This article is very biased.
Chinese cars are in no way a threat to Volkswagen and especially not a life or death situation.
They are cheap and they are many. That's it. Tesla and other carmakers did EVs slow and steady and china subsidized like hell and is trying to flood markets.
Just like every other easy to build technology. Find thing, make thing flood market with cheap versions and less cost.
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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The Thing about electric cars is at least threefold..
First, the drivetrain. Legacy carmakers are already ahead or closing the Gap. Its mostly Standard hard engineering.
Seconds: battery. It is the Most expensive Hardware component. While VW, Stellantis and US legacy Starts Bildung battery plants, it is way cheaper in China to source the battery modules from CATL, the industry Leader. Subsidized in China and for Chinese manufacturers.
Third: Software and Infotainment. Legacy Cars suck at this, but its the Most important Factor, at least in China itself.
Fourth: the Combination of everything in an underlying Platform. Here, legacy struggles too,but they are not that far behind (and Tesla ahead). The Problem ist, Chinas manufacturers are, again, heavily subsidized in developement of These platforms.
Yup, Software in chinese EVs offers more. German car manufacturers also struggle in the EV Market in after-sales. Why should i buy an ID3 for 45K and then spend another 15 to get all the features if the BYD has all features from the get go at 45K. Its less features in total and they arent as finetuned but they are all there.
All thanks to subsidies.
Isn't cheap and many of a ~~good~~ less bad thing exactly what you'd want? As a consumer.
Of course. I would love to have my car but spend way less. Bur i think it would be very bad for the economy if this all is because the CCP actively subsidizes cars to export at cheap prices.
Same reason why donating old clothes to african countries sucks. Because it destroys their local production of those goods. German cars would be banned by the CCP if we subsidized them and somd them at a loss in china with the goal of destroying their own automobile market.
You think other countries don't subsidize their industries for competition? Lol
Welcome to the real world kiddo
We also put import tariffs on other things that are being aggressively subsized. Welcome to regular economy.
easy to build technology
Um, what?
Electric cars are easy to build.
They're easier to build than internal combustion engine cars. But that doesn't mean they're easy to build in general.
That's what it means. They are incredibly easy to build.
If they were easy to build, European car companies would have no problem to build them.
Of course, putting a battery and an electric drive into a car is simple. Electric cars are 50 years older than combustion cars. But there's a reason why they did not took off in the 1840s and why we did not use electric cars for 180 years β building usable ones is difficult.
We have no Problem building them though???
Yes β but the usability used to be pretty bad until recently.
I had friends using electric cars ~ 8β10 years ago. The effective range was often less than 100 km, carging time abysmal long, even lesser range in winter, famously no heating nor radio in winter to preserve battery. No fun.
It got better just the last couple of years, but only for upper class and a few middle class vehiclrs. They are still not able to build affordable small cars with a usable range.
Happy to be proven wrong.
Can't prove you wrong. I am upper class and can afford luxury.
At the same time tho, theres also no affordable combustion cars. Affordable means used.
They're doing this because they know the argument "China just builds cheap stuff" hasn't been true for two decades now.
Amazon is full of chinese dropship crap and china still hasn't stopped importing ballpoints. Lets agree to disagree while i laugh at this biased CCP Bot comment
Nah mate, most of their stuff is terrible shit. DJI is literally the only company I can think of that makes decent quality stuff. And even they fail at times with shitty software.
I work in machinery for the beverage industry. The Chinese still try to copy us (even literally copying our presentation material and displaying it on the very same tradefair that we take part in), and do an incredibly shitty job.
Not that German cars are any better though. German car makers are well past their prime. Fuck the car industry.
I donβt know whatβs actually going on, but this certainly sounds like something someone would say whoβs about to be taken over by an "underdog" who couldnβt possibly beat them.
No, they can beat ""us"" by subsidizing their exports. If they didnt they wouldnt even be here. Thats even mentioned in the article.
If you are talking about china as if it was an underdog you make yourself look like an idiot btw. China is a worldpower that is very open about disrupting foreign markets if it brings in money.
But it's fine. China still imports machinery and chemicals like crazy. We're not gonna die
The German car makers are loosing in the EV war in China, due to too high cost. Especially Volkswagen is among the best in terms of EVs, Europe has to offer. I am sorry, but same specs with half the price is a really good selling point. With subsidies that is very much possible.
German cars in europe are losing the EV war in Europe because of high costs. China can just throw cars below ID3 prices onto the market and it's gonna look like a good deal. Chinese cars also don't have to follow any data protection laws in their software. If VW is the best European EV I can't say as I've not driven anything but VW, BYD and Nio.
Great. Fuck China.
For making better EVs than Europe?
No for being China and flooding the market with "cars" that barely pass safety regulations and are so cheap that they are definitely not making money with them and likely produce with slave labor, this is a trade war and it shall be fought accordingly.
You being pro China is a absolute disgrace to humanity and the values of the civilized world.
That's free market capitalism for you and European car makers are also producing in China and leverage the same labor forces.
I'm not being pro china, I'm just pointing out your bigotry towards China, has no place here, just because the EU is not able to push the Europe EV industry enough to be competitive.
Free market doesn't work when you have a government that slave labors you some cars and sells them at so cheap they are negative income.
And yes being against China is 100% good and OK everywhere.
You're a victim of successful brainwashing. My condolences
No, for flooding markets with extremely subsidized cars.
If you sell apples and then i come to your stand and offer everyone apples at half the price you would also be angy.
Sure do this. But maybe at the same time see where these western manufacturers are profiting excessively and get that under control too because these electric cars are too damn expensive. At least here in the US they are.
The ICE aren't any better. My god, what you can spend on a vehicle these days is insane, and you know it's going to be trash in 5 years.
It is almost as if the entire concept of owning a vehicle for the 2-3 trips a day most people take is not a very efficient concept.
You mean 2-3 trips per week, right? Maybe with kids it gets one per day or every two days? laughs in 100 percent homeoffice
Cries in suburb america. Multiple trips a day.
Laughs from psychotic diarrhea.
Shits and cums in ford focus
Why not require the Chinese car brands to start 49:51 joint ventures with European firms if they want access to the European market. It would be reciprocal to the burdens placed on European firms in the Chinese market, or not?
Iβm sure itβs not as simple, but my first take on this was: Europe doesnβt invest in EVs, but China does. They start to loose the Chinese market and are about to loose their own market to China as well. Then politics steps in to "rescue" their own companies but all that does is shelter them from the pressure to adapt and evolve, and in the end theyβre beyond hope and left in the dust while the advanced Chinese cars dominate everything.
Countering subsidies with import taxes is a different story ofc. But it certainly feels like the European car industry is in decline and itβs probably their own fault. If not in Europe most certainly in China.
I should add that I have no idea what Iβm talking about here, so feel free to tell me where Iβm wrong.
China has been doing this for centuries now. You couldnt even break into the chinese consumer space if the CCP decides that you might be a danger to their own industry.
So it's kinda hypocritical to now claim the EU is doing something because its china.
Take a look at what VW did to the British car market with illegal subsidies from the German Government. Then look at VW being caught in the emissions scandle. Long story short, cheating is profitable.
The Germans and the French wrecked British car manufacturers because they were better, not because of subsidies. British cars at the time sucked.
China subsidizes EV production, and EU companies struggle to keep up. Now EU politics wants to make Chinese EVs more expensive?
In face of climate change, I can think of two more favorable solutions:
- Subsidize your own EV production. No one should be willing to buy an ICE anymore, anyways.
- Invest in public transit, bike infrastructure, cargo bikes. No one (except rural folks) should be dependent on owning a car, anyways.
Invest in public transit, bike infrastructure, cargo bikes. No one (except rural folks) should be dependent on owning a car, anyways.
This is very nice, but even better would be to make rents in cities dirt cheap again. First step would be to not sell any land but only lease it. And stop subsidizing the fucking countryside that grabs the wealth of society, ruins its political landscape and destroys the planet for it in return.