I Went To China And Drove A Dozen Electric Cars. Western Automakers Are Cooked
I Went To China And Drove A Dozen Electric Cars. Western Automakers Are Cooked
For an article that size, it's surprisingly light on actual numbers and facts. A lot of auto-show impressions, lots of "ooh look at that" and "ooh that feels nice", even more he-said-she-saids, but no proper comparisons. It's also pretty incoherent and it features A LOT of chinese praise, including whole paragraphs of praising tiktok ( in a friggin car article ). Yeah, I'm not gonna hold my breath that "western car makers are cooked" just based on what this guy wrote.
They aren't cooked. But they aren't in a great position either. The government is going to need to subsidize them a bit. China just went all in on EVs as a national project before anyone else and now it's paying dividends. Western car manufacturers can and will catch up.
It's full of comparisons, some examples:
I’d later learn that the auto show had more than 100 new model debuts and concepts. That’s a far cry from the Detroit Auto Show last September, which only featured one fully new model. Two other models were refreshed versions of current cars already on sale. None were electric.
Western automakers aren’t entangled deeply with tech companies in ways that would serve the end user, Chinese or otherwise. They didn’t get way ahead of the curve to establish a battery supply chain in the ways China did. And they don’t seem to want to cater to the Chinese market (or any market, rather) through continuous updates and agility with their product line.
Even Tesla in China can’t be bothered to update one of its most important products, the Model Y, in this hyper-competitive market. Instead, it relies on margin-hurting gimmicks to move units, like constant price cuts, subsidized trade-in incentives, and 0% financing to get customers to buy a car that is aged and now uncompetitive.
Tesla didn’t even have a presence at the Beijing Auto Show. Elon Musk came and went to Beijing during the show, only to make a case for his robotaxi pivot with government officials. It’s like he’s already given up on cars here.
GM blew it here too. Up until the Beijing Auto Show's debut of a PHEV version, the GL8 was one of the few vans in the segment without any plug-in capabilities. Green-plated New Energy vehicles are an important market in China, as are luxury vans. Why weren’t Western automakers paying attention? Why didn’t GM get an electrified vehicle on sale faster?
Why the hell didn’t we subsidize our EV-building and clean energy industries like China did?
Big oil?
Sure, but in a more general sense, capitalists. The bourgeois Founding Fathers created a government for themselves, and the bourgeoisie have kept it. “Bourgeois Democracy”: What Do Marxists Mean by That Term?
Yep. Capitalists in the US stand above its political system, and the oil and US auto industries oppose green energy.
It's not just at the national level, but at the local one too. Petro-profits even dictate how US cities are laid out.
What the fuck is "insideevs.whatever" and why is their take relevant to anything?
That's not purely a complaint about source, I sure as hell can't keep track of every valid and useful site on every subject. Is there a reason their opinion matters?
It's a site that reviews EVs, and they've been around for a while.
What i understand is that the rdw (they do safety and quality checks for new cars to be sold in europe etc) is that the safety rules to get new cars to europe is very strict and the chinese either dont want to or dont know how to meet these requirements. And if a chinese electric car is allowed in to be sold to the masses they meet the absolute minimum requirements to do so. So not a mm (or inch which is more btw) extra effort for safety just so it can be sold.
That's the point of safety standards though. If you meet the standard you are safe enough. If you want higher standards bring it up with your government. I regularly complain to my legislators about it because American safety standards are laughable.
I've been to china many times and sorta agree with the title. They are disrupting the industry in the way iPhone unseated Nokia.
What do people in China drive?
Bunch of Chinese brands like BYD, but also Tesla is really popular. Some of the models of electric cars cost just a few thousand dollars. For those who can't afford or don't needs cars, the motorcycles and scooters are all electric. The buses are electric. Delivery trucks are mostly still gas powered. Charging stations are ubiquitous.
So their supply chains, manufacturers, city planners, and infrastructure are all way ahead, and they are gaining experience and getting cheaper/better by the day.
If we could actually get them...
Yup you keep on with the self sabotage and that will happen. We were at the top of EV in the 90s good job oil companies.
10 BVD EV dealerships burned to a crisp? No thanks!
Genuine question - what does that mean? The cars are burning down the dealerships? o.O
And it's overblown and exaggerated.
There's a narrative being pushed that EVs = fires.
It's used as a fear tactic, and every time I've done a basic search, the facts show it to be proven false. Be sceptical, and use your critical thinking skills when you see these claims/stories.
See my post above relating to this specific claim.
That's precisely what it means
LOL! Gotta love that 'EVs = FIRE!!!' narrative.
'Fire at 10 dealerships' doesn't sound nearly as clickbaity as '10 dealerships burned to a crisp'.
And if you see a picture of that 10th dealership, only the showroom burned down. 'a total of seven vehicles were destroyed in this latest fire, and several privately-owned vehicles (at the location for repairs) were also damaged in the incident'. There were dozens of cars in the dealership lot that were untouched. I won't even go into BYD's claim that 'the source of the fire did not come from their car on display. But from a room on the second floor of the building'
But I guess we have different sources, and live in different bubbles.