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They should just take away the Chinese tariffs at this point so BYD and Geely can come in and clean the US automakers out. Any idiot can see that a cheap EV or

• bryanlarsen 3y ago
  It's coming whether the Chinese tariffs go away or not. BYD is building a manufacturing plant in Mexico. Mexican built cars are tariff free.
• coolbreezetft22 3y ago
  even if the EVs are cheap how will they be charged? Most people who can only afford lower priced cars won't own a home with a charger
  • tantalor 3y ago
    For a small EV, charging overnight at 110v is plenty.
    • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Yeah but with which 110V socket, from where? If you don't live at your own house and live at a rental apartment complex then you have no charging point at your parking space either way, be it 800V or 110V, until the building management or the city council decides to invest in EV charging infrastructure where you live and park your car. What are you gonna do then, implement those Slav-Engineering™ solutions you see in Eastern Europe where EV owners run household AC extension outlets from their balcony window to their car parked in front of the commie-block? I mean, it works, but it's not legal to code everywhere and would get you in trouble in the more rigorous countries. EVs are currently best suited to those who live in their own homes and can install their own chargers, or have chargers at work. Those without chargers at home are left holding the bags in the switch to EVs, hence why adoption is so slow.
      • bnt 3y ago
        Hey, my Slav neighbour charges his Model 3 that way! Now, in all seriousness, EVs are for houses, not apartment buildings. If you have a driveway, and want an EV - by all means go for one. But if you live in an apartment block where it's hard to even find parking after 7pm, then stick to ICE now.
      • telotortium 3y ago
        I saw exactly that in my first apartment complex in Mountain View.
        • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
          Is Mountain View the Eastern Europe of California? Is it run down and cheap?
          • telotortium 3y ago
            It was decades ago, but now it's where Googlers live, and the apartment prices have gone up to match. I lived in an garden apartment complex built in the 1960s but recently renovated, with rents therefore somewhat elevated. The apartments nearby were of the same vintage but not remodeled, so were a little cheaper but much more run down and overcrowded by people trying not to be forced to move far away. This was the period where Mountain View implemented rent stabilization.
      • TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
        I mean, you just described what I am doing. It is always adrenaline to have a cable dangling from 4th floor in the thunderstorm. And yes it is annoying PITA, and I am trying to sell the car, but surprisingly there is no demand for used 40-50k EUR Enyaq iv80 where I live.
        • floxy 3y ago
          Yeah, but 1.21 GW though...
  • dubcanada 3y ago
    Sorry for my ignorance but is not having a home charger a deal breaker for most people? I understand apartment buildings that it can be an issue, but for a private residence is it an issue?
    • mapmap 3y ago
      No, it's not an issue to charge on a basic plug for most people. You can get 5 miles per hour on 120v. When charged overnight it is plenty for the average commute.
      • bryanlarsen 3y ago
        Yup. Several people have commented that they planned on installing an EVSE ("charger") when they bought an EV but never bothered after finding out that 120V was enough. 120V will let you empty the battery on the weekend, commute and errands during the week and then have a full battery by Friday.
    • Moto7451 3y ago
      I’m renting a car and using the chargers in front/near restaurants and the mall. 20 minutes of level 3 charging lasts me a day on a Kia Niro. This car is an ev conversion on a 260v architecture. It’s about 90 minutes from 20-90% at 50kWh charging. On a level 2 in the same area a four hour dinner with friends netted me 20kWh or about 1/4 of the battery. So long as you have a meaningful reason to use public chargers you can get away without a charging space, but I definitely enjoy being able to charge my car at home.
    • 5555624 3y ago
      It can be. Of the houses on my block, there are only two that have a garage. More than half don't even have a driveway. Even if you have a driveway, most are only big enough for one car; so, if you have two EVs, you're moving cars around to charge them. There is street parking on only one side of the street. My neighborhood was laid out more than 125 years ago. The two houses on my east side were built in 1898, years before the Model T. By contrast, the neighborhood were I grew was mostly built post-WWII. Until a few new townhouses were built in the 1990s, only one didn't have a driveway. So, just because you own a home, doesn't mean you have a space to charge an EV.
  • anotherhue 3y ago
    NIO are doing battery swaps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w
  • nickthegreek 3y ago
    I have neighbors just run extension cords from their front door or window across the sidewalk and plug into their car on the street.
    • lagniappe 3y ago
      > across the sidewalk I reward the hacker spirit, however this is an accessibility concern for older people and wheelfolk.
    • blacksmith_tb 3y ago
      I have seen some better hacks, like using (maybe even planting?) a small tree and running the charging cable over its branches and down to the curb - that way it isn't a trip hazard. Of course it'd be more practical to bury a small pipe under the sidewalk, I guess horizontal boring is pretty much a solved problem, so retrofitting one might not be too hard.
    • badpun 3y ago
      That works until electric cars get popular and people start stealing their electricity (plug their car charger to the 220 extension cord with "free" electricity on tap).
    • ModernMech 3y ago
      Guess you’re not in an HOA? There would certainly be complaints in my neighborhood if extension cords were running everywhere. Maybe there will be EV charging built infrastructure on day but not for now or the near term.
• jandrese 3y ago
  Just for a point of reference the BYD electric pickup with a smallish 85kWh battery pack and few features has a MRSP of about $32,000 US. There is zero chance it would qualify for the federal tax credit however, even if it were available in the US. Still, many vehicles are getting their tax credit cut in half next year due to stricter domestic sourcing rules. I think domestic automakers underestimate the number of buyers who's first, second, and third priority is low price. They have all forgotten their origin as the company that sold the lowest price most mass market vehicle to people who couldn't previously afford them.
  • mholm 3y ago
    Price is king, but what kind of price? Americans have proven that labyrinthine financing and mortgage-length car loans are less of an obstacle, to the point that car MSRPs are essentially never advertised (outside of Tesla). Will the winner be the cheapest car, or the most profitable car with a 15 year mortgage?
    • jjav 3y ago
      > car MSRPs are essentially never advertised (outside of Tesla) I just went to websites of Honda, Toyota and Mazda and every car prominently shows the MSRP.
      • mholm 3y ago
        Advertised, as in TV/web/radio. Always cost per month, by dealers. The MSRPs are published in easy to find places, but that's not how the average buyer approaches the transaction
        • jjav 3y ago
          I don't watch ads so I don't know if they show MSRP or not, but it is 2023, approximately everyone uses the internet as their first (possibly only) source of information.
          • 3y ago
• gamblor956 3y ago
  The point of the Chinese tariffs is precisely to prevent companies from BYD and Geely from killing American automakers with their cheap, low-quality cars. (BYD, for example, is notorious for the abysmal quality of its electric busses, which are so bad that they're now effectively banned from consideration by most American public transit agencies. A SoCal agency bought several dozen busses a few years ago; only a single bus survived a year without major problems. Contrast that with their ICE or natural gas counterparts, which last decades.)
  • RamblingCTO 3y ago
    They are also heavily subsidised by the chinese government. If you think this through a bit you notice that you loose a war if you kill your national automakers and are dependant on china. Also look at Germany, they are still struggling, as they don't understand the market at all.
  • zhivota 3y ago
    If they are so low quality, then let them in and let them fail in the marketplace. I don't think they are so bad. Fleet buses are basically a completely different business btw, that has really nothing to do with private car quality, and besides that, I have a hard time believing BYD buses can be so bad. Probably the SoCal place got an early generation but with the volume they are doing world wide, it's just nonsensical to think it's all garbage.
    • tomohelix 3y ago
      Manufacturing is tied to national security. Even if those cars are of terrible quality, the Chinese government can subsidize them (they already are) to the point they are valid competitors to normal quality cars. On the surface, this is a win to consumers as this would drive down prices and expand options. But to the US government, this would kill many automakers and factories and reduce national production capacity in time of war. A very significant factor that allowed the US to completely dominate WW2 was its intact infrastructure and the resulting high manufacturing output. When you churn out ships and tanks in matter of days while your enemy, even with superior technology and quality, takes months to do so, you win. Japan's ships were incredibly well built but they lost the war because they can't replenish fast enough.