5 ms·

I would love to come in and buy a BYD with the exact same design flaws, but for 1/3 of the price. Sadly protectionism disallows me from doing that

devmor 9mo ago
Same here! American-made EVs ask for an incredibly heavy price tag and don’t deliver on the reliability of ICE or Hybrid cars a third of their price. It’s the primary thing stopping me from getting one as my next vehicle. I’m trying to shop around to replace my wife’s aging crossover and I really can’t find anything more attractive than a Prius or another Kia Soul. If we could get electric cars from the CN market it’d be a no-brainer!
- azinman2 9mo ago
  I’ve had software issues on an ID4 and iX, but I’ve never had reliability problems. The cars always have just worked with no maintenance. Same with my model Y, minus any issues!
  - close04 8mo ago
    Maybe it’s a “but when it happens you’re screwed” situation. I’m thinking of the story of BMW’s battery safety fuse (the one that trips in an accident to protect first responders and the people in the car) actually tripping when you hot the curb or a pothole harder. It requires a very expensive trip to the dealer. Some of my Tesla owning friends keep spending time in the shop getting something about the suspension fixed 2-3 times already. I have no idea if Chinese EVs are consistently better, Volvo can be seen as one and I don’t think they excel at reliability lately. P.S. Software issues are reliability issues. The software is a core part of the car and its value proposition, you can’t discount them as “just software issues, not reliability”.
    - devmor 8mo ago
      > Some of my Tesla owning friends keep spending time in the shop getting something about the suspension fixed 2-3 times already. They're pretty lucky from what I hear! A friend of mine just sold his Model S because he'd been waiting over 7 months for the shop to source a replacement part. Apparently he'd even resorted to begging Musk to look into it over X because Tesla wont even give him an ETA.
    - carefree-bob 8mo ago
      Volvo has had absolutely terrible software since Geely acquired them. I own a Volvo and like the brand, I still think the cars are beautiful and the engineering outside of the software is pretty good, but the software is an embarrassment. It's just so bad. Shockingly bad. The worst of all the automakers by far. I'm worried it will sink the brand, and am not looking forward to owning a car made by a defunct automaker. I hope Volvo cleans house in the software department.
  - schiffern 8mo ago
    I really wanted to like the iD4. iD4 feels like they took every lesson of predictable UX design and then intentionally reversed it to make the most frustrating UI possible. The window controls, touch buttons, screen, steering wheel controls, etc. They all seem designed to answer the question, "how could we make this unnecessarily difficult and distracting to use? How could we possibly cram in yet another State Machine for the user to keep (lose) track of?" It also has the "try to kill the asthmatic by randomly switching off recirculate while driving through dense wood smoke" feature, naturally. Considering how much money VW makes on EVs[0], I suppose I'm not surprised by this 'nudge' toward gas cars. [0] https://www.motor1.com/news/758377/vw-making-less-money-sell-more-evs/ https://www.motor1.com/news/758377/vw-making-less-money-sell...
LightBug1 8mo ago
One of the good things in the UK is seeing how quickly my neighbours swapped out their Tesla's for BYD's. I'm not in the market at the moment so don't know what the UK protectionism position is on Chinese EV's, but has been interesting to watch how quick it's happening. I work in design and we're talking to two Chinese EV companies launching in the UK this year, so the wall can't be that high for them.
- torginus 8mo ago
  Imo its not anti-China protectionism. Western models are cheaper in China, and Chinese models are more expensive in the EU & UK. I think it's a combination of manufacturers wanting a higher profit, some adaptations & certification processes, dealer and service infrastructure necessary for selling in the West that just costs more. I don't think Chinese manufacturers will be able to significantly undercut the competition while maintaining a desirable quality
  - LightBug1 8mo ago
    I would have thought that to be the case too ... I know all about the exciting Xiaomi cars (e.g.) but I grew up in the era of the Chinese brand being "low quality". We're well beyond that now and have been for probably a decade. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a China cheerleader. I give the example I mentioned. People local to me swapping out their model 3's for BYD. Maybe they just got to their end of their lease cycle and wanted to try something different, but I cannot believe they would have willingly chosen a significantly lower quality car (knowing some of them). And I believe the cost difference is marginal but the overall package just a bit better. And you know people, they'll swap out anything for just a marginal saving. Doesn't have to be significant unless there's some network effects. And there really isn't with cars. Anyway, I'm just yapping, but think the used Tesla market is going to get even more swamped than it already is. Not a bad thing because previously people looking for low cost cars were buying diesels - so I'm hopeful that'll transition to low cost EV's now ... but the game is up for Tesla automotive, but we've known that for some time.
    - 8mo ago

devmor 9mo ago

Same here! American-made EVs ask for an incredibly heavy price tag and don’t deliver on the reliability of ICE or Hybrid cars a third of their price. It’s the primary thing stopping me from getting one as my next vehicle. I’m trying to shop around to replace my wife’s aging crossover and I really can’t find anything more attractive than a Prius or another Kia Soul. If we could get electric cars from the CN market it’d be a no-brainer!

azinman2 9mo ago
I’ve had software issues on an ID4 and iX, but I’ve never had reliability problems. The cars always have just worked with no maintenance. Same with my model Y, minus any issues!
- close04 8mo ago
  Maybe it’s a “but when it happens you’re screwed” situation. I’m thinking of the story of BMW’s battery safety fuse (the one that trips in an accident to protect first responders and the people in the car) actually tripping when you hot the curb or a pothole harder. It requires a very expensive trip to the dealer. Some of my Tesla owning friends keep spending time in the shop getting something about the suspension fixed 2-3 times already. I have no idea if Chinese EVs are consistently better, Volvo can be seen as one and I don’t think they excel at reliability lately. P.S. Software issues are reliability issues. The software is a core part of the car and its value proposition, you can’t discount them as “just software issues, not reliability”.
  - devmor 8mo ago
    > Some of my Tesla owning friends keep spending time in the shop getting something about the suspension fixed 2-3 times already. They're pretty lucky from what I hear! A friend of mine just sold his Model S because he'd been waiting over 7 months for the shop to source a replacement part. Apparently he'd even resorted to begging Musk to look into it over X because Tesla wont even give him an ETA.
  - carefree-bob 8mo ago
    Volvo has had absolutely terrible software since Geely acquired them. I own a Volvo and like the brand, I still think the cars are beautiful and the engineering outside of the software is pretty good, but the software is an embarrassment. It's just so bad. Shockingly bad. The worst of all the automakers by far. I'm worried it will sink the brand, and am not looking forward to owning a car made by a defunct automaker. I hope Volvo cleans house in the software department.
- schiffern 8mo ago
  I really wanted to like the iD4. iD4 feels like they took every lesson of predictable UX design and then intentionally reversed it to make the most frustrating UI possible. The window controls, touch buttons, screen, steering wheel controls, etc. They all seem designed to answer the question, "how could we make this unnecessarily difficult and distracting to use? How could we possibly cram in yet another State Machine for the user to keep (lose) track of?" It also has the "try to kill the asthmatic by randomly switching off recirculate while driving through dense wood smoke" feature, naturally. Considering how much money VW makes on EVs[0], I suppose I'm not surprised by this 'nudge' toward gas cars. [0] https://www.motor1.com/news/758377/vw-making-less-money-sell-more-evs/ https://www.motor1.com/news/758377/vw-making-less-money-sell...

LightBug1 8mo ago

One of the good things in the UK is seeing how quickly my neighbours swapped out their Tesla's for BYD's. I'm not in the market at the moment so don't know what the UK protectionism position is on Chinese EV's, but has been interesting to watch how quick it's happening. I work in design and we're talking to two Chinese EV companies launching in the UK this year, so the wall can't be that high for them.

torginus 8mo ago
Imo its not anti-China protectionism. Western models are cheaper in China, and Chinese models are more expensive in the EU & UK. I think it's a combination of manufacturers wanting a higher profit, some adaptations & certification processes, dealer and service infrastructure necessary for selling in the West that just costs more. I don't think Chinese manufacturers will be able to significantly undercut the competition while maintaining a desirable quality
- LightBug1 8mo ago
  I would have thought that to be the case too ... I know all about the exciting Xiaomi cars (e.g.) but I grew up in the era of the Chinese brand being "low quality". We're well beyond that now and have been for probably a decade. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a China cheerleader. I give the example I mentioned. People local to me swapping out their model 3's for BYD. Maybe they just got to their end of their lease cycle and wanted to try something different, but I cannot believe they would have willingly chosen a significantly lower quality car (knowing some of them). And I believe the cost difference is marginal but the overall package just a bit better. And you know people, they'll swap out anything for just a marginal saving. Doesn't have to be significant unless there's some network effects. And there really isn't with cars. Anyway, I'm just yapping, but think the used Tesla market is going to get even more swamped than it already is. Not a bad thing because previously people looking for low cost cars were buying diesels - so I'm hopeful that'll transition to low cost EV's now ... but the game is up for Tesla automotive, but we've known that for some time.
  - 8mo ago