They are far simpler with fewer parts. It is only a matter of scaling up manufacturing. The biggest cost is the battery.
BYD is closing in on Tesla as the largest EV manufacturer and most Americans have no idea they exist.
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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I was in China two months ago and the use of electric cars is honestly changing the feeling of big cities. Delivery motorcycles and service vehicles are all electric now, and with the number of electric cars on the road, streets are a lot quieter now barring the frequent honking. Less air pollution too.
What I love and Chinese electric car manufacturers is that they've fully embraced the cyberpunk aesthetic from the chassis design to the car sounds. Made me feel like I was walking around a cyberpunk movie set.
I just got back from a business trip to China also. The high proportion of EVs, particularly in the southern cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen really stood out to me, and many of them (particularly from BYD) looked really, really nice. They seemed less prominent in the more northern part of the country (e.g. Shenyang, Beijing), but even there I'd say they're more common than in the UK.
It was a real eye opener
What I love about Chinese electric car manufacturers is that they’ve fully embraced the cyberpunk aesthetic from the chassis design to the car sounds.
So, the Vaporwave color pallete?
Love this, thanks
Do you have pictures? I would love to see.
I'd really like to see more of this. Do you know some of the names of these super cool manufacturers / designs?
Not the OP, but I live in China.
Check out for example the Xpeng (Xiao Peng) G6 and P7, the Qiantu K50, Zeekr 009, Lynk & Co. 03, Aiways U5 and the Dongfeng Mengshi M-Hero 917 (now if that's not HALO inspired, I don't know...).
Ah these are really cool, but I misread car and thought OP meant bikes. Americans will never be able to buy these sweet chinese cars.
I read in an article that chinese people who own these cars often sit in the back and have a driver. Is that true?
Oh sorry forgot to mention the drivers. In my experience this is not true at all. People who have drivers are usually senior executives, and they'd have company cars. Typically some top of the line Mercedes or BMW, sometimes a Porsche SUV. Electric cars (even the fancier ones) are rather affordable, and people here are very focused on their external impression.
Ah, what he mentioned were e-bikes, but those are not really on the fancy side. Search for 饿了么 scooter or 美团 scooter. They do food and grocery deliveries mostly. For private use, Niu scooters are the most popular in terms of design, but a ton of cheap stuff exists. Couldn't tell you about the brands, they are all very generic.
Electric motorbikes exist, but require a special license and are banned in most downtown areas, so they aren't really common. One brand I'm aware of is called Dayi Motors, they recently got certified for the European market, so chances are that those would become available elsewhere as well.
[Comment content deleted by author because apparently I was spouting lies!]
This brake dust problem is not true. Just another in a line of deceiving , sounds right but isn't, attacks on EVs from the fossil fuel industry and their allies. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2022/02/05/electric-cars-are-as-green-as-you-think-and-dont-produce-more-polluting-particles/?sh=528dfb522811
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I imagine electric cars would generate less brake dust due to their use of regenerative braking.
Electric cars use their brakes tremendously less than ICE ones.
What I love about Chinese electric car manufacturers is that they’ve fully embraced the cyberpunk aesthetic from the chassis design
I actually think Chinese EVs are quite ugly.
BYD has chosen not to approach the US market until at least 2030.
They're building buses in California. I drive by this plant on occasion.
Are the US and EU late, or is it a deliberate business decision from EV car manufacturers to aim for bigger and luxury cars because they make more profit?
More than 80 percent of new cars sold in Norway now are EVs.
Which also means that all the talk in the US about EVs not being reliable in cold-weather states is just pure crap from politicians trying to protect oil and the gasoline car industry.
Yup. Car and Driver Debunks Cold Weather EV Myts at most you get a 20% decrease in the efficiency of your charge. And EVs are actually better at staying warm while idle/off.
20% is huge on cheaper (i.e not horribly expensive) EV 's when you'll already be on the edge of your range for daily use. Luckily though, most people don't live in northern latitudes.
It depends on a number of factors: outdoor temperature, the model of car, whether climate control is used. At temperatures of an average January daytime high where I live, using climate control, range can decrease by 40% and anecdotally my model is even higher.
They're reliable. They just expend more energy in winter time so you get worse range.
And over 90% if you count PHEVs too. Norway demonstrates electric vehicles are completely viable.
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China did to EVs what the US did to semiconductors.
The US and EU markets lack competition.
We're late. Our competition sucks (almost certainly on purpose). BYD is taking the slow approach to the US market - early next decade? Reuters: BYD Global EV Push
The US car manufacturers are going to take a protectionist approach to a shrinking market. They've already won this decade - everybone has a massive truck/SUV, no transit, all cars including EVs are an unaffordable luxury to Americans now after "inflation."
The US has protectionist rules about EV grants - car must be assembled in the US to receive tax credits. It's why Teslas sold in the US are assembled in the US whereas Teslas sold in Canada are made in China. There are some comments that the Chinese manufactured cars are actually better quality. It probably also explains why Chinese brands like BYD are focussing more on other markets like Europe.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Since Tesla Inc. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. started developing the first mass-market electric cars in the late 2000s, battery vehicles have struggled with a higher cost structure that even subsidies and manufacturer losses haven’t been sufficient to surmount.
That’s come on the back of a price war, instigated by Tesla, so savage that the government last month induced automakers to sign a pact pledging to compete fairly and refrain from “abnormal pricing.” (The latter commitment was retracted two days later.)
Tesla’s Model 3, which previously retailed at twice the price of comparable premium mid-sized sedans such as the BMW AG 3 Series, is now the more affordable option.
BYD’s Dolphin, likewise, comes in about 5,000 yuan ($693) cheaper than a comparable compact sedan such as Volkswagen AG’s local Jetta variant, the 125,000-yuan Sagitar.
Just three years ago, Deloitte — in a report that was generally extremely bullish about the prospects for EVs — predicted this level wouldn’t be hit until the end of the decade.
Closing that gap has depended on falling costs for batteries, a process that’s been delayed as the commodity price inflation of the past few years pushed up expenditure on raw materials.
The original article contains 873 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Meanwhile where I am in Canada, with massive amounts hydroelectric power: "bUt tHe gRiD!"
The dam electricity has to charge the damn car but the damn grid is inadequate ….
I can believe it. Massachusetts has been try to buy some of that sweet dam Canadian hydro - apparently there is plenty but no damn transmission lines to get it here. And the damn nimbies in Maine and New Hampshirite have no incentive to let us build Dam power lines
A certain amount passes through anyway, but how much water has to be let through a dam to charge a car?
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How is their infrastructure for charging?
it's the only place I know where it's common to have your whole battery pack swapped out, much quicker than recharging a battery, and leaves the difficult job of battery maintenance up to professionals
I only saw a conceptual video on this but didn't know it was an actual thing yet. Pretty neat
Complicated, within the city limits is quite good, many malls have charger in their parkings and many solar charger parkings are appearing, however long distance driving is still not ideal (either no charging stations or charging stations are broken), people mainly purchase EVs as backup car.
so it's good except for Long distance?
Yup, it is quite ideal for inner-city traffic.
That for sure has nothing to do with state subsidies for EV manufacturers.
Is this sarcasm? The US loves to subsidize oil etc
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