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It doesn't matter what fuels their cars, China is undercutting other countries' car manufacturers with increasingly better cars at low prices. You have cars at
by superchroma 3y ago
It doesn't matter what fuels their cars, China is undercutting other countries' car manufacturers with increasingly better cars at low prices. You have cars at low prices coming with features considered to be expensive like 360 degree cameras, and, sure, they may be a bit buggy and a bit plasticky, but if you're willing to put up with it and if you're a first owner, you're going to get the best out of it. And Japan did the same once, and China has done this with mobile phones like the Pocophone too. I don't believe BMW has been serious about tackling this, I think they honestly have little interest in the bottom end of the market and will continue to rely on the EU to provide protection. I consider this to be empty talk.
- PaulHoule 3y agoI think the basic problem with EVs right now is that western manufacturers are completely uninterested in making vehicles that ordinary people can afford. There are two scenarios for this: (1) new technology starts off expensive and becomes cheaper, and (2) the thesis associated by Clayton Christensen that high business margins are addictive and can make it impossible for a potentially strong competitor to move downmarket. In the US electrification is a major conflict between carmakers and the UAW in that it is expected that electrics will take less labor to build, so long as it is high-margin electric Cadillacs there will be huge surpluses to go along but when it is mainly sub-$30,000 electric Chevys it will be different. Soon we’ll see protectionism as being the main foe of climate adaptation in both the US and Europe if we aren’t already (that is, it is China that has invested in capacity to make very cheap solar panels)