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Tesla’s Nemesis in China Is a Tiny $5k Electric Car from GM

246 points by finphil 6y ago

baybal2 6y ago
Is still cannot comprehend how in the world Chinese fell for American cars. One thing I noticed is that recent Chinese immigrants to the West often get a very unpleasant surprise after buying GM cars in North America. GM in China is known to be much better than American GM, but they are still known as quite a bad deal to more technically literate buyers. I guess, some people will drive just any car for as long as it's not Japanese. Or may it be the appeal of a an image of a product made for "rich old people" is still so irresistible to Chinese buyers.
- MiroF 6y ago
  American products are considered a luxury status symbol in much of China. There are literal "Jeep" stores in Beijing that are just selling Jeep-branded camo apparel at upscale prices.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  > Is still cannot comprehend how in the world Chinese fell for American cars. Well, because it's not an American car as such; it's a car designed for the Chinese market by an American company. Similarly, Ford is pretty popular in Europe (and so was GM until fairly recently when they sold off Opel), but their big sellers are largely cars designed for the European market. This goes both ways; Japanese and Korean manufacturers have models that are primarily or entirely designed for the US market.
  - nickik 6y ago
    GM basically lost money in Europe for 15 years straight. Ford does make some money in Euope thanks to their commercial vehicles mostly, they don't actually make all that much money on the personal cars either. That said, Ford did much better in Europe then GM and are actually profitable there.
kennywinker 6y ago
So much of what is toxic about cars and car culture could be fixed by downsizing and slowing them. Primarily, less injuries and deaths - but also lower overall energy consumption and less pedestrian and cyclist hostility. I wish north america would fully get on board with these small EVs
- grp000 6y ago
  America has the fundamental problem of large size, little EV infrastructure and poor public transit outside metro areas.
- Google234 6y ago
  I don’t want to drive slower so I will vote against this.
  - stouset 6y ago
    I don’t want to pay taxes for schools since I don’t have children. But I’m an adult capable of understanding that what I personally want isn’t necessarily what’s best for society at large, so I suck it up and do it anyway without complaining.
    - gameswithgo 6y ago
      More than just what is best for society at large, paying to educate the kids you don't have, in the long run, makes the world better for you too.
    - Google234 6y ago
      I wonder what percentage of people would vote for the OPs idea in the US. 10%? Maybe 15% :)
      - stouset 6y ago
        Perhaps one of the biggest problems with this country right now is that people are too damn selfish, and vote “in their own best interest” to the detriment of not only everyone else but—ironically—to the detriment of themselves as well.
sudosysgen 6y ago
4230$ for an EV with a 170km range is insane if you live in a city.
- martin_a 6y ago
  Totally! This would bring me to work and back for half a month. I can also load my EV at work, so there wouldn't be any range problems. Would love to see something like this for the European market.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    Renault Twizy probably isn't a million miles away (though for regulatory reasons, it's slower). I do think it's interesting that most if not all European equivalents have been made to look apparently as un-car-like as possible, whereas this one looks like a very small car.
    - martin_a 6y ago
      I think this might be due to regulatory issues. If I remember correctly, a Twizy will be categorised as a "light vehicle" [1] which will probably lower some requirements in terms of safety or whatnot. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadricycle_(EU_vehicle_classification) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadricycle_(EU_vehicle_classi...
  - harpastum 6y ago
    You might want to take a look at the Citroën Ami. 6000 euro including VAT. Not sure which country you're in, but it seems more likely that something street legal in France would work for you. https://www.citroen.com/en/Highlight/131/ami-100-electric-mobility-accessible-to-all https://www.citroen.com/en/Highlight/131/ami-100-electric-mo...
    - martin_a 6y ago
      I'm in Germany. Had a quick look at the Ami. The "problem" is the maximum speed of 45 km/h. As inner-city traffic normally is 50 km/h this will make you kind of a disturbance for other motorists and this will turn people down or keep them from buying this. Not to mention that overland traffic is normally 100 km/h and well... 45 is quite slower... Nevertheless, good idea, I like it.
baybal2 6y ago
Now, back to the merits of the article: > One of the biggest challenges in making EVs cheaper is the battery, which currently represents about one-quarter of a car’s cost because of the expensive metals used, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese. No, it's such a big, massive misconception the misconception that the echo chamber keeps repeating. The raw material cost of metals used even in the biggest batteries around is at maximum $1k-$1.5k, and usually just few hundred bucks. What makes it expensive is the big chem, and it's stranglehold on processing them into cathode, and anode materials. Plain graphite, while also being dominated by an oligopoly, still only costs $1 per kg, but the moment it becomes an industrial chemical, its price shoots n-fold. Lithium is by far not the cost factor at all, with the amount used, and no scarcity prospect is in sight, despite speculations of the stock market lemmings, but the moment it is put into some chemical relevant to battery making, it too shoots up in price n-fold. Cobalt was one of few things which really used to be pricey, but not much now. The cost was approaching $200 per kg at the top of the Cobalt bubble, but then it felt to $20, and below. And again, the moment it becomes a cathode material, it costs 10*n-times as much. The cost advantage of LFP batteries which a lot of Chinese companies prefer to cobalt based ones is not much in the material cost, but because the chemical's supply chain is much simpler, stable, and has much, much, more domestic competition. The cobalt based cathode materials are still a domain of LG Chem, and few much smaller Japanese companies.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  > What makes it expensive is the big chem, and it's stranglehold on processing them into cathode, and anode materials. Could you expand on this?
  - baybal2 6y ago
    Processed chemicals used for battery making cost many times the cost of raw materials, and it will be so until competition can weaken the big chem oligopolies currently dominating the market.
    - Retric 6y ago
malwarebytess 6y ago
So, why can't we sell a car like this in the US at a similar price? Do we think there's no market?
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  maybe they d be good in population-dense europe , but US sprawl practically requires huge batteries
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    ^high speed/collisions in a tiny tin can.
    - cblconfederate 6y ago
      tiny cars are popular already .
      - mixmastamyk 6y ago
        Not in the US, and especially not outside of cities. For the reasons I mentioned above. I'm a fan of them, but wouldn't want to be driving at full speed on a long-distance trip with one.
  - lvs 6y ago
    80% of Americans live in an urban area. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-210.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-210...
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    I drive a Fiat 500e with what they bill as an 84-mile range, and I live in a suburb of Dallas. I actually get closer to 100 than 84, but I am rarely concerned about the range, despite the extreme sprawl. But I know people who have commutes that would make driving my car nearly impossible, or at least impossible without mid-day charging.
- 6y ago
fortran77 6y ago
It would be nice if downtowns had zones where only local delivery and max-20 mph cars could be used, along with bicycles, etc. safer for everyone.
- maxharris 6y ago
  Better yet, let's get rid of cars altogether from city streets. This is coming along very nicely... https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/21257849/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-tunnel-finished-digging https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/21257849/elon-musk-boring... Autonomous driving is just around the corner, too, which means that there is no need to waste space on parking structures, either. Here's a Tesla engineer that gave a great technical talk demonstrating their progress as of early this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8 EDIT: yes, there are clear reasons why having an three-dimensional underground structure will absolutely affect the social dynamics above-ground in a city, yet it remains true that it is possible to banish cars from downtown cores in the near future (i.e., say by 2030 or so), given the present shift to electrification and autonomous driving. These issues are worthy of debate, and I'm just trying to shift the conversation to what's current. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade! I love the goal of city streets for people, as exemplified by the beautiful laneways in Melbourne (11 minutes): https://vimeo.com/131396094 https://vimeo.com/131396094
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    I'm not going to live long enough to see autonomous cars in the hands of regular people. And I'm not particularly old yet. Electric, I'm with you. We're at 2 out of 3 cars in our household being electric.
  - xkcd-sucks 6y ago
    If underground construction is so easy now, why not move all the people underground and leave the roads in place? It's much easier to build a lot of unconnected spaces vs a network, and being in a highrise is basically the same as being in an underground box
maxharris 6y ago
Here are some more headlines to help put this in context: "Tesla still dominates electric car sales in China, over 11,000 deliveries in July" https://electrek.co/2020/08/11/tesla-dominates-electric-car-sales-china/ https://electrek.co/2020/08/11/tesla-dominates-electric-car-... "Tesla Model 3 sales in China spike 7% in August" https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-china-sales-august-2020/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-china-sales-august-2... "China now accounts for nearly one-quarter of Tesla revenue" https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/28/tesla-china-revenue/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/28/tesla-china-revenue/ "Tesla Model 3 Maintains Its Position as China’s Most-Sold EV Model in August" https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-09-10/tesla-model-3-maintains-its-position-as-chinas-most-sold-ev-model-in-august-101603641.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-09-10/tesla-model-3-mainta... Ah, I did see this at the bottom of that caixinglobal link: "In August, the Hongguang Mini, a two-door micro EV launched by General Motors’ Chinese joint venture, claimed the title of the second most popular electric car model in the country, with sales of 9,150 units, the CPCA statistics showed." So I can see both perspectives on this small question about sales figures in the short-term. The tie-breaker for me? The innovations presented at Tesla's Battery Day event. I don't think GM is going to be able to catch up to that, because they simply haven't made the investments required to do so. Tesla is ahead by a decade on battery manufacturing and software, including autonomy. What does GM have? A legacy of fuel cells, and a failed partnership with this little fraudulent company named Nikola... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-milton-resigns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-mi... I take no pleasure in this knife twisting, but if you look under the covers, legacy auto is absolutely mired in scandal after scandal: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/business/bmw-sec.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/business/bmw-sec.html https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-emissions/daimler-to-pay-22-billion-in-diesel-emissions-cheating-settlements-idUSKBN2651NJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-emissions/daimler... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/business/uaw-indictment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/business/uaw-indictment.h... I wonder if GM will even exist at all in ten years.
- mynameishere 6y ago
  What does GM have? About 3 million sales in China per year. You really come off as someone talking his book, by the way.
lvs 6y ago
They won't sell these small cars in the US because they claim the US market's only growth is in huge SUVs and trucks. Well that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you brought to market a $5k EV that fits two to a parking space, I can promise you that the market is definitely there.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Ford in particular has repeatedly tried to bring its Ford of Europe-designed smaller models to the US, with very little success. Possibly there's a market for really tiny cars where there wasn't for merely small cars, but I doubt it.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  I drive a Fiat 500e, but I'm one of few enough that they've stopped even selling them in the US. If your emphasis is on the $5K, there's no way to make something that meets US road safety standards for that price. The cheapest new (gas-powered) car in the US is $10k, and it's really, really cheap. It's the other car I own, a Ford Fiesta, and Ford stopped making it this year, too.
hristov 6y ago
The problem is that these are not made to crash-worthiness standards of other cars. The article hints around this when it says that in China an electric car that has top speed under 100 km/h (around 60 mph) has very little regulations attached to it. So these are wonderful, if you do not consider that they will have to share the road with actual cars which can easily pancake them and kill the occupants. With the advance of batteries, power electronics and electric motors, there all kinds of cool new modes of transportation coming up but they are all kind of metaphorically and sometimes physically crashing against the concept of cars and the fact that all of our streets are basically made for cars. I think we have to start seriously rethinking cities in view of these new modes of transportation. I would suggest a city center where there are no cars and bycicles and various slow speed electric vehicles, like scooters and glorified golf carts are allowed to roam. And then you can have the suburbs where full sized cars (electric or not) can drive but will have to have full modern crash protection. Something like this is already starting to vaguely happen in some cities in Europe. It is of course easy to do in some european cities where the streets in their centers were pre-industrial and never designed for cars to begin with. But it is something to be expanded. And it will be very helpful if large international manufacturers created a "glorified golf cart" standard that was reasonably safe for pedestrians and bicyclists (again assuming that it does not have to share the road with cars) so that the cities around the world can start doing city planning around it. This "$5k electric car" is a glorified golfcart pretending to be a car, which is quite dangerous, because people will treat it like a car and will all to late realize how bad it fares when it crashes with actual cars.
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  I wonder if an acceptable level of safety could be achieved, at greater cost but without compromising weight or size, through advanced materials, active safety systems, and better driver training. Vehicles like these would be much safer in countries with high driver training standards and a low rate of fatalities per distance driven (e.g. New Zealand[0]) as compared to e.g. Mexico[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
- baybal2 6y ago
haunter 6y ago
>the EV retails for between 28,800 yuan ($4,230) and 38,800 yuan -- and its ability to run for as many as 170 kilometers (106 miles) on a single charge I'd buy this in a heartbeat. So good Edit: found a review, looks decent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6GjphV4DCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6GjphV4DCU
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bufferoverflow 6y ago
  Got any crash test results / videos? I'd never buy a suicide-mobile, which most really cheap cars are.
agumonkey 6y ago
not far from the citroen ami
11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
Who is choosing this car: A. the people who already have a car and want a 2nd for trips to the grocery store, B. the people who only have a scooter and want to upgrade to something a little safer and weather-friendly, C. the people who were taking public transportation, but due to the low cost, can now afford this car. D. teenage students to drive themselves to school.... It seems to me that the low price point may enable a large volume of sales, but for the most part, it will put more vehicles on the roads by pulling people out of public transport and off of scooters.
iandanforth 6y ago
This looks like a car that would be popular in Japan as well. Tiny vehicles for tiny parking spaces was remarkable when I visited a couple years ago.
- fomine3 6y ago
  Mitsubishi i-MIEV was the world's first EV and very small. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_i-MiEV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_i-MiEV
dghughes 6y ago
>“A lot of consumers don’t need anything fancy, a commute is all they ask from a car,”... Tesla has lost its way with expensive cars loaded with sensors, launch control. Tesla jumped the shark when Musk mentioned gas rockets as an option. Wasn't the original philosophy of Tesla to give away EV patents to make the world a better place? I don't need a car or a truck that can go 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. I want safe car with a reasonable range that doesn't cost $100K.
- ralph84 6y ago
  Then get a Chevy Bolt. A 3-year lease is almost free once you start stacking all of the available incentives.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    +1 to this. I love my Tesla, but when we decided to pick up an EV for my wife to use, the Bolt was the obvious choice $6K out the door for a 3 year lease at 15K miles/year. $20K if you'd like to roll the dice and buy it outright. For what she will save on gas compared to her previous ICE daily driver, the Bolt is practically free.
    - bsder 6y ago
      I'm gonna ask for references: Where in the world did you find a new $20K Chevy Bolt?
      - rootusrootus 6y ago
        They go on sale several times a year with big stacked incentives. I can't give you a reference directly to one advertised at 20K, but here is one at 21.7K: https://www.carrchevrolet.com/new/Chevrolet/2020-Chevrolet-Bolt+EV--786ea4590a0e0a176e0f117f5900a0a7.htm https://www.carrchevrolet.com/new/Chevrolet/2020-Chevrolet-B... I shopped around and got another local dealer to undercut Carr by more than a thousand bucks. But they don't advertise that price on their public web site. $2500 of the discount is coming from a state tax rebate (which is applied at the time of purchase, not something you have to wait for when you file your taxes). $3000 is from Costco, and I have no idea who actually pays for that. So some people won't get all the way down to $20K, it'll depend on what state they live in and whether they are Costco members or not. Some states do better than $2500. Carr likes to say "everyone qualifies for this price" so I'm not sure what their discounts are comprised of.
jccalhoun 6y ago
The car market right now is dominated by huge cars and I hate it. I grew up in a rural area in mid 70s and throughout most of the 80s and my parents had tiny Datsuns (aka Nissan) and we got along fine. My aunt and uncle had 10 kids and they managed to get around without an SUV or a minivan (of course we didn't have car seats for kids and barely seat belts back then but still) Right now there are very few new cars for sale under $20,000 which seems crazy https://jalopnik.com/heres-all-17-cars-available-in-the-u-s-right-now-for-l-1844641724 https://jalopnik.com/heres-all-17-cars-available-in-the-u-s-... I have an 09 Honda Fit that I guess I will be holding on to until it dies since Honda announced they will quit selling them in the USA.
dwighttk 6y ago
Why don’t they try to sell that here? (US)
- bufferoverflow 6y ago
  Safety standards.
est 6y ago
The caveat: the $4000 version doesn't have AC nor airbags. It's road legal in China. If you only use it for commuting then it's probably fine because mostly you'd be stuck in traffic jams and moving slowly anyway.
oska 6y ago
The 'from GM' in the title is a little misleading. The manufacturer of this car, as described in the second paragraph, is SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co. In this 3 way joint venture SAIC Motor, a state-owned Chinese company, is the majority share-holder, owning 50.1%; GM owns 44%. [1] [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIC-GM-Wuling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIC-GM-Wuling [2] https://www.gmchina.com/company/cn/en/gm/company/about-gm-china.html https://www.gmchina.com/company/cn/en/gm/company/about-gm-ch...
- ulfw 6y ago
  Everything written in the American press is from the side of America. Guess what - Pfizer isn’t inventing their Covid vaccine, it’s BioNTech. Johnson & Johnson didn’t invent theirs, it was Janssen (though at least the latter is now owned by J&J).
  - jszymborski 6y ago
    I mean, those companies do different things in those partnerships, it would be unfair to say either company in those pairs are responsible for the vaccine.
    - aiisjustanif 6y ago
      Tell that to their stock price if the vaccines associated with them perform well.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > Johnson & Johnson didn’t invent theirs, it was Janssen I would 100% support a corporate renaming to Johnson & Johnson & Janssen.
  - mlindner 6y ago
    They're both subsidiaries of American companies though.
    - ulfw 6y ago
sandworm101 6y ago
Not a car. >> "“A lot of consumers don’t need anything fancy, a commute is all they ask from a car,” said Yale Zhang, founder of AutoForesight" I expect a great deal more than the simple commute. I expect safety. I expect crumple zones, airbags, traction control, and enough actual strength that I have a hope of surviving a serious crash. This not-a-car 5K EV doesn't have such things. It is essentially an enclosed 4-wheel motorcycle. Cheap, but not offing any degree of physical protection. >> I always feel a bit nervous in this low-speed car because it’s kind of shaky.” Ya. Be afraid. It might seem all friendly at low speeds, but one day those tiny wheels dig into a pothole, throwing you into oncoming traffic (bad) or a tree (worse). The people praising these things are like those who call motorcycles dangerous but hop on a Vespa without hesitation.
aazaa 6y ago
> The Hongguang MINI EV, made by SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., is currently the hottest EV in China, the world’s biggest automobile market. Sales of the compact four-seater beat industry giant Tesla Inc. in August, with consumers wowed by its tiny price tag -- the EV retails for between 28,800 yuan ($4,230) and 38,800 yuan -- and its ability to run for as many as 170 kilometers (106 miles) on a sin https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/tesla-s-nemesis-in-china-is-a-tiny-5-000-electric-car-from-gm https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/tesla-s-nemesis-in-c... The irony is that while upstart Tesla pursues the path of market incumbent (moving upmarket), incumbent GM pursues the path of upstart by moving downmarket. I don't know how well GM will be able to stay on this path. I suspect that Tesla's current path is risky at best. I also suspect that GM can stay on its downmarket path, and build an unbeatable presence doing it, indefinitely.
fnord77 6y ago
this looks basically like an electric Kei car.
dalbasal 6y ago
This is tangential to the content, but what is this article? It reads like a paid pr piece and doesn't have a named author.
ascorbic 6y ago
It's a bit silly to call this "Tesla's nemesis", when the cheapest Tesla is about 10x the price. They're completely different markets.
darthrupert 6y ago
China is even more about outwards appearances, so Tesla will do just fine. They have enough wealthy people there.
- aaronblohowiak 6y ago
  China has 10 million 1%ers
DarthGhandi 6y ago
Meta: when you collapse the first top-level comment here and need to then click "more" to see anything else on page 2 it's not worth commenting anymore.
tibbydudeza 6y ago
I would love a Renault Twizy (two seater microcar) in my garage for just driving around town and to my folks , all within 30km range.
acvny 6y ago
Wow. Waiting for this in other parts of the world.
Kosirich 6y ago
This is more related to the discussions in the comments.. (eu perspective), The other day I was watching a drag race on carwow with 4 German super-estates. None of this "sport-ier versions" had bellow 2 tons*. Lot's of people in Germany drive more "sensible" versions of this cars with weights of "just" 1.8 tons. How much will the fact that people are today fatter affect the decision to buy this car? - BMW M5 has gone up in weight 200 kg or so - I heard people use "Tesla weight" downside when compared to a normal "saloon" -I would buy this car gladly here in DK. Wouldn't make the decision in lot's of other EU countries where driving awareness isn't as high
- headmelted 6y ago
  I too would happily buy this car if I didn't own an EV already, but it's too cheap. That's not me turning my nose up at it by the way, it's that invariably everything is cut to the bone in a new car that cheap, and that goes well beyond the luxuries you might expect. China and India have known lenient safety standards that large international companies have in the past talked about leveraging to get the price down for their domestic markets. I very much doubt this car would withstand even a modest collision, and I'd not want my kids in it. In terms of the markets where these cars sell it's something of a necessary evil to take the risk in something that will crumple on impact in exchange for family transportation (which we did happily in the west 20-30 years ago).
  - Kosirich 6y ago
    I agree with you completely. That being said, there is a lot of room between 6000 dollars and 20000-ish for Smart Fortwo* (EU numbers) which I guess could be an equivalent.
    - headmelted 6y ago
      True. I will say though that my Leaf was the local equivalent of about $8k US and is actually worth more now than when I bought it so would thoroughly recommend the used route with EVs for anyone considering it. (Also 5* Euro NCAP for the kiddies)
breakyerself 6y ago
I would buy one or two of those right now.
rapjr9 6y ago
I would love to buy one of these, it would handle almost all my transportation needs here in rural Vermont. I've been looking for something like this for years and have been finding basically nothing in the US market. US car makers seem to only want to sell big cars (which makes sense, more profit) but big cars are bad for global warming. I believe that over the next 5 to 10 years you're going to see the US and world markets shift dramatically to small EV's like this. If it had a small trailer for hauling larger loads short distances it would be perfect. For long distance travel I could rent a larger vehicle, but that would be rare.

246 points by finphil 6y ago

Is still cannot comprehend how in the world Chinese fell for American cars. One thing I noticed is that recent Chinese immigrants to the West often get a very unpleasant surprise after buying GM cars in North America. GM in China is known to be much better than American GM, but they are still known as quite a bad deal to more technically literate buyers. I guess, some people will drive just any car for as long as it's not Japanese. Or may it be the appeal of a an image of a product made for "rich old people" is still so irresistible to Chinese buyers.

MiroF 6y ago
American products are considered a luxury status symbol in much of China. There are literal "Jeep" stores in Beijing that are just selling Jeep-branded camo apparel at upscale prices.
rsynnott 6y ago
> Is still cannot comprehend how in the world Chinese fell for American cars. Well, because it's not an American car as such; it's a car designed for the Chinese market by an American company. Similarly, Ford is pretty popular in Europe (and so was GM until fairly recently when they sold off Opel), but their big sellers are largely cars designed for the European market. This goes both ways; Japanese and Korean manufacturers have models that are primarily or entirely designed for the US market.
- nickik 6y ago
  GM basically lost money in Europe for 15 years straight. Ford does make some money in Euope thanks to their commercial vehicles mostly, they don't actually make all that much money on the personal cars either. That said, Ford did much better in Europe then GM and are actually profitable there.

kennywinker 6y ago

So much of what is toxic about cars and car culture could be fixed by downsizing and slowing them. Primarily, less injuries and deaths - but also lower overall energy consumption and less pedestrian and cyclist hostility. I wish north america would fully get on board with these small EVs

grp000 6y ago
America has the fundamental problem of large size, little EV infrastructure and poor public transit outside metro areas.
Google234 6y ago
I don’t want to drive slower so I will vote against this.
- stouset 6y ago
  I don’t want to pay taxes for schools since I don’t have children. But I’m an adult capable of understanding that what I personally want isn’t necessarily what’s best for society at large, so I suck it up and do it anyway without complaining.
  - gameswithgo 6y ago
    More than just what is best for society at large, paying to educate the kids you don't have, in the long run, makes the world better for you too.
  - Google234 6y ago
    I wonder what percentage of people would vote for the OPs idea in the US. 10%? Maybe 15% :)
    - stouset 6y ago
      Perhaps one of the biggest problems with this country right now is that people are too damn selfish, and vote “in their own best interest” to the detriment of not only everyone else but—ironically—to the detriment of themselves as well.

sudosysgen 6y ago

4230$ for an EV with a 170km range is insane if you live in a city.

martin_a 6y ago
Totally! This would bring me to work and back for half a month. I can also load my EV at work, so there wouldn't be any range problems. Would love to see something like this for the European market.
- rsynnott 6y ago
  Renault Twizy probably isn't a million miles away (though for regulatory reasons, it's slower). I do think it's interesting that most if not all European equivalents have been made to look apparently as un-car-like as possible, whereas this one looks like a very small car.
  - martin_a 6y ago
    I think this might be due to regulatory issues. If I remember correctly, a Twizy will be categorised as a "light vehicle" [1] which will probably lower some requirements in terms of safety or whatnot. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadricycle_(EU_vehicle_classification) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadricycle_(EU_vehicle_classi...
- harpastum 6y ago
  You might want to take a look at the Citroën Ami. 6000 euro including VAT. Not sure which country you're in, but it seems more likely that something street legal in France would work for you. https://www.citroen.com/en/Highlight/131/ami-100-electric-mobility-accessible-to-all https://www.citroen.com/en/Highlight/131/ami-100-electric-mo...
  - martin_a 6y ago
    I'm in Germany. Had a quick look at the Ami. The "problem" is the maximum speed of 45 km/h. As inner-city traffic normally is 50 km/h this will make you kind of a disturbance for other motorists and this will turn people down or keep them from buying this. Not to mention that overland traffic is normally 100 km/h and well... 45 is quite slower... Nevertheless, good idea, I like it.

baybal2 6y ago

Now, back to the merits of the article: > One of the biggest challenges in making EVs cheaper is the battery, which currently represents about one-quarter of a car’s cost because of the expensive metals used, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese. No, it's such a big, massive misconception the misconception that the echo chamber keeps repeating. The raw material cost of metals used even in the biggest batteries around is at maximum $1k-$1.5k, and usually just few hundred bucks. What makes it expensive is the big chem, and it's stranglehold on processing them into cathode, and anode materials. Plain graphite, while also being dominated by an oligopoly, still only costs $1 per kg, but the moment it becomes an industrial chemical, its price shoots n-fold. Lithium is by far not the cost factor at all, with the amount used, and no scarcity prospect is in sight, despite speculations of the stock market lemmings, but the moment it is put into some chemical relevant to battery making, it too shoots up in price n-fold. Cobalt was one of few things which really used to be pricey, but not much now. The cost was approaching $200 per kg at the top of the Cobalt bubble, but then it felt to $20, and below. And again, the moment it becomes a cathode material, it costs 10*n-times as much. The cost advantage of LFP batteries which a lot of Chinese companies prefer to cobalt based ones is not much in the material cost, but because the chemical's supply chain is much simpler, stable, and has much, much, more domestic competition. The cobalt based cathode materials are still a domain of LG Chem, and few much smaller Japanese companies.

mixmastamyk 6y ago
> What makes it expensive is the big chem, and it's stranglehold on processing them into cathode, and anode materials. Could you expand on this?
- baybal2 6y ago
  Processed chemicals used for battery making cost many times the cost of raw materials, and it will be so until competition can weaken the big chem oligopolies currently dominating the market.
  - Retric 6y ago

malwarebytess 6y ago

So, why can't we sell a car like this in the US at a similar price? Do we think there's no market?

cblconfederate 6y ago
maybe they d be good in population-dense europe , but US sprawl practically requires huge batteries
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  ^high speed/collisions in a tiny tin can.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    tiny cars are popular already .
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      Not in the US, and especially not outside of cities. For the reasons I mentioned above. I'm a fan of them, but wouldn't want to be driving at full speed on a long-distance trip with one.
- lvs 6y ago
  80% of Americans live in an urban area. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-210.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-210...
- pwinnski 6y ago
  I drive a Fiat 500e with what they bill as an 84-mile range, and I live in a suburb of Dallas. I actually get closer to 100 than 84, but I am rarely concerned about the range, despite the extreme sprawl. But I know people who have commutes that would make driving my car nearly impossible, or at least impossible without mid-day charging.
6y ago

fortran77 6y ago

It would be nice if downtowns had zones where only local delivery and max-20 mph cars could be used, along with bicycles, etc. safer for everyone.

maxharris 6y ago
Better yet, let's get rid of cars altogether from city streets. This is coming along very nicely... https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/21257849/elon-musk-boring-company-las-vegas-tunnel-finished-digging https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/21257849/elon-musk-boring... Autonomous driving is just around the corner, too, which means that there is no need to waste space on parking structures, either. Here's a Tesla engineer that gave a great technical talk demonstrating their progress as of early this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx7BXih7zx8 EDIT: yes, there are clear reasons why having an three-dimensional underground structure will absolutely affect the social dynamics above-ground in a city, yet it remains true that it is possible to banish cars from downtown cores in the near future (i.e., say by 2030 or so), given the present shift to electrification and autonomous driving. These issues are worthy of debate, and I'm just trying to shift the conversation to what's current. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade! I love the goal of city streets for people, as exemplified by the beautiful laneways in Melbourne (11 minutes): https://vimeo.com/131396094 https://vimeo.com/131396094
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  I'm not going to live long enough to see autonomous cars in the hands of regular people. And I'm not particularly old yet. Electric, I'm with you. We're at 2 out of 3 cars in our household being electric.
- xkcd-sucks 6y ago
  If underground construction is so easy now, why not move all the people underground and leave the roads in place? It's much easier to build a lot of unconnected spaces vs a network, and being in a highrise is basically the same as being in an underground box

maxharris 6y ago

Here are some more headlines to help put this in context: "Tesla still dominates electric car sales in China, over 11,000 deliveries in July" https://electrek.co/2020/08/11/tesla-dominates-electric-car-sales-china/ https://electrek.co/2020/08/11/tesla-dominates-electric-car-... "Tesla Model 3 sales in China spike 7% in August" https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-china-sales-august-2020/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-china-sales-august-2... "China now accounts for nearly one-quarter of Tesla revenue" https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/28/tesla-china-revenue/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/28/tesla-china-revenue/ "Tesla Model 3 Maintains Its Position as China’s Most-Sold EV Model in August" https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-09-10/tesla-model-3-maintains-its-position-as-chinas-most-sold-ev-model-in-august-101603641.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-09-10/tesla-model-3-mainta... Ah, I did see this at the bottom of that caixinglobal link: "In August, the Hongguang Mini, a two-door micro EV launched by General Motors’ Chinese joint venture, claimed the title of the second most popular electric car model in the country, with sales of 9,150 units, the CPCA statistics showed." So I can see both perspectives on this small question about sales figures in the short-term. The tie-breaker for me? The innovations presented at Tesla's Battery Day event. I don't think GM is going to be able to catch up to that, because they simply haven't made the investments required to do so. Tesla is ahead by a decade on battery manufacturing and software, including autonomy. What does GM have? A legacy of fuel cells, and a failed partnership with this little fraudulent company named Nikola... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-milton-resigns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/business/nikola-trevor-mi... I take no pleasure in this knife twisting, but if you look under the covers, legacy auto is absolutely mired in scandal after scandal: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/business/bmw-sec.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/business/bmw-sec.html https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-emissions/daimler-to-pay-22-billion-in-diesel-emissions-cheating-settlements-idUSKBN2651NJ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-emissions/daimler... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/business/uaw-indictment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/business/uaw-indictment.h... I wonder if GM will even exist at all in ten years.

mynameishere 6y ago
What does GM have? About 3 million sales in China per year. You really come off as someone talking his book, by the way.

lvs 6y ago

They won't sell these small cars in the US because they claim the US market's only growth is in huge SUVs and trucks. Well that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you brought to market a $5k EV that fits two to a parking space, I can promise you that the market is definitely there.

rsynnott 6y ago
Ford in particular has repeatedly tried to bring its Ford of Europe-designed smaller models to the US, with very little success. Possibly there's a market for really tiny cars where there wasn't for merely small cars, but I doubt it.
pwinnski 6y ago
I drive a Fiat 500e, but I'm one of few enough that they've stopped even selling them in the US. If your emphasis is on the $5K, there's no way to make something that meets US road safety standards for that price. The cheapest new (gas-powered) car in the US is $10k, and it's really, really cheap. It's the other car I own, a Ford Fiesta, and Ford stopped making it this year, too.

hristov 6y ago

The problem is that these are not made to crash-worthiness standards of other cars. The article hints around this when it says that in China an electric car that has top speed under 100 km/h (around 60 mph) has very little regulations attached to it. So these are wonderful, if you do not consider that they will have to share the road with actual cars which can easily pancake them and kill the occupants. With the advance of batteries, power electronics and electric motors, there all kinds of cool new modes of transportation coming up but they are all kind of metaphorically and sometimes physically crashing against the concept of cars and the fact that all of our streets are basically made for cars. I think we have to start seriously rethinking cities in view of these new modes of transportation. I would suggest a city center where there are no cars and bycicles and various slow speed electric vehicles, like scooters and glorified golf carts are allowed to roam. And then you can have the suburbs where full sized cars (electric or not) can drive but will have to have full modern crash protection. Something like this is already starting to vaguely happen in some cities in Europe. It is of course easy to do in some european cities where the streets in their centers were pre-industrial and never designed for cars to begin with. But it is something to be expanded. And it will be very helpful if large international manufacturers created a "glorified golf cart" standard that was reasonably safe for pedestrians and bicyclists (again assuming that it does not have to share the road with cars) so that the cities around the world can start doing city planning around it. This "$5k electric car" is a glorified golfcart pretending to be a car, which is quite dangerous, because people will treat it like a car and will all to late realize how bad it fares when it crashes with actual cars.

bleepblorp 6y ago
I wonder if an acceptable level of safety could be achieved, at greater cost but without compromising weight or size, through advanced materials, active safety systems, and better driver training. Vehicles like these would be much safer in countries with high driver training standards and a low rate of fatalities per distance driven (e.g. New Zealand[0]) as compared to e.g. Mexico[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
baybal2 6y ago

haunter 6y ago

>the EV retails for between 28,800 yuan ($4,230) and 38,800 yuan -- and its ability to run for as many as 170 kilometers (106 miles) on a single charge I'd buy this in a heartbeat. So good Edit: found a review, looks decent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6GjphV4DCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6GjphV4DCU

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bufferoverflow 6y ago
Got any crash test results / videos? I'd never buy a suicide-mobile, which most really cheap cars are.

agumonkey 6y ago

not far from the citroen ami

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

Who is choosing this car: A. the people who already have a car and want a 2nd for trips to the grocery store, B. the people who only have a scooter and want to upgrade to something a little safer and weather-friendly, C. the people who were taking public transportation, but due to the low cost, can now afford this car. D. teenage students to drive themselves to school.... It seems to me that the low price point may enable a large volume of sales, but for the most part, it will put more vehicles on the roads by pulling people out of public transport and off of scooters.

iandanforth 6y ago

This looks like a car that would be popular in Japan as well. Tiny vehicles for tiny parking spaces was remarkable when I visited a couple years ago.

fomine3 6y ago
Mitsubishi i-MIEV was the world's first EV and very small. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_i-MiEV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_i-MiEV

dghughes 6y ago

>“A lot of consumers don’t need anything fancy, a commute is all they ask from a car,”... Tesla has lost its way with expensive cars loaded with sensors, launch control. Tesla jumped the shark when Musk mentioned gas rockets as an option. Wasn't the original philosophy of Tesla to give away EV patents to make the world a better place? I don't need a car or a truck that can go 0 to 60 in 2 seconds. I want safe car with a reasonable range that doesn't cost $100K.

ralph84 6y ago
Then get a Chevy Bolt. A 3-year lease is almost free once you start stacking all of the available incentives.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  +1 to this. I love my Tesla, but when we decided to pick up an EV for my wife to use, the Bolt was the obvious choice $6K out the door for a 3 year lease at 15K miles/year. $20K if you'd like to roll the dice and buy it outright. For what she will save on gas compared to her previous ICE daily driver, the Bolt is practically free.
  - bsder 6y ago
    I'm gonna ask for references: Where in the world did you find a new $20K Chevy Bolt?
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      They go on sale several times a year with big stacked incentives. I can't give you a reference directly to one advertised at 20K, but here is one at 21.7K: https://www.carrchevrolet.com/new/Chevrolet/2020-Chevrolet-Bolt+EV--786ea4590a0e0a176e0f117f5900a0a7.htm https://www.carrchevrolet.com/new/Chevrolet/2020-Chevrolet-B... I shopped around and got another local dealer to undercut Carr by more than a thousand bucks. But they don't advertise that price on their public web site. $2500 of the discount is coming from a state tax rebate (which is applied at the time of purchase, not something you have to wait for when you file your taxes). $3000 is from Costco, and I have no idea who actually pays for that. So some people won't get all the way down to $20K, it'll depend on what state they live in and whether they are Costco members or not. Some states do better than $2500. Carr likes to say "everyone qualifies for this price" so I'm not sure what their discounts are comprised of.

jccalhoun 6y ago

The car market right now is dominated by huge cars and I hate it. I grew up in a rural area in mid 70s and throughout most of the 80s and my parents had tiny Datsuns (aka Nissan) and we got along fine. My aunt and uncle had 10 kids and they managed to get around without an SUV or a minivan (of course we didn't have car seats for kids and barely seat belts back then but still) Right now there are very few new cars for sale under $20,000 which seems crazy https://jalopnik.com/heres-all-17-cars-available-in-the-u-s-right-now-for-l-1844641724 https://jalopnik.com/heres-all-17-cars-available-in-the-u-s-... I have an 09 Honda Fit that I guess I will be holding on to until it dies since Honda announced they will quit selling them in the USA.

dwighttk 6y ago

Why don’t they try to sell that here? (US)

bufferoverflow 6y ago
Safety standards.

est 6y ago

The caveat: the $4000 version doesn't have AC nor airbags. It's road legal in China. If you only use it for commuting then it's probably fine because mostly you'd be stuck in traffic jams and moving slowly anyway.

oska 6y ago

The 'from GM' in the title is a little misleading. The manufacturer of this car, as described in the second paragraph, is SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co. In this 3 way joint venture SAIC Motor, a state-owned Chinese company, is the majority share-holder, owning 50.1%; GM owns 44%. [1] [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIC-GM-Wuling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAIC-GM-Wuling [2] https://www.gmchina.com/company/cn/en/gm/company/about-gm-china.html https://www.gmchina.com/company/cn/en/gm/company/about-gm-ch...

ulfw 6y ago
Everything written in the American press is from the side of America. Guess what - Pfizer isn’t inventing their Covid vaccine, it’s BioNTech. Johnson & Johnson didn’t invent theirs, it was Janssen (though at least the latter is now owned by J&J).
- jszymborski 6y ago
  I mean, those companies do different things in those partnerships, it would be unfair to say either company in those pairs are responsible for the vaccine.
  - aiisjustanif 6y ago
    Tell that to their stock price if the vaccines associated with them perform well.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Johnson & Johnson didn’t invent theirs, it was Janssen I would 100% support a corporate renaming to Johnson & Johnson & Janssen.
- mlindner 6y ago
  They're both subsidiaries of American companies though.
  - ulfw 6y ago

sandworm101 6y ago

Not a car. >> "“A lot of consumers don’t need anything fancy, a commute is all they ask from a car,” said Yale Zhang, founder of AutoForesight" I expect a great deal more than the simple commute. I expect safety. I expect crumple zones, airbags, traction control, and enough actual strength that I have a hope of surviving a serious crash. This not-a-car 5K EV doesn't have such things. It is essentially an enclosed 4-wheel motorcycle. Cheap, but not offing any degree of physical protection. >> I always feel a bit nervous in this low-speed car because it’s kind of shaky.” Ya. Be afraid. It might seem all friendly at low speeds, but one day those tiny wheels dig into a pothole, throwing you into oncoming traffic (bad) or a tree (worse). The people praising these things are like those who call motorcycles dangerous but hop on a Vespa without hesitation.

aazaa 6y ago

> The Hongguang MINI EV, made by SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., is currently the hottest EV in China, the world’s biggest automobile market. Sales of the compact four-seater beat industry giant Tesla Inc. in August, with consumers wowed by its tiny price tag -- the EV retails for between 28,800 yuan ($4,230) and 38,800 yuan -- and its ability to run for as many as 170 kilometers (106 miles) on a sin https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/tesla-s-nemesis-in-china-is-a-tiny-5-000-electric-car-from-gm https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/tesla-s-nemesis-in-c... The irony is that while upstart Tesla pursues the path of market incumbent (moving upmarket), incumbent GM pursues the path of upstart by moving downmarket. I don't know how well GM will be able to stay on this path. I suspect that Tesla's current path is risky at best. I also suspect that GM can stay on its downmarket path, and build an unbeatable presence doing it, indefinitely.

fnord77 6y ago

this looks basically like an electric Kei car.

dalbasal 6y ago

This is tangential to the content, but what is this article? It reads like a paid pr piece and doesn't have a named author.

ascorbic 6y ago

It's a bit silly to call this "Tesla's nemesis", when the cheapest Tesla is about 10x the price. They're completely different markets.

darthrupert 6y ago

China is even more about outwards appearances, so Tesla will do just fine. They have enough wealthy people there.

aaronblohowiak 6y ago
China has 10 million 1%ers

DarthGhandi 6y ago

Meta: when you collapse the first top-level comment here and need to then click "more" to see anything else on page 2 it's not worth commenting anymore.

tibbydudeza 6y ago

I would love a Renault Twizy (two seater microcar) in my garage for just driving around town and to my folks , all within 30km range.

acvny 6y ago

Wow. Waiting for this in other parts of the world.

Kosirich 6y ago

This is more related to the discussions in the comments.. (eu perspective), The other day I was watching a drag race on carwow with 4 German super-estates. None of this "sport-ier versions" had bellow 2 tons*. Lot's of people in Germany drive more "sensible" versions of this cars with weights of "just" 1.8 tons. How much will the fact that people are today fatter affect the decision to buy this car? - BMW M5 has gone up in weight 200 kg or so - I heard people use "Tesla weight" downside when compared to a normal "saloon" -I would buy this car gladly here in DK. Wouldn't make the decision in lot's of other EU countries where driving awareness isn't as high

headmelted 6y ago
I too would happily buy this car if I didn't own an EV already, but it's too cheap. That's not me turning my nose up at it by the way, it's that invariably everything is cut to the bone in a new car that cheap, and that goes well beyond the luxuries you might expect. China and India have known lenient safety standards that large international companies have in the past talked about leveraging to get the price down for their domestic markets. I very much doubt this car would withstand even a modest collision, and I'd not want my kids in it. In terms of the markets where these cars sell it's something of a necessary evil to take the risk in something that will crumple on impact in exchange for family transportation (which we did happily in the west 20-30 years ago).
- Kosirich 6y ago
  I agree with you completely. That being said, there is a lot of room between 6000 dollars and 20000-ish for Smart Fortwo* (EU numbers) which I guess could be an equivalent.
  - headmelted 6y ago
    True. I will say though that my Leaf was the local equivalent of about $8k US and is actually worth more now than when I bought it so would thoroughly recommend the used route with EVs for anyone considering it. (Also 5* Euro NCAP for the kiddies)

breakyerself 6y ago

I would buy one or two of those right now.

rapjr9 6y ago

I would love to buy one of these, it would handle almost all my transportation needs here in rural Vermont. I've been looking for something like this for years and have been finding basically nothing in the US market. US car makers seem to only want to sell big cars (which makes sense, more profit) but big cars are bad for global warming. I believe that over the next 5 to 10 years you're going to see the US and world markets shift dramatically to small EV's like this. If it had a small trailer for hauling larger loads short distances it would be perfect. For long distance travel I could rent a larger vehicle, but that would be rare.