this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
46 points (82.9% liked)

Electric Vehicles

3121 readers
444 users here now

A community for the sharing of links, news, and discussion related to Electric Vehicles.

Rules

  1. No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
  2. Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
  3. No self-promotion
  4. No irrelevant content. All posts must be relevant and related to plug-in electric vehicles — BEVs or PHEVs.
  5. No trolling
  6. Policy, not politics. Submissions and comments about effective policymaking are allowed and encouraged in the community, however conversations and submissions about parties, politicians, and those devolving into general tribalism will be removed.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I absolutely hate Chinese car manufacturers, but they made it clear that western car makers don't want to create affordable EVs.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Well R&D costs a ton of money

The reason why Chinese ones are so cheap is that the government is subsidizing them

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

thats the correct thing to do if you want to transition away from oil fast.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I agree on that, there should be more incentive for people to get EVs

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

BYD also owns the entire supply chain, from lithium mines to battery manufacturing to car assembly to sales. Nobody else can do that right now.

And China has the overwhelming advantage in lithium supply to the rest of the world.

IIRC it’s not R&D that is the main cost of EVs these days, but the cost of the batteries themselves is still absurdly high. It’s down to $139/kWh as of Nov 2023, but keep that in perspective of an EV: a 72 kWh battery is $10k in raw material costs alone. I think I remember seeing a quote that affordable EVs (unsubsidized) can’t become a realistic goal until lithium prices break the $100 threshold.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

That and the fact that a lot of auto makers in the US only want to make luxury EVs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

It's almost like the US has spent billions developing electric cars that the Chinese manufacturers don't have to spend on.

🤔

[–] C126 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Generally don't trust their build quality.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Literally almost everything you own or purchase was manufactured in China, and has been for 30+ years. They’ve risen most of their population out of poverty and have been stringently educating their youth as well. “Ghost cities” are becoming populated urban centers, as they planned.

They have the manpower, infrastructure, and smarts to absolutely beat us at our own game, and our rich, Republican billionaire elites fucking sold it to them for the chance to lower labor costs and keep more of the profit themselves.

And you’re still like “hurrr durr Chinese shit cheap” like dude you’re typing on a device made in china, even the most top of the line shit. You’re already IN China, my man.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

@4am @Fake4000 too true. The same quality issue was levelled at Japan 50 years ago and now they are the go to for quality cars. My kids have a Polestar (not cheap) made in China and so far no faults and they love it.
#evs #china

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

https://electrek.co/2020/08/03/tesla-made-in-china-cars-lead-market-quality/

Considering even Tesla's cars in China is of higher quality then the same model build in the US. I am inclined to doubt the quality of electric vehicles not built in China.

[–] C126 4 points 6 months ago

Based on what though? Any hard facts or is it just like racism or xenophobia or something?

[–] Grass 3 points 6 months ago

Dunno about cars but generally this is outdated. So many times I have bought all sorts of things from china that end up being the exact same as the local stuff minus the brand name for like 2% of the cost. A lot of things end up being at best "assembled in the USA" with china parts and sub assemblies too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

China have become very good at manufacturing, thanks to all the western companies outsourcing over the years. Nowadays Made in china means reasonable quality at a good price, they are amazing at hiting certain privepoints with as high of a quality you could expect. Give them a high quality pricepoint and they outdo any western company. I think that is what is happening here

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Chinesiun usage, mostly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Chinese companies see lots of funding from their government in specific fields.

Same from any nation really, but don't think the ticket price isn't reduced from those subsidies / donations / how ever you want to paint it.

I believe the EU are planning to tax Chinese made vehicles based on how much support they are receiving from their government.

https://fortune.com/2024/03/07/eu-nears-hitting-chinese-evs-with-additional-tariffs/