5 ms·

As far as false dichotomies go, "Tesla or BYD" is about as bad as it gets. On the whole, the world is a little worse off if you buy either. Might as well buy a

As far as false dichotomies go, "Tesla or BYD" is about as bad as it gets. On the whole, the world is a little worse off if you buy either. Might as well buy a gasoline car then. If you're on the fence, consider giving the other US/EU/Japanese automakers a couple years to catch up. They know the future is 100% EVs. They're steering enormous ships with large investments and many stakeholders.

presentation 2y ago
Is it bad to buy BYD because you don’t like China?
- worstspotgain 2y ago
  The political rationale is well known, so I'll add the economic one. The world economy has globalized around the principle of Comparative Advantage [1]. It means every country specializes on what it's relatively better at. It also means that your country can be in for a world of trouble if your comparative advantage changes. In turn, it means that a large adversary can attack you by turning the tables on your advantage. Automobiles are a large comparative advantage sector for the US, Germany and Japan. Displacing it - even if only by catching automakers on the wrong foot, as BYD and friends are trying to do - could result in a massive reorganization wave, coupled with recessions and political shocks. This is only possible because of China's size, of course. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
  - peacechance 2y ago
    [flagged]
Caius-Cosades 2y ago
"They know the future is 100% EVs" Meanwhile: "Volvo Cars abandons 2030 EV-only target" https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volvo-cars-scales-back-electric-vehicle-ambition-2024-09-04/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volvo-... "BMW backs away from £2billion electric car pledge amid plans to stick with petrol and diesel vehicles" https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/bmw-backs-away-from-ps2billion-electric-car-pledge-amid-plans-to-stick-with-petrol-and-diesel-vehicles https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/bmw-backs-away-from-ps... "Audi Changes Strategy, Backs Away From Electric" https://www.dagens.com/autos/audi-changes-strategy-backs-away-from-electric https://www.dagens.com/autos/audi-changes-strategy-backs-awa... "Volkswagen Walks Back EV-or-Bust Strategy That Rankled Rivals" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-16/volkswagen-walks-back-ev-or-bust-strategy-that-rankled-rivals https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-16/volkswage... Future was supposed to be nuclear powered everything at one point in the past. Lo and behold the future, we're burning coal and making fields of things that have limited lifecycles and that can't be efficiently recycled, and that are completely reliant on weather being nice.
- worstspotgain 2y ago
  The articles you linked are pretty much confirming what I was saying exactly: Volvo: "saying it now expected to still be offering some hybrid models in its lineup at that time." VW: "will need more plug-in hybrids as EV sales decelerate." (I'm not clicking the link on the site for the channel that has Nigel Farage, funny though.)
  - ffsm8 2y ago
    It's gonna be hilarious 10-15 yrs after the purchase when the owners of electric vehicles find out that their cars batteries have gone to shit, essentially making their cars resell value 0, while the ICE resell value will likely be even higher then it'd be today, precisely because the used EVs are garbage, effectively removing them from the market. Personally I'd welcome an electric only revolution, because they're a lot less noisy and I hardly ever need a car. But it's future has always been entirely made up marketing speak to prop up shareholder value
    - wraptile 2y ago
      ICE resale is tanking already and no way it can bounce back ever again. Electric is just a superior technology minus charging time. I'm about to buy my first car and while I can't afford an EV I'm very grateful for EVs dropping the 2nd hand market so hard. Currently Mazda 2 from 2020 is half the price of a new BYD Dolphin here and if I needed to drive more I'd get the latter but for that price a cozy road trip rain shelter is too hard to resist!
      - ffsm8 2y ago
        Interesting, I just checked on the most popular used car listing site for my region to check if things changed since the last time I was interested - at least in my region, electric cars deprecate massively more here even now. You get a price drop of 60-70% within 40-60k km for electric vehicles, the ICEs usually only drop by ~50% by 80-100k km. That's less deprecation despite higher usage. And these electric cars are mostly ~4 years old while the ICEs are 6+ years old. At least in my region, ICEs resell way, way better /Edit: the Mazda 2 costs 21k€ new, the byd dolphin 30k. If you're buying a 4years old Mazda for 1/2 of the price of a new byd dolphin, you're actually paying 70% of the list price of the Mazda. That's kinda proving how high ICEs are reselling vs the electric vehicles. The equivalent electric vehicle would've deprecated more

presentation 2y ago

Is it bad to buy BYD because you don’t like China?

worstspotgain 2y ago
The political rationale is well known, so I'll add the economic one. The world economy has globalized around the principle of Comparative Advantage [1]. It means every country specializes on what it's relatively better at. It also means that your country can be in for a world of trouble if your comparative advantage changes. In turn, it means that a large adversary can attack you by turning the tables on your advantage. Automobiles are a large comparative advantage sector for the US, Germany and Japan. Displacing it - even if only by catching automakers on the wrong foot, as BYD and friends are trying to do - could result in a massive reorganization wave, coupled with recessions and political shocks. This is only possible because of China's size, of course. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
- peacechance 2y ago
  [flagged]

Caius-Cosades 2y ago

"They know the future is 100% EVs" Meanwhile: "Volvo Cars abandons 2030 EV-only target" https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volvo-cars-scales-back-electric-vehicle-ambition-2024-09-04/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volvo-... "BMW backs away from £2billion electric car pledge amid plans to stick with petrol and diesel vehicles" https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/bmw-backs-away-from-ps2billion-electric-car-pledge-amid-plans-to-stick-with-petrol-and-diesel-vehicles https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/bmw-backs-away-from-ps... "Audi Changes Strategy, Backs Away From Electric" https://www.dagens.com/autos/audi-changes-strategy-backs-away-from-electric https://www.dagens.com/autos/audi-changes-strategy-backs-awa... "Volkswagen Walks Back EV-or-Bust Strategy That Rankled Rivals" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-16/volkswagen-walks-back-ev-or-bust-strategy-that-rankled-rivals https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-16/volkswage... Future was supposed to be nuclear powered everything at one point in the past. Lo and behold the future, we're burning coal and making fields of things that have limited lifecycles and that can't be efficiently recycled, and that are completely reliant on weather being nice.

worstspotgain 2y ago
The articles you linked are pretty much confirming what I was saying exactly: Volvo: "saying it now expected to still be offering some hybrid models in its lineup at that time." VW: "will need more plug-in hybrids as EV sales decelerate." (I'm not clicking the link on the site for the channel that has Nigel Farage, funny though.)
- ffsm8 2y ago
  It's gonna be hilarious 10-15 yrs after the purchase when the owners of electric vehicles find out that their cars batteries have gone to shit, essentially making their cars resell value 0, while the ICE resell value will likely be even higher then it'd be today, precisely because the used EVs are garbage, effectively removing them from the market. Personally I'd welcome an electric only revolution, because they're a lot less noisy and I hardly ever need a car. But it's future has always been entirely made up marketing speak to prop up shareholder value
  - wraptile 2y ago
    ICE resale is tanking already and no way it can bounce back ever again. Electric is just a superior technology minus charging time. I'm about to buy my first car and while I can't afford an EV I'm very grateful for EVs dropping the 2nd hand market so hard. Currently Mazda 2 from 2020 is half the price of a new BYD Dolphin here and if I needed to drive more I'd get the latter but for that price a cozy road trip rain shelter is too hard to resist!
    - ffsm8 2y ago
      Interesting, I just checked on the most popular used car listing site for my region to check if things changed since the last time I was interested - at least in my region, electric cars deprecate massively more here even now. You get a price drop of 60-70% within 40-60k km for electric vehicles, the ICEs usually only drop by ~50% by 80-100k km. That's less deprecation despite higher usage. And these electric cars are mostly ~4 years old while the ICEs are 6+ years old. At least in my region, ICEs resell way, way better /Edit: the Mazda 2 costs 21k€ new, the byd dolphin 30k. If you're buying a 4years old Mazda for 1/2 of the price of a new byd dolphin, you're actually paying 70% of the list price of the Mazda. That's kinda proving how high ICEs are reselling vs the electric vehicles. The equivalent electric vehicle would've deprecated more