Auto execs in the US, Europe, and Japan never thought Chinese EVs were a threat. Now they’re coming to wipe the floor with their Western counterparts.
“You won’t believe what’s coming,” warned the title of a January 2023 video from the Inside China Auto YouTube channel. “Europe’s premium car makers aren’t ready for this,” warned another video from the same channel, uploaded in July.
Produced by Shanghai-based automotive journalist Mark Rainford, a former communications executive for Mercedes-Benz, the channel is one of several by China-based Western commentators agog at what they are seeing—and driving.
American, Japanese, and European car manufacturers had decades head start in this area and they blew it chasing higher profit margins on large trucks and SUVs with lax EPA gas mileage restrictions at a time when climate change has become a major crisis.
Invested in lobbying instead of products
Who Killed the Electric Car is an excellent look at early EV business in North America
Petrol cars go brrrrrr
I still get angry thinking of what happened
And BS green washing with dead end hydrogen demo cars.
Yeah they’re so weirdly fucking attached to hydrogen cars even though there has never been anything even remotely approaching a solution to their problems.
The execs could make extra money double dipping from oil companies, they are taking marketing funds from oil companies pushing hydrogen too.
Utility companies are often public and even otherwise evs don’t really have the same margins for electricity.
I’m curious if the “climate change is a hoax” stuff is as prominent in China as the US. I’ve run into so many people who hate EVs solely because they think climate change is a hoax and EVs are just another way to scam them out of money for a lower quality vehicle… despite any evidence of EVs being better quality
American gasoline cars suck and are more embarrassing than other country’s gasoline cars, but Chinese EVs are not at all a viable competitor in the market yet and so far have consistently failed to even gain a foothold for 15 years straight.
If you have any counterargument to that, I’d like to see it.
deleted by creator
Fair point, i was very vague in my initial comments. I was talking more from a reputational, manufacturing and corporate perspective more than the cars existing in the market at all, which I totally concede is the common usage. I talked about this in other comments, but the scorn of my initial comment is aimed at the absurd, valueless, propagandizing article itself, rather than the ev market in China the article is irresponsibly promoting the hopes and dreams of.
Governments worldwide should support their auto industries because it’s fundamental to any country’s GDP and future wealth base
I believe this to be the completely wrong approach. Europe shouldn’t feel threatened. They should make cars much less important. Europe should be investing in green tech and public transport (buses, metros, trams, trains) so much that the average person doesn’t even want a car. That a car is only required for very specific tasks that otherwise cannot be done without other modes of transport.
China could make the best car ever and it wouldn’t matter if it cars had a tiny market. But when you read the advice given by car-addicted, car-centric people, then can’t think of making cars less important. It goes completely against their beliefs, no matter how much it harms the environment, citizens, and governments. They just want that shiny new car-sized iPhone.
But what are those “very specifc tasks”? And public transportation makes complete sense but how feasable is it to implement in low density areas?
If they aren’t cheap, celophane-wrapped, Amazon-style, random-string-of-letters brand, low quality bullshit… Then I will definitely be very interested.
Fuck our oil-worshipping car industry. It deserves to go extinct for intentionally slow-rolling EV releases to prop up the oil industry. Fuck 'em.
This article reads like a terrible puff piece. Wired has really fallen low with a headline and article like this.
No real info, just statements from highly paid execs.
No way Chinese cars would be sold in U.S. or Japan, no idea about EU though. So no, not remotely a threat.
Seriously, this article is garbage.
Yeah, this is basically the stance auto industry execs had until the Chinese EVs actually arrived, and they did get five star safety ratings, and build quality wasn’t crap, and then they’ve collectively had a Blackberry exec seeing the first iPhone moment.
They’re really hoping you don’t actually test drive one, though. And they’ll spend a lot on disinformation to help make that happen.
They’re already selling byd, mg and NIU cars in Europe, and Renault/Dacia is selling a rebranded car previously designed for the Chinese market. Teslas for the European market are made in China
Not sure who’s buying a byd Atto for 40k in Europe, but indeed the western brands are sleeping on the wheel doing the bare minimum, leaving a large gap on the market
Only Model 3s for the European market are from China. The vast majority sold are Model Ys, and they are made in Germany.
Not sure who’s buying a byd Atto for 40k in Europe
Me neither, but I reckon a lot of people will be interested in a BYD seagull for 8k.
I live in Chile 🇨🇱 (South America 🌎), and i can guarantee you that my country has been flooded by Chinese cars in the last year. (Mostly Changan’s, followed by BYD and finally Kia)
Plus, our government has made a deal with BYD so that they’ll replace all fuel-based public transportation with EVs. 🔌⚡🚌 (Link [in Spanish] down below)
So yeah, there IS a mayor market for China’s cheap vehicles (aka developing countries), and i bet that until most vehicles around the planet are EVs, China will be the mayor seller for a few years.
Koa is owned by Hyundai, a South Korean company. But I see your point in the flood of Asian imports.
deleted by creator
Hhhmmm… Is 5 Stars on Ncap enough?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/7ThTci70350?si=8JYMX-KkR20M-3fK
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
deleted by creator
They are, but you would be surprised about how many people don’t care about safety and just go for the cheaper choice. 💵
Not really, they are just busy lobbying and promoting troll farms to keep combustion engines and their high maintenance part replacement income going.
Yeah. China can go fuck itself. Not only does the government suck shit, but the culture of the people since the revolution is horrifically selfish and nasty.
Ppfffff hahaha that is ridiculous.
Yes they made videos.
No they have not successfully made an even decent electric car with any range yet in China.
Geez way to spread unsubstantiated propaganda about a product from China with an abysmal track record so far.
I mean… I own a BYD in Australia. It’s got 400 km range and it’s the cheap, low range model. With a 5 star safety rating.
What was that you were saying about unsubstantiated propaganda?
That I would like sources rather than unsubstantiated propaganda.
Anecdotes are fun, though.
Which byd do you have?
An Atto 3. Is that relevant?
You’re making a blanket statement that none of something exists, so a single example existing is actually a sufficient counterpoint. We’re not arguing numbers, we don’t need to establish statistical significance.
Woo, bit defensive. Yea, who needs numbers anyway?
I think if you’re sharing an anecdote about the car you own that you have not mentioned you are satisfied with but are presumably attempting to make some undefined point by mentioning, yes, the model is relevant.
My initial comment(about the article) does not express that evs do not exist in China, it expresses that the article is incredibly and embarassingly overreaching in its effusive praise for completely unsubstantiated in-house marketing for theorized future products from one of the least reliable industries in China.
Dude, you raslly look pathetic on this argument, just give up.
Very convincing.
Think I’ll just continue to be correct and you can dance along to the merry tune of everyone else who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
It looks like you think the Chinese cars are all like that car meme “Alibaba $2000 Chang li”
The byd Atto 3 is comparable in build quality and in range to a Volkswagen id4 while costing 10k less
Nope, i was talking about actual EVs, not the little farm trucks.
That’s good to hear about the atto 3, first Chinese ev I’ve heard any firsthand consumer praise for. Do you have one yourself?
Thanks.
I tried the Atto 3 and it’s really nice, luxurious. But there’s no way that I’m paying 40k for something that launched in my country one month ago
Yea, the newcomer status of these vehicles is a red flag for sure.
It’ll be interesting to see these reviews with a few years of hindsight.
What do you mean by luxurious with regard to the Atto3? I have not driven one yet, although I am heading to China again in January.
the driving seat was like a leather couch, with comfy armrests
probably the european dealer chose the highest trim possible in order to justify the 40k price tag. I don’t know others, but for me paying 40k to be a beta tester… uhm…
Yea, that’s tricky, especially from such a volatile industry in the first place with no historical certainty about the manufacturing or safety data that was provided before the EU did their own safety tests on the newer exported models.
With that said, I have a leather-upholstered compact SUV right now and I do love that, so will definitely try the atto3 if it’s near where I’m staying when I visit, although a domestic product in China is often nothing like the exported product.
I’d love it if the atto 3 was the first legitimate an independently ratified step into the internal ev industry, but I’ll take all of these new reviews with a grain of salt until they’re a few years in without major incident.
Source?
Just hoping for info about China’s Ev. Never mind. I’ll look it up.
Oh you answered yourself in this comment chain earlier, not me, so I didn’t see you were looking for information or I would’ve sent you some.
It’s a cool itndustry to look into, enjoy.
For what, specifically?
Found this.
