Eh, I've seen all these same headlines on Hacker News. China is a rapidly developing country with a lot more people, manufacturing, advancements, and news than many other countries so it makes sense that there would be a lot of news coming out of it.
I just visited China for the first time during a business trip a few weeks ago and as an American I was impressed. The US media tries so hard to present only the negative that a lot of Americans aren't even aware of all the achievements they've accomplished.
The Ora Funky Cat had an issue where it would not terminate charging consistently before unlocking the charging cable, leading to customers being greeted by a loud bang when disconnecting the cable.
Even American cars have spyware. Not sure what your choice is there. At this point, I'll settle for cars with physical buttons for climate and other commonly used controls.
I‘m just waiting on the release of the german X-Bus. A modular 600kg vehicle that counts as a quad and can be used as a bus/transporter/pickup/camper and recharges 30-50km of range a day through solar energy on the roof for under 20k€ is exactly what I want from an EV. I don’t need a 50k price tag with shiny smart features.
I hope they do better than expected, sadly the lower standards also the downside of their classification. But I think they commited to doing crash tests and also build in ESP by defaultc so at least the basics will be there.
I've recently driven a brand new 2023/2024 Maxus T90EV. It had 15 miles on the clock when I drove it. These are the problems I experienced with it and these aren't even touching on my preferences like I thought the seats were uncomfortable, or that regenerative braking is quite aggressive and can't be changed. So I doubt China EVs are going to take over, not in 2024 at least.
Auto lights didn't work
Auto wipers didn't work
Intermittent wipers didn't work
Rear view camera was really poor quality
Infotainment system crashed, where I had to walk away from the vehicle with it still in its crashed state. At some point it finally turned off and worked again on the next drive
Bluetooth audio kept crashing
Infotainment system is really basic
Shudders when driving on the factory set speed limiter
No driving aids like cruise control or driver defined speed limiter
Well ... then 1.5k for the good battery and other options and like ... another 5k for shipping related expenses. That blew my mind how expensive it was to import.
And you get a truck 3 dudes can pull backwards with a top speed of like 36mph. It's basically a very robust power wheels.
This just isn't a CCP shill post. Western and Korean companies simply refuse to sell an EV that isn't a luxury car, and Japanese companies seem to be trying to get out of making EVs period. The only one I could name, Chevy Bolt, got the axe last year.
Like, I look like an American Nationalist next to most Lemmy users (you could say I am in a way, but not in the conventional right-wing flag waver way.) But BYD coming to America would fill a need, even if the cars actually suck. Teslas suck, but they still sell, and there are alternatives to Tesla.
I went to one of the links and some of their cars had a 404 error, so I’m guessing that’s what their repairability and warranty would be like in the states.
Not really. It's mainly about gaining market dominance on a technology they think is the future. They'll build them right next to the massive coal plant alongside a million other things they're subsidizing.
As a professional car reviewer, I couldn’t travel to test-drive interesting cars during the early pandemic, so I did the next best thing: went to the website Alibaba, and bought a Changli. After I paid $2,000 for shipping and customs, the car arrived at my doorstep months later in a massive cardboard box.
But if you’re hoping that you might be able to buy these cars like you do so many other Chinese-made gadgets, keep dreaming.
It might be, but with the state of EVs in North America (or the auto industry in general), it could also be true.
Not that I'm holding my breath. China is certainly capable of competing with the half-assed efforts seemingly more intended to prove that EVs are bad than actually sell them, but I also wouldn't put it past them to make their cars into even worse spy devices than the other companies have made them into. The only reason I think this might not be the case is they'll get a lot of attention from people specifically looking for stuff like this. But if they include any kind of connectivity features that those security people give a pass on, then future updates can add in the spying stuff later.
I really just want a car that isn't capable of connecting with anything other than a charger, which then only uses the data connection to manage the charging, and payment is managed separately. Even those code readers could be bypassed by just showing that information on the dash display, though I will give a reluctant "this feels like you're just making people spend extra money to do maintenance/repairs" pass for that connection.
I'd prefer a basic connection to my phone, too, like just audio, since a full connection could use the phone to send data home.
It is fascinating to read assessments of the new Chinese industry based upon comparison to lowest budget small enterprise items bought 5-10 years ago. Wasn't this originally the same said of Japanese watches and cars? Tesla has zero long tern reliability data and lots of concerns about their failures to step up to repair faults. With electric cars, everyone is at the same point for development, except the Chinese, who have been at it longest