3 ms·

very reasonable to think its chinese.

by x5n1 11y ago

kriro 11y ago
I'd think they would plan to manufacture in China though.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  Manufacturing high end tech in China isn't as cheap as one might think, when it comes to really high end electronics China/Taiwan is usually really cheaper only at extremly high volumes same goes for any other type of high end manufacturing where human labor isn't a factor anymore. Other "over-seas" manufacturing cost reductions come mainly when you delegate the entire production operation to a sub-contractor this means that much of your engineering post the prototyping phase such as the "design for manufacturing", tooling, and assembly line engineering are delegated to local engineering firms which while are much more expensive now than even 10 years ago still considerably cheaper than US or European engineers. If you can't or do not want to do it when the volume isn't huge, and when pretty much all of the work has to be done outside of china you won't see any real cost benefits to it. So when you combine the already existing experience in both automotive and high tech engineering fields as well as government grants in the US for green/renewable energy and emerging technologies making a Tesla 2.0 in China will probably not cost you sufficiently less to justify the costs of having to build it in China and import it into the US. And if you also going to replicate Tesla's artificial scarcity business model well then at that volume China might become even a more expensive place to produce in.
  - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
    I wouldn't throw Taiwan in with China, they have pretty advanced foundries these days, definitely on par with Korea and maybe even Japan.
- notatoad 11y ago
  There's nothing to say they won't. The article says they're operating out of an old Nissan research facility right now, not that they've bought a factory in California. Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well. It's where the people who know that stuff are, so if a Chinese company wants to build an electric car, it makes sense that they'd set up shop in California too. When it comes time to move to manufacturing, they can do that anywhere.
  - MagnumOpus 11y ago
    > Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well That is a particulary narrow set of blinders. Even in the US it is not true - MCity and U-M's research in Michigan is a good counter example. And when you look over the pond, there's a lot more going on in Stuttgart and Munich than in the Valley (with less breathless hype but more actual progress). Of course for Chinese car builders it is easier to poach US engineers, research and know-how to build their own industry - less problems with the language than in Germany, less distrust given that Californian research is half run by Chinese grad students anyway.

very reasonable to think its chinese.

by x5n1 11y ago

very reasonable to think its chinese.

kriro 11y ago

I'd think they would plan to manufacture in China though.

dogma1138 11y ago
Manufacturing high end tech in China isn't as cheap as one might think, when it comes to really high end electronics China/Taiwan is usually really cheaper only at extremly high volumes same goes for any other type of high end manufacturing where human labor isn't a factor anymore. Other "over-seas" manufacturing cost reductions come mainly when you delegate the entire production operation to a sub-contractor this means that much of your engineering post the prototyping phase such as the "design for manufacturing", tooling, and assembly line engineering are delegated to local engineering firms which while are much more expensive now than even 10 years ago still considerably cheaper than US or European engineers. If you can't or do not want to do it when the volume isn't huge, and when pretty much all of the work has to be done outside of china you won't see any real cost benefits to it. So when you combine the already existing experience in both automotive and high tech engineering fields as well as government grants in the US for green/renewable energy and emerging technologies making a Tesla 2.0 in China will probably not cost you sufficiently less to justify the costs of having to build it in China and import it into the US. And if you also going to replicate Tesla's artificial scarcity business model well then at that volume China might become even a more expensive place to produce in.
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  I wouldn't throw Taiwan in with China, they have pretty advanced foundries these days, definitely on par with Korea and maybe even Japan.
notatoad 11y ago
There's nothing to say they won't. The article says they're operating out of an old Nissan research facility right now, not that they've bought a factory in California. Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well. It's where the people who know that stuff are, so if a Chinese company wants to build an electric car, it makes sense that they'd set up shop in California too. When it comes time to move to manufacturing, they can do that anywhere.
- MagnumOpus 11y ago
  > Everybody else doing autonomous and electric vehicle research also seems to be operating out of california right now as well That is a particulary narrow set of blinders. Even in the US it is not true - MCity and U-M's research in Michigan is a good counter example. And when you look over the pond, there's a lot more going on in Stuttgart and Munich than in the Valley (with less breathless hype but more actual progress). Of course for Chinese car builders it is easier to poach US engineers, research and know-how to build their own industry - less problems with the language than in Germany, less distrust given that Californian research is half run by Chinese grad students anyway.