a variety of reasons why US manufacturers are sticking closer to 300mi (e.g. availability of battery materials), but it's improving and hopefully that'll continue.
I'm kind of torn myself. Although I'd like more range, 300 does get me where I'm going, and performance vehicles want less weight, not more.
Supply line voltage is irrelevant. The car and charger negotiate and adjust power and voltage dynamically.
Charging stations typically also have on-site battery storage to have peak charging power that exceeds grid supply (and also because energy arbitrage is profitable).
Local codes for residential? I doubt anyone would be doing flash-charging at home. If you're referring to codes for charging networks, that would fall under industrial fixtures; and industrial codes allow for scarily-high-amperage wiring under a stricter regime than residential.
Industrial codes often only allow trained electricians to connect those high voltage wires. Even though it is fine, it is against the code to plug in that cable.
Currently the fastest chargers use 1000 V (which requires silicon carbide MOSFETs with rated voltages of at least 1400 V or silicon IGBTs with rated voltages of at least 1500 V).
There are international standards for 1000 V and 800 V charging, but I have no idea whether they are allowed in NA.
As another poster has already said, like in USB chargers, the charging voltage is negotiated with the car and the old cars are charged slowly, at a low enough voltage for them.
For now, most of these fast chargers have been installed in China, but there are plans to install them also in Europe.
There are also a lot of inconveniences about petrol cars, like the volatility of oil prices, uncertain future emission regulations, higher mechanical complexity and hence maintenance costs, lower performance and more noise.
German and American cars who aren't getting subsidized by the government, in fact they actually have to pay taxes. In addition to the fact that China is letting companies destroy it's environment.
Nowadays I doubt that the US government is any better than China's in letting companies destroy the environment.
Moreover, I always wonder how Americans accuse China of subsidizing its industries, while I never hear about any serious investment done by any big US company that is not conditioned by huge tax reductions.
All the kinds of fiscal facilities that the big US companies receive from the state or federal governments would be strictly forbidden in most places of Europe, as being a form of state help that distorts competition.
Directly from the repeated declarations of people in high positions of the US government, including the POTUS himself, who have bragged about their efforts for removing all the environmental regulations that supposedly make the US companies lose money and make them less competitive.
I am too lazy to search now for quotations, but already the POTUS has referred to this subject so frequently that it should not be difficult to find such examples yourself.
Attempting nonetheless a very short search, one of the first entries is a New York Times article that says:
"The Trump administration has dismantled nearly 100 policies focused on clean air, water, wildlife and toxic chemicals"
The following is not a joke, but it is an official statement published on the White House site:
"The Administration approved 76 coal-related permits to reinvigorate America’s beautiful, clean coal industry."
Also from the White House official site:
"“In this Administration, NEPA’s regulatory reign of terror has ended,” said White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Katherine Scarlett. "
No, retarded territorial accounting practices assign PRC made goods as PRC emissions but US fossil extraction as foreign consumer emissions. US emissions substantially up factoring in all the net oil export from fracking and NG fugitive leaks from shit gas infra. On paper US shed 1 mbt co2e/year from paper peak, but factor in oil/ng exports and leaks, US napkin math up 1.5 bmt co2e/year (-1 mbt reductions + 2 mbt from export + 0.5 mbt from fugitive emissions/leaks), i.e. 20% over US paper peak. If we want to be geopolitically cheeky, US majors also planning to restart Venezuela oil, so add another 10% / 0.5 bmt for every mbd US decides to bring online in VZ, because US can't seem to stop fossil.
Meanwhile PRC annual renewable production wipes about 100m barrel of oil energy equivalent per day over their life time, i.e. comparable to global oil consumption - they are functionally preventing oil use from doubling. To reiterate: every year, PRC is averting equivalent of 100m barrels of future oil consumption. For mental picture that's carbon sink size of 500,000 sqkm of rainforest, i.e. equal to planting 7% of Amazon per year. Literally the greatest emission aversion machine in human history - PRC functionally preventing so much emissions its net carbon foot print is negative if you use sensible attributions.
Nope. Trade corrected CO2 is also going down. And the scheme you're talking about is just double counting CO2 for producers. Why not just go all in on that and zero out any country that doesnt extract carbon sources!
Garbage in stats creates garbage out. Hence pointing out NONE biased garbage accounting that attributes emissions directly to extractor/producer like we do goods. AKA still single counts but shifts attribution - every barrel PRC imports? Discount emissions from PRC. Every barrel US exports, include as US emissions. Every solar panel that will avoid X emissions... credit that to PRC. See where this is going?
> Why not just go all in on that and zero out any country that doesnt extract carbon sources!
We should in fact, totally do that, aka on going GHG Protocol Scope3 Cat11 battleground, among others. Precisely to address statistically context illiterate claims like muh Murican emissions went down and muh trade corrected co2 went down because legacy (itself politicized) accounting standards specifically masks / offloads emissions extracted from US onto their customers. Shifting emissions to extractor responsibility is heavily politicized / lobbied against by US fossil industry to make US #s look better. But that's all it is, fabricated numbers for lame aktually arguments that somehow export oil cleaner than domestic coal... Maybe on a spreadsheet, using biased formulas, for useful idiots to quote. But in reality US extracted stupendous amount of new emissions from the ground vs paper peak.
Like US become the worlds largest fossil exporter, high consumption population grew by 50m, went from dirty coal to even worse leaky NG (more lobby shenanigans) and somehow have the audacity to claim US contribution to emissions is somehow down without realizing the double think involved to reach such conclusion. The US emits more than ever, it's just good at lobbying so spreadsheets say it isn't.
This would happen everywhere where they shout "free market " from the rooftops would stop import tariffs.looking at Germany and the usa, specifically.
In Spain, they dont do that and adaption and dealerships for Chinese EVs is taking off nicely, I ask every single owner I can if they're happy with the service and the cars and all of them have never been happier. Subjective, yes, but I welcome the Chinese cars and free markets:-)
That’s cool until the EU decides that they’ve had enough of poor people driving their own cars and introduce tariffs or outright ban them. Then, how are you going to have them repaired? Maybe they even make it so that you can’t pass inspection with a Chinese car.
> EU decides that they’ve had enough of poor people driving their own cars
This about PRC localization, EU can't do shit. Think about insinuation if they tried? EU incumbent carmakers from economic giants, Germany, France, wants to prevent rest of EU from access to cheap cars to protect their industry and maintain economic hierarchy. What happens once PRC plants opens up in Spain, Hungary for whom DE, FR auto dying is now opportunity? Reality is EU is not so unified that smaller countries want to live in shadow of DE and FR forever. Once localized PRC plants take root, they become daggers vs incumbent EU producers instead of shields vs EU protectionism - they will be supported locally and the geopolitics of banning would break EU.
When I order a Uber I just want a BYD… They should add the option in the app. Using the "Comfort" option increases the chance to get one, but I still get very bad/old cars occasionally.
Or maybe BYD could just start its own ridesharing service.
As usual, it's a debate where I'm not interested in either side. I don't want huge, over-sized, over-luxurious, over-priced American cars. I don't want somehow-even-more-luxurious, tracking hell, iPad hell Chinese cars.
can you explain why is tracking an issue? Google/Android and Apple both do live tracking and Brazilians seems to be fine with using both US made and China made smartphones and cars.
Whats the real argument for a Brazilian, why they should be concerned with this ludicrous claims from USA: "muh China is tracking you going to Copacabana beach. Stop buying Chinese EV for $20k, buy Tesla for $60k instead and you will be safe!!!!11"
A car sells your data to your Insurance company. You had to rapidly stop to prevent an accident? Well, data looks exactly like reckless driving. Enjoy your higher rates, dear customer!
car telematics in insurance is already being used and is offered to customers as opt-in in exchange for premium discounts for good driving behavior.
if you are not reckless driver yourself, I dont see a downside here. You get lower premiums, insurance is able to narrow down the pool of reckless drivers and properly price them and modify their behavior via monetary incentives
With the Republicans thrown out enmass last night maybe we can go back to the full switch over to becoming an electro state again, and leave this oil and gas bullshit in the past. I’m still not OK with opening our doors to BYD, but I want our own manufacturers to come up to speed and to build out massive charging infrastructure.
The irony of course is that Trump had a mandate to inflict some tariff pain in the name of rebuilding American manufacturing, and managed to completely spaff that up the wall with non-strategic and idiotic tariffs on friends and neighbours.
Two Chinese EV here in Brazil. One BYD Seal for me and one Geely EX5 for wife and son.
They're amazing super quality cars. Cheap maintenance. There's no other can compete for quality + price. We was explored for decades from ocidental companies. No more.
Thanks GOD for BRICS.
Out of curiosity - how exactly does BRICS affect the entire situation? I don't know much about how it's structured and what it brings to member countries.
I'm asking just because BYD is building plants and selling cars in Europe too, despite EU's tariffs on Chinese cars.
Do you think Brazil wouldn't be an interesting enough market for Chinese automakers without BRICS?
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> Cheap maintenance.
I read some horror stories chinese ev dealers charging $700 nzd to inspect exhaust system so your warranty stays valid (legally you can do maintenance in independent shops, but it’s rare). Coincidentally extra long warranty on car that has nothing to break is milking machine IMO. Over that period it costs more than competition.
In the UK there's been a large increase as well as they're rock solid for a lower price. Am I odd for not considering one due to security concerns? I just can't wrap my head around buying what is essentially these days a smartphone on wheels from a hostile state that is probably sending data back to China. Car privacy these days is already bad enough.
For the average person in the US or UK, this is probably an improvement over having a domestic car brand doing the surveillance and funneling the data to agencies and politicians that actually have incentives to infringe on your rights or crack down on you for political activism that goes against the current regime in power.
> from a hostile state that is probably sending data back to China.
In terms of data privacy which state isn't hostile? I'd like an EV which is not connected, but out of available choices, I don't care if it's China or the US or someone else.
I probably even prefer China since they usually collect data but not on a personal level. It feels like the US products say "link to all accounts, tell us everything about you", while the Chinese products are monitoring things in a more generic way.
I own a BYD, in another minor western aligned country.. I assume that all players are spying on me. Americans, Chinese, they are effectively the same. I just comfort myself by telling myself that if they both have my data then there is less leverage over me overall.
As opposed to the US/UK/EU company scooping up all your data?
That's what most of us in the rest of the world feel about American cars and services. At least now, you split some and send your car data to China.
USA under Biden banned Chinese cars for exactly those reasons.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fact-sheet-safegua...
Sounds like an excuse to protect weak and unprepared American carmakers.
yes USA can be protectionist, and it can also be paranoid. Especially when it involves millions of 2-ton autonomous robots operated exclusively by its major economic and geopolitical rival.
Funny how the paranoia doesn’t apply to sectors that have no US-based industry to protect.
Which are those
That link says the ban comes into effect for model year 2027. And it applies to cars with software and hardware from China. The cars themselves are fine.
China is not going to sell a dumbcar in USA. The software and comms hardware ban is an effective ban of Chinese cars.
If there were no tariffs, they could import a car without Chinese electronics on-board and install approved gear in it before selling it.
which is a bit convenient, isn’t it?
could have banned the practice, demanded literal hardwire controls around it, etc. ensured that the customer cannot be pressured into enabling it all (so the vendor can't just disable unrelated functionality).
heaven forbid, demand selling infotainment-less configurations, or agreeing on a communication standard for real tablets and smartphones to communicate through.
instead, no, it's the chinese cars that should go.
Without pressure, local companies do not compete.
We need to let them in at a limited capacity and our domestic companies need to feel the heat.
The geopolitical risks are real. Stronger foreign companies can kill local ones if there's no stopgap or means for local companies to catch up. The cars are microphones for politically exposed persons (which most of you are not). If there was ever a hot war, these cars can turn into remote bombs and take out key infrastructure.
But in the here and now, we need Ford and friends to grow up and face real evolutionary pressures.
American consumers like big SUVs. But they also want cheap and modern, and once they see what else the market has to offer, they'll use choice to force the hands of American auto.
I agree that we’re subsidizing these companies at the cost of the consumer, but I highly doubt they could compete on a level playing field. The competition would be between foreign suppliers. The consumer surplus could be redirected more productively but that number would be diffuse and not easy to measure.
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Of course the simple answer is don't be hostile to PRC and PRC won't be hostile back. If security sharing concern (read FVEY circumventing domestic security laws), then bring Huawei back and I'm sure PRC, a surveillance state would be happy to spy on UK citizens on MI5 behalf just like the NSA. Or if you want to be spied on less, get a PRC car who are more likely to limit reporting to your home gov on strict lawful interception requirements... plus they literally won't have as much compute as US to track your everything, and whatever little compute they have, they're wasting tokens on microdrama videos. Like all those future US data centers going to be doing something. This comment 43% satire.
BYD taking over most of the world aside from the United States, Korea, Germany and Japan.
BYD is available in both South Korea and Japan and making inroads. The biggest barrier is a deep distrust of Chinese brands, not tariffs, plus in Japan's case favorable tax treatment of "kei" (light) cars, a Japan-only segment that BYD has just entered.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-evs-win-o...
You forgot India.
The thing all these countries have in common is their own Automobile sector which is a huge part of the economy that they need to protect.
Surprisingly I have seen imported BYD Atto at 100% tariffs or so and Olectra buses which are actually BYD buses , probably CKU imported into India. Auto sector employment in India is seriously important as is the need for capturing a fair value even of EVs locally while on the other hand Oil & Gas imports have always been the biggest import bill and Forex drain so there are good incentives to move. It is just they do it slowly and in their own ways and the handful of capital intensive companies who tried getting LFP manufacturing into India failed as China scale cannot be replicated in India due to differing political systems and cultures, even today
India’s approach has been to allow the competition but at a tariffed rate that makes the imports slightly more expensive than the domestic products. This ensures local industry doesn’t get decimated but also doesn’t get complacent without competition. The consumers get the option to buy BYD, but it won’t be cheap.
Brazil also has a huge automobile sector, even though it's not Brazilian-owned
BYD had to open factories here
Germany is being taken over, too. Perhaps slower than other markets but sales of Chinese cars are booming.
You mean the countries that still have native automotive industries and an understanding of the strategic value of heavy industry in both economic and martial terms?
How do Chinese owned industrial factories in Brazil differ, apart from being more efficient and able to pivot to new markets better? Which seems like useful properties in a war footing?
Do you want your war munition manufacturers to say "we'd have better short term bonuses if we didn't manufacture what you need but instead just kept manufacturing our old stuff with no regard for the nations future"?
> How do Chinese owned industrial factories in Brazil differ, apart from being more efficient and able to pivot to new markets better? Which seems like useful properties in a war footing?
The factory stops being efficient and easily pivoted the second the people running said factory want it to stop. That, in turn, depends on how friendly you are with the country running said factory.
Let's say there's some sort of negotiations going on between the country that hosts the factory and the country that operates the factory, which, in this case, means a country with a government that has a very deep cadre system that gives them control of almost all enterprises, state-owned or otherwise.
The negotiations (whatever it is, let's just say they're economic for an example) reach an impasse. You are the country that has control over the factory. Sure, the host country has the factory, but they don't have the institutional knowledge, intellectual property, or supply chain deals that your firm does.
Do you ignore this leverage? Hell no. You say "it'd be a real shame if we had to find a new place to make our products for your market", which would imply a serious loss of employment in the region and a massive factory complex sitting empty and decaying.
Unless you're talking about the sort of relationship the US and Japan have, the factory's host country now has to consider that possibility.
> Do you want your war munition manufacturers to say "we'd have better short term bonuses if we didn't manufacture what you need but instead just kept manufacturing our old stuff with no regard for the nations future"?
That's literally how pretty much all industrialized and post-industrialized nations' defense manufacturing sectors work to one extent or another. Some munitions and defense systems are incredibly complex. You can't just move the knowledge about their manufacture over in a few corporate wiki pages; you have to have the greybeards teach the young guys by doing. This happens all the time, particularly with nuclear weapons. If you don't do that, the greybeards retire or die off and no one knows how to make this system that the military has speced, tested, approved, and gone through the bureaucracy of acquisition for. This means they either do without or get to start over from scratch at tremendous cost.
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Exactly the countries where brand loyalty has a culture status. If you let go of that, there are only a few sensible economic options left, BYD high on that list.
US car makers can be cheaper too if they put workers in slave-like conditions, even aside the Chinese govt subsidies and investment.
One example from Brazil since that's the topic:
> Brazilian prosecutors have filed a lawsuit accusing electric carmaker BYD of human trafficking and keeping its workers in “slavery-like conditions” in its biggest market outside China.
> The investigation found the Chinese workers were brought to Brazil under false pretences and their visas did not match their jobs.
> Prosecutors said the workers were found working in “slavery-live conditions” and with "minimum comfort and hygiene”, calling them victims of international human trafficking
> The workers were forced to sleep on beds that did not have mattresses and as many as 30 people shared a bathroom, MPT alleged.
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/china/byd-china-ev-sued-b...
What you linked to is of construction contractors building the plant, not assembly line workers. It's a blurry line and certainly affiliated with BYD, but car assembly itself is moving toward 'dark' factories, populated by robots that are indeed kept in slave-like conditions, unpaid and worked beyond humane shifts.
As a side note, counterintuitively BYD has a lot more workers per car vs a lot of their competitors, but that's because of their extreme vertical integration where most are assembling upstream parts.
Cheaper but not cheap. US can pay literally 0 and still be substantially more expensive than PRC, labour simply rounding error ($500-$1000) per chassis.
BYD cars are cheaper because China just has the most expertise at building things at scale and because they're making many formerly discrete car parts entire modules, which are cheaper to manufacture.
There's also been plenty of reporting of 'slave like conditions' at Tesla, GM etc.
I mean, both can be true?
No, it can't. If PRC makers NEEDED low wages to undercut pricing vs west sure. But PRC EVs selling far above domestic MSRP, more than enough to cover wage differential, i.e. lower wages isn't doing the undercutting, it's enabling more profitable extraction. Reality is western competitors are simply not competitive regardless of wage differential when most structural competitiveness come from vertical integration. It doesn't help west is paying more to build worse. And paying less to build worse also not going to close gap.
Can be, but likely aren't to any greater extent than in the West without substantial evidence. And so perhaps it should not be the first reason listed for why it's cheaper when there are perfectly reasonable explanations outside of the constant 'China bad, evil' orientalist shtick that just shows how scared we in the West are of actual competition, accustomed to exploiting the world for half a millennia.
BYD in China shows off their factory towns for how wonderful the workers live. Its a modern day Hershey. It might be more of a Brazil issue than a BYD issue.
Good ol’ propaganda?
why is that your reflex? good ol' propaganda.
BYD is cheaper because BYD engineers are smarter, have higher IQ and able to vertically integrate components to cut overheads.
in the US auto OEMs are mainly putting parts together, made by different suppliers like ZF, Bosch, Lemforder etc etc. Its assembly work and it split across hundreds of legacy car component suppliers
> BYD is cheaper because BYD engineers are smarter, have higher IQ and able to vertically integrate components to cut overheads.
Lol, I wonder why. It really is a mystery. Why did we once rule the world pre-1970's and have been waning and decaying ever since? Gee, maybe these Chinese geniuses can figure out the reason for us.
Have you ever seen warehouses in the US or construction projects with only Mexicans. Not so much different to what you describe.
Assuming the blue wave continues for 2 more years, I've been wondering if the Democrats are going to open up America to Chinese EVs as a way to punish Elon for his engagement with the GOP
No they won’t as they have auto unions to protect
American auto unions largely aren't competing in the EV space. 80%+ of EVs sold in America aren't built using American union labor - Tesla at 60% sales is non-union, Rivian at 10%, Toyota imports EVs, Ford and Chevrolet build the Mach E and Equinox EV in Mexico
It doesn't refute GPs point. If foreign EVs are better than ICE vehicles manufactured by union labor, the unions are going to have a problem letting the foreign EVs in.
USA bans the onboard Chinese automotive software for national security reasons, effectively banning Chinese cars. This isn't a partisan political thing, Biden was the one that signed the Secure Equipment Act and Connected Vehicle Restrictions.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fact-sheet-safegua...
For all the talk about data and technology sovereignty in Europe, you would think they would take that more seriously too. Instead Europe is flooded with underpriced Chinese cars that they have no control over.
> Instead Europe is flooded with underpriced Chinese cars that they have no control over.
Please someone fact check that, as far as I know there are import taxes on Chinese EVs, and protectionist measures. The only "loophole" I know is for vehicles built in the EU, which is fine as it employs local workforce.
The link says restrictions on software take effect in model year 2027 and hardware in 2030. So those rules are not in force yet right?
And if this were really the issue, why wouldn't BYD build vehicles with swappable control software and hardware? Ship unfinished vehicles to the US and install approved electronics in them?
There's also the 100% tariff to overcome. But I'm sure with a friendlier tax/tariff regime, Chinese companies wouldn't be opposed to bringing 98% complete vehicles from China to the US and then finishing them with American comms equipment.
they wouldn't mind standing up factories and importing the parts for assembly.
That’s what happens when the state intentionally heavily subsidized an industry to destroy existing competition
Dated take. China and BYD are doing a lot of things right that make this possible. A recent article showing how they're consolidating parts that passes the buck to consumers is a great example as to why they can sell 20% cheaper and still have higher margins.
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Yes, but we're not talking about GM right now
Yeah we can see that with Anthropic and OpenAI.
No it's what happens when smart state intelligently subsidizes to bring down structural costs, while retarded state foolishly subsidizes to keep pork barrel jobs program going as legacy processes fall into uncompetitiveness. We had 30 years of PRC shock evidence now - everything PRC made cheap, remains cheap long after subsidies, because they structurally lower price floor vs western competition (generally) haven't.
subsidies is a very lazy argument, US subsidizes and protects even more and bails out car OEMs.
the real argument is efficiency, US cannot match efficiency and scale. Thats the root cause.
Is that why the US bans exports of EUV machines and Nvidia chips to China?
Thought you were talking about the US.
"They subsidize their industries. We protect local jobs." Totally different things.
It’s unavoidable, every country does it.
who would have thought people would flock to less costly alternatives (I'm brazilian and have tons of friends that have bought BYD models recently)
How are they being received generally in Brazil?
What kind of vehicles are people replacing with BYDs? I always assumed Brazilians drove mostly "legacy" VW or Nissans, but I looked at VW's Brazilian website and you all seem to have most of the same vehicles that are available in Europe and North America, including the ID.4!
> How are they being received generally in Brazil?
Very well. Not only BYD but also other brands like GWM and Geely.
> What kind of vehicles are people replacing with BYDs?
Combustion cars with the same price, they are not replacing other electrical vehicles because the Chinese brands are way cheaper yet they are good cars.
> I always assumed Brazilians drove mostly "legacy" VW or Nissans
Nowadays we have many models from different brands.
In the past the fleet was basically VW, Ford, Chevrolet and Fiat. In the late 90s and early 2000s the Japanesne (Honda, Toyota and Nissan) and French (Renault, Citroën, Peugeot) became popular, and then Hyundai also became a success here. Recently, the Chinese brands are becoming more popular, especially Chery and the ones that I mentioned before.
> including the ID.4
But I never saw it here, even though VW is a very popular brand here.
Not OP but also a brazilian with friends that bought BYDs, the ones I talked to about it really like it.
I'd say around 60% of the Ubers I get are BYDs and I'm glad when it's one because that means it's a newer car and it's very comfortable.
A lot of Uber Black cars in São Paulo are BYD ones, so I think it is creating a brand of “good quality” cars around here
Which doesn't mean most people can afford them - I live in Europe and I've yet to see an ID.4 myself.
Hence my surprise to even see it for sale in Brazil and the reason I brought it up. After looking at their lineup, it seem like VW has moved away from their historical approach of providing cheaper, older vehicles in the Brazilian market.
> historical approach of providing cheaper, older vehicles in the Brazilian market.
I think most of the established brands have stopped doing a lot of that, but it used to be very common. VW would build some models in Germany for several years, mostly for sale to higher priced markets; when it came time for a new model, the old production tooling would go to South Africa, Mexico, or Brazil where it would continue to be built (and refined) for many more years. It's great for parts availability too, and sometimes there's nice improvements available with parts that were designed after the model left my market.
But now it's more common to have completely different models for lower priced markets, or build a global model with different options in different markets. Soemthing, something, model consolidation is expected to reduce costs? But BYD (and others) are making big inroads into low cost markets by building models that are more affordable and using that volume to maybe move into higher priced markets over time.
Funny because I live in Hungary, the country with the highest VAT in EU (27%), and BYD is not the cheapest at all. Neither in the EV and ICE (hybrid) category
some models also charge much faster, and go further than Western alternatives
cheap, fast, good, its a rare moment to pick all three and the market is
most reservations about EVs are based on range anxiety, charging time and cost. only people with a certain level of advantage will pay to experience inconvenience, and that issue disintegrates at a certain threshold for a much broader population
For reference, the new BYD Dahan RWD model has a listed range of 626 miles and claims 'flash' charging of 10% to 97% in 9 minutes.
To be clear, that's CLTC range, so closer to ~400'ish miles EPA. Still, very good. I think there are a variety of reasons why US manufacturers are sticking closer to 300mi (e.g. availability of battery materials), but it's improving and hopefully that'll continue.
I'm kind of torn myself. Although I'd like more range, 300 does get me where I'm going, and performance vehicles want less weight, not more.
Are those chargers available in NA? Wouldn't they use higher line voltages than are currently permitted?
Supply line voltage is irrelevant. The car and charger negotiate and adjust power and voltage dynamically.
Charging stations typically also have on-site battery storage to have peak charging power that exceeds grid supply (and also because energy arbitrage is profitable).
Local codes might limit things, but that is unlikely.
Local codes for residential? I doubt anyone would be doing flash-charging at home. If you're referring to codes for charging networks, that would fall under industrial fixtures; and industrial codes allow for scarily-high-amperage wiring under a stricter regime than residential.
Industrial codes often only allow trained electricians to connect those high voltage wires. Even though it is fine, it is against the code to plug in that cable.
Currently the fastest chargers use 1000 V (which requires silicon carbide MOSFETs with rated voltages of at least 1400 V or silicon IGBTs with rated voltages of at least 1500 V).
There are international standards for 1000 V and 800 V charging, but I have no idea whether they are allowed in NA.
As another poster has already said, like in USB chargers, the charging voltage is negotiated with the car and the old cars are charged slowly, at a low enough voltage for them.
For now, most of these fast chargers have been installed in China, but there are plans to install them also in Europe.
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There are also a lot of inconveniences about petrol cars, like the volatility of oil prices, uncertain future emission regulations, higher mechanical complexity and hence maintenance costs, lower performance and more noise.
what are the high cost ones?
German and American cars who aren't getting subsidized by the government, in fact they actually have to pay taxes. In addition to the fact that China is letting companies destroy it's environment.
Nowadays I doubt that the US government is any better than China's in letting companies destroy the environment.
Moreover, I always wonder how Americans accuse China of subsidizing its industries, while I never hear about any serious investment done by any big US company that is not conditioned by huge tax reductions.
All the kinds of fiscal facilities that the big US companies receive from the state or federal governments would be strictly forbidden in most places of Europe, as being a form of state help that distorts competition.
> Nowadays I doubt that the US government is any better than China's in letting companies destroy the environment.
Where are you getting that idea?
Directly from the repeated declarations of people in high positions of the US government, including the POTUS himself, who have bragged about their efforts for removing all the environmental regulations that supposedly make the US companies lose money and make them less competitive.
I am too lazy to search now for quotations, but already the POTUS has referred to this subject so frequently that it should not be difficult to find such examples yourself.
Attempting nonetheless a very short search, one of the first entries is a New York Times article that says:
"The Trump administration has dismantled nearly 100 policies focused on clean air, water, wildlife and toxic chemicals"
The following is not a joke, but it is an official statement published on the White House site:
"The Administration approved 76 coal-related permits to reinvigorate America’s beautiful, clean coal industry."
Also from the White House official site:
"“In this Administration, NEPA’s regulatory reign of terror has ended,” said White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairman Katherine Scarlett. "
You made a comparative statement that has two sides.
Also consider: if California got rid of prop 65 warnings would that be bad? How would that fare on your scorecard?
Yes, PRC subsidising renewable energy is totally worse for the environment than US+DE subsidizing fossil and diesel gate.
At least the us has been decreasing carbon emissions for two decades running
No, retarded territorial accounting practices assign PRC made goods as PRC emissions but US fossil extraction as foreign consumer emissions. US emissions substantially up factoring in all the net oil export from fracking and NG fugitive leaks from shit gas infra. On paper US shed 1 mbt co2e/year from paper peak, but factor in oil/ng exports and leaks, US napkin math up 1.5 bmt co2e/year (-1 mbt reductions + 2 mbt from export + 0.5 mbt from fugitive emissions/leaks), i.e. 20% over US paper peak. If we want to be geopolitically cheeky, US majors also planning to restart Venezuela oil, so add another 10% / 0.5 bmt for every mbd US decides to bring online in VZ, because US can't seem to stop fossil.
Meanwhile PRC annual renewable production wipes about 100m barrel of oil energy equivalent per day over their life time, i.e. comparable to global oil consumption - they are functionally preventing oil use from doubling. To reiterate: every year, PRC is averting equivalent of 100m barrels of future oil consumption. For mental picture that's carbon sink size of 500,000 sqkm of rainforest, i.e. equal to planting 7% of Amazon per year. Literally the greatest emission aversion machine in human history - PRC functionally preventing so much emissions its net carbon foot print is negative if you use sensible attributions.
Nope. Trade corrected CO2 is also going down. And the scheme you're talking about is just double counting CO2 for producers. Why not just go all in on that and zero out any country that doesnt extract carbon sources!
Garbage in stats creates garbage out. Hence pointing out NONE biased garbage accounting that attributes emissions directly to extractor/producer like we do goods. AKA still single counts but shifts attribution - every barrel PRC imports? Discount emissions from PRC. Every barrel US exports, include as US emissions. Every solar panel that will avoid X emissions... credit that to PRC. See where this is going?
> Why not just go all in on that and zero out any country that doesnt extract carbon sources!
We should in fact, totally do that, aka on going GHG Protocol Scope3 Cat11 battleground, among others. Precisely to address statistically context illiterate claims like muh Murican emissions went down and muh trade corrected co2 went down because legacy (itself politicized) accounting standards specifically masks / offloads emissions extracted from US onto their customers. Shifting emissions to extractor responsibility is heavily politicized / lobbied against by US fossil industry to make US #s look better. But that's all it is, fabricated numbers for lame aktually arguments that somehow export oil cleaner than domestic coal... Maybe on a spreadsheet, using biased formulas, for useful idiots to quote. But in reality US extracted stupendous amount of new emissions from the ground vs paper peak.
Like US become the worlds largest fossil exporter, high consumption population grew by 50m, went from dirty coal to even worse leaky NG (more lobby shenanigans) and somehow have the audacity to claim US contribution to emissions is somehow down without realizing the double think involved to reach such conclusion. The US emits more than ever, it's just good at lobbying so spreadsheets say it isn't.
US emissions went up last year.
Was slight. It's projected to be down again in 2026.
All big companies in the US and Europe are subsidized. Indirectly or directly. But there no exceptions.
But you don't get it, when China does it, it's *illegal*!
This would happen everywhere where they shout "free market " from the rooftops would stop import tariffs.looking at Germany and the usa, specifically.
In Spain, they dont do that and adaption and dealerships for Chinese EVs is taking off nicely, I ask every single owner I can if they're happy with the service and the cars and all of them have never been happier. Subjective, yes, but I welcome the Chinese cars and free markets:-)
Yeah the car industry an industry notable for being free market with no subsidies whatsoever.
That’s cool until the EU decides that they’ve had enough of poor people driving their own cars and introduce tariffs or outright ban them. Then, how are you going to have them repaired? Maybe they even make it so that you can’t pass inspection with a Chinese car.
> EU decides that they’ve had enough of poor people driving their own cars
This about PRC localization, EU can't do shit. Think about insinuation if they tried? EU incumbent carmakers from economic giants, Germany, France, wants to prevent rest of EU from access to cheap cars to protect their industry and maintain economic hierarchy. What happens once PRC plants opens up in Spain, Hungary for whom DE, FR auto dying is now opportunity? Reality is EU is not so unified that smaller countries want to live in shadow of DE and FR forever. Once localized PRC plants take root, they become daggers vs incumbent EU producers instead of shields vs EU protectionism - they will be supported locally and the geopolitics of banning would break EU.
Spain and Germany have the same import tariff rates for everything. (Obviously?)
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When I order a Uber I just want a BYD… They should add the option in the app. Using the "Comfort" option increases the chance to get one, but I still get very bad/old cars occasionally.
Or maybe BYD could just start its own ridesharing service.
I live in a very small city in Brazil, BYD is a very common brand here.
As usual, it's a debate where I'm not interested in either side. I don't want huge, over-sized, over-luxurious, over-priced American cars. I don't want somehow-even-more-luxurious, tracking hell, iPad hell Chinese cars.
can you explain why is tracking an issue? Google/Android and Apple both do live tracking and Brazilians seems to be fine with using both US made and China made smartphones and cars.
Whats the real argument for a Brazilian, why they should be concerned with this ludicrous claims from USA: "muh China is tracking you going to Copacabana beach. Stop buying Chinese EV for $20k, buy Tesla for $60k instead and you will be safe!!!!11"
A car sells your data to your Insurance company. You had to rapidly stop to prevent an accident? Well, data looks exactly like reckless driving. Enjoy your higher rates, dear customer!
car telematics in insurance is already being used and is offered to customers as opt-in in exchange for premium discounts for good driving behavior.
if you are not reckless driver yourself, I dont see a downside here. You get lower premiums, insurance is able to narrow down the pool of reckless drivers and properly price them and modify their behavior via monetary incentives
whats the actual downside here??????
Not sure what Brazil's total EV numbers are , but Germany's total EV share is 37%, which is more than gas and diesel,combined.
article that says and is titled like that :)
https://electrek.co/2026/11/04/germany-electric-car-sales-re...
With the Republicans thrown out enmass last night maybe we can go back to the full switch over to becoming an electro state again, and leave this oil and gas bullshit in the past. I’m still not OK with opening our doors to BYD, but I want our own manufacturers to come up to speed and to build out massive charging infrastructure.
The irony of course is that Trump had a mandate to inflict some tariff pain in the name of rebuilding American manufacturing, and managed to completely spaff that up the wall with non-strategic and idiotic tariffs on friends and neighbours.