Rather than fixing the economy issues at home, we create more barriers to entry for affordable EV's domestically. Fucking dinosaurs rich off dinosaur remains ruining the planet for our children.
this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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If Chinese made EVs are forced through multiple levels of proper QA, they aren't going to be as affordable as you think. Cheap shit from China is horrendously bad and good quality Chinese goods are just as expensive as domestic products.
Do you really want to sit on top of a few hundred pounds of lithium that wasn't inspected properly?
But Tesla gets a pass for high prices for cheap shit and bad QA because...?
Made in America. I can't understand that way of thinking. I buy the best option for myself, I don't care if it's made at home or on the other side of the world.
Tesla is shit with great PR and a "status symbol"
And that few hundred pounds was quite possibly put together by a de facto, or very actual, slave.
The US can and does set quality standards for products sold on its markets. This doesn't improve the quality of the cars sold in the US, it just makes them more expensive. It may even have the indirect effect of reducing the quality of vehicles sold in the US because increasing price instead of setting and enforcing quality and testing standards means lowering quality to maintain or increase profits is still an option.
It's really impressive the lack of knowledge in the US about china's products. I can definitely say you have never been inside a BYD or GWM EV. The US car brands have no chance of durvival, the government wants to give them time to die a slow death so employees and shareholders have time to relocate to other industries. The only problem I'd that the ones paying the price will be, as always, the US customers. Just to give you a point of reference, the price for a Tesla 3 equivalent in china is 20,000 USD, let that sink.
It's really impressive the lack of knowledge in the US about china's products.
I know, right? If people actually opened up those cheap electronics they get from Temu or Amazon, they might actually see how dangerous they can be.
The thing is, cheap or expensive everything is made in china. You can buy a BYD and have state of the art technology in a car or a Chirey and pay peanuts for a car that does the job. Just like you can buy an iphone, made in china, or a Xiaomi for 50 bucks.
Cheap shit from China is horrendously bad and good quality Chinese goods are just as expensive as domestic products.
And here we are. Full circle.
The original Ender3 is a good example of a cheap 3D printer that went through almost zero QA. By some miracle, most printers worked and still do. However, it doesn't take much to dig and find all the ones that were shipped with fake XTC connectors and were a fire hazard. There are plenty more examples I could dig up from personal experience. (We won't even get into all the tools I have fixed where the chassis is referenced to mains or high voltage components had no, or insufficient, grounding.)
What a coincidence! I work for a 3D printer farm with about 2000 printers. We have had all the different kinds, and we finally settled for the ender V3
The V3 is relatively new. I am referring to the originals that made Creality and I know those printers inside and out. While they were a good starter printer, they had dozens of flaws. You name an issue, I saw it.
I was using that as an example of bad QA for consumers. Anyone who can rebuild printers can identify and fix those issues, but it shouldn't be that way.
Here is a good example of your average Amazon product where MOSFETs have been sanded down and laser etched with fake branding and part numbers:
If you like a good mass production story, just look back on YouTube on the Linux Tech Tips channel about the Chinese company that decided to cost cut when he was finalizing his screwdriver for production.
There are quality products from companies like DJI or Bambu Lab, or, domestically designed products where companies have to babysit production. Hell, even PCB fab companies are generally OK, but even they have randomly cropped parts of my PCBs for no reason.
These have been getting pumped out of China for years, too: https://www.temu.com/home-appliance-voltage-regulator-energy-saver-intelligent-power-saver-smart-home-power-saver-new-power-saver-g-601099538791191.html
Just Google for ODB2 fuel savers, another scam that has been around for years.
Is there no regulation on scams? All authorities would need to do is search Temu, eBay or Amazon for those two products, over and over again.
As long as you are a smart buyer and understand what you need Chinese companies will provide it. If you are looking for the lowest price then you'll get it, if you are looking for high standards, like the iphone smartphones, you'll get it as well. Same with EV cars. If you want a top quality EV you buy a BYD, if you want a piece of metal with a battery to take you places you can go as low as you want. But don't get me wrong, I really like that the US is blocking the EV cars from China because their market is very big and it would make the prices go up and the stocks would dry from everywhere else to supply the US market.
tl;dr: There is much more to this than just having "smart consumers" and there are some very real reasons why Chinese products can be cheaper to make and sell. Cost cuts always come from somewhere.
If you want a top quality EV you buy a BYD
That's a bold statement. I'll be more comfortable when I see more third-party teardowns of the vehicles that are conducted outside of mainland China. There have been a few that seem independent, but not enough to my liking. (In fairness, I have no love for Tesla at all. If anything, I have a stronger bias against Tesla.)
Battery fire data, that I can find, has been heavily obfuscated by both Tesla and BYD with floods of soft propaganda on that subject. Reports of battery fires seem to be more common with BYD, but even that is unreliable. For example, BYD fires have some reports between 2x and 10x more than that of Tesla, while other reports have them a 2x lower. (Uncertainty is a pure propaganda win, I suppose.)
As long as you are a smart buyer and understand what you need Chinese companies will provide
if you are looking for high standards, like the iphone smartphones, you'll get it as well.
That's my point. A person basically needs an EE degree to understand what they are getting unless a Chinese company puts a massive emphasis on QA themselves, which is rare. Otherwise, US companies have to implement strict guidelines for Chinese manufacturing and testing themselves.
We also need to go deeper into component counterfeits. While there are numerous clones of standard ICs on the market, there are just as many fake and mislabeled ICs that make it into brand products that were sourced from China as well. Component swaps are extremely common unless major component distributors implement their own QA processes. Mouser and DigiKey have to charge a premium for this, where LKR or LCSC seem to specialize in clones and can cut costs that way.
The most well known issue I can think of is the electrolytic capacitor scandal that happened between 1999 and 2007. (That comes to mind first as I just replaced several dozen caps in a legacy CD player and MIDI keyboard.)
Here is some more interesting stuff. It goes beyond criticism and into the bizarre and quirky: Fake OPamps that have been discovered recently: https://youtu.be/NSgqYLLPUSs?si=C8Nca5zJZXcyf0Hi
if you want a piece of metal with a battery to take you places you can go as low as you want.
That is where I have a bit more faith in the structure of the US legal system, for once. Buying a faulty LED dimmer is one thing but buying a car is another. If BYD (or Tesla) cars start killing other people that haven't bought an EV, I would expect that any ensuing lawsuits would get the FTC and the US DOT sufficiently motivated to clamp down harder on shoddy construction. (Strict regulation has its own disadvantages, of course.)
I mean, I'm already subscribed to several only fans accounts that shove lead tainted bad dragons into all of their orifices while drinking from a Stanley cup that's full of other toxins.
Sometimes you got to be a little less risk-averse to really live life.
The US automotive industry already isn't competitive abroad. This is only going to make it worse. Meanwhile the investors reap monopoly profits while the consumers pay the price. (And yes I know it's technically an oligopoly.)
American cars are incredibly popular in Europe.
In terms of market share, the Volkswagen Group remains the market leader in the EU in December. The company from Lower Saxony secured 24.9 percent of the pie with all its brands. The Stellantis Group accounts for 16.7 percent with its brands. The Renault Group is in third place with 12.1 percent. The strongest individual brand in December 2022 was VW with a market share of 11.2 percent. Renault secured second place with 6.8%, just ahead of Mercedes (6.6%). Toyota (6.0%), BMW (5.8%), Audi (5.4%), Dacia (5.2%), Peugeot (4.8%), Skoda (4.4%), Hyundai (3.8%) and Ford (3.6%). Opel is on a par with its sister company Fiat with a market share of 3.3%, while Kia is just ahead of Seat (3.1%) with 3.2%. Volvo is ahead of Citroën with 2.7 percent.
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/verkehr/eu-neuzulassungen-dezember-2022-gesamtjahr/
Yeah, Americans are absolutely dominating in Europe.
To be fair, China is massively subsidizing those manufacturers. Sky high tariffs are a pretty standard response to anti-competitive practices.
The barrier to domestic EVs is that dealers and manufacturers don't like them because of the lower maintenance. We need to tighten efficiency standards to provide better motivation.
This has nothing to do with the economy as a whole which is doing great by all the standard metrics. It's not great for those at the bottom, but they aren't the market for new vehicles.
Just Tesla gets $1.8b in subsidies per year from US government alone.
https://newrepublic.com/article/175397/teslas-cheaper-now-thanks-subsidies-musk-hated
China has spent $57 billion over 7 years on EV subsidies. The US subsidies are buyer incentives which, until recently, were available for foreign vehicles as well. A Tesla sold in China does not get subsidized. Chinese subsidies have included large direct subsidies on the manufacturing.
I personally see direct subsidies to corporations as a last resort since corporations seem to use them for nothing but stock buy-backs.
Sounds like China wanted it more.
China has surpassed the West in EV adoption and electrification overall, and we are here eating Play-Doh in our Cybertrucks.
Certainly, but that doesn't mean the US can be dependent on China for it's transition. As stated further up, I am very much in favor of government intervention to force auto makers to sell a lot more electrics. The current regulations are terrible.
He gets subsidies from the CCP too
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. What you say is accurate.
Every post on Chinese EVs is invaded by China shills and idiots who don't understand economics
Sometimes that's the best way to get downvoted.
Hey, always remember, Biden doesn't do all the things, don't forget to vote for your LOCAL politicians, best we can do. Always remember it's all the government not just one guy.
Get out of here with your facts and logic.
I've never actually seen any Chinese EV cars in the States unless you count like, Volvo. (BYDs and MGs are getting quite popular in Australia though), so this tariff looks to be more political posturing than anything else.
BYD electric busses are made right outside Los Angeles, so they wouldn't be subjected to the tariff at all, but that's a whole other can of worms.
China will make the same money from the cars and ultimately the consumer will pay an invisible tax on it.
I wouldn't buy one because of China's use of forced and slave labor.
The Empire (aka USA) is not the land of free market? (irony) Fuck these bastards
This guy just can't fucking save himself.
He makes one step in the right direction in Gaza and his very next step is to disappoint
I don't understand why there are some people down voting you. The US auto industry products are relics from the 20th century and protecting it will make it worse. They'll still lose the global auto market.