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Does anyone know what Chinese car quality is like? I guess there aren't any 15 year old Chinese EVs. Whenever someone says a Chinese product is exactly the same

by rr808 1y ago

Does anyone know what Chinese car quality is like? I guess there aren't any 15 year old Chinese EVs. Whenever someone says a Chinese product is exactly the same but half the price, it usually isn't the same quality.

alephnerd 1y ago
At the Atto's price point, comparable to the equivalent entry level Tata, Suzuki, or VinFast EV. The discount from an American perspective kicks in at the $20K and above range. Mind you, it's a discount if you earn in dollars or a salary comparable to the West, which most Chinese, ASEAN, and other Asians do not (aside from the Asian Tigers or those working in top tech or finance roles in CN/ASEAN/IN). If you're household post-tax income is around $6k, a $12K let alone a $20K car is expensive given that housing is fairly pricy as well, and saving for rainy days is much more critical.
vachina 1y ago
My dad dailies a previous gen Chinese ICE (Geely) as an experiment, 100k km and nothing major broke yet. It is not the most fuel efficient but maintenance is cheap.
duskwuff 1y ago
Ars Technica reviewed a BYD Dolphin (small electric hatchback, £26k ≈ $35k) a few months ago: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/a-small-cheap-ev-you-cant-buy-in-the-us-we-test-the-byd-dolphin/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/a-small-cheap-ev-you-ca...
typewithrhythm 1y ago
We get a significant range of new Chinese cars in Australia, and generally they are fine; in the low end of the market they are about the best quality for the money, in the middle they show issues where they can't deliver a overall polished product, so you get things like crappy driving dynamics or poor ADAS or janky UI. Think like you took a top trim Merc, and made one part very shit, and then priced it like a Toyota. There doesn't seem to be any significant longevity concerns, but they have also not been around that long.
csomar 1y ago
I ride on the atto frequently (grab has an ev option). For a cheap car, the quality is surprisingly good. I don’t know longer term how reliable they are but EVs are simple and don’t have an engine which is where most of your car problems come from.
jillesvangurp 1y ago
They are running circles around competitors in build quality, technology, range, performance, etc. What happened is that car companies went to China to outsource production, taught the Chinese everything there is to know about car manufacturing, and the Chinese paid attention.
- epolanski 1y ago
  The only valuable and hard to replicate know-how was in ICEs, all the rest you could buy or figure out.
  - epistasis 1y ago
    If that were the case, then US manufacturers would be doing far better with EVs than they are. Yet they are not able to keep up with BYD and are failing at hitting their own milestones.
    - jillesvangurp 1y ago
      That's because the Chinese are far ahead in battery technology and related supply chains. US manufacturers are only now starting to use LFP in larger volumes. Reason: limited amount of local producers capable of producing LFP batteries. This is starting to change as some local producers are now licensing technology from the likes of CATL. For example Ford is doing this. They are years behind with sodium ion which is being mass produced in China already and being used in ultra cheap EVs that simply don't exist in the US market. And then solid state batteries are also something that China looks to be on track with to start producing in larger volumes in the next year (low volume production is already happening). And that's despite companies like Amprius, Quantumscape, etc. being based in the US. In short, the US car manufacturing industry has long lost its leadership position. And that's including Tesla that until a few years ago was producing better EVs than others. No longer true and they are struggling to keep up currently.
      - epistasis 1y ago
        Agreed, and that's my point: US companies only valued ICE skills, which has left them weak and vulnerable now that the truly valuable skills are in batteries and looking for efficiencies with a far simplified rest of product. By treating batteries as a component roughly on par with an air filter, US manufacturers have lost out on multiple R&D cycles and put themselves in such a poor strategic position that it's unlikely they will be able to survive without major restructuring.
dpkirchner 1y ago
BYDs are good enough that domestic manufacturers bought a 100% tariff (pre-Trump). That wouldn't have been necessary if they were junk.
broof 1y ago
I drove a BYD while in Thailand and it was pretty janky in some ways (buggy UI, kinda cheap feel, and a few other things I can’t remember) however for its extremely low price it was fantastic
aianus 1y ago
Plasticky and creaky, at least for the BYDs that UberX drivers use in Mexico. They do have a lot of space / leg room. I don’t see any reason to buy one over a Tesla except for saving money.
- vlabakje90 1y ago
  And who would want to save money, right?
rdsubhas 1y ago
An equally relevant question is, how is the support and maintenance story.
bruce511 1y ago
When it comes to new car producers there's always yhe "quality" question. We saw that with Japenese cars in the 70s (turns out quality was high) and some of the most valued brands now are Japenese (Honda, Nissan, Toyota etc.) Then it was the Korean turn. Cheap right, so low quality? Turns out Kia, Hyundai, Daihatsu etc are nice cars. Sure, there are a few early iterations that needed improvement, but in each case those quickly got ironed out. And Chinese cars are far past the "early" stage. They're genuinely good cars for very competitive prices. When it comes to EVs They're ahead in quality. BYD particularly seems to come with a very good reputation. Sure, the US is obsessed with large SUVs. But the rest of the world isn't. US car makers are not making cars that the rest of the world wants, and the export market is closing. (I'd count Ford as something of an exception here, they still produce small cars for foreign markets, but they're cutting corners on quality and reputation is falling...)

by rr808 1y ago

alephnerd 1y ago

At the Atto's price point, comparable to the equivalent entry level Tata, Suzuki, or VinFast EV. The discount from an American perspective kicks in at the $20K and above range. Mind you, it's a discount if you earn in dollars or a salary comparable to the West, which most Chinese, ASEAN, and other Asians do not (aside from the Asian Tigers or those working in top tech or finance roles in CN/ASEAN/IN). If you're household post-tax income is around $6k, a $12K let alone a $20K car is expensive given that housing is fairly pricy as well, and saving for rainy days is much more critical.

vachina 1y ago

My dad dailies a previous gen Chinese ICE (Geely) as an experiment, 100k km and nothing major broke yet. It is not the most fuel efficient but maintenance is cheap.

duskwuff 1y ago

Ars Technica reviewed a BYD Dolphin (small electric hatchback, £26k ≈ $35k) a few months ago: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/a-small-cheap-ev-you-cant-buy-in-the-us-we-test-the-byd-dolphin/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/04/a-small-cheap-ev-you-ca...

typewithrhythm 1y ago

We get a significant range of new Chinese cars in Australia, and generally they are fine; in the low end of the market they are about the best quality for the money, in the middle they show issues where they can't deliver a overall polished product, so you get things like crappy driving dynamics or poor ADAS or janky UI. Think like you took a top trim Merc, and made one part very shit, and then priced it like a Toyota. There doesn't seem to be any significant longevity concerns, but they have also not been around that long.

csomar 1y ago

I ride on the atto frequently (grab has an ev option). For a cheap car, the quality is surprisingly good. I don’t know longer term how reliable they are but EVs are simple and don’t have an engine which is where most of your car problems come from.

jillesvangurp 1y ago

They are running circles around competitors in build quality, technology, range, performance, etc. What happened is that car companies went to China to outsource production, taught the Chinese everything there is to know about car manufacturing, and the Chinese paid attention.

epolanski 1y ago
The only valuable and hard to replicate know-how was in ICEs, all the rest you could buy or figure out.
- epistasis 1y ago
  If that were the case, then US manufacturers would be doing far better with EVs than they are. Yet they are not able to keep up with BYD and are failing at hitting their own milestones.
  - jillesvangurp 1y ago
    That's because the Chinese are far ahead in battery technology and related supply chains. US manufacturers are only now starting to use LFP in larger volumes. Reason: limited amount of local producers capable of producing LFP batteries. This is starting to change as some local producers are now licensing technology from the likes of CATL. For example Ford is doing this. They are years behind with sodium ion which is being mass produced in China already and being used in ultra cheap EVs that simply don't exist in the US market. And then solid state batteries are also something that China looks to be on track with to start producing in larger volumes in the next year (low volume production is already happening). And that's despite companies like Amprius, Quantumscape, etc. being based in the US. In short, the US car manufacturing industry has long lost its leadership position. And that's including Tesla that until a few years ago was producing better EVs than others. No longer true and they are struggling to keep up currently.
    - epistasis 1y ago
      Agreed, and that's my point: US companies only valued ICE skills, which has left them weak and vulnerable now that the truly valuable skills are in batteries and looking for efficiencies with a far simplified rest of product. By treating batteries as a component roughly on par with an air filter, US manufacturers have lost out on multiple R&D cycles and put themselves in such a poor strategic position that it's unlikely they will be able to survive without major restructuring.

dpkirchner 1y ago

BYDs are good enough that domestic manufacturers bought a 100% tariff (pre-Trump). That wouldn't have been necessary if they were junk.

broof 1y ago

I drove a BYD while in Thailand and it was pretty janky in some ways (buggy UI, kinda cheap feel, and a few other things I can’t remember) however for its extremely low price it was fantastic

aianus 1y ago

Plasticky and creaky, at least for the BYDs that UberX drivers use in Mexico. They do have a lot of space / leg room. I don’t see any reason to buy one over a Tesla except for saving money.

vlabakje90 1y ago
And who would want to save money, right?

rdsubhas 1y ago

An equally relevant question is, how is the support and maintenance story.

bruce511 1y ago

When it comes to new car producers there's always yhe "quality" question. We saw that with Japenese cars in the 70s (turns out quality was high) and some of the most valued brands now are Japenese (Honda, Nissan, Toyota etc.) Then it was the Korean turn. Cheap right, so low quality? Turns out Kia, Hyundai, Daihatsu etc are nice cars. Sure, there are a few early iterations that needed improvement, but in each case those quickly got ironed out. And Chinese cars are far past the "early" stage. They're genuinely good cars for very competitive prices. When it comes to EVs They're ahead in quality. BYD particularly seems to come with a very good reputation. Sure, the US is obsessed with large SUVs. But the rest of the world isn't. US car makers are not making cars that the rest of the world wants, and the export market is closing. (I'd count Ford as something of an exception here, they still produce small cars for foreign markets, but they're cutting corners on quality and reputation is falling...)