4 ms·

I think we can see the same thing happening today. BYD+CATL are the new iphone and other manufacturers are Symbian, Motorola and Sony Ericsson VW, Toyota and

I think we can see the same thing happening today. BYD+CATL are the new iphone and other manufacturers are Symbian, Motorola and Sony Ericsson VW, Toyota and friends cannot change fast enough. They should have started with big battery investments 10-15y ago and RnDing then, not now when Market is flooded.

repler 2y ago
I wouldn't count Toyota out. Their mega battery plant in North Carolina is coming online this year, and the biggest drag on their current EV/PHEV lineup is the batteries. New EV/PHEV models are on the way, and frankly if they just update what they have with better batteries they will be absolutely phenomenal because they are currently great to drive and run extremely well despite lackluster battery range.
- f001 2y ago
  For the PHEVs yes they are battery constrained. They have great products and a ton of demand and difficulty keeping up manufacturing due to limited batteries. For their EV, they have yet to make something that is competitive. Their EV is slow to charge, slow to accelerate, somewhat short in range, and quite expensive before they started adding—-in some cases five figure—-incentives to move them. It even had a recall for the wheels coming off.
- vladslav 2y ago
  Not just Toyota; the U.S. will have dozens of battery plants because it is strategic, like having our own chips.
wegwerfbenutzer 2y ago
BYD+CATL is Android. Tesla is Apple.
- simultsop 2y ago
  Bet everyone has a different prespective. And thats what makes this world amazing. One is really free to pick any.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bilbo0s 2y ago
  Nah. These companies do not have nearly the same value proposition relative their intended market as Apple did. BYD or Tesla are still just cars. An iPhone completely changed what a "phone" was. And did so in a way that required the rest of the industry to take time to replicate. BYD is more just Toyota. Which is awesome for BYD. I realize that a lot of people would like to be "just" Toyota in their market. But it's not the same as being Apple. Tesla? Yeah, they're nothing like Apple. Maybe if they delivered on FSD? But even then, it's not like Apple. Apple made something that no one else was working on as more than maybe a research project. Tesla FSD development doesn't have the same advantage. Everyone is working on FSD. Since we're American, we're hoping Tesla, (or one of the big three), gets it first. But that's more of a hope, not necessarily the way things will pan out. That's the essential difference between Tesla and Apple. Apple doesn't talk a big game. In fact, they famously and frustratingly say nothing at all. They just deliver. Tesla is still talking about FSD.
  - cruffle_duffle 2y ago
    > Since we're American, we're hoping Tesla, (or one of the big three), gets it first. But that's more of a hope, not necessarily the way things will pan out. And in the FSD space I don’t think there is much first mover advantage anyway. The iPhone came out of left field. The path to FSD has been highly iterative with many steps taken by a bunch of different players. Even if Tesla gets FSD first, it won’t be much longer before others get it to and they’ll all be roughly the same interface and feature set. iPhone was significantly different than what was there before and as you or somebody said, nobody else was working on anything similar. It was a different business model—one that took away substantial power from the cell phone carriers and turned the phone into a software platform on par with a regular computer. It turned carriers into dumb pipes and they hated that! FSD doesn’t really change the fundamental business model of any car manufacturers out there. It’s just another feature for the same familiar players to sell. What would throw a wrench in the existing crop of manufacturers would be street legal FSD cars you could order on Amazon for a fraction of the cost or something. Ones made by the same crew that make all the other random flee market brands sold there. Or maybe if the whole market switched to on-demand pay per mile service with a completely vertically integrated company—but even then I don’t think that upsets the apple cart too much.
- realo 2y ago
  I respectfully disagree. Tesla is run by a bigot, far right extremist. I would never send money to them, no matter their offerings. Not so with Apple.
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    China
  - sho_hn 2y ago
    I don't understand where this trust comes from. Just like any other large company, Apple will not stand up for your civil rights when it seriously threatens the bottom line.
  - psunavy03 2y ago
    Good grief. Yes, Musk is a raging asshole. But so soon we apparently forget that Jobs was also a raging asshole.
thefounder 2y ago
I somehow fail to see this as the most I want in a car is confort and perhaps space not screen time. A killer feature for a car would be FSD but that’s not an “iPhone” thing. BYD and the other Chinese manage to sell good EVs for great prices but I don’t see them irreplaceable like the iPhone. Maybe they are the new Toyota but not the iPhone. Same goes with Tesla though it’s more complicated because Tesla keeps promising FSD. The iPhone didn’t promise anything. It just delivered.
- immibis 2y ago
  It's all about marketing. You buy the thing that has the best marketing, not the best thing. That's how Apple replaced all these other smartphone vendors.
  - mort96 2y ago
    This is a very narrow and simplistic view on the extremely complex topics of market dynamics and consumer behaviour.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      Marketing can get you a leap and a start, but if the product isn't at least usable, it'll die out. Anyone should be able to bring to mind giant marketing blitz for products that died horribly.
    - spacedcowboy 2y ago
      Also, utterly wrong. The iPhone is very good at being a phone + lots more.
  - deleted 2y ago
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vladslav 2y ago
By borrowing your analogy, the general sentiment with the iPhone was excitement and interest when it came out. I just don't see it in the folks around me regarding EVs (price is high, charging is pain). Yes, it's the future, but a future that is way ahead. We aren't even at the point where those old "devices" start to show their age. I'd say Symbians and Ericssons still have time.
- bombcar 2y ago
  People also forget that the iPhone wasn't what we have today - it was an iPod that made phone calls, and that alone was enough "for most people" - huge swaths of people had iPods and a cell phone so even if it had been mediocre it would have succeeded. It not being mediocre is how it ate the world.
sofixa 2y ago
I disagree. Cars are much more entrenched status symbols than phones were back then. A Porsche is a Porsche, a truck to show you're manly and outdoorsy is a truck. People will continue to buy brands they know and whose marketing aligns with how they see themselves. Not everyone will switch to BEVs for a variety of reasons - cost, lack of infrastructure, or hell, even contrarianism. VW, Renault, Nissan, Stellantis, Toyota can change fast enough before BEVs are the only thing on the market. All of them already have models in various sizes (e.g. Renault make very good and adequate cheap EVs nobody else comes even close to in the big EU markets) and varying quality. It's easier for VW to improve their EVs than it is for Tesla to launder their image.
- immibis 2y ago
  Status symbols can be shifted with marketing. BEVs are heavy as fuck, and (at least theoretically) torquey as fuck at zero speed - both of those seem pretty manly if you put the right spin on them.
  - jampekka 2y ago
    > Status symbols can be shifted with marketing Or by buying a brand. Happens all the time. BYD already bought full control of the luxury brand Denza from the Mercedes-Benz joint venture.
- usrusr 2y ago
  Also keep in mind that the iPhone was far from starting at zero: they did not so much enter the phone market as a newcomer as they did pull the phone market into the existing and utterly dominated iPod market. Dominated so much that I don't even dare calling it the mp3 player market.
- jampekka 2y ago
  > A Porsche is a Porsche, a truck to show you're manly and outdoorsy is a truck. A Rolls-Royce is a BMW, a Chrysler is a Fiat, an Aston Martin is a Ford, a Jaguar is a Tata, a Lamborghini is an Audi. And a Porsche is a Volkswagen.
mort96 2y ago
I don't see the comparison. BYD is a decent car for an impressive price, but they're ... just cars. The iPhone wasn't "just a phone" that was cheaper than its contemporaries and a little better in very specific areas, it was a complete overhaul of the entire market. You can look at a BYD and a Nissan and make a decision based on minor trade-offs between different aspects of the car. You couldn't do the same between iPhone and a Sony Ericsson.
- rasz 2y ago
  >BYD is a decent car for an impressive price, but they're ... just cars. BYD car division has multiple departments doing independent R&D and releasing independent lines. They were first with 360° tank turn and now a jumping supercar. They are trying hard to deliver things others like Musk keep promising down the line.
  - mort96 2y ago
    Cool I am probably never going to buy a jumping supercar so that's not very relevant. The iPhone and the smartphone in general wasn't a revolution because it was a super cool R&D project that would cost ridiculous amounts of money to buy; it was a revolution because everyone bought one. If even as much as 10% of the market buys a "jumping supercar" (which would be absolutely INSANE) then there's still plenty of space in the market for traditional cars. There isn't plenty space in the market for "traditional phones" anymore.
paganel 2y ago
> BYD+CATL Unless these two companies change the laws of physics in order to exponentially improve the overall performance of batteries (exponentially faster charging times, from hours to 5-10 minutes, exponentially cheaper batteries that would last longer) then, no, they won't be the next Apple. Just ask VW, they almost bet it all on EVs and now they're already with one foot in the grave because of that.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  They bet the farm on hiding diesel emissions before that.
- travisporter 2y ago
  What about Hyundai? They also went big on EVs and now are competing even in China
- toast0 2y ago
  > Just ask VW, they almost bet it all on EVs and now they're already with one foot in the grave because of that. Not without some coercion. It was part of the settlement from when they cheated on emissions tests by running the engines more efficiently if the steering angle was touched or the non-drive wheels moved.
- blackoil 2y ago
  CATL has 5C batteries and svolt 6C. BYD also is working on similar tech. So 10 mins should be possible by year end or early next year.
europeanNyan 2y ago
Are we seeing the same thing, though? The average consumer replaces their smartphone about every 3 years (at least in the western world, places like India are on an even shorter cycle). Additionally, the global average price of a smartphone is about 400 USD. That's a much faster moving market than cars and the investment is much lower. BYD is very impressive, but I wouldn't look at the situation as the same.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  In developing countries, from what I could find, the ASP is around $160
edejong 2y ago
No, these are not disruptors. Substantial incremental improvements, but part of the larger battle.
alkonaut 2y ago
In what way is a BYD a completely different/revolutionary product compared to, say a KIA or Volvo EV? This comparison seems a bit strange tbh. Sure they are more nimble and have higher margins. But the products they make are still just copies of what those other dinosaurs are making. And for a car I'm still very reluctant to buy a Chinese one. Politics aside, what I'm buying is a 5-10 year long service experience where the Volvo dealer is 1km away and where the BYD service location is I'm honestly not sure. It might be around the corner too, but I don't know because it hasn't been there for 50 years yet. It's a much harder market to break into. The easiest way to do it is probably the way Geely and SAIC did it - Buy a brand and/or service network.
- Chilko 2y ago
  I would say it's more that BYD is a battery company that started making cars. They (alongside CATL and arguably Tesla) are the world leaders in battery cells, specifically LFP, so they have strong advantage in the core underlying tech that enables EVs.
numpad0 2y ago
IMO it's shocking that this _did not_ happen in cars, in past tense. Model S launched 12 years ago. Apple replaced Nokia in 4 years. Model Y was the second best selling car worldwide, supposedly, after a Toyota and followed by a Toyota. Tesla has market share of about 2.3% globally and stays out of top 10. iPhone became de facto definition of a phone. In less than 5 years from nothing. Tesla is... not that.
- bodpoq 2y ago
  Cellular is to smartphones that charging is to EV's. Apple launched in a market with comprehensive cellular coverage. The charging stations grid is still being built out, so Tesla was in a completely different situation circa 2013.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    Bullshit. iPod touch, which was a low end model that followed iPhone, wiped out mp3 players, undone viability of portable game consoles, and roadkilled Windows CE, all without cellular just fine. Same just didn't happen with Tesla.
    - happyopossum 2y ago
      The iPod touch didn’t outsold the iPhone, and wouldn’t have done well if it weren’t for its big brother paving the way. iPhone got all the press, all the attention, all the developers, and made all the money.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      The iPod mini and then Nano had already taken out mo3 players except the cheap knockoffs before the iPhone. The original iPod Touch maxed out at 32GB and with that amount of storage, it was much more expensive than most MP3 players
- r00fus 2y ago
  1) Cars are vastly more expensive and regulated. 2) Consequently the sales cycle is slower (usually people last at least 2-3 years for a lease). 3) EVs became politicized very quickly as they impacted politically active industries (oil).

repler 2y ago

I wouldn't count Toyota out. Their mega battery plant in North Carolina is coming online this year, and the biggest drag on their current EV/PHEV lineup is the batteries. New EV/PHEV models are on the way, and frankly if they just update what they have with better batteries they will be absolutely phenomenal because they are currently great to drive and run extremely well despite lackluster battery range.

f001 2y ago
For the PHEVs yes they are battery constrained. They have great products and a ton of demand and difficulty keeping up manufacturing due to limited batteries. For their EV, they have yet to make something that is competitive. Their EV is slow to charge, slow to accelerate, somewhat short in range, and quite expensive before they started adding—-in some cases five figure—-incentives to move them. It even had a recall for the wheels coming off.
vladslav 2y ago
Not just Toyota; the U.S. will have dozens of battery plants because it is strategic, like having our own chips.

wegwerfbenutzer 2y ago

BYD+CATL is Android. Tesla is Apple.

simultsop 2y ago
Bet everyone has a different prespective. And thats what makes this world amazing. One is really free to pick any.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bilbo0s 2y ago
Nah. These companies do not have nearly the same value proposition relative their intended market as Apple did. BYD or Tesla are still just cars. An iPhone completely changed what a "phone" was. And did so in a way that required the rest of the industry to take time to replicate. BYD is more just Toyota. Which is awesome for BYD. I realize that a lot of people would like to be "just" Toyota in their market. But it's not the same as being Apple. Tesla? Yeah, they're nothing like Apple. Maybe if they delivered on FSD? But even then, it's not like Apple. Apple made something that no one else was working on as more than maybe a research project. Tesla FSD development doesn't have the same advantage. Everyone is working on FSD. Since we're American, we're hoping Tesla, (or one of the big three), gets it first. But that's more of a hope, not necessarily the way things will pan out. That's the essential difference between Tesla and Apple. Apple doesn't talk a big game. In fact, they famously and frustratingly say nothing at all. They just deliver. Tesla is still talking about FSD.
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago
  > Since we're American, we're hoping Tesla, (or one of the big three), gets it first. But that's more of a hope, not necessarily the way things will pan out. And in the FSD space I don’t think there is much first mover advantage anyway. The iPhone came out of left field. The path to FSD has been highly iterative with many steps taken by a bunch of different players. Even if Tesla gets FSD first, it won’t be much longer before others get it to and they’ll all be roughly the same interface and feature set. iPhone was significantly different than what was there before and as you or somebody said, nobody else was working on anything similar. It was a different business model—one that took away substantial power from the cell phone carriers and turned the phone into a software platform on par with a regular computer. It turned carriers into dumb pipes and they hated that! FSD doesn’t really change the fundamental business model of any car manufacturers out there. It’s just another feature for the same familiar players to sell. What would throw a wrench in the existing crop of manufacturers would be street legal FSD cars you could order on Amazon for a fraction of the cost or something. Ones made by the same crew that make all the other random flee market brands sold there. Or maybe if the whole market switched to on-demand pay per mile service with a completely vertically integrated company—but even then I don’t think that upsets the apple cart too much.
realo 2y ago
I respectfully disagree. Tesla is run by a bigot, far right extremist. I would never send money to them, no matter their offerings. Not so with Apple.
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  China
- sho_hn 2y ago
  I don't understand where this trust comes from. Just like any other large company, Apple will not stand up for your civil rights when it seriously threatens the bottom line.
- psunavy03 2y ago
  Good grief. Yes, Musk is a raging asshole. But so soon we apparently forget that Jobs was also a raging asshole.

thefounder 2y ago

I somehow fail to see this as the most I want in a car is confort and perhaps space not screen time. A killer feature for a car would be FSD but that’s not an “iPhone” thing. BYD and the other Chinese manage to sell good EVs for great prices but I don’t see them irreplaceable like the iPhone. Maybe they are the new Toyota but not the iPhone. Same goes with Tesla though it’s more complicated because Tesla keeps promising FSD. The iPhone didn’t promise anything. It just delivered.

immibis 2y ago
It's all about marketing. You buy the thing that has the best marketing, not the best thing. That's how Apple replaced all these other smartphone vendors.
- mort96 2y ago
  This is a very narrow and simplistic view on the extremely complex topics of market dynamics and consumer behaviour.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    Marketing can get you a leap and a start, but if the product isn't at least usable, it'll die out. Anyone should be able to bring to mind giant marketing blitz for products that died horribly.
  - spacedcowboy 2y ago
    Also, utterly wrong. The iPhone is very good at being a phone + lots more.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

vladslav 2y ago

By borrowing your analogy, the general sentiment with the iPhone was excitement and interest when it came out. I just don't see it in the folks around me regarding EVs (price is high, charging is pain). Yes, it's the future, but a future that is way ahead. We aren't even at the point where those old "devices" start to show their age. I'd say Symbians and Ericssons still have time.

bombcar 2y ago
People also forget that the iPhone wasn't what we have today - it was an iPod that made phone calls, and that alone was enough "for most people" - huge swaths of people had iPods and a cell phone so even if it had been mediocre it would have succeeded. It not being mediocre is how it ate the world.

sofixa 2y ago

I disagree. Cars are much more entrenched status symbols than phones were back then. A Porsche is a Porsche, a truck to show you're manly and outdoorsy is a truck. People will continue to buy brands they know and whose marketing aligns with how they see themselves. Not everyone will switch to BEVs for a variety of reasons - cost, lack of infrastructure, or hell, even contrarianism. VW, Renault, Nissan, Stellantis, Toyota can change fast enough before BEVs are the only thing on the market. All of them already have models in various sizes (e.g. Renault make very good and adequate cheap EVs nobody else comes even close to in the big EU markets) and varying quality. It's easier for VW to improve their EVs than it is for Tesla to launder their image.

immibis 2y ago
Status symbols can be shifted with marketing. BEVs are heavy as fuck, and (at least theoretically) torquey as fuck at zero speed - both of those seem pretty manly if you put the right spin on them.
- jampekka 2y ago
  > Status symbols can be shifted with marketing Or by buying a brand. Happens all the time. BYD already bought full control of the luxury brand Denza from the Mercedes-Benz joint venture.
usrusr 2y ago
Also keep in mind that the iPhone was far from starting at zero: they did not so much enter the phone market as a newcomer as they did pull the phone market into the existing and utterly dominated iPod market. Dominated so much that I don't even dare calling it the mp3 player market.
jampekka 2y ago
> A Porsche is a Porsche, a truck to show you're manly and outdoorsy is a truck. A Rolls-Royce is a BMW, a Chrysler is a Fiat, an Aston Martin is a Ford, a Jaguar is a Tata, a Lamborghini is an Audi. And a Porsche is a Volkswagen.

mort96 2y ago

I don't see the comparison. BYD is a decent car for an impressive price, but they're ... just cars. The iPhone wasn't "just a phone" that was cheaper than its contemporaries and a little better in very specific areas, it was a complete overhaul of the entire market. You can look at a BYD and a Nissan and make a decision based on minor trade-offs between different aspects of the car. You couldn't do the same between iPhone and a Sony Ericsson.

rasz 2y ago
>BYD is a decent car for an impressive price, but they're ... just cars. BYD car division has multiple departments doing independent R&D and releasing independent lines. They were first with 360° tank turn and now a jumping supercar. They are trying hard to deliver things others like Musk keep promising down the line.
- mort96 2y ago
  Cool I am probably never going to buy a jumping supercar so that's not very relevant. The iPhone and the smartphone in general wasn't a revolution because it was a super cool R&D project that would cost ridiculous amounts of money to buy; it was a revolution because everyone bought one. If even as much as 10% of the market buys a "jumping supercar" (which would be absolutely INSANE) then there's still plenty of space in the market for traditional cars. There isn't plenty space in the market for "traditional phones" anymore.

paganel 2y ago

> BYD+CATL Unless these two companies change the laws of physics in order to exponentially improve the overall performance of batteries (exponentially faster charging times, from hours to 5-10 minutes, exponentially cheaper batteries that would last longer) then, no, they won't be the next Apple. Just ask VW, they almost bet it all on EVs and now they're already with one foot in the grave because of that.

actionfromafar 2y ago
They bet the farm on hiding diesel emissions before that.
travisporter 2y ago
What about Hyundai? They also went big on EVs and now are competing even in China
toast0 2y ago
> Just ask VW, they almost bet it all on EVs and now they're already with one foot in the grave because of that. Not without some coercion. It was part of the settlement from when they cheated on emissions tests by running the engines more efficiently if the steering angle was touched or the non-drive wheels moved.
blackoil 2y ago
CATL has 5C batteries and svolt 6C. BYD also is working on similar tech. So 10 mins should be possible by year end or early next year.

europeanNyan 2y ago

Are we seeing the same thing, though? The average consumer replaces their smartphone about every 3 years (at least in the western world, places like India are on an even shorter cycle). Additionally, the global average price of a smartphone is about 400 USD. That's a much faster moving market than cars and the investment is much lower. BYD is very impressive, but I wouldn't look at the situation as the same.

scarface_74 2y ago
In developing countries, from what I could find, the ASP is around $160

edejong 2y ago

No, these are not disruptors. Substantial incremental improvements, but part of the larger battle.

alkonaut 2y ago

In what way is a BYD a completely different/revolutionary product compared to, say a KIA or Volvo EV? This comparison seems a bit strange tbh. Sure they are more nimble and have higher margins. But the products they make are still just copies of what those other dinosaurs are making. And for a car I'm still very reluctant to buy a Chinese one. Politics aside, what I'm buying is a 5-10 year long service experience where the Volvo dealer is 1km away and where the BYD service location is I'm honestly not sure. It might be around the corner too, but I don't know because it hasn't been there for 50 years yet. It's a much harder market to break into. The easiest way to do it is probably the way Geely and SAIC did it - Buy a brand and/or service network.

Chilko 2y ago
I would say it's more that BYD is a battery company that started making cars. They (alongside CATL and arguably Tesla) are the world leaders in battery cells, specifically LFP, so they have strong advantage in the core underlying tech that enables EVs.

numpad0 2y ago

IMO it's shocking that this _did not_ happen in cars, in past tense. Model S launched 12 years ago. Apple replaced Nokia in 4 years. Model Y was the second best selling car worldwide, supposedly, after a Toyota and followed by a Toyota. Tesla has market share of about 2.3% globally and stays out of top 10. iPhone became de facto definition of a phone. In less than 5 years from nothing. Tesla is... not that.

bodpoq 2y ago
Cellular is to smartphones that charging is to EV's. Apple launched in a market with comprehensive cellular coverage. The charging stations grid is still being built out, so Tesla was in a completely different situation circa 2013.
- numpad0 2y ago
  Bullshit. iPod touch, which was a low end model that followed iPhone, wiped out mp3 players, undone viability of portable game consoles, and roadkilled Windows CE, all without cellular just fine. Same just didn't happen with Tesla.
  - happyopossum 2y ago
    The iPod touch didn’t outsold the iPhone, and wouldn’t have done well if it weren’t for its big brother paving the way. iPhone got all the press, all the attention, all the developers, and made all the money.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    The iPod mini and then Nano had already taken out mo3 players except the cheap knockoffs before the iPhone. The original iPod Touch maxed out at 32GB and with that amount of storage, it was much more expensive than most MP3 players
r00fus 2y ago
1) Cars are vastly more expensive and regulated. 2) Consequently the sales cycle is slower (usually people last at least 2-3 years for a lease). 3) EVs became politicized very quickly as they impacted politically active industries (oil).