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How China Built BYD
- sds357 3y agohttps://archive.is/pVDKq https://archive.is/pVDKq
- bookofjoe 3y agodup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39382472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39382472
- latchkey 3y agoNot sure why they'd name a car after a bird that shits everywhere. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- iancmceachern 3y agoDon't most birds do this? Couldn't you make this comment about any bird?
- latchkey 3y agoI live at the beach, seagulls are a special breed. It is thought that they aim for humans too. My comment still stands.
- thriftwy 3y agoSoviet luxury cars for big bosses were called that also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ_Chaika https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAZ_Chaika I guess when you don't live near the coast, seagulls have this romantic, sea faring, travel vibe.
- iancmceachern 3y agoI live at the coast too. I think they're remarkable. I think it's pretty cool how they pick up mollusks and clams and such, drop them from high on the rocks and sidewall to break them open to eat. Clever.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yanellena 3y agoFirst thing I though when I saw this brand. 'Seal', 'Dolphin', 'Seagull'. They should have perhaps asked a agency to brand these cars a little better.
- littlestymaar 3y agoLooks like electric car manufacturers have poor taste… (BTW, 'Seal', 'Dolphin', 'Seagull' is still much butter than Elon's teenager leet speak joke…)
- outside1234 3y agoSubsidies, mandates, stolen technology, no environmental laws or worker protections
- magic_man 3y agoThe biggest challenge is the battery which is what byd originally made. Electric motors have been around for a long time. The first cars were electric.
- robin_reala 3y agoThe first cars were steam, although electric cars were an important part of the overall mix when they started becoming more widely sold.
- demondemidi 3y agoTesla or BYD?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- vdaea 3y agoNo environmental laws or worker protections? Is this based on truth or prejudice? Subsidies and mandates are good when the EU does them but bad when China does them?
- google234123 3y agoWestern companies have been basically shut out of the Chinese market since the beginning-even more is now. A huge trade imbalance should have naturally balanced itself out in a true free market. The fact it’s been so distorted for decades shows how bad it is. A rebalancing must occur and will be good for everyone in the long run Chinese policy making has been hugely protectionist and interventions lost for decades.
- Dunedan 3y agoWhat baffles me is Tesla's paralysis compared to BYD. Wasn't Tesla's goal to do rapid expansion to stay on top of everybody else volume wise? Nowadays Giga Berlin produces way less vehicles than anticipated and the only new factory being planned is Giga Mexico, which also seems to proceed slower than expected. In addition while the next vehicle from Tesla will probably be a smaller and cheaper car, it's still at least a year before they'll be able to ship it. All that while Tesla seems to have lots cash at hand, so why don't they expand more aggressively?
- rapsey 3y agoThey have the most popular car in the world how are they paralyzed?
- petee 3y agoI couldn't find a single list that had Tesla anywhere near #1; source?
- sidibe 3y agoFor individual models I've seen Model Y as #1. But seems like growth has stopped, so paralyzed is still appropriate, and they only have 2 models that sell significant numbers
- formerly_proven 3y agoMost other OEMs have (way way) more than four models, so that kind of list doesn't really make much sense to begin with.
- kibwen 3y agoThe Model Y is the most popular car in the US only if you don't classify pickup trucks as cars. Pickup trucks dominate car sales in the US.
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- ArtTimeInvestor 3y agoOnly a Tesla killer if they can beat Tesla in the race to full self-driving. Talking about self-driving - any ideas what's going on with Tesla's FSD V12? They published a live stream of Elon Musk driving it, and gave it to exactly one Youtuber, who is now putting up video after video how he drives it. Both the live stream and the Youtube videos show vastly improved self-driving capabilities. But if this is real, why don't they push it to customers?
- ein0p 3y agoTesla will not be able to deliver true FSD with its current purely computer vision based stack
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y agoWhy not? How do humans drive if not by vision?
- rvnx 3y agoUsing sound as well
- ein0p 3y agoBecause humans drive using general intelligence - something we can’t replicate anywhere yet, let alone in a power-constrained car.
- ArtTimeInvestor 3y agosomething we can’t replicate anywhere yet yet That's why it's a race.
- ein0p 3y agoYou don’t understand. The stack currently deployed in Tesla vehicles _will never be capable_ of anything even remotely resembling AGI. There’s just not enough compute there by several orders of magnitude, even if we knew how to do it, which we don’t.
- feverzsj 3y agoTesla is basically against a whole country which has the world's second largest economy. The cheapest model of BYD is around $8,000 and the BYD will get much much more subsidies from the government. Big China companies like BYD, Huawei can literally get infinite funds and other resources from the government.
- alephnerd 3y agoMore so the fact that BYD's battery division is an absolute gold mine like AWS is for Amazon. BYD is the primary battery supplier for most consumer electronics (you're iPhone is using a BYD battery for example)
- feverzsj 3y agoYes, with infinite resources, cheapest price, no one can beat them.
- alephnerd 3y agoOr mostly the fact that Apple decided to make BYD their primary battery supplier in the early 2000s over dozens of other companies. Batteries are a low margin high skill industry. Battery makers in SK/JP/US/TW decided to go upmarket where margins are much higher and competitive moats stronger (due to R&D, IP, and/or procurement requirements)
- roncesvalles 3y agoMeanwhile the US government bipartisanly hates Tesla.
- dragontamer 3y agoSounds like a problem the CEO of Tesla should work on. Or is he too busy Tweeting?
- kibwen 3y ago
- panick21_ 3y agoFunny how its always a Tesla killer, rather then a killer of the legacy manufactures. That's the actual story here. BYD in China more broadly spell doom for GM and friends, far more then Tesla.
- dragontamer 3y agoIt's Tesla that has a substantial Chinese (and European) footprint where BYD is operating though. GM/Ford/Stellaris aren't making a push for EVs in China like Tesla is. BYD just doesn't compete with USAs automakers outside of their Chinese footprints. (Maybe European competition since Europe is importing a lot of Chinese EVs in practice right now)
- panick21_ 3y ago> GM/Ford/Stellaris aren't making a push for EVs in China like Tesla is. China is an incredibly important market for cars, its not about EV or not. And to just say 'well, see we don't even car about this huge market' isn't really much of a strategy, its just giving up. My point was not about GM and US companies, it was about legacy EV companies in general. VW has massive problems in China as well. My broad point is that BYD is a problem for everybody. > BYD just doesn't compete with USAs automakers outside of their Chinese footprints. But they will. They are currently expanding all over the world. Its a matter of time.
- dragontamer 3y agoYou think the import tariffs on Chinese cars is going to come down any time soon? Or that American politics would change such that USA would accept a large number of such cars? If not.... then no. USA pretty much doesn't have to worry about it. USA can afford higher car prices, and it's a political tradeoff that's really easy to make right now. I'm willing to bet on higher such tariffs if Chinese car prices drop any further.
- jbm 3y agoI understand where you are coming from, but it isn't that simple. American investors are very, very much into overseas expansions. Assuming the cars BYD puts out really are that good (which is a big if), this could seriously damage exports. The US market is the most valuable, so these companies will survive, but the stock will not thrive.
- mustafa_pasi 3y agoHow does VC work in China? How did he get his money? Snooping a bit on Wikipedia, it says that he partnered with his cousin who was some kind of banker.
- alephnerd 3y agoFor BYD in the 1990s, Family banking. Specifically within the Hokkien, Cantonese, and Hakka diaspora. Guangdong+Fujian became a major manufacturing hub because most of the business elite in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Phillipines were from the same clans and families in Guangdong and Fujian Before the 2000s, Manchuria tended to be much richer and industrialized than Guangdong/Fujian because of Russian/Soviet, South Korean, and Japanese FDI along with the fact that it was close to Beijing and was the heartland of the CCP after WW2 so most SOEs were based there. By the mid-late 2000s, China's financial sector formalized and a IB/PE/VC model similar to that in the US and Israel arose.
- chx 3y agoYeah, well It is, on paper a private company But you need to understand this is China. BYD is extremely heavily subsidized by the Chinese government. For example, this 2016 article https://www.forbes.com/sites/mclifford/2016/07/26/with-a-little-help-from-its-friends-lavish-chinese-government-help-for-top-electric-car-maker-byd/?sh=251ad64115e2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/mclifford/2016/07/26/with-a-lit... mentions > In the five years ending December 31, 2015, the company reported receiving a total of 2.9 billion yuan ($435 million) in government support. and that's just the reported support, there are tricks the government can play with for example labor costs, transferring R&D and so forth.
- bgnn 3y agoYeah but that's the same fir any car manufacturer aynwhere. VW is extremely subsidized by Germany, US bailed out their bankrupt manufacturers after 2008, same with France, Japan, Korea. UK didn't do that, or stopped doing that, and their car industry collapsed. Even for countries doing only manufacturing for other nations brands it's so common to heavily subsidize those factories to be able to get local production jobs. Besides $435 million is practically nothing in government aid terms. Hell, even tiny Hungary have given Audi €113 million in 2016: https://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/253497/253497_1766083_163_2.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/253497/2534...
- tomohawk 3y agoIt's hard to compete against a state backed enterprise, especially when the backing includes a massive industrial espionage operation that keeps tabs on all of your competitors.
- aurareturn 3y agoI found the comment fueled by propaganda.
- dbcooper 3y agoBYD's cars gave crappy suspension. Compared to a BMW on the highway...
- Tiktaalik 3y agoThey have their own campus monorail that is absolutely wild lol.
- Animats 3y agoMonorail! LA may be getting a BYD monorail.[1] [1] https://laskyrailexpress.com/ https://laskyrailexpress.com/
- christkv 3y agoWhat BYD seems to be doing in spain is the following. cost wise they are no cheaper than the other cars. What they do is front you the government subsidies for evs so the car is cheaper. What happens if you don’t qualify for it in the years it takes to process the subsidy. Who knows? Do they write it off or does the ccp cover it as a defacto state subsidy from China?
- chrisjc 3y agoThe Point-of-sale tax credit (effectively what you are describing) for qualifying new EVs is now live in the US too. Whether you actually qualify or not is matter that is taken up between you and the IRS. I believe that if at the end of the year you don't qualify after taking the POS tax-credit, you owe that amount to the IRS. (or at least can't use that amount as a write-off) I imagine it would be the same in Spain, ultimately not the responsibility of the EV manufacturer (assuming they provide all of the relevant tax documentation).
- misiti3780 3y agohttps://archive.is/pVDKq https://archive.is/pVDKq
- mtrovo 3y agoIt's really hard to find any constructive discussion around Chinese companies here. Anybody willing to share facts about subsidies, state control or anything that would justify believing that BYD success here is not justified? For me the whole story of vertical integration of a battery manufacturer company that decided to make EV cars makes a lot of sense.
- late2part 3y agoWe have always been at war with Oceania.
- h0l0cube 3y agoAnother narrative that’s missing is ‘Discretionary government intervention can be good for the market actually’, and if the Chinese administration is making big bets on an emerging high value market (batteries and EVs), maybe the traditionally laissez-faire US should take note. That does rely on the notion that China is actively subsidizing and enabling BYD more than the US is for Tesla, and leaving aside their efforts on battery R&D, vertical integration, leveraging lower labor costs etc. as you say
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago> Discretionary government intervention can be good for the market actually This is more like "government intervention can give domestic companies an unfair advantage in global markets", which isn't actually a good thing, but also isn't something you can just ignore without a response. In this case you might like it because what they're subsidizing helps with climate change, but this is mainly because we don't price carbon (pricing major externalities is one of the things governments actually have to do), not because having governments subsidize businesses is a net positive in general.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoNote that China does price carbon, which the USA does not (though some states do).
- m2mdas2 3y agoI didn't know much about BYD till the end of the last year. Looked around for more information and found this great video[0]. It's a fascinating story actually. So in west clean energy push is actually a moral obligation for reducing the effects of climate change. Whereas for China it is the main way for future growth, to become less dependent on oil supply chain which it does not control. Also they know that they can't compete in ICE vehicles with the established companies. So they started working on EV long before Elon Musk popularized EV in West. The subsidized whole EV industry. As a result hundreds of EV companies were created seeing the opportunities. As a result nationwide EV infrastructure was built. Five years ago China did the most unconventional thing. They invited Tesla to build the factories and at a same time removed most subsidies given to local EV companies. So Tesla and local companies were having same equal footing. It resulted in a pure form of free market competition. It became a bloodbath, a king of the hill type survival game where Tesla sat at top of the hill. As a result of competition innovation, optimization happened. Most of the local EV companies died. Remaining became almost the same level as Tesla and BYD became the new king of the hill (at least in China). The unconventional decision by China may look foreign to western audience but it actually resonates to us who are raised by Asian families. So if you are a child in an asian households parents most of the time talks about a 'kid next door' who is good at study. The parents frequently tells their child to become as good or better than the 'kid next door',saying that we will give you as good environment within our reach to achieve it. It gives an implicit pressure on the child to become better. Obviously not all become as good as the kid next door but some prevails. In the Chinese EV market case Tesla was that 'kid next door'. Edit: Sorry wrong video. Trying to find the video. Edit2: found the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-NcTawauXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-NcTawauXA . Skip to the 9 minute. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttu55nEtC6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttu55nEtC6o
- sceadu 3y agoFYI you can include timestamps in YouTube URLs. Thanks for the links!
- 29athrowaway 3y agoWhy was so much money poured into BYD and nobody cared about designing a proper logo?
- acdha 3y agoKinda like Jeep, Dodge, GMC, Kia, etc.? If they make good cars, the logo will be seen positively. If they don’t, the logo won’t matter.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoThe Dodge Ram logo is cool.
- acdha 3y agoSure, but this is their primary logo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dodge_black_logo.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dodge_black_logo.svg
- simonstrong 3y agoBYD will next buy lithium mines they will manage the whole supply chain. By producing cars in Europe Africa South America they by pass import laws. Ford and GM signed supply deals with BYD technology a day ago. it’s just too late to start to research and develop your own Battery many manufacturers will adapt BYD batters otherwise you will miss out of a huge market share. ESG funds and offset carbon credits just going to keep making BYD stronger and stronger.
- bayindirh 3y ago> “Frankly, I think if there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other companies in the world,” he (Musk) said. I love this viewpoint. If a country takes a similar approach against the US, same people will go berserk about equality and cry foul. However, when they feel threatened, they can call for the very thing they are against.
- aurareturn 3y agoWhat I learned in the last 6 years is that the US is simply not the good guys that everyone makes them out to be and China is not the bad guys. It's all a game for resources and survival. That's it. The way the US does it is the same way any other government would do it - propaganda.
- pqdbr 3y agoAs someone who just took delivery of a BYD Song Plus, I can say I’d be very, very worried if I was BMW’s CEO. And yes, I’ve owned 5 BMWs before this new BYD.
- MuffinFlavored 3y agoI have to imagine the overlap between markets for people who prefer to: pay a premium to drive luxury (BMW customers) vs those willing to take a chance on a new ultra-cheap $22k Chinese electric car are near zero currently
- acdha 3y agoHow many testimonials like the one you’re replying to would it take to change that, though? If some popular Tik Tok/Youtube people had good experiences, it’s not hard to imagine that a ton of Gen Z buyers would decide they like being able to save large amounts of money they don’t have. “Made in China” has a negative connotation to older people but for anyone under, say, 50 that’s normal for almost everything else.
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago> that a ton of Gen Z buyers I thought the narrative was Gen Z can't afford to not live at home. Now they're buying BMWs?
- acdha 3y agoGen Z as a whole earn less than the millennials did at the same age (as did Gen X) but that doesn’t mean everyone in an entire generation is destitute. Less spending power on average and more precarious employment _does_ mean more people who might be looking for a deal – why make a financial stretch if you don’t have to? – and if BYD is making good products, it’s not hard to imagine a generational shift not unlike what happened when a lot of Boomers decided Japanese cars were better than the Cadillacs, etc. which their parents had considered proof of having made it. Housing does also enter into the picture: people who don’t see home ownership as plausible might spend more on cars than they strictly need to because that’s an area where you can express yourself and it’s far more affordable than a mortgage. That isn’t the optimal financial choice but people like to have something nice they own and if housing isn’t it, cars are the next most prestigious thing most Americans own.
- comechao 3y agoThey announced three factories in Brazil. However, cars in Brazil are expensive due to many factors, including taxes and tariffs (see the price of an iPhone in Brazil and try not to be horrified).
- tim333 3y agoWhile I'm sure China has helped probably a lot comes down to the founder. I've taken an interest since Charlie Munger started praising him >“This guy,” Munger tells Fortune, “is a combination of Thomas Edison and Jack Welch – something like Edison in solving technical problems, and something like Welch in getting done what he needs to do. I have never seen anything like it.” (2009) And more recently >“He can do things you can’t do,” Munger said on a Sunday episode of the podcast Acquired. “He’s a fanatic that knows how to actually make things with his hands. He’s closer to ground zero in other words. The guy at BYD is better at actually making things than Elon is.” (2023) And Munger wasn't one to praise many people like that. Also Wang is focused on cars rather than faffing with Twitter.
- achow 3y agoWang Chuanfu, the driving force behind BYD’s rise. https://www.ft.com/content/22527628-733e-4188-9678-ab3210fdb1ba https://www.ft.com/content/22527628-733e-4188-9678-ab3210fdb... Excerpt: The story of the professor in nonferrous metals research turned hard-headed executive with a fastidious focus on technology, supply chains and cost- cutting has become gospel in Chinese science and business schools. To his employees, Wang is simply known as “The Chairman”. Both revered and feared, the 57-year-old billionaire’s unassuming demeanour belies a micromanager with a Stakhanovite work ethic. “The work-life balance concept is just not in his lexicon,” Experts attribute BYD’s success largely to a ruthless culture of cost-cutting. The entrepreneur had instituted “absolutely aggressive cost control” BYD has developed its own in-house capabilities. Contracting other companies for hardware or services is a last resort, so much so that an executive once told car reviewers the company made everything on the vehicle “except the tyres and the windscreen”. By splitting manufacturing into “finer and finer steps”, Weber said, individual workers only carry out very narrow tasks. This means there is greater propensity to replace staff with cheap workers. “They basically treat people like robots,”
- throw0101b 3y ago> […] belies a micromanager with a Stakhanovite work ethic. Not a term I am familiar with: > The Stakhanovites (стаха́новцы) modeled themselves after Alexei Stakhanov, a coal miner, and took pride in their ability to produce more than was required by working harder and more efficiently, thus contributing to the common good and strengthening the socialist state. The movement began in the coal industry but later spread to many other industries in the Soviet Union. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement Is it commonly used in the UK?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20240212051015if_/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/business/byd-china-electric-vehicle.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240212051015if_/https://www.ny...
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoRelated: Chinese electric carmakers are taking on Europeans – and succeeding https://www.npr.org/2024/02/18/1225653773/china-electric-vehicles-byd-nio-geely-vw-europe https://www.npr.org/2024/02/18/1225653773/china-electric-veh...
- screye 3y agoThe EV push makes so much more sense for China than it does in the US. The warm climate leads to better battery performance. The availability of HSR means that cars aren't needed for road trips, subverting the need for range. The money saved on gas makes sense as gas is expensive and all the components are (electronics, silicon, battery tech) is available in house. Tesla was always going to have an uphill battle.
- aurareturn 3y agoI have a conspiracy theory that because the US is the world's #1 oil producer, it fights as hard as it can to stay on ICE for as long as it can. For example, lobbying, lack of motivation to build out charging infrastructure, etc.
- acdha 3y agoThe climate is a non-issue for almost all Americans. I think your point about HSR is more important because it’s really saying that the entire country isn’t designed around individual people driving everywhere all the time, and that’s the problem the United States has in so many forms: housing is spread out and often intentionally bad for transit, transit and bike infrastructure is terrible because most funding was used to subsidize private car travel for most of a century, people have car parking because they’re required to pay for it anyway, etc. Gas prices going up could change that but it’d be hard on many people to the point that elections are lost.
- rldjbpin 3y agoBYD's story to me is more about timing and some experiments paying off. as a battery manufacturer, it probably took some internal management's push to continue developing on this area despite earlier setbacks. note that they tried developing other electronic devices without reaching this level of success. china itself had a lot of regional electric car manufacturers in the past decade, out of whom a few have emerged as successful. it would not be completely fair to chalk their success down to getting "unlimited money from the government of the second largest economy". the current declining economy has forced chinese automotive industry to look outside for continued growth, and i find it to have a similar consequence as the solar panel dumping of the early 2010s.