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BYD launches cheaper Seagull EV with $9,700 starting price tag
- dv_dt 3y agoI wonder if they will make something in a kei truck form.
- hiddencost 3y agoI would buy a cheap, US-street-legal electric kei truck so quickly if I could.
- dv_dt 3y agoI would think they would be pretty good off the street for large manufacturing plants and warehouses too.
- xbmcuser 3y agoCant say about Europe and US but with these prices and sizes they can and probably will take over many asian cities in the next 2-3 years
- toomuchtodo 3y ago20% of 2023 new vehicles sold globally last year were EVs. Trajectory going to go vertical very quickly. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39624636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39624636
- TomK32 3y agoVertical? I doubt that, besides the literal meaning of the word. The first two months saw a YOY increase of new registrations in Germany but the share of EV did drop. People are stubborn and love the ease of filling up a petrol tank. There were more Ferraris registered than BYD, though that might change. In November the Austrian state of Oberösterreich did announce BYD being the winning bid for buying a fleet of electric vehicles, but in January it was instead decided to lease BMW and VW cars instead. Sadly still cars instead of a stronger investment into public transport.
- konschubert 3y agoGermany is not the world.
- throwaway4good 3y agoThey also abruptly cancelled their EV-subsidy which probably explains why the share of EVs is dropping.
- konschubert 3y agoYes, it’s likely a one time effect.
- TomK32 3y agoOberösterreich is not in Germany, but that contract was only for 35 cars.
- radikalerludwig 3y ago> https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/germany-end-e-vehicle-subsidy-programme-2023-12-16/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/german...
- Tade0 3y agoI think it's not mentioned often enough how difficult it currently is to find enough bus/tram drivers having the demographics that Europe in general does. Cars will remain a mode of transportation simply because there is a huge professional driver shortage.
- TomK32 3y agoAs long as the focus is wrong: Yes. In Germany the Pendlerpauschale (a tax rebate when you live a long distance for your workplace) costs the state 2.2 billion Euros a year, Diesel is still taxed less than petrol, another 8.5 billion and there's a tax privilege for company cars in a mix-private use which costs 1.8 billion. There's plenty of money to pay bus/tram driver more and build more lines. One thing most forget: Travel and transportation that is car-focused ignores those who can't yet/anymore operate a car. Better public transport allows you granny to travel easier as well as your children.
- viraptor 3y agoBYD is already relatively large in Australia, mainly because other manufacturers were aiming for the high end and complaining that people don't buy enough of their cars... Meanwhile BYD will sell as much as they can ship. (They got 14% of the market in ~1.5 years)
- guidedlight 3y agoBYD will reach their market space limit in Australia, they just seem to be eating Tesla’s momentum at the moment. Australia has a long history of brand snobbery when it comes to car manufacturers. Most new entrants into the Australian market don’t make it long term.
- aurareturn 3y agoUS won’t ever lead in EVs because it’s the largest producer of oil in the world. The government has incentives to keep ICE as long as possible, thus, hard to be competitive in EVs over the long run. China meanwhile, is trying its hardest to remove its dependency on foreign oil. Europe’s incentives are more aligned with China’s.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoIf you think that the USA producing oil gives it incentive to lead in ICE cars, I think you’ll be disappointed. The real outlier are the Japanese, they made bets on hydrogen that aren’t panning out, and so are really behind.
- holoduke 3y agoEuropa more aligned with China? I don't think so. They are very much opposed to evs from China. Thinking about added import taxes to reduce the massive import of Chinese cars. Europe is also on old school oil continent in decline.
- csomar 3y ago> Europe’s ==incentives== are more aligned with China’s.
- aurareturn 3y agoMercedes sells more cars in China than all of Europe. China is Audi’s biggest market. China is BMW’s biggest market outside of Germany. So if Europe decides to prevent Chinese EVs from coming into the market, China would do the same for European cars. This is why Chinese EVs are prioritizing Europe over US as a market. Plus the aforementioned fact that Europe wants to move off oil faster than US wants to.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThose are all JVs, Tesla is the only foreign auto company in China that isn’t part of a 51-49 JV. Europe would probably require china to reciprocate if they wanted to start exporting cars made in China into Europe (since China didn’t import many cars made in Europe in the first place).
- ramshanker 3y agoIndia has equally priced Cars from domestic manufacturers. BYD is not going to gain meaningful market share here.
- csomar 3y agoThe best argument I liked so far to what's happening is that this flooding of Chinese EVs is due to the internal slowdown of EV sales. Essentially, China is producing roughly the same amount of EVs but as they can't sell them at the same pace locally, they are now pushing them to the outside world. There is no conspiracy here (in my opinion) or attempt to flood the global market; but rather a giant internal economy (that most people ignored because China is kinda enclosed in its own bubble) is now getting exposed and it's showing how far China has come. Another one is rails: China makes a lot of rails. A shit-ton but since these can't be sold to consumers, China created the "belt and road" thingy so that they can export their production. China has a lot of excess capacity. They can out build the West, the developing world and India. They were just busy building inside but now that they need new export markets and have mostly finished building inside, they are looking outward. The next few years will be interesting.
- echelon 3y ago> The best argument I liked so far to what's happening is that this flooding of Chinese EVs is due to the internal slowdown of EV sales. They're dumping on external markets. Tariffs will put a stop to this. We'll likely want tariffs if we want to give our domestic auto manufacturers time to adapt. And domestic automotive industry is important to maintaining a manufacturing base for defensive purposes during wartime. > They were just busy building inside but now that they need new export markets and have mostly finished building inside, they are looking outward. Their domestic market is saturated and experiencing economic headwinds. They're looking for external buyers because their internal economy has slowed. There wasn't enough real domestic consumption to prop it all up. > They can out build the West, the developing world and India. For a while. India, Mexico, Vietnam, et al. are ramping up.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoTariffs only apply to countries that make cars really, so don’t expect Australia to care much if BYD is selling below cost. America and China already have mutual tariffs in each others cars, China has those with most car producing countries (put in place originally and ironically to protect the Chinese car market)
- klyrs 3y ago$9700 for 300km range? These should be selling like hotcakes but for you'd be a pancake thanks to megacar culture
- doctorpangloss 3y agoWell it's probably too good to be true.
- morsch 3y agoSo fucking ban the megacars
- gizajob 3y agoSeagull - actually lolled. Possibly the worst name for a car I’ve ever heard. “I’ve drive a Bring Your Dreams Seagull” sounds like I’ve lapsed into word-salad.
- rickdicker 3y agoThis comment won't make sense to any onlookers, but I didn't forget about you, and I hope you're doing okay.
- gizajob 3y agoThank you. Yeah I’m still on borrowed time, but I’m doing alright and trying to come up with new ideas for shifting things. Probably going to change continents soon for a break / new start.
- viraptor 3y agoNobody says "Bring Your Dreams" out loud. Also, "the gull" was a nickname for a few cool cars in the past - nothing bad about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gull-wing_door https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gull-wing_door
- senectus1 3y agothe BYD's in Australia have "Build Your Dreams" written across the back of them. Its really an awful piece of branding
- politelemon 3y agoIf the names or conventions aren't familiar to you they'll sound silly. Having a look at the names of top selling cars if you're not familiar will make them look just as silly. There appears to be one named after a type of sheep, and a very popular one named after an insect.
- gizajob 3y agoI live in a coastal city where the seagulls are very annoying.
- mattlondon 3y agoThere seems to be some disconnect here with price reality, at least in the UK. They say the BYD dolphin is $13,500, but the on the road price of the Dolphin in the UK appears to be £25,000/~$32,000 I guess they are pricing for the market, but if they sold these cars for the ~£11,000 (Dolphin) or ~£7,500 (Seagull) they say they are selling for, it would sell like hot cakes. Sure there are some taxes and stuff, but that can't account for a 250-300% increase. As it is at that higher price, no one is going to take a chance on an unknown (for the UK) brand when they can get an equivalent model from a brand they are familiar with (e.g. Dacia, MG (even if MG is Chinese, people recognise the brand)). Amazon has ruined it for these Chinese competitors (i.e. weird unheard of usually random ALLCAPS brands e.g. BYD, ALOOPTI, DFFUTRI etc etc from Amazon being absolute trash). I drove a MG ZS EV for a month or two and it was actually pretty good so it is a shame that the reputation for cheap low-quality trash is so pervasive.
- maxglute 3y agoThere's no point spooking western markets with low price that will be construed as dumping. Short term strategy is sell 1 car for the profit margin of 20 cars and see how geopolitical enviroment play out and general public exposed to the quality of PRC cars.