BYD is coming for Europe—but high labor costs, connectivity issues, and stubbornly loyal customers might trip up the Warren Buffett-backed EV maker that’s leaving competitors in a ‘state of shock’
High labor costs, connectivity issues, and stubbornly loyal customers might trip up the Warren Buffett-backed EV maker.
If you asked the typical European or American about BYD a couple of years ago, only the biggest petrol-head or an astute follower of Warren Buffett’s portfolio could have given you a confident answer on what the company does.
It’s taken a brutal price war with Elon Musk and an ascension to the top of the Chinese car pyramid to change that. Now that it’s left competitors in a “state of shock,” BYD has become hard to ignore.
However, as BYD fights a declining share price, Europe’s automakers have a few reasons to be optimistic that they will fare better in a battle on home soil.
Well no, of course they don't. But this company's options will be a) don't do that in Euro autos or b) don't do business in the EU. Which do you think they'll pick?
We already know that every car manufacturer collects data on us in newer vehicles especially. Data would go to China instead of western governments and unregulated companies. Honestly, not sure the usage is any different.
I've got news for you: unless you're driving a decade-old car, your car is already collecting tons of information on you and sending it to the company.
And ‘new’? I don’t think new straight-off-the-lot is very good value anyway due to depreciation. I’d much rather have a used car in good shape that’s had the bugs ironed out of it than play the shiny-shiny game. Fuck Veblen goods.
A hundred years can pass but a 2020 car is still newer than your current car. Chances are that the company that makes that car is still willing to collect data from the vehicle if they think they can make more money off of that data than it costs to keep it connected.
All modern cars are privacy nightmares. But putting spyware in their export cars world be a very dumb move by the Chinese because there's no way they wouldn't get caught.
Our family, out of economic practicality and a lack of desire to show off, still has ‘dumb’ cars with the fanciest feature being the electronic key fob and the damned engine management system which goes on the fritz every couple months.
I hear what you’re saying but I’m not entirely convinced they wouldn’t try something.