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BYD, the World’s Biggest Electric Car Maker
- AFascistWorld 7y agohttps://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-electric-buses-20180520-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-electric-buses-201...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ThePhysicist 7y agoI’m currently in China and impressed by how many electric vehicles you find on the road: Not only buses but also many cars and scooters. Besides their own brands like BYD I saw a fair amount of Teslas as well, more than in Germany. Pretty impressive how things changed since I’ve visited the country last time (10 years ago), personally I think China will easily beat Europe in switching to renewables. In general the infrastructure there improved drastically it seems, many highways, train connections and public transport systems like metros are on par or slightly above Western standard I’d say.
- NicoJuicy 7y agoI do think electric vehicles is a bad reference. China is the only country that pushes electronic vehicles that much. ( That's good, but not a fair reference)
- xiphias2 7y agoNot really, Norvegia is #1 with over 50% electric car sales last month, although that was because Model 3 got available.
- frosted-flakes 7y agoIs "Norvegia" a typo?
- xiphias2 7y agoDouble typo for Norway...It's too late to correct now though :(
- NicoJuicy 7y agoWell, I knew that, but Norwegian doesn't have a billion people and isn't fighting against traditional car sales like China does ( I supposed). That's why I added: that pushes it "that much"
- xiphias2 7y agoYou don't think that European car companies are trying to to lobby against electric cars in Norway? Don't get me wrong, I understand that China's policy matters the most for both CO2 and for improving battery technology, so actually I apploud both countries for implementing these policies.
- NicoJuicy 7y agoYes, they lobby. I've never said that. They are still in the transformation phase, sudden change would destroy a lot of jobs. Don't get me wrong, I support electric vehicles. But before pushing it, let some car companies adjust, so we don't lose a lot of jobs in the process. To be clear: not supporting the actions of some car companies, but I don't want to destroy jobs in the process. Eg. Germany. Transformation should happen though. But I don't see much benefit of removing a lot of older cars, that already done the damage ( production + resources + while driving), by replacing them immediately with electric cars ( that have a long term benefit, not a short term. Since they use resources too)
- xiphias2 7y agoI got a disease from the toxic air pollution that I was subject to for more than 30 years in my life. Nowdays I have to travel away from Europe every year for half year, because I'm affected by the air pollution even more in winter (though heating is also a part of the reason why pollution gets so bad in winter). Millions of people are dying every year because of air pollution, but you don't see it, because it's a silent killer. It slowly takes away years from your life span. You could say that it's not worth to get rid of cigarettes from the restaurants, because they don't have short term benefits, only long term benefits, but for people who don't have a lower amount of enzymes than you to detoxify these molecules are affected immediately. As for me, I wish there would be just 1 nice city in the world that would get rid of air pollution, I would immediately move there (right now I'm in a natural park resort, but these resorts get quite boring after some time compared to a city :( ).
- HillaryBriss 7y agoalso furthers the goal of reducing dependence on foreign oil I suppose
- toinetoine 7y agoLeave Shenzhen and you will see it's not all like this.
- njepa 7y agoUnfortunately that doesn’t change the equation much. The lasting impression of China in comparison with the west isn’t so much their development as the lack of our. Shenzhen might be the exception, but we don’t even have that.
- contingencies 7y agoShenzhen and many other major east coast cities have banned e-scooters. If you go to lots of other places, they are actually everywhere. Personal e-vehicles are therefore far more numerous in those places. So to reply to your assertion, I would say that Shenzhen is clearly a bit of a showcase bubble, but it's actually less rife with e-vehicles than many other places.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoTeslas are popular in Beijing because EVs have a different pool in the license plate lottery. Rich people who would’ve gotten a black Audi instead settle for a Model S.
- sfifs 7y agoThat's good right? Incentivizing EV adoption by the trend setters
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoI mean, it isn’t bad. Government policies are pushing people this way, even if most of the, still lack actual parking spots for their cars where they could charge at home. Honestly, I don’t know how they do it, 70% of the parking in Beijing is on street (usually illegally). Perhaps the Model S crowd can afford parking spots, which is why you don’t see a lot of BYD EVs that aren’t fleet.
- sfifs 7y ago> which is why you don’t see a lot of BYD EVs that aren’t fleet. Yes infrastructure in most places needs to catch up but even so, having taxi and bus fleets transform to EV is nothing to be sneezed at in any city. Taxis (bith standard and Uber varieties) may often form 10% of vehicles in cities (eg. where I live in Singapore) and disproportionately contribute to miles driven and hence emissions and smoke. Having all of those transform to EV is a very good thing.
- Matthias247 7y agoWhat is a license plate lottery? Does the different license plate give one privileges? Or is it about getting a license plate at all?
- iforgotpassword 7y agoThe latter. It can take you a year if you're unlucky, depending on city. Chances of "winning" are much higher with EVs.
- benj111 7y ago"Their engines had been installed a few moments earlier" Don't they mean motors? Or are they interchangeable in this context now?
- syntaxing 7y agoNot sure why you're being down voted but it's a good question since my Professor spent some time to explain this. I think if you think of the literal definition in the English dictionary, then the wording is correct. However, most people in the technical community would agree engin is a subclass of motor that uses a cyclical process to convert power to motion.
- kwhitefoot 7y ago> most people in the technical community Not this member of the technical community; an engine is simply something that makes something else go or achieve an end. In my field we have calculation engines, these are neither electric nor cyclical. And a motor is essentially the same thing. Engines can be steam, ICE, electric, programmatic, or even man powered (for instance a siege engine). Perhaps it's different where you come from or, perhaps, there is more than one technical community.
- ec109685 7y agoA lot of their cars are hybrid, so engine is right
- tim333 7y agoWorld's biggest is a bit questionable. As of 2018 BYD sales $16bn, Telsa $21bn. Growth over previous year approx 24% BYD, 90% Tesla. Charlie Munger remains a BYD fan - "BYD is going to be huge electric vehicles. They are already huge. And they’re going to be much more huge..." http://latticeworkinvesting.com/2019/03/03/charlie-munger-full-transcript-of-daily-journal-annual-meeting-2019/ http://latticeworkinvesting.com/2019/03/03/charlie-munger-fu...
- robertAngst 7y agoAnd Nissan Leaf has outsold Tesla in number of vehicles.
- MoreFalseInfo 7y agoThis is false. The Leaf passed 400K sales last month: https://newsroom.nissan-global.com/releases/nissan-leaf-first-electric-car-to-pass-400k-sales?lang=en-US&rss https://newsroom.nissan-global.com/releases/nissan-leaf-firs... Tesla had delivered more than 500K cars by the end of last year: https://insideevs.com/tesla-production-deliveries-graphed-q4-2018/ https://insideevs.com/tesla-production-deliveries-graphed-q4... So the Leaf has outsold each Tesla model but not Tesla in total number of vehicles.
- mikeash 7y agoThis comment chain is a good example of mesofacts. http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02/28/warning_your_reality_is_out_of_date/ http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/02... I’m pretty sure BYD had more sales than Tesla until pretty recently. The Leaf outsold Tesla until recently. Both were true for quite some time. If you learned those facts, it’s easy to miss when they stop being facts.
- m463 7y agoNobody outsold the GIANT of electric vehicles (Detroit Electric) until 2010 for Nissan and maybe 2012 for Tesla. Overall sales were all Nissan with the Leaf in 2010 until maybe 2018 when Telsa surpassed it. Detroit Electic was a hard act to follow for over 100 years.
- Waterluvian 7y agoI'm completely ignorant of the topic. Are Chinese auto safety standards any good? Would these cars be allowed on North American or European roads?
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoAsk the Australians, they’ve had a few scandals with Chinese car imports and safety.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoAre they any worse than economy cars from 20yr ago?
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoMaybe 30 years ago. They did ok on the ones they used for certification, but after than quality slipped and they became death traps (what anyone doing manufacturing in China has to look out for, actually).
- 11thEarlOfMar 7y agoWhat occurs to me is the different approaches to attacking the same market. BYD, at least as characterized by the author, took an incremental approach to learning the technology and market, starting with buses as a kind of low-hanging fruit and then building on that learning. Tesla identified the primary market challenge of range anxiety and design & performance stereotypes went straight at them with high consequence investments in charger infrastructure, battery technology strategies, gigafactory, 'appealing' design, and incredible performance. It's kind of a tortoise vs. hare and at least as far as this article is concerned, both approaches are having success on their own terms.
- deesep 7y agoBYD is a an acronym for “build your dreams” :)
- epynonymous 7y agoi live in shanghai and have ridden in many byd's, basically the compact car model is very popular for didi drivers which is the equivalent of uber/lyft here. I'm not 100% certain if that compact byd is 100% electric, but it seems to drive quiet. There are government incentives to buy electric cars, less tax, lower price, the license plate is also a lot cheaper. In shanghai a license plate costs 100k rmb (15k usd) and you have to compete with tens of thousands others in a lottery system to get the right to buy one in the first place, for electric cars it's less than 100 usd. Some workarounds are to purchase a license plate from out of shanghai, but that means you can't drive on the highways and expressways during rush hour traffic (7:00-10:30 and 15:00-20:00 mon-fri), if you're caught by any of the millions of cameras, that's a 3 point fine and 200 rmb (you get 11 points per year which means you need to retake drivers ed. And re-test). The byd's i've ridden in seem ok, quite underpowered, but good for city driving, i don't know how good the mileage is for one charge, but it's comfortable to sit in for a small compact, never had an issues with it as a passenger. Then again, i would never buy one of these myself, it's about 280k rmb, this is for a domestic car, there are a lot of other choices at that cost point for foreign cars even. I just test-drove a model x tesla today, much nicer, but not the same price point, about 790k rmb. I think warren buffet or someone invested a lot in byd, they have an suv version, too.
- tim333 7y agoYeah Buffett's co invested $232 million in 2008 for about a quarter of the company.
- epynonymous 7y agoThanks for the note