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BYD is automaker with the most R&D staff

• more_corn 2y ago
  I reluctantly concede that BYD makes a good car. I’ve ridden in half a dozen of them in the last two weeks. Smooth, comfortable, the ergonomics are good and clean. The driver assist visuals are clean. (Pulling out of a restaurant last night the driver could see the projected path of the vehicle and widened his turn to prevent scraping the rear right quarter panel). My one complaint is that there appears to be an internal rgb disco mode. Oh and they appear to start at $21k. (Don’t quote me on that, my conversation math might have been wrong) If the projected total cost of ownership holds, these cars (and those of the other 4 big Chinese electric car companies) will own the global market over the next decade (minus places that implement protectionist tariffs like the 100% tariffs in the US)
  • chii 2y ago
    > I reluctantly concede that BYD makes a good car. why the reluctance? If they make a good car, there should be no reluctance in accepting it. Other than, of course, nationalism and/or racism. Just like how in the past, japanese cars were "reluctantly" accepted as good quality cars at cheap prices.
    • more_corn 2y ago
      The reluctance was in part tongue in cheek. In part reluctance to attribute quality and durability to a newcomer. Cars are complex and history is littered with failed car companies. DeLorean is a good example. Ex GM designer, decided he’d make his own car company. Killer styling, shitty PRV motor. The 88mph thing from Back to the Future is a bit of a joke on the underpowered engine in a heavy car. It’s actually quite a challenge to get that thing up to speed. In that example the engine fails the long term quality test due to (among other things) the valley of death, a V shape in the top of the engine where water pools and rusts right through. The chassis fails maintenance tests because the cooling system uses a combination of hard and soft lines (remember the engine is in the back, radiator in the front) so replacing degraded cooling hoses takes days as you replace 30 different rubber hoses. Both of these maintenance shortcomings only become apparent years later. So BYD looks good so far. But time will tell. (Will the batteries last? Are the electronics repairable? Are there unexpected shortcomings?)
      • csomar 2y ago
        BYD has been producing cars for 20 years now. They are hardly a new comer but only recently were able to make it into the "big league".
      • codedokode 2y ago
        > The 88mph thing from Back to the Future is a bit of a joke on the underpowered engine in a heavy car. It’s actually quite a challenge to get that thing up to speed. As I remember, indeed, they had to use a train.
  • Glawen 2y ago
    I drove my first BYD car last week, a hybrid Seal. I was pleasantly surprised by the confort and power, it kept up with the Audis on das autobahn. Only downside was the suspension, not european enough i would say. However, software wise... They obviously are too cheap to pay a native to translate the UI. some translation end with _1. The worst offenser was the copilot button, where you never know if it is on or not. It makes crazy moves and seem to move the steering wheel even while off (lane assist is off) Also the Adaptative Cruise Control is not the best calibrated, but it works well
  • csomar 2y ago
    > Oh and they appear to start at $21k. They are only $10k in China. In other countries, it's usually $17k+ depending on customs, transport, other "fees".
• dalyons 2y ago
  The chinese manufacturers seem to be the only ones willing to make cheap decent EVs. They are scaling like crazy, I hope they keep it up, might turn out to be one of the biggest forces in mitigating emissions. The legacy auto companies who only sell expensive luxury EVs deserve to be crushed by BYD and friends, I have no sympathy left at this point.
  • bpodgursky 2y ago
    I want legacy EU/US automakers to pull their heads out of their a* and compete, but anyone who thinks BYD is succeeding only on CCP support is a clown. It's a real company that's brutally demolishing the competition. (I have a Tesla, but looking at the market, my next car might be a BYD minivan unless someone finally BUILDS A DOMESTIC FULL EV MINIVAN FFS).
    • SoftTalker 2y ago
      Drag coefficient probably makes a minivan EV with good range quite difficult.
      • bee_rider 2y ago
        Is that true? They are big but seem naturally… round. Teardrop-y.
      • bpodgursky 2y ago
        There's an EV Hummer... they can figure it out.
        • SoftTalker 2y ago
          Yeah, I did some cursory research and the reason most claimed is that minivans are simply not that popular. But neither are Hummers, yes they appeal to some people but you really don't see a lot of them out on the road.
          • 2y ago
• SoftTalker 2y ago
  Under communism, doesn't everyone get a job? So are these are a lot of inefficient communist jobs people have just to occupy their time? I mean what on earth is an automaker doing with 700,000 employees? General Motors employs 163,000[1]. Ford employs 177,000[2]. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GM/general-motors/number-of-employees https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GM/general-motors/... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/F/ford-motor/number-of-employees https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/F/ford-motor/numbe...
  • baybal2 2y ago
    [dead]
  • rickandmortyy 2y ago
    [dead]
  • oivey 2y ago
    Are either of those numbers relevant? US auto companies heavily outsource component manufacturing to many, many other smaller companies. Seemingly you’d want to compare to compare the supply chain included job numbers along with the number of cars.
    • srockets 2y ago
      Not just US auto makers. Modern car companies don’t manufacture, they assemble (and for a pretty good reason, but I digress).
      • timschmidt 2y ago
        Disagree strongly on the soundness of the reasoning. Divesting themselves from manufacturing facilities, equipment, and skilled personnel has been a slow motion trainwreck for the big three US auto manufacturers. It opened them up to competition from Tesla and others. Tesla, who make the majority of their own parts here in the US.
• yard2010 2y ago
  How many Chinese are needed to find a better name than "Build your Dreams" though?
  • 75w 2y ago
    Do names matter that much? Are ford, audi and Chrysler great names or are they just familiar?
    • kube-system 2y ago
      American cars can literally write "this is a trick" or "avoid this" on the front and people will still buy it anyway: https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dodge https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dodge
  • kraftman 2y ago
    Is it worse than Face Book?
  • CalRobert 2y ago
    I prefer lucky goldstar
  • csomar 2y ago
    Apple and now BYD should be the definitive argument on why names do not matter.
    • CalRobert 2y ago
      Apple is a great name though....
  • codedokode 2y ago
    They also have brands like Geely which looks English but doesn't mean anything.
  • __m 2y ago
    The name is Biyadi
• ryuno_k 2y ago
  For those who have a good take on these Chinese EVs. Please read this article: https://www.zhihu.com/question/639536083/answer/3542708279 https://www.zhihu.com/question/639536083/answer/3542708279 If you are unable to read Chinese, here is the translation: 12/26 Update (19): The new forces in car manufacturing constantly challenge my worldview. One of our COEM (Car Original Equipment Manufacturer) clients requested that the front windshield be polarized, like polarized sunglasses, so the driver can sleep peacefully when autonomous driving is engaged. We earnestly explained that this poses a major danger to the driver and is illegal since traffic police monitoring wouldn’t see the driver. The client insisted, saying, "We want it this way." 11/27 Update (18): Many people have blind faith in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), thinking they won’t allow things to go unchecked. Strange logic—actions are carried out by individuals, not departments. Whether things are done well depends on the competence of the person in charge. Here’s an example: To rush development timelines for new energy vehicles, some parts don’t even complete the PSW (Part Submission Warrant) process, meaning the EBOM (Engineering Bill of Materials) submitted to MIIT is incomplete. Yet, MIIT still approved it. What does this mean? It shows that MIIT officials lack expertise. It’s understandable—how can you expect a civil servant who passed exams in public policy to outsmart seasoned industry experts? 11/21 Update (17): None of the COEMs we’ve encountered have implemented DFMEA (Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis). To those claiming that new energy vehicles are safe: do you even know what DFMEA is? 11/6 Update (16): Today’s shocker: One of our components required an environmental impact assessment report. But since the COEM hadn’t even finalized their design—meaning the product hasn’t been manufactured yet—they asked our environmental team to estimate numbers on paper and submit a report to Chinese authorities. This is outright fabrication. Our environmental team is based in Germany… socialism using money to make capitalism bow its head? 10/20 Update (15): Client A copied BMW’s design but added a special feature of their own, creating design "a". Client B copied Client A’s design, added their own special feature, creating design "b". Client C copied Client B’s design, added their own special feature, creating design "c". Client D copied Client C’s design, added their own special feature, creating design "d". Result: Compared to BMW’s design, design "d" has four additional special features. Consequently, Client D’s vehicle costs and development time skyrocketed. They came to us, asking for cost reductions. I said, "Each car has its unique features. Why must you include all the features from A, B, and C?" Client D replied, "If others can achieve it, so must I. Otherwise, how can I compete and have a selling point?" I said, "If you want everything, of course it’ll be expensive. Plus, with four features, you’ll need four types of testing. You won’t make the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) deadline." Client D replied, "Then use BMW’s test experiments." 10/7 Update (14): To Zhihu users in Hangzhou: Have you seen Geely’s electric car graveyard? A soccer field full of Emgrand models discarded after just 20,000–30,000 kilometers. 8/23 Update (13): Some outsiders think watching a few videos or reading a few articles makes them experts. Here’s a story for you: A new car manufacturer somehow got the idea of using a cleanroom. After visiting our machining workshop, they demanded a cleanroom be installed. 8/15 Update (12): We recently received a serious customer complaint from a new energy vehicle company. A customer’s car caught fire while driving. Our Tier 1 quality team followed protocol to conduct an RA (Root Cause Analysis). The analysis implicated a component from a Tier 2 supplier. When we involved the Tier 2 supplier in writing the report, they leveraged their other business dealings with the carmaker to pinpoint weaknesses in the carmaker’s processes and rejected the complaint. I’ve been monitoring the carmaker’s official channels, curious to see if they can suppress public opinion and avoid exposure. Other Notes: A COEM, to save money, bought individual parts from us and had a third-party assembly plant put them together. The assembly plant didn’t even have a barcode scanner, so they asked us to find a way to distinguish between two visually similar parts. Is this progress or regression? A COEM launched a car model on a specific date. But two months prior, I already knew the components I was responsible for wouldn’t pass PSW in time. This means the cars shown to customers were empty shells—not even PV (Product Validation) tested. A COEM bypassed Tier 1 suppliers to purchase parts directly from Tier 2 and asked us to provide assembly services. Reviewing their designs, I repeatedly asked, "You just believe whatever Tier 2 tells you? How are you so gullible?" A COEM originally worked in consumer electronics and thought car standards were the same. They ignored automotive standards and outsourced manufacturing to us but refused to take design risks. A COEM used non-automotive-grade components. This means when quality issues arise, there’s no accountability. Most new car manufacturers are products of capital operations. Employees aren’t genuinely trying to build a successful business. Capitalists enjoy policy benefits, while workers inflate their resumes. 6/29 Update (9): During a COEM collaboration, I asked the client about their equipment’s high-pressure specifications. They said, "Design details are confidential." I asked if they’d conduct high-pressure tests. The client asked, "What’s that?" After explaining it’s an industry standard, they replied, "I don’t understand. Don’t lecture me." I asked if they’d still do it, and they responded, "What do you think?" I said it depends on their design. They replied, "Design details are confidential." How can I work with this? Their response: "You claim to be a top-10 company in the industry and don’t know this? Garbage." 7/18 Update (10): Many COEMs bypass Tier 1 suppliers and go straight to Tier 2. Lacking knowledge of automotive standards, they place no requirements on Tier 2 suppliers. Tier 2 suppliers are thrilled—they save on quality control costs and don’t even perform MSA (Measurement System Analysis). If you demand standards, they simply terminate business with you. Regarding Supply Chains (11): Our clients include joint ventures, traditional Chinese automakers, and new car manufacturers. Joint ventures and traditional automakers take annual forecasts (FC) seriously. I’ve calculated that FC0+12 and FC12+0 differ by only 10%, with fluctuations spread evenly over months. New energy vehicle companies, however, shrink their forecasts by 70% around FC4+8. Since you’ve already invested in production capacity, you’re forced to accept their relentless price cuts.
• est 2y ago
  Yes BYD had the most R&D staff, but that's the problem: There are simply too many brands under BYD's umbrella. Every line-up tries to re-invent the wheel with R&D of their own - The vanilla BYD (discontinued, mostly ICE cars) - the E series - Dynasty series - Ocean series - Formula Leopard - Denza - Yangwang - commercial vehicles, batteries, railway transports, OEMs, etc. And many models are overlapping with each other. Jack of all trades, the best selling one is the Seagull from the Ocean series and it costs about $10k
  • kube-system 2y ago
    Sounds like pre-bailout GM
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • csomar 2y ago
    It might not be a bad strategy starting up. You don't know which R&D is going to pan out, so you start a lot of different branches and let the market select the best.
  • apexalpha 2y ago
    Western companies like Stellantis have 13 different brands for different customers, too. It's just how car companies operate. They want to sell their customers the illusions of exclusivity while buying a car from the biggest car company on earth.
• robomartin 2y ago
  This is a difficult topic with too many tentacles to explore here in great detail. I think Chinese EV's are Trojan Horses. Why? Well, without protectionist policies they could implode auto manufacturers everywhere. It would be a game-over extinction event. In addition to this, they would also implode even more layers of industry and the supply chain outside of China. Again, game over. The other effect has to do with energy. Nobody has enough energy to support a full transition to EV's. That has been the case for a very long time and it is even worse now when AI data centers are at the top of the list for energy. Which means that the world will have to build new power generation capacity at a staggering rate in order to support EV's and AI. Where will all the components and systems come from to build this generation capacity? China. They manufacture everything and can do it (and are willing to do it) for less than anyone else. Their internal supply chains have been optimized over decades to create competitive advantages that do not exist anywhere in the world. From blenders and microwave ovens to solar panels, every component that goes into making inverters, storage, mechanical, etc. Also, think of everything required to support massive EV deployment: Charging stations, transformers, power lines and myriad other components and systems. All made in China. Finally, the renewables power generation infrastructure requires maintenance at roughly modulo 25 years. And, once again, all of that material will come from China. If one were to be strategic and have the advantage of time and patience, making cheap EV's that can be sold by tens of millions of units per year into every possible corner of the world becomes a genius Trojan Horse strategy with massive long-term payoff. And then, if we were to add a little conspiracy-theory flavor in there...Imagine a scenario where they carefully backdoor control into everything. They would be able to remotely shutdown any town, city, state, province or country. Did I go too far on that one? Well, human history proves we are capable of doing horrible things to each other, you know, like walking people into gas chambers and carpet bombing. We are one good power outage away from being cavemen. I wouldn't put anything past the realities of the human condition. And then add cheap mass-produced humanoids to that equation. Well played I say. The next few decades will be in a range between interesting and horrific.
  • nextworddev 2y ago
    It's part of their plan to shift fossil-fuel economy stack to electric stack, just so China can own a piece of the supply chain in as many industries as possible
• gempir 2y ago
  Fast Fashion in the automobile industry. I wish we would focus on Cars that last 20+ years again instead. Cars that are repairable, that have common parts across the industry so any mechanic can work on them. Maybe even upgradeable cars so you can make it more environmentally when new technology develops. Will they be the most environmentally friendly to drive? No probably not, but the manufacturing of cars is super environmentally expensive too.
• codedokode 2y ago
  To make modern cars you need advanced industrial equipment and machines, robots. Where does China manage to get them? Did West sell these strategic resources to a competitor to get little short-term profit? Or did they learn how to make them themselves?
  • maxglute 2y ago
    Foreign companies sold them, thinking PRC couldn't make them. Made a killing for 20 years. Then tale as old as time. PRC started making them, now adding more industrial robots than nearly everyone else combined last few years.
    • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
      They actually even sold them at a lower price in China than in the west, to exploit price discrimination.
      • maxglute 2y ago
        Recently, to compete with PRC competitors entering market. Growing up in 90s, they were price gouging hardcore. Was family friends with someone high up in ABB China executive. They were printing money for a while.
  • surgical_fire 2y ago
    > Or did they learn how to make them themselves? I love the low-key racism on these comments. "How would those stupid peoples learn to make nice things?" It's not much of a surprise. China could offer cheap unskilled labor initially, basic factories are set up there. They could use this to grow their skilled, educated workforce, and gradually increase the complexity and capabilities of their industries. I know that people like you would love if poor countries were kept as just manual labor resource extraction, but turns out economies don't really work like that. There are incentives and competition all aroud, among companies, among countries, etc and so forth. Manufacturing, especially for complex products, can be a supply chain nightmare. Any edge your competitors have against you may spell your doom. You cut costs where you can. You get suppliers where they are cheaper, you move factories to where they are cheaper, all this while trying to satisfy your customers. I find it particularly funny nowadays that a lot of people from the US have a hard on for tariffs, as if this is going to save them from anything. Tariffs are interesting that they are typically reciprocal. You apply tarrifs on some of my important industries, I do the same against you, and then I go do business with your competitors.
• dreamspire 2y ago
  Unless safe solid state batteries are commercially available, I really don't dare to buy a new energy vehicle, if the battery is damaged it's life-threatening.
  • drukenemo 2y ago
    So you prefer to sit on 50 liter of a highly flammable liquid instead.
• librasteve 2y ago
  BYD must be all over Starmer to build a plant in the U.K. … wonder why he is holding out I would much rather buy a BYD than a UK screwdrivered car now Musk has ruled out UK plant
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• nameleftblank 2y ago
  It's odd to me that after so much proof in the past people in the West continue to take China's numbers at face value. I'm not here to start saying they are out to trick people, but the culture around reporting is just different. It's like someone who just started their career not realizing that resumes are supposed to be a little "inflated" and you are supposed to talk yourself up a bit. People who see your resume are going to mentally knock it back down ~30% or so, everyone plays the game so if you write it without any kind of little embellishments, you are going to be undervalued. Same effect here, go to China and talk to Chinese people and see how many of them have strong faith in Chinese stocks, I haven't met a single one who would have the same confidence we have in US/EU company numbers (although the auditing system/industry and where it fails in the US could be a whole discussion on its own). Everyone there knows they are all adding a bit (or sometimes a lot) of hot air. It's not seen as fraud so much as it's just the way people do things. One concrete example to illustrate a behavior - they might simply take every single person in their R&D department from secretary and janitor on up and make them "R&D staff", it's an easy way to get free press and seem more advanced. We can read SEC reports or filings all we want, but you have to question where the numbers are coming from. The brand manager and company rep is the one telling us how many R&D staff they have (which conveniently lends credibility to their company) but there's no real oversight from any independent group on verifying those numbers. Summary - BYD cars are better than the biggest naysayers want you to think, but they are almost certainly not doing as well as they claim.
• binary132 2y ago
  it is frankly impossible to make myself believe that this many people make for an effective and efficient research and engineering organization. Even a company of 1000 people is difficult to organize and scale, at least from what I’ve seen. Maybe they’ve solved management and ops, but I doubt it.