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Chinese manufacturers will increasingly dominate innovation in their respective fields. Manufacturing and innovation is inherently intervened and the West's de

by 0xDEF 4y ago

Chinese manufacturers will increasingly dominate innovation in their respective fields. Manufacturing and innovation is inherently intervened and the West's decision to outsource manufacturing has stagnated our ability to innovate in many fields.

jpgvm 4y ago
I think outsourcing is actually a symptom rather than a cause. The real problem is that many countries don't want to do innovation because it's expensive and/or they don't want to invest in the education necessary. China is able to do China things because they produce an absolutely staggering number of STEM grads and have jobs for them to fill. Everything from high energy particle physics to industrial chemistry, if you have a hard science degree in China your employment is pretty much gauranteed. This is a self perpetuating cycle too because as you provide more and more STEM labour more and more innovation occurs which spawns new industry which employs more STEM labour, etc. Conversely China is struggling with the opposite end of the scale where most Western countries excel at which is finding jobs for people without hard skills. China youth unemployment rate is very high among those without STEM degrees.
- tooltalk 4y ago
  >> The real problem is that many countries don't want to do innovation because it's expensive and/or they don't want to invest in the education necessary. << oah, what batst nonsense is this? CATL and BYD's battery production output/capacity, or whatever innovation you claim China has achieved, is a function of the CCP's protectionist policy to prevent foreign competition and nurture domestic battery industry since 2016 -- ie, China's refusal to grant license to operate battery business in China to South Korean and Japanese battery makers such as LG Chem, Samsung SDI, and Panasonic unless they gave up their core battery technology in exchange (forced tech transfer); or blatant discrimination in EV battery maker subsides or later outright no subsidy for EVs equipped with foreign companies' batteries (illegal subsidies). Ever heard of Make-In-China 2025? Wonder where Biden got inspiration for the IRA which excludes all things sourced or made in China? BYD and CATL are #1, #2 in China, but, outside China, they have to deal with the South Korean trio, LG Chem #1, SK Innovation #2, Samsung SDI + Panasonic (Japanese) -- and they are likewise leaders in their respective battery tech: for instance, LG Chem and SK Innovation in NCM, Panasonic and Samsung SDI in NCA. >> China is able to do China things because they produce an absolutely staggering number of STEM grads ... << Stop, stop, stop. That's not how it works. If we assume your fallacious theory to be true, China would have won the World's most popular sport contest, the World Cup several times over. We all know how China poured billions into training millions of their youths and spent boatload of money recruiting the World's best soccer players only to see their national team getting beaten by small South East nations like Vietnam, and certainly no match for soccer powerhouses like Honduras with 1/150 of China's population or budget.
  - jpgvm 4y ago
    I don't know what you are smoking but it's some good shit. NCM, NCMA, LFP, sure chemistries are cool to talk about but all that actually matters is batteries that are actually shipping. LG Chem is claiming they can catch up, claiming they can start building LFP by 2026... only over a decade too late. CATL didn't develop LFP but they developed all the mass production techniques which is what counts in the market. No one cares how good you can theoretically produce cells if you never do. Right now all I see is the Koreans claiming they can make up lost ground, not today mind you, by 2026+ and somehow then they will then become the dominant producers. They do this based on projections of CATL not growing at all which makes no fucking sense given they are entirely supply constrained right now. People end up buying EVE and other second tier cells because of how hard it is to buy from CATL right now. Sorry but it's fantasy. If Korea/Japan/US want to beat CATL it's going to take more than hopes and dreams. It's going to take factories, lots of them. Not just the ~1-3 plants a piece that are currently on the roadmap. Protectionism doesn't and can't explain the sheer capacity of CATL/BYD. Protectionism 101 is that by adopting protectionism you increase the local cost of the goods as a result by disallowing other competitors. That clearly isn't the case as CATL is the best price/performance cell anyone can buy for LFP friendly workloads anywhere in the world. It's not subsidy either as they are wildly profitable at the same time, even having enough margin to eat increases in lithium costs (partially because they are big enough to own their own mines) keeping themselves competitive as others are priced out. Korea/Japan/US dropped the ball, it's simple as that. They had the lead but choose not to pursue it. Same with EVs until Tesla came long. GM should have been dominant but again they didn't have the balls. When push came to shove they didn't want to put the money down and that is what counts in the end. China said they were going to build EVs and that was going to need batteries. That created the appropriate conditions for battery companies to invest heavily in China. LG Chem was late to the party, their first plant in Nanjing was nearly 10 years too late, that isn't protectionism that is just missing the boat. That and they were building NCM at a time that CATL was already producing LFP at good enough energy densities to displace NCM for EVs and storage applications. NCM is a "better" chemistry sure, but it's too damn expensive for cheap ass EVs that dominate the Chinese market. This entire debacle is entirely one of mismanaged leads and it repeats across most modern tech that China is now doing well in. Solar? Should have been won by US/Germany/Australia. Wind? US/Germany. Batteries? Korea/Japan. Nuclear? US/France/Germany/Japan. EVs? US. Telecom? Canada/Sweden. The pattern here is China invests and doesn't let new technology get fucked over by entrenched special interest groups. It's a political advantage at it's core, something the West might find very hard to replicate. Also your soccer comparison is beyond dumb so I'm not even going to bother addressing that.

by 0xDEF 4y ago

jpgvm 4y ago

I think outsourcing is actually a symptom rather than a cause. The real problem is that many countries don't want to do innovation because it's expensive and/or they don't want to invest in the education necessary. China is able to do China things because they produce an absolutely staggering number of STEM grads and have jobs for them to fill. Everything from high energy particle physics to industrial chemistry, if you have a hard science degree in China your employment is pretty much gauranteed. This is a self perpetuating cycle too because as you provide more and more STEM labour more and more innovation occurs which spawns new industry which employs more STEM labour, etc. Conversely China is struggling with the opposite end of the scale where most Western countries excel at which is finding jobs for people without hard skills. China youth unemployment rate is very high among those without STEM degrees.

tooltalk 4y ago
>> The real problem is that many countries don't want to do innovation because it's expensive and/or they don't want to invest in the education necessary. << oah, what batst nonsense is this? CATL and BYD's battery production output/capacity, or whatever innovation you claim China has achieved, is a function of the CCP's protectionist policy to prevent foreign competition and nurture domestic battery industry since 2016 -- ie, China's refusal to grant license to operate battery business in China to South Korean and Japanese battery makers such as LG Chem, Samsung SDI, and Panasonic unless they gave up their core battery technology in exchange (forced tech transfer); or blatant discrimination in EV battery maker subsides or later outright no subsidy for EVs equipped with foreign companies' batteries (illegal subsidies). Ever heard of Make-In-China 2025? Wonder where Biden got inspiration for the IRA which excludes all things sourced or made in China? BYD and CATL are #1, #2 in China, but, outside China, they have to deal with the South Korean trio, LG Chem #1, SK Innovation #2, Samsung SDI + Panasonic (Japanese) -- and they are likewise leaders in their respective battery tech: for instance, LG Chem and SK Innovation in NCM, Panasonic and Samsung SDI in NCA. >> China is able to do China things because they produce an absolutely staggering number of STEM grads ... << Stop, stop, stop. That's not how it works. If we assume your fallacious theory to be true, China would have won the World's most popular sport contest, the World Cup several times over. We all know how China poured billions into training millions of their youths and spent boatload of money recruiting the World's best soccer players only to see their national team getting beaten by small South East nations like Vietnam, and certainly no match for soccer powerhouses like Honduras with 1/150 of China's population or budget.
- jpgvm 4y ago
  I don't know what you are smoking but it's some good shit. NCM, NCMA, LFP, sure chemistries are cool to talk about but all that actually matters is batteries that are actually shipping. LG Chem is claiming they can catch up, claiming they can start building LFP by 2026... only over a decade too late. CATL didn't develop LFP but they developed all the mass production techniques which is what counts in the market. No one cares how good you can theoretically produce cells if you never do. Right now all I see is the Koreans claiming they can make up lost ground, not today mind you, by 2026+ and somehow then they will then become the dominant producers. They do this based on projections of CATL not growing at all which makes no fucking sense given they are entirely supply constrained right now. People end up buying EVE and other second tier cells because of how hard it is to buy from CATL right now. Sorry but it's fantasy. If Korea/Japan/US want to beat CATL it's going to take more than hopes and dreams. It's going to take factories, lots of them. Not just the ~1-3 plants a piece that are currently on the roadmap. Protectionism doesn't and can't explain the sheer capacity of CATL/BYD. Protectionism 101 is that by adopting protectionism you increase the local cost of the goods as a result by disallowing other competitors. That clearly isn't the case as CATL is the best price/performance cell anyone can buy for LFP friendly workloads anywhere in the world. It's not subsidy either as they are wildly profitable at the same time, even having enough margin to eat increases in lithium costs (partially because they are big enough to own their own mines) keeping themselves competitive as others are priced out. Korea/Japan/US dropped the ball, it's simple as that. They had the lead but choose not to pursue it. Same with EVs until Tesla came long. GM should have been dominant but again they didn't have the balls. When push came to shove they didn't want to put the money down and that is what counts in the end. China said they were going to build EVs and that was going to need batteries. That created the appropriate conditions for battery companies to invest heavily in China. LG Chem was late to the party, their first plant in Nanjing was nearly 10 years too late, that isn't protectionism that is just missing the boat. That and they were building NCM at a time that CATL was already producing LFP at good enough energy densities to displace NCM for EVs and storage applications. NCM is a "better" chemistry sure, but it's too damn expensive for cheap ass EVs that dominate the Chinese market. This entire debacle is entirely one of mismanaged leads and it repeats across most modern tech that China is now doing well in. Solar? Should have been won by US/Germany/Australia. Wind? US/Germany. Batteries? Korea/Japan. Nuclear? US/France/Germany/Japan. EVs? US. Telecom? Canada/Sweden. The pattern here is China invests and doesn't let new technology get fucked over by entrenched special interest groups. It's a political advantage at it's core, something the West might find very hard to replicate. Also your soccer comparison is beyond dumb so I'm not even going to bother addressing that.