this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They're doing this because they know the argument "China just builds cheap stuff" hasn't been true for two decades now.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don’t know what’s actually going on, but this certainly sounds like something someone would say who’s about to be taken over by an "underdog" who couldn’t possibly beat them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you see how terrible the recent privacy results were for European and US car manufacturers? What extra metrics can the Chinese cars gather?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isn't cheap and many of a ~~good~~ less bad thing exactly what you'd want? As a consumer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You think other countries don't subsidize their industries for competition? Lol

Welcome to the real world kiddo

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

We also put import tariffs on other things that are being aggressively subsized. Welcome to regular economy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

easy to build technology

Um, what?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Electric cars are easy to build.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're easier to build than internal combustion engine cars. But that doesn't mean they're easy to build in general.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

That's what it means. They are incredibly easy to build.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We have no Problem building them though???

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes – but the usability used to be pretty bad until recently.

I had friends using electric cars ~ 8–10 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Third: Software and Infotainment. Legacy Cars suck at this

They were pretty good around 2017ish and earlier models when they had enough physical buttons and dials for everything... And tesla have the worst infotainment in the world... They don't even have a separate gauge cluster...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.