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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML BYD Sells 4.6M Vehicles in 2025, Meets Revised Sales Goal
guid4 wrote 1 min ago:
This will likely be downvoted, but my opinion is that the "success" of
BYD (and other chinese EVs) in the West is a massive failure of policy.
We don't allow Huwawei (etc), so why are we permitting Chinese cars?
Money spent on BYD is money flowing out, eventually, to china, and not
flowing into the local or near-local economy. Local garages are
shutting due to lack of demand, forecourts are closing, sales jobs are
closing, far less money is spent on maintenance (which supports local
jobs and local supply chains), less consumables are replaced, factories
are shutting, and the entire supply chain for these cars is outside the
west.
And all of this is being celebrated as "green" or low carbon - it is
not, whatsoever, anything of the sort.
And yet people seem to be buying these things in their droves, and then
also complaining that economic times are tough.
The painful truth is the west has the ability to replace these cars,
but has looked on by as China came in and cleaned up, and didn't do
anything about it.
These cars should be subject to 1000% import tax, and eventually banned
outright.
ErneX wrote 3 hours 0 min ago:
I visited China recently for 3 weeks. They have really nice EVs, got to
ride on a bunch of different brands/models just by using DiDi
(equivalent to Uber there).
They also have them on display on shopping malls, for example on Huawei
and Xiaomi stores.
epolanski wrote 4 hours 11 min ago:
I don't think many here realize how many Chinese EVs are sold globally.
In Europe Volkswagen group dominates EV sales by far, but Chinese
competitors are taking lots of the other spots. Jaecoo is one that
recently has been spreading everywhere.
It should worry plenty that Europeans are gonna buy Chinese cars with
their huge amount of tariffs even when they end up priced similar to
European or US offerings.
I was recently surprised by an Italian YouTuber doing the "stans" tour
of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and these countries were ultra
filled with Chinese EVs. There's no chance anything sells in any
similar way.
Not gonna lie, I was very jealous at the fact they could get such great
cars in the $ 10/20 k range.
I hate these nationalistic socialist tariffs.
They only make local producers less competitive (as they are protected
from competition) and at the same time erode your own exports.
technick wrote 4 hours 17 min ago:
I would buy a BYD if the communist US government didn't ban them for
being overly competitive. I rented one of these in Mexico last year and
it was nice and affordable at 35k with the performance of a model S.
HTML [1]: https://www.byd.com/eu/electric-cars/seal
MrVitaliy wrote 4 hours 17 min ago:
What's facinating to me is the lack of software comparison in comments.
Lots of comments where people compare driving noise, material quality,
price to Tesla and other brands. Sure it's important to some, but its
like comparing apple vs android watch by how the leather strap feels on
each device.
Anyone has experience with BYD over-the-air-updates? Do they release
updates often? Are there any serious bugs like with Lucid air? How does
the software compare to Tesla?
nopakos wrote 59 min ago:
Yes! Iâd really appreciate a comparison of Android Auto/CarPlay
support, overall responsiveness, and especially the user-experience
side, like whether you can permanently turn off beeps and warnings,
and how usable (or annoying) the smart features and alerts are.
Thlom wrote 2 hours 50 min ago:
They are behind on software. At least my Tang EV isn't at the level
of Tesla. Among the Chinese EV makers that sells significantly
outside of China I think NIO and XPENG are the more software oriented
ones.
pzmarzly wrote 22 min ago:
Xiaomi is preparing to enter global EV market, and their software
looks absolutely amazing. You can see it in MKBHD's video around 5
minutes mark
HTML [1]: https://youtu.be/Mb6H7trzMfI
ehnto wrote 3 hours 44 min ago:
Although I agree that software is an important aspect, a car mostly
exists in the real and physical experience of the vehicle to me. The
software situation is going to be the least of your average persons
concerns I would have thought.
Interesting point of view to consider however, I hadn't really
thought of there being people who look at their car as mostly the
software.
timeon wrote 4 hours 13 min ago:
It is hard to compare since I've never been in Tesla vehicle -
because they are not making buses.
yanhangyhy wrote 7 hours 19 min ago:
meanwhile my BYD stock didn't go up... Hope 2026 this will change.
For China, this is ultimately a good thing. BYD employs a large number
of workers and has factories in many developing countries such as
Brazil and Central Asia..., creating numerous job opportunities. Many
of BYD's factories in China are located around non-first-tier cities,
where workers may earn only around 5,000 to 6,000 yuan. However,
considering China's extremely low cost of living and deflation, this
salary is sufficient to support a family and drive more consumption in
the market.
The factory in zhengzhou: [1] zhengzhou is also famous for produce
iphone before..
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyCTwhdqOhs
srameshc wrote 9 hours 20 min ago:
This is certainly alarming for US auto manufacturers. Tesla is the only
successful EV car company which is able to somewhat compete with BYD,
but for many it is hardly an option because of it's leadership.
ethagnawl wrote 10 min ago:
That's to say nothing of the cost. Assuming there were no
extraordinary tarrifs on China/BYD, the entry-level offering would be
in the $10K range which is about 1/4 the cost of a base Tesla Model
3.
ttul wrote 10 hours 45 min ago:
We donât see BYD cars in the US or Canada very much yet because of
tariffs. But head down to Mexico and theyâre everywhere. The Chinese
EV automakers are crushing it.
martinpw wrote 6 hours 49 min ago:
> We donât see BYD cars in the US or Canada very much yet because
of tariffs. But head down to Mexico and theyâre everywhere
But getting hit by 50% tariffs in Mexico as of today:
HTML [1]: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mexico-tariffs-go-into-effe...
testing22321 wrote 9 hours 39 min ago:
Itâs not just tariffs. Theyâre not homologated to the US market,
so even if you were will to pay multiples more than people in
Australia do, you canât register one in the US.
rswail wrote 23 min ago:
Tariffs are exactly the reason that situation is as it is.
BYD can outwait the adjustments of the US car industry to a new
reality, in the same way that the Japanese did back in the 80s.
Last time, the US did it by screwing the union workers of the rust
belt, while also giving up on passenger cars and moving to
SUV/trucks, but this time it's a complete change in technology and
the US (and Japan to an extent) is having trouble reorienting its
manufacturing and supply chains to support the change.
If Ford can't sell an EV version of an F-150, then it has a real
problem, because the rest of the world is not staying on ICE
technology.
Artificial trade barriers don't last.
ulfw wrote 6 hours 27 min ago:
It's 100% tariffs. So yes, it's of course tariffs. Theyâre not
homologated because there's no point of selling something when half
the price goes to import taxation
HDThoreaun wrote 8 hours 9 min ago:
BYD isnât developing an American model for multiple reasons, but
the biggest one is likely tariffs.
batiudrami wrote 9 hours 40 min ago:
They are huge in Australia too. And the advice basically everyone
gives is "if you're going electric, you'd be crazy not to consider
BYD first".
A couple of years ago the only notable EVs you'd see were Teslas, now
you'd see at least 2-3x as many BYDs.
rswail wrote 32 min ago:
BYD, Geely, ZeekR, Kia, Hyundai, Mini, MG see them all around, more
than Teslas (inner city Melbourne).
Also noticing that a lot of the rideshare/taxis are going EV
quickly. I'm guessing the much lower maintenance and service
requirements are outweighing any "range" issues, plus the trade-in
value is irrelevant with warranties covering the batteries etc.
gonzo41 wrote 1 hour 3 min ago:
I do like that BYD cars are opinionated which is a feature that is
somewhat lacking in modern cars.
petesergeant wrote 10 hours 6 min ago:
Here in Dubai too. Always rather the Careem driver turns up in a BYD
than a Tesla.
eru wrote 10 hours 20 min ago:
BYD is also very popular in Singapore. Single most bought car brand
at the moment, I think.
Their flagship show room has great beer and good food, too.
embedding-shape wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
When I first moved to Spain, I was surprised beer was available in
McDonalds, and that people commonly had beer with lunch. But not
even here do we have beer available in car show rooms, that seems
like the slightly wrong place for that, especially considering how
strict Singapore seems from the outside.
rswail wrote 29 min ago:
Car show rooms are about catering to clients, selling them both a
vehicle and a lifestyle, plus people are much more likely to make
deals when they're offered food and drink.
Makes sense anywhere :)
embedding-shape wrote 19 min ago:
> Makes sense anywhere :)
Well, almost anywhere. There are places where if you have a
beer with lunch and they saw you arrive in a car, they'll ask
you for your car keys otherwise they'll call the police on you.
Daily life works differently around the world :)
rswail wrote 30 min ago:
25 years ago I was on a project that was based out of offices
next to a BMW factory, so we got canteen privileges, and the food
was awesome, and beer was available as one of the beverages.
This was at a car plant for people working in manufacturing.
amelius wrote 13 hours 16 min ago:
I'm not choosing sides here but if telecom equipment from e.g. HuaWei
is not allowed on US/EU markets because of national security concerns,
then should we allow cars?
woodpanel wrote 12 hours 35 min ago:
We shouldnât.
Not just because of the assumed security issues (good point though).
But even w/o these,
- I rather have some European or American conglomerate gathering
unnecessary data about me driving, than just hand it over to the
Chinese state
- Buying Chinese means destroying our own base, as this market has
been actively stealing IP for decades (BYD or Xiamoi just being
copycats of Porsche); good luck winning piracy cases in Chinese
courts
- unfair financial restrictions for redeeming returns on foreign
investments fueled much of Chinaâs growth - and still persist
- western/asian manufacturers are de-facto not competing with mere
manufacturers but the Chinese state itself since (almost?) all
Chinese manufacturers are State-Owned-Companies
Now that is not to say that Chinaâs rise is not commendable and
deserved, it is indeed. Iâm rather arguing for playing the same
game as they are.
mitthrowaway2 wrote 9 hours 13 min ago:
The part I don't get is, why shouldn't Western companies be able to
out-compete the Chinese state at mass-producing cars?
My whole life, I only heard about how much better private companies
are than governments at making products. How could we be suddenly
behind?
OK, Xiaomi and BYD are state-backed private companies. But what
advantage does the state-backing get them, exactly? How is it
better than the familiar state-backed advantages western companies
have (like regulatory capture, tax breaks, tariffs, or TBTF
bailouts)?
The Chinese government can subsidize them. But that's just moving
zero-sum money around; it might give them a boost in cars, but it
must come at a cost to semiconductors, robotics, solar energy, raw
materials, defense, or other things like that.... in theory at
least? So why does it feel like they're somehow subsidizing every
sector at the same time?
AngryData wrote 12 hours 59 min ago:
Why not? We allow pretty much everything else. Appliances, consumer
electronics, car parts, batteries, etc.
The one and only reason to not allow Chinese cars is to try and
protect domestic auto industry, but considering how expensive and
mismanaged domestic auto production is I don't see that as a good
excuse. They won't die because they can't possibly compete, they will
die for refusing to compete because they want higher profit margins
now rather than bulk sales and good public perception 10 years down
the line. They would rather fuck their future and bet on a bail-out
than dare try making bulk cheap cars again with a bit lower margin.
Hell GM paid Toyota to come teach them how to make cars cheaper and
better and build matrix platform cars in their factory. And what did
they do when that happened and cars started rolling off the line?
They complained that Toyota didn't produce them them in the same
manner they would have, and then closed the plant down. Meanwhile
Matrix platform cars like the Vibe are highly sought after on the
used car market because they were known for reliability and ease of
maintenance.
If we were actually worried about security, we would be doing FAR
more than merely disallowing HuaWei products. Its like living next to
an active volcano in a forest fire prone areas inside a log cabin and
then screaming about how dangerous it would be to allow matches be
sold in stores due to arsonists.
bluGill wrote 11 hours 39 min ago:
You don't allow chinese cars because those assembly lines can be
converted to make tanks or other war vehicles if needed. Substitute
industry and product as needed
AngryData wrote 7 hours 42 min ago:
I don't believe for a second that modern automotice production
can easily be changed into manufacturing anything besides
consumer grade vehicles. Auto plants aren't full of generalized
lathes and mills anymore and a large part of their supply chain
is based in smaller factories making the the more complicated
parts. It takes them up to two years just to switch from one
consumer vehicle to another, not to mention a completely new
vehicle unlike anything that has been built in those plants for
over 80 years if ever.
bluGill wrote 26 min ago:
It would be a long switchover, but a large building and local
skilled labor are important/useful. The jigs can't be reused
but the stations with new jigs can be used.
okanat wrote 27 min ago:
Um, this is exactly what happened in the previous wars. Even
modern ones. Auto plants are full of general purpose robots.
They can make military stuff with some relatively low-cost
changes.
SXX wrote 7 hours 43 min ago:
This just doesnt work. The days when the same line producing cars
can be turned into production of tanks has long been gone.
Basically the same manufacruting line cant be even used to build
cars on different platform than intended.
Example: a lot of car manufacturers have left Russia in 2022 and
most of capacity used for cars is just stay rotting. Even used
facilities are only utilized for semi-knocked down assembly.
sleepyguy wrote 13 hours 9 min ago:
This is a national security concern but in a different way. It's
about the de-industrialization of America. Palmer Lucky talks about
this and how China's goal is to make sure America can't build
anything. Once that happens we can never win a war against them.
energy123 wrote 11 hours 7 min ago:
The combination of minimum wage and immigration restrictions is the
main driver of that.
If you could have Chinese workers on Chinese wages in American
factories none of this would have happened. But that's not allowed.
SXX wrote 7 hours 34 min ago:
To build things you also need a lot of people with education,
know how and experience. You cant just bring low-wage workforce
and expect to compete with China.
Let alone that to provide same quality of living to average
chinese worker as they have in China their salary in US will have
to grow 5-6 times.
syntaxing wrote 13 hours 11 min ago:
We allow everything else from iPhone to your microwave. National
security seems awfully like a veil for regulatory capture
haxtormoogle wrote 13 hours 45 min ago:
The number of BYD on fire videos, and examples where the tires simply
fall off because they don't use enough metal in the suspension. Makes
me scared to be anywhere near one of their vehicles. please keep them
out of the USA for safety sake. That's 4.6M state sponsored vehicles
that should not be on the road. Don't forget the chinese gov'ts ability
to lock you out from driving.
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWzbq-Q_oTc
martinpw wrote 6 hours 15 min ago:
> please keep them out of the USA for safety sake. That's 4.6M state
sponsored vehicles that should not be on the road.
BYD vehicles are sold in Europe where they have to meet safety
requirements that are arguably more stringent than in the US.
SkyeCA wrote 13 hours 41 min ago:
> and examples where the tires simply fall off because they don't use
enough metal in the suspension
As opposed to using too much metal in the airbags of our cars ;)
> Don't forget the chinese gov'ts ability to lock you out from
driving.
I remain less scared of a foreign government than I do of my
government that has effectively total control over my life.
whatever1 wrote 13 hours 50 min ago:
China has all this manufacturing capacity, and no market to sell.
Really the only option they have is to swap the products to military
ones so that they can create the global markets they need.
Itâs gonna be a bumpy decade.
bilbo0s wrote 6 hours 27 min ago:
>and no market to sell
Uh..
If that's the case, then someone needs to tell that to all the people
buying Chinese cars man.
whatever1 wrote 4 hours 48 min ago:
The capacity they have far exceeds the sales. A lot of Chinese car
companies will have to go bankrupt to balance supply and demand.
a_victorp wrote 11 hours 36 min ago:
Yeah, there are some theories that state that WWI and WWII started
because of over production and the search for new markets (I saw a
video recently mentioning some books, including one from Lenin), so
you might be in to something
dalyons wrote 13 hours 11 min ago:
Hrm? They can and are selling to the rest of the world (except NA and
Europe)
stavros wrote 12 hours 22 min ago:
They're selling in Europe, plenty of BYD cars in Greece.
dalyons wrote 11 hours 18 min ago:
Gas or ev? I thought the EVs were tariffed high
embedding-shape wrote 1 hour 38 min ago:
Hybrids and EV, at least in Spain both are quickly becoming
popular, even with tariffs. Probably helps that our government
still gives people ~3K EUR if they go electric.
stavros wrote 10 hours 47 min ago:
EV, it even had a 10k EUR subsidy.
bryanlarsen wrote 10 hours 52 min ago:
Is 17% high?
dalyons wrote 9 hours 40 min ago:
I was under the impression that it was %30+, guess Iâm
wrong
thesmtsolver2 wrote 15 hours 12 min ago:
BYD ranks at the bottom for human rights. But interestingly, BYDâs
proponents seem to brush it away.
HTML [1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/human-rights-ra...
WhereIsTheTruth wrote 2 hours 44 min ago:
Actually, credible ESG ratings like thee ones from Sustainalytics or
MSCI show BYD scoring above average for human rights governance in
the automotive sector, not at the bottom
More importantly, this highlights a pattern of selective scrutiny:
- When Western companies (like Tesla) source batteries from the same
regions (or use batteries from BYD or CATL), human rights concerns
rarely drive mainstream criticism or policy actions
- When industries dominated by Western monopolies (eg: Big Tech's app
stores or cloud services) face human rights allegations (like labor
abuses in global supply chains or censorship complicity)= the
backlash is often muted or just silenced
- But when a non Western competitor like BYD gains traction, human
rights rhetoric suddenly intensifies, even without evidence matching
the severity of claims against established Western companies
It's geopolitically convenient criticism, FUD against what threatens
a western monopolistic ecosystem
cryptoegorophy wrote 9 hours 8 min ago:
Anything that is not Elon Musk is considered to be good
eunos wrote 9 hours 31 min ago:
Never ever I saw people in real life making purchasing decision based
on "human rights"
why-o-why wrote 8 hours 46 min ago:
Hello. I'm one. AMA.
Novosell wrote 1 hour 26 min ago:
What phone do you use? If not a Fairphone, why not?
JumpCrisscross wrote 13 hours 33 min ago:
> BYDâs proponents seem to brush it away
At the end of the day, you arenât going to convince consumers in
Southeast Asia, South America or Africa to buy more-expensive
American or European cars on account of human rights. Not while
theyâre middle-income economies.
culi wrote 13 hours 35 min ago:
> BYD's 2023 Corporate Social Responsibility Report initially lacked
a human rights policy. However, the company later published a 2024
Human Rights Policy Statement.[67] This new policy also shows
enhanced commitment to supply chain due diligence, including
recognition of OECD Guidelines. Despite these improvements, the
policy lacks details on battery material sourcing.
> BYDâs policies do not address gender-responsive due diligence.
BYD states that it engages with stakeholders. However, it does not
provide policies for engaging with communities affected by the
battery supply chain or incorporating their views into
decision-making processes. There is no reference to Indigenous
Peoples or their rights in BYDâs reports.[68] [1] I don't at all
disagree with the importance of these topics and I'm glad to see them
addressed but this entire metric seems to be based on specific
language/terminology in a company's public commitments. And this
terminology seems to be biased towards a western audience. For
example, the United States (a settler-colonial nation) is ofc going
to have more discourse around the rights of indigenous people.
Whereas the term "indigenous" isn't used very much at all in China.
I also feel like you've buried the lead here. Yes BYD ranks the
lowest of the 13 brands they looked at but not by much and they also
explicitly state that ALL of the brands they looked at failed to meet
their minimum baselines. The report is more of a critique of the
industry as a whole than any individual actor
HTML [1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ACT30/8544/2024/en/
rapidfl wrote 13 hours 38 min ago:
Like many sibling comments, many companies are on a range that is on
the bad side. There is a part of EV supply chain that is particularly
bad and that is for all companies.
But what about the environmental costs that are being externalized?
EV car production is likely worse or equal to ICE car production at
each step. And the only arg seems to be that some day all EVs will be
powered by solar/clean energy somehow.
rapidfl wrote 11 hours 22 min ago:
> EV car production is likely worse or equal to ICE car production
at each step
Does anyone feel otherwise? Is the net carbon and environmental
footprint really lower over the entire lifecycle per car for an EV?
Not today
AlotOfReading wrote 9 hours 42 min ago:
You're severely misinformed if you think the cradle-to-grave
footprint of BEVs is higher than ICEs today. Feel free to pick
the study of your choice. They're pretty unanimous at this point
and the comparison isn't particularly close. Here's a
particularly comprehensive study from Argonne:
HTML [1]: https://greet.anl.gov/publication-c2g_lca_us_ldv
skinnymuch wrote 13 hours 41 min ago:
That report is basically made up. Why would non western companies be
âtransparentâ with western organizations? A lot of it is self
reports.
This is like looking at the freedom indexes and concluding that in
the US women have the freedom to walk safely at night in cities
because it ranks high on western freedom orgs but not in actually
safe places like China.
blell wrote 13 hours 54 min ago:
Are BYD proponents allowed to say that this doesnât matter much to
them, or are they expected to measure themselves by your political
views because they are the only correct ones?
newsclues wrote 13 hours 49 min ago:
Shouldnât human rights factor into consumers choices?
blell wrote 13 hours 19 min ago:
I donât think anything in particular âshouldâ factor into
everybodyâs choices. Some are sensitive to price, some are
sensitive to design, others to autonomy, others to speed, and
then, yes, some will buy depending on human rights records.
monerozcash wrote 14 hours 30 min ago:
>But interestingly, BYDâs proponents seem to brush it away.
This feels like a rather lazy strawman to debate against. Not sure
there's anything interesting about it.
simianparrot wrote 14 hours 41 min ago:
"But Tesla bad so BYD is a necessary evil" seems to be a common
sentiment.
liotier wrote 13 hours 43 min ago:
The European Union can't fight everyone at once - we need partners,
hence trying to mend fences with MERCOSUR, toning down the struggle
for human rights in China and tolerating India's authoritarian
drift. For now the utmost priorities are defeating Russia and
achieving actual strategic autonomy by decoupling from the
traitorous USA. So yes, better BYD than Tesla.
simianparrot wrote 5 hours 20 min ago:
As a European (but from Norway, so not entirely beholden to the
unelected EU overlords) how in the _world_ do you get to the
mindset that the _USA_ are traitorous!? How does this happen? Is
it spending so much time online on social media in bubbles where
you get convinced of drivel like this?
tonyhart7 wrote 9 hours 43 min ago:
"decoupling from the traitorous USA"
wow, seems like US must pull from the NATO fast
ulfw wrote 6 hours 29 min ago:
Nobody but the new US is threatening to pull from NATO
tonyhart7 wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
US threatening to pull from NATO because EU didn't even have
proper military readiness
that's why we have russo-ukrainian war right now, if EU is
strong enough to counter russian, that wouldn't happen
okanat wrote 33 min ago:
If Russia wanted to invade Ukraine, it wouldn't matter.
Ukraine isn't NATO.
US was involved in Bosnia and Kuwait. If they pleased they
would be involved in Ukraine. But US got the fascist mind
virus.
It WAS US policy to play the protector role for EU and
other West Aligned nations. Such that they traded with US
and bought weapons from the US. If US pulls out, they will
be replaced by other players in the game.
ulfw wrote 54 min ago:
If my grandma had wheels she'd be a bicycle
g947o wrote 14 hours 51 min ago:
You can pretty much replace BYD with any Chinese company (and to some
extent, almost any company in the world) and the sentence would still
make sense.
So I have mostly lost interest in the argument. Not that it is an
incorrect or irrelevant argument, but none of that has really
mattered.
jgalt212 wrote 13 hours 43 min ago:
> and to some extent, almost any company in the world
This is weak sauce.
skinnymuch wrote 13 hours 40 min ago:
Claiming western companies are better because a western org said
so based on self reports and western reporting is also weak
sauce. âWe investigated ourselves and found we are fine and our
out-group isnâtâ
jgalt212 wrote 11 hours 19 min ago:
china = the west is a false equivalency
thesmtsolver2 wrote 13 hours 55 min ago:
This is the standard ânothing can be done and everyone does itâ
argument when shown that BYD is literally at the bottom of the
pile.
skinnymuch wrote 13 hours 37 min ago:
A western org says out-group companies are at the bottom of the
list of a report that is self reports and âtransparencyâ aka
trusting the companies words. Obviously their in-group companies
will rank higher. Thatâs the entire purpose of the report.
bawolff wrote 14 hours 29 min ago:
Presumably you can't make the statement that almost all companies
are below average on human rights. Mathematically at least half
have to be above average.
tshaddox wrote 14 hours 19 min ago:
Presumably most people also wouldnât be particularly concerned
with what the average is. If all companies have human rights
records ranging from bad to terrible, surely itâs no compliment
to be above average.
bawolff wrote 12 hours 38 min ago:
I disagree. I find the notion that everyone is a little evil
therefore it is ok to be any level of evil, to be morally
repungent.
tshaddox wrote 6 hours 2 min ago:
I would call that notion repugnant. It bares no resemblance
to anything I said.
pixelpoet wrote 10 hours 43 min ago:
repugnant
ginko wrote 14 hours 22 min ago:
Thatâd be the median, not the average.
lotsofpulp wrote 12 hours 33 min ago:
Median/mean/mode/geometric are all types of averages.
eru wrote 10 hours 18 min ago:
The mode isn't any kind of average at all.
yunnpp wrote 11 hours 39 min ago:
Then, mathematically, the original statement makes no sense.
bawolff wrote 12 hours 41 min ago:
Fair point, although i would generally assume that ethical
behaviour of companies is normally distributed.
AceJohnny2 wrote 14 hours 17 min ago:
Torturers Inc, that operates in $country_i_hate & tortures over
10,000 people each day, is an outlier adn should not have been
counted
gloryjulio wrote 14 hours 46 min ago:
This. Most of the Chinese products met the definition of dumping.
They over produce with suppressed wages, currency exchange rate,
and government subsidies. The current generations of Chinese
workers do not benefit from this. To clarify, they have top
products, some are well paid. But the general trend is dumping.
I am curious when will other countries would actually start of
defend their industries properly.
eru wrote 10 hours 16 min ago:
Shouldn't we be writing thank-you notes to the Chinese tax payers
who so graciously subsidies cheap cars for us?
I agree that Chinese workers and tax payers are hurt. But why do
we need to 'defend' anything from their generosity?
tooltalk wrote 7 hours 57 min ago:
>> Shouldn't we be writing thank-you notes to the Chinese tax
payers who so graciously subsidies cheap cars for us?
I'd write a BIG thank you note to the Chinese taxpayers if they
could send a direct cash payment instead, so I can use it
towards my next EV purchase (of my own choosing).
Otherwise, I prefer not to participate in China's predatory
pricing tactic enabled by illegal export subsidies to undermine
foreign competitors and distort global market.
eru wrote 4 hours 35 min ago:
I'm fairly sure the subsidies are perfectly legal by local
laws.
In any case, feel free not to buy goods you don't like. No
one is forcing you to buy, or are they?
concinds wrote 13 hours 59 min ago:
Industry talking points, meant to convince you to subsidize them.
Retric wrote 13 hours 54 min ago:
You donât need to subsidize domestic companies to adjust for
currency exchange rate manipulation.
The government could for example impose a tariff that covers
half the difference thus maintaining an unfair advantage for
Chinese companies. Thus profiting from the manipulation
without placing excessive burden on domestic companies.
rapidfl wrote 12 hours 38 min ago:
Agree subsidies does not seem like the correct incentive
structure. But that's what the other guy is doing so I guess
that's what we have to do.
In general, can the EV industry survive without government
subsidies? Maybe now it can in the US.
Also not convinced EVs (as they are currently) are vastly
superior to ICE cars. Not accounting for the potential for
ICE cars to vastly improve if there wasn't so much vested
interest. So the whole EV industry seems a bit
unsustainable...
api wrote 10 hours 12 min ago:
As an EV owner, and not even of a top end model (Nissan
Leaf 220mi range model), the last paragraph is nuts.
If you can charge at home itâs like 1/4 the price of
driving on gasoline per mile. Thatâs not counting the
fact that it takes basically zero maintenance other than
tire rotation. I think thereâs some fluids you want to
refresh at 100k miles, but thatâs it.
Compared to a gas car itâs like a free to drive car.
It also drives better. You get used to instant full torque
fast. Even an economy EV like the Leaf feels like driving
an ICE sports car. In some ways itâs better since the
response has no latency. When I drive an ICE car it feels
laggy and mushy. Also seems loud and smelly and
âsteampunkâ.
Recharge time and range are still better for ICE, but
thatâs literally the only advantage. EVs are superior in
every other way: cost to operate, lack of maintenance,
efficiency, acceleration, torque, quiet operation, and so
on.
Iâve read a few analyses that claim that driving an EV is
still better in terms of emissions than an average gas car
even if you get 100% of your power from coal (very few do).
This is because small heat engines suck and because gas
takes tons of energy just to go from oil well to pump. A
big supercritical turbine in a coal plant has much better
thermal efficiency than any car engine, and oil has to be
shipped and refined (very energy intensive) then
post-processed then shipped again and all that counts
against the overall efficiency.
EVs are just better. If the charge and range gap can close,
ICE is obsolete for all but niche uses.
Retric wrote 12 hours 13 min ago:
For almost everyone with home charging, EVâs are a
substantial win even without subsidies. Thereâs so many
little wins like being able to turn the car on to warm up
in a garage without filling it with exhaust. Thatâs a
long way from every driver, but the EV industry doesnât
need to make up every car sale to survive just fine.
ICE cars canât get vastly better they are simply too
close to fundamental limits. Itâs quickly becoming a
competition between hybrids and EVâs.
rapidfl wrote 11 hours 24 min ago:
That's my point about ICE not innovating enough. And of
course hybrid would be one of the innovations. Also it
should have more electronic luxuries and connectivity to
match the newly designed EVs. Hybrids would carry a
bigger battery that can pre warm without engine running.
ICE itself is close to fundamental limits. But iiuc other
parts like frames and chasis are not, like they could be
lighter and stronger.
ICE cars have bigger mileage than equivalent EVs? Meaning
you fill gas once every few weeks in 5 mins.
> EVâs are a substantial win even without subsidies
Why are they subsidized then? It is somehow better than
no subsidies from the company's viewpoint.
Retric wrote 11 hours 10 min ago:
> Meaning you fill gas once every few weeks in 5 mins.
Home charging supplies more energy with less cost and
effort. Itâs physically impossible for ICE cars to
win here as I will park at home and stay at home for a
while, I donât need to go to a gas station and then
stand around for a few minutes.
> Why are they subsidized then?
Initially it was all about helping the technology
become competitive, which it has.
As to why itâs a good idea, ICE cars have negative
externalities due to tailpipe emissions. Much like
cigarettes burning stuff = public health hazard.
Mandatory catalytic converters help, but as I benefit
when you buy an EV instead of a ICE car I donât mind
chipping in for some of the cost of an EV.
The alternative of simply taxing ICE engines or gas etc
would be equally effective tool, just harder to pass
politically.
rapidfl wrote 6 hours 59 min ago:
The negative externality of EV car manufacturing
seems net worse (today) per car. Harsher chemicals,
more mining, more processing, lesser life of a car
and battery, less mature tech so more wastage, etc.
Tesla might be responsible but almost all other EVs
are likely externalizing a lot in their supply chain.
Anyway according to Gemini:
```
In the U.S., a typical EV becomes "cleaner" than a
gas car after about 15,000 to 20,000 miles (roughly
1.5 to 2 years of driving).
If your primary concern is climate change, the EV is
the clear winner after about 1.5 years. If your
concern is local land/human rights impact, the EV has
a heavier "upfront" cost that requires better
regulation to solve.
```
EV is the way to go but is it going to scale
sustainably to say 25% or more of all cars?
Apparently yes, with the new battery tech in the
pipeline.
eggnet wrote 13 hours 22 min ago:
I assume you're joking, but this is just sales tax.
Retric wrote 12 hours 45 min ago:
Tariffs are quite different than a sales tax because they
can select winners and losers in a market. Cane sugar vs
sugar beets etc. [1] However, they donât have to be high
enough to change who wins, even small ones adjust how much
foreign subsidies manipulate the market. Foreign
governments should consider how much US corn syrup impacts
domestic consumption for example as a separate issue from
how it impacts domestic sugar production.
Chinaâs currency manipulation has second order effects
that benefits Americans. We donât necessarily want China
to stop, instead the goal should be to minimize the harm
while extracting maximum benefits. A small tariff that
caused them to double down on currency manipulation would
be a massive win.
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_beet
StopDisinfo910 wrote 14 hours 36 min ago:
> They over produce with suppressed wages, currency exchange
rate, and government subsidies
I mean, so does Germany.
Technically, the USA only has the massive subsidies part since
the IRA came to be but they also have tariffs so, not doing too
bad distortion-wise.
At this point in time, pretty much everyone is already defending
their industries. China is just playing its cards better than the
others and with a head start when it comes to EV.
tooltalk wrote 7 hours 8 min ago:
>> I mean, so does Germany.
How does German gov't subsidize their automakers' overcapacity?
Their EV subsidies aren't/weren't exclusive to domestic EVs or
EVs using certain domestic part. No issue with subsidies that
are equally available to all eligible producers, domestic or
foreign.
This is unlike in China where market access and EV subsidies
were conditioned on forced tech transfer since 2011 -- for
which China was litigated before the WTO (see WT/DS549 China -
Certain Measures on the Transfer of Technology). Or worse,
conditioned on using local batteries made by local battery
"champions," CATL/BYD/etc only to funnel all NEV subsidies back
to the local battery industry and undermine foreign
competitors. In other word, no NEV subsidies to any EV with
foreign batteries to protect local "champions." This practice
is also illegal under Article 3(b) "Prohibition" of the WTO's
Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) Agreement.
>> Technically, the USA only has the massive subsidies part
since the ...
Biden's IRA subsidy ended in September. And let's realistic,
the IRA was a weak and short counter measure against China's
illegal practices past 15 yeras.
ericmay wrote 14 hours 18 min ago:
Tariffs arenât the same thing as suppressing wages,
overproduction, government subsidies, and managed currency to
prevent deflation.
In the case of the US with respect to China they are mostly a
retaliation to the above anti-competitive practices.
But I hear you on who is playing their cards better. I donât
think China is playing theirs very well. They pissed off both
the US and EU, and even Mexico is enacting tariffs on Chinese
products. American and European countries are taking action to
stop Chinese anti-competitive practices. Nice factories you
have there, too bad thereâs nobody to sell those products to.
I also donât know what you mean when you say for example the
US and Germany are suppressing wages. Iâm interested in what
you mean by that specifically.
eru wrote 10 hours 15 min ago:
What is 'overproduction'?
ericmay wrote 9 hours 20 min ago:
It depends, but in the case of China itâs producing Temu
stuff (electronics that fail immediately, t-shirts that
dissolve when washed, &c.) because they need to 1. Run
other companies outside of China out of business, 2. Keep
people employed even if what they produce is worth less
than their labor and energy/materials input.
eru wrote 9 hours 10 min ago:
People seem to like Temu stuff and want to buy it.
> 1. Run other companies outside of China out of business
Why?
> 2. Keep people employed even if what they produce is
worth less than their labor and energy/materials input.
Why don't they have them do something with positive
utility, like sweeping streets or providing elder care,
or a myriad of other jobs?
nutjob2 wrote 15 hours 3 min ago:
Why focus on BYD, China as a whole is effectively a totalitarian
state that locks up millions because of their ethnicity and
disappears or executes people who disagree with the government. They
are also territoriality aggressive and routinely use trade as a
weapon to pushing states that stand up to it.
Buying anything from China is supporting that regime.
ulfw wrote 6 hours 36 min ago:
No wonder you are called nutjob as every single thing you wrote can
be said about today's USA.
Hello Greenland. Hello tariffs. Hello humongous incarceration rate
of millions of people, particularly of one ethnicity.
threethirtytwo wrote 14 hours 17 min ago:
Your description of China as authoritarian and repressive is
largely accurate, but the conclusion you draw from it is far too
binary and ignores major parts of reality on both sides.
Chinaâs system has produced outcomes the US cannot come close to
matching. In a few decades it lifted hundreds of millions of people
out of extreme poverty. It built nationwide high speed rail, dense
urban transit, modern housing, and large scale infrastructure at a
speed the US has not achieved since the mid 20th century. Many
Chinese cities are cleaner, more connected, and more functional
than American ones. Long term planning, industrial policy, and
state coordination have delivered tangible improvements in daily
life for a huge share of the population. Those are not propaganda
achievements. They are measurable.
Chinaâs downsides are also real. Political dissent is not
protected. Surveillance is pervasive. Ethnic repression, especially
in Xinjiang, is severe. There is no internal mechanism to safely
challenge the regime when it abuses power. Prosperity is
conditional on alignment. When the state decides someone or some
group is a problem, there is no lawful way to resist.
Now look honestly at the US. The US has political freedoms China
does not. Speech, courts, elections, civil society, and the ability
to oppose the state without being erased are real advantages. That
matters enormously. But the US also has a long record of extreme
violence and moral failure. It slaughtered millions abroad in wars
like Vietnam and Iraq, often based on lies. It overthrew
governments, backed death squads, enforced sanctions that killed
civilians, and built a mass incarceration system that destroyed
entire communities. At home, it tolerates deep inequality, decaying
infrastructure, and political paralysis. It cannot build basic
transit or housing at scale, and millions live worse materially
than citizens of far poorer countries.
So if the standard is âthis regime has blood on its hands,â
then the US fails that test as well. If the standard is âthis
regime produces good outcomes for its people,â China clearly
succeeds in ways the US does not. If the standard is âthis regime
allows its citizens to challenge power and correct abuse,â the US
is better.
That is the real comparison. Different systems optimize for
different things and fail in different ways. One is not a moral
fairy tale and the other is not a cartoon villain.
Thatâs why âbuying anything from China is supporting evilâ is
not a serious ethical framework. Global trade does not map cleanly
onto endorsement, and the same logic would implicate participation
in much of the modern world, including the US led order that
produced enormous suffering of its own. A coherent position is to
argue for strategic decoupling or limits on state coupled firms. A
black and white call for regime destruction or moral purity ignores
both Chinaâs real achievements and the USâs very real crimes.
Once you include the full ledger, the issue is not good versus
evil. Itâs tradeoffs between flawed systems, not a simple moral
referendum.
oreally wrote 6 hours 40 min ago:
Good argument, it really gives context.
Also it's worth noting throughout history, the incumbent world
power will have clashes with the up and coming power to the
throne. A lot of propaganda will be dispensed from both sides. Be
critical of such information lest you become a useful idiot.
threethirtytwo wrote 14 hours 11 min ago:
Itâs also worth noting that these are largely macroscopic,
state level critiques. For most people living ordinary lives in
China, many of these issues are not directly salient day to day,
just as most Americans do not experience US foreign policy
atrocities, coups, or wars as part of their daily existence.
People judge their country primarily by stability, opportunity,
safety, and whether life is improving, not by a moral audit of
state behavior. Viewing China solely through its worst actions is
no more complete than viewing the US solely through Vietnam,
Iraq, or mass incarceration. Both perspectives flatten lived
reality into ideology, and both miss why citizens of each country
can hold nuanced, even positive, views of systems that are
clearly flawed.
You really owe it to yourself to visit (or if possible live in)
China for a while to see this other perspective.
lm28469 wrote 14 hours 20 min ago:
You missed the part where we chose to move all of our industries to
China to save money, exploitation was always part of the plan, it's
just that people who came up with that genius plan didn't account
for the fact that China would develop and want a part of the cake
too
kakacik wrote 14 hours 48 min ago:
Change BYD with Tesla, China with US and say for an European or
anybody all above is still perfectly true.
CapitalistCartr wrote 14 hours 55 min ago:
I could make a good case for the United States fitting that
description, especially the bits about trade and agression.
refurb wrote 11 hours 22 min ago:
No, you could make a weak case for the US doing that by using
vague definitions and a lot of handwaving.
The Chinese government does this a lot.
echelon wrote 14 hours 46 min ago:
The US is complex antihero type.
While it definitely attacks threats and has perpetrated plenty of
unjust deeds, it also is responsible for the food security of
much of the world. It has lifted more people out of poverty than
any other party. It has brought poor nations to the point of
industrialization.
The US has been a far greater force for good in the world than
evil.
The leadership changes frequently, so it's hard to point to any
single responsible party. It's democratic, so its institutions
are subject to scrutiny. The free press sheds light on corruption
and rule breaking.
Despite changing immigration narratives, the US has been an early
and strong proponent of multiculturalism and welcoming people.
With declining US hegemony, the world is likely to become a much
more dangerous place. We'll see more economic strife, more war,
higher costs, greater tensions.
newyankee wrote 14 hours 29 min ago:
but at least we will have alternative energy sources in Solar,
wind, batteries and probably a Nuclear renaissance which might
reduce the incentives on fight for Oil & Gas even if the fights
move to other resources
eru wrote 10 hours 13 min ago:
China is doing really well in solar. Both domestically and
globally, because they are providing cheap solar panels to
the rest of the world. (Well, apart from those idiots with
tariffs to 'protect' them from green energy.)
echelon wrote 14 hours 19 min ago:
> fights move to other resources
Food (eg. protein, fisheries, etc.), water (eg. dams),
materials (eg. rare earths), land, strategic geography,
trade, labor, security, political upheaval, power struggles,
sectarian violence, terrorism, religion, historical claims,
climate, etc. etc. etc.
Under a single global order, disagreements were normally put
aside to participate in global trade. As we begin to move to
distributed trading blocs and factions, many of these
disagreements will boil over. Parties won't step up to stop
them.
nutjob2 wrote 14 hours 47 min ago:
The inevitable whataboutism.
Firstly it's not relevant to a discussion about China's behavior.
Yes the US under Trump has become increasingly authoritarian, but
besides being not as oppressive as China, the US remains a
democracy and there is a chance to vote bad people out of the
White House and more importantly reverse the direction of the
country.
malshe wrote 18 hours 40 min ago:
I bought BYD stock in 2025 before split in the hope that their market
dominance will translate to great returns. The stock has pretty
consistently traded down since then. Meanwhile Tesla stock soared
purely on the air coming out of Elonâs mouth.
xedeon wrote 1 hour 18 min ago:
> I bought BYD stock in 2025 before split in the hope that their
market dominance will translate to great returns. The stock has
pretty consistently traded down since then. Meanwhile Tesla stock
soared purely on the air coming out of Elonâs mouth.
Interesting take there. Tesla Model Y is the #1 best-selling car
globally in 2025 for the third year.
Meanwhile, your BYD is bleeding from real price wars and demand
slumps. Tesla's valuation? Still baked in autonomy, energy, and AI
upside not just car volume. Calling it "air" while hyping your own
wishful dominance is nothing but peak projection.
boudin wrote 5 min ago:
Toyota RAV4 seems to be the best selling car globally in 2025, not
model y.
Overall tesla models looks dated, quality is not great, ongoing
safety issue with underwhelming responses, competition on the ev
segment is just better on many points now.
dubcanada wrote 26 min ago:
You cannot deny that Tesla has not been selling as well as other EV
manufacturers. You also cannot deny that Tesla has took a heavy
beating internationally.
Tesla valuation is not baked in anything, it's entirely hype about
potential, and has absolutely nothing to do with automation,
robotics, AI, energy. It is largely betting that Elon Musk will do
well, not that Tesla will do well. It might as well just be called
EM.
checker659 wrote 1 hour 11 min ago:
I can't tell if this is satire or serious.
xedeon wrote 45 min ago:
You are clearly clueless about the current state of EVs. I'm
willing to bet you haven't even driven or owned a Tesla or BYD.
So you're uninformed at best.
AlexandrB wrote 31 min ago:
All I know is I'd never buy a Tesla. Having seen them up close,
the quality control is clearly not priority one. Unacceptable
for a vehicle at that price.
cowsandmilk wrote 1 hour 56 min ago:
I like this quote from Dan Wang's 2025 letter:
> Part of the reason that Chinaâs stock market trends sideways is
that everyoneâs profits are competed away. Big Tech might enjoy the
monopolistic success smiled upon by Peter Thiel, coming almost to
genteel agreements not to tread too hard upon each otherâs business
lines. Chinese firms have to fight it out in a rough-and-tumble
environment, expanding all the time into each otherâs core
businesses, taking Jeff âyour margin is my opportunityâ Bezos
with seriousness.
HTML [1]: https://danwang.co/2025-letter/
piyuv wrote 1 hour 40 min ago:
Is that a fancy way of saying âcommunistâ China has real,
authentic capitalism and âcapitalistâ US has monopolies all
over?
torginus wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
Can you even own Chinese stock as a foreigner? I thought Chinese
'stock' was essentially 'IOU's held by a foreign third party who
holds it on your behalf. I would not trust a significant amount of
money to such a scheme.
bytesandbits wrote 4 hours 17 min ago:
I could give you many reasons. I see where you went wrong, here are
some to think about:
- next time don't just look at stock value and volume. Look at
cashflow
- Consider that most investment volume comes from institutional
investors in Wall Street, not in China. Even Chinese investment is
routed through NY, Singapore, UK, etc, with the slight exception of
Hong Kong.
- Consider geopolitics before investing too. Trump really went all-in
in tariffs that basically geofence EV business to american brands.
- The hope for BYD is in EU and UK markets. EU has also been
extremely harsh to welcoming BYD and protectionist of their (German)
auto makers. This hasn't avoided BYD entering the market, but also
has stopped them from shipping en masse. Might change.
- BYD is not a competitor to Tesla. BYD market is the low end market
mostly. For example, what today in EU is Dacia (1st or 2nd best
seller by number of units). Tesla on the other hand is purposely set
up as a mid-high seller. It is too expensive for the cheap segment of
the market (10-20k) and is well below luxury vehicles. Different
market segment, also better margins in that segment.
- Auto industry is cyclical not defensive. In times of economic
uncertainty like today, if you want a solid investment you should
look at defensive not cyclical.
- Generally it is a bad idea for retailers to invest in Chinese HQed
companies due to the complex geopolitics that surrounding the stock.
For example, you have severe limitations in stock market products and
they have tight regulation, unlike the US where you have a
free-market.
- Consider the market of derivatives. Very different market of
futures in China vs the US.
- Tesla is also a self-driving company and robotics company. It would
be better compared to XPENG than to BYD.
- Tesla owns the EV market in North America. Period. This is the
reality today.
- On top of all that yes the stock is hyped up. But you should know
that and invest with that in mind. Being full blown rational in an
irrational market will not work.
chvid wrote 5 hours 55 min ago:
I am a China perma bull and a panda hugger but most of my money is in
the US.
US capital is the completely dominant center of global capital and it
will be so for decades to come. Ultimately this will flip too as
China becomes the global economic center but I am not quite sure what
it will look like and I don't assume the process of capital
allocation will be exactly the same as it is today in the US-system
(there may be more state directed investment, more bank lending,
perhaps less public speculation, or even novel financial structures).
That said - Chinese stocks had a good year in 2025 and are currently
on a run - and there is certainly a lot of value there.
omgwtfbyobbq wrote 7 hours 46 min ago:
My guess is that Tesla is doing better because FSD has improved
significantly over the past few months. Even with that, most of the
recent increase has been them regaining the valuation they lost
earlier this year.
Alconicon wrote 1 hour 9 min ago:
Talking about FSD has increased, nothing more.
There is still the law suite about FSD and the old hardware.
There is still Elon the hitler Musk Oligarch who wielded a
chainsaw.
There were plenty of FSD videos last year and the year before
showing that FSD is working. The question is still, is it working
good enough, and what will be the business of a robotaxi.
The Taxi market overall is not that big, competition is hard and
the most critical thing is peak demand.
In parallel random people believe tesla will wipe out the whole
taxi industry + private cars tomorrow. Ignoring competition and
everything else.
Aaand as an edit: When it finally works, people will tell you "told
you so look at it, FSD works" yeah really? Of course it works but
it was promised from Musk that 2020 all these Teslas will drive
autonomsly. Its 2026
toxic72 wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
Source?
njarboe wrote 8 hours 28 min ago:
BYD does not make most of its revenue on BEVs. It is mostly batteries
and more plugin hybrids than BEVs and they lose money selling BEVs
(less than almost all other electric car makers though). Tesla make
only BEVs and make a profit doing so (the only? large maker to
consistently do so).
thg wrote 2 hours 13 min ago:
Tesla was only profitable the last few quarters due to selling
their carbon credits to other companies. They'd have lost money
otherwise. And since Trump basically did away with that, Tesla is
no longer a profitable company now.
dworks wrote 8 hours 1 min ago:
I believe Tesla's profits are from carbon credits, not vehicle
sales.
LanceJones wrote 7 hours 25 min ago:
They have positive gross margin and net margin. That's not ZEV
credits.
Lerc wrote 8 hours 57 min ago:
One of the things that got him in trouble with the authorities was
publicly stating that he thought Tesla stock is overvalued.
stouset wrote 9 hours 35 min ago:
âThe market can stay irrational longer than you can stay
solvent.â
Also, their market position has already been factored in by market
participants with multiple orders of magnitude greater capital and
access to information about the company than you do. Thats not to say
the market valuation is accurate, but it does mean that you guessing
which way the market has mis-valued the stock is a coin flip.
maxdo wrote 9 hours 54 min ago:
it make sense with geo politics, governments started slowly using
same playbook, banning chinese cars anywere possible because of real
risks of espionage etc.
refurb wrote 11 hours 27 min ago:
Stock prices are forward looking.
You bought BYD after it had been hyped to the moon. Of course the
price doesnât move when it meets sales expectations.
chmod775 wrote 11 hours 20 min ago:
Yeah, and if you have decent eyesight you can look forward even
further to see the bubble popping.
dd36 wrote 12 hours 40 min ago:
Itâs stock manipulation.
ralph84 wrote 13 hours 19 min ago:
Auto manufacturing is low margin and capital intensive. BYD is valued
as an auto manufacturer. Tesla is not.
Even all of that aside, the idea that foreign investors will be
allowed to meaningfully participate in the upside of Chinese
companies is questionable. Every Chinese company is one
recapitalization away from zeroing out the common stock owned by
foreigners. What are they gonna do, sue in Chinese court?
blitzar wrote 2 hours 52 min ago:
> Every Chinese company is one recapitalization away from zeroing
out the common stock owned by foreigners
See TikTok as an example.
dworks wrote 8 hours 4 min ago:
The future of the Chinese economy depends on being able to access
the global capital markets, which means that by extension, its
future depends on foreign investors being demonstrably "allowed to
meaningfully participate in the upside of Chinese companies".
jocaal wrote 7 hours 0 min ago:
Funnily enough, the future of the Chinese economy depends on
being able to access their local market. The chinese people save
too much and aren't buying their own products
tw1984 wrote 4 hours 9 min ago:
> The chinese people save too much and aren't buying their own
products
Nonsense.
Total Retail Sales of Consumer Goods went up 4.6% in the first
11 months of 2025. That is the number with spending on
automobiles excluded. A total of 24 million cars were sold in
China in 2025 with vast majority being Chinese brands. If 24
million car purchases a year is "aren't buying their own
products", then car industry doesn't exist in the US.
dworks wrote 6 hours 51 min ago:
You are right that getting Chinese households to invest in the
domestic (Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hong Kong) stock market is also a
key goal that they're rolling out incentives for.
nonethewiser wrote 8 hours 27 min ago:
Isn't BYD a VIE? Most "internet" (ie tech) companies in China
cannot legally be owned by foreigners. And what you get is some
proxy based in the Cayman Islands that is circumventing Chinese
law. Not something I'd touch with a ten foot pole.
dworks wrote 8 hours 2 min ago:
The VIE structure has been officially ratified by the highest
levels of regulators in China. It does not circumvent Chinese
law.
jhancock wrote 10 hours 40 min ago:
> What are they gonna do, sue in Chinese court?
If your hypothetical happens, yes.
China has been working hard to turn domestic investment away from
housing. A trustworthy domestic stock market is key.
davidw wrote 10 hours 30 min ago:
And are they making progress? Genuine question, I don't know much
about China.
jhancock wrote 10 hours 6 min ago:
> are they making progress?
* The Shanghai and Hong Kong stock market seems to have
improved regulatory enforcement. I have no way of measuring
this...just stories from others.
* Over the past 10 years the China gov pressed on with building
more housing in part to dilute value. Each year they have
warned that houses are for living, not speculation. Last year,
they dumped a huge amount of cheap lending into the market to
provide movement...warning this is the last step...a month ago
the 2026 gov priorities list removed protecting the housing
market...first time in modern history. Expectation is the next
two years will see realized losses in property. It would be a
huge mistake if the gov hasn't ensured regulatory enforcement
of other segments have not reached maturity for the retail
investor. We'll see...
* As for civil courts, over the past 20 years I've run into
quite a few stories from friends and business colleagues that
needed to go to China court. The stories are similar to what
you may hear in the US. No one suggested the court/process
itself was dodgy/unfair.
formerly_proven wrote 18 min ago:
> Each year they have warned that houses are for living, not
speculation. Last year, they dumped a huge amount of cheap
lending into the market to provide movement...warning this is
the last step...a month ago the 2026 gov priorities list
removed protecting the housing market...first time in modern
history.
Perhaps one of a few genuinely positive policies which only
China can do. Meanwhile western countries will rather stab
their economies to death than accept even just stagnating
real estate prices.
chii wrote 9 hours 18 min ago:
> No one suggested the court/process itself was dodgy/unfair.
for civil disputes, i am sure they are.
For disputes between the gov't and you, i highly doubt it. Is
there a single instance of the gov't being sued for a policy
that was meant to be political in nature affecting the
supplicant?
Even someone like jack ma is unable to use the courts to
obtain any justice - his Ant Financials IPO was shut down for
political reasons, and he was reeducated. There's no such
thing as due process in china.
amrocha wrote 4 hours 18 min ago:
This is such a myopic comment to me.
Name me a single country where a rich person goes against
the government and wins? You just donât see it happen
much in the US because the government is run by rich
capitalists, but pretty much every country is the same.
exceptione wrote 52 min ago:
It happens all the time here. Wealth isn't even a
precondition, but indeed, one needs time and/or money.
It helps being organized with other people to share the
burden. Over here we have also got the ombudsman.
It is a matter of degrees. The harder it is for a poor
individual to be done justice against the government, the
weaker the rule of law. On a tangent, parties that play
the horn about "law and order" usually mean "rules for
thee but not for me".
Symbiote wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
Private companies have won against governments in ISDS
courts:
HTML [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/mar...
amrocha wrote 3 hours 2 min ago:
I would say thatâs an extension of the idea that rich
people run the US government, which runs global
organizations such as the world bank, which runs these
ISDS courts.
China is just big enough to be able to ignore these
global orgs.
exceptione wrote 41 min ago:
Now try to win a case against the interests or
connections of a high ranking official in China.
"Law and order" is not equal to "the rule of law".
Both China and the US ascribe to the idea of "might
makes right", which is in essence an organized form
of lawless state. It is conceptually the same as in
criminal gangs, only with vastly better optics. That
is why anyone not in power should strive for a
rules-based order, for their own best interest at
least.
aeonfox wrote 11 hours 24 min ago:
> Every Chinese company is one recapitalization away from zeroing
out the common stock owned by foreigners.
But in practice, wouldn't such an event on X large Chinese company
have a cascade effect on stock values of all other Chinese
companies?
eru wrote 10 hours 31 min ago:
Maybe, but China might not care too much.
They have precedence for cutting down their tech giants and their
tuition industry recently.
toomuchtodo wrote 13 hours 15 min ago:
For quite some time, Warren Buffett was a BYD investor via
Berkshire Hathaway. If you tried to get into EV stocks after the
Tesla exuberance started, you were already mostly too late.
> The filing by Berkshireâs energy subsidiary recorded the value
of its BYD investment as zero as of the end of March, down from
$415 million at the end of 2024.
> Buffettâs company began investing in Shenzhen-based BYD in
2008, when it paid $230 million for about 225 million shares,
equivalent to a 10% stake at the time.
> It began selling those shares in 2022 after BYDâs share price
had risen more than twentyfold.
Warren Buffettâs fund exits BYD after a 17-year investment that
grew over 20-fold in value - [1] - September 22nd, 2025
HTML [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/22/investing/warren-buffet-ber...
profsummergig wrote 12 hours 35 min ago:
This is fascinating, because from what I've heard, Warren Buffett
did not favor tech stocks. Does anyone know what gave Buffett the
faith that this company was a real deal?
rswail wrote 15 min ago:
I remember vaguely an interview about it and he said he could
understand the business and what was driving the industry and
the technology.
I think he said something about equivalent of selling shovels
to miners in a boom, that PV was going to need storage etc.
epolanski wrote 4 hours 19 min ago:
I think this was mostly a Munger pet investment, he had an
extremely high opinion about the CEO and could see he was
delivering on his goals one after another.
PlanksVariable wrote 8 hours 8 min ago:
It's a car and battery company, isn't it? Framing it as a tech
company is a bit weird, but I guess Tesla did the same.
Buffett didn't love automobile stocks either, but Berkshire
Hathaway held General Motors from 2012 to 2023.
csomar wrote 8 hours 55 min ago:
Munger believed in the founder from the very early days before
it was a car company.
drited wrote 9 hours 14 min ago:
Yes the circumstances are well known. Li Liu convinced Munger
and Munger talked to Buffett.
holmesch wrote 11 hours 46 min ago:
It was Charlie Munger who became enthusiastic about BYD after
learning about it from investor Li Lu, leading him to convince
Buffett to make Berkshire Hathaway's $230 million investment in
2008.
jimbokun wrote 12 hours 17 min ago:
Maybe he was more afraid of software dominated stocks?
BYD is at heart an automobile manufacturer and so maybe he felt
more confident evaluating it using his normal tools.
dalyons wrote 12 hours 32 min ago:
They âjustâ were a battery company then. Is that considered
tech?
Seattle3503 wrote 12 hours 43 min ago:
That investment predates Xi Jinping's leadership.
viktorcode wrote 13 hours 22 min ago:
For the major part BYD sales performance is dependent on government
subsidies in the country where they sell three quarters of all the
cars they produce. That is a high risk factor investors don't like.
dworks wrote 8 hours 0 min ago:
Can you provide a source for the government subsidies you say BYD
is dependent on?
viktorcode wrote 5 hours 26 min ago:
Here's the recent news on that:
HTML [1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ch...
tw1984 wrote 4 hours 5 min ago:
nice article. excellent proof that the whole industry is indeed
driven by market force and profitability.
> "11 out of 17 listed Chinese automakers were profitable."
> "93 of 169 automakers operating in China have market shares
below 0.1%."
mullingitover wrote 13 hours 52 min ago:
In the combination Keynesian Beauty Contest[1] and casino that passes
for an equity market in the US, everyone knows that Tesla is ugly as
hell, but everyone also knows that everyone knows that it will get
votes, so the show goes on.
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest
idiotsecant wrote 10 hours 4 min ago:
Only works until it doesn't.
dandanua wrote 3 hours 32 min ago:
Or until they have enough power and influence to hack the
government so the money flow will never end
eru wrote 10 hours 30 min ago:
What do you mean by 'everyone'? Tesla usually has quite a bit of
short interest.
paxys wrote 14 hours 15 min ago:
The Chinese economy isn't set up to endlessly create value for the
capital-owning class, so you are never going to profit off of Chinese
companies and stocks in the way we are used to in the west.
lossolo wrote 14 hours 17 min ago:
Chinese stock market is very different than US. In US you have like
62% of Americans reporting owning stock (including via mutual
funds/retirement accounts) and in China, it's single digits
participation.
And China's market is famously retail heavy one, there were some
studies showing that Shanghai Stock Exchange retail trading is 80%+
of volume vs ~10% in the US.
There is less hype and they are also not affected as much as US if
stock goes down or stays flat.
seanmcdirmid wrote 14 hours 12 min ago:
The Shanghai stock exchange is still too heavy on insider trading,
and consumer investors feel it is more like gambling than
investing. Like, you could wager some money on a mahjong game, or
you could blindly pick a stock and hope you can get some money by
riding in the wake of a connected insider trader.
If you just want to invest money, there is real estate or investing
in a family memberâs business. Pensions and other institutions in
need of safe (in aggregate) investments wonât go near the SSE
yet.
China is doing more things right but still has a long way to go on
other things.
eru wrote 10 hours 24 min ago:
> The Shanghai stock exchange is still too heavy on insider
trading, [...]
What does that mean?
Insider trading is good for the function of the market: it makes
sure information is reflected in prices sooner, benefiting the
general public.
> Like, you could wager some money on a mahjong game, or you
could blindly pick a stock and hope you can get some money by
riding in the wake of a connected insider trader.
If you are a clueless retail investor, buy a low cost index fund.
Why would you be picking stocks?
idiotsecant wrote 9 hours 59 min ago:
That's a spicy meatball. And also very stupid, but I admire the
lack of foresight it takes to advocate for insider trading.
What's your next hot take? Can i suggest 'Epstein did nothing
wrong'?
eru wrote 9 hours 7 min ago:
Insider trading is already perfectly legal (by US law), if
you do it with consent of your company. So the rules are not
about protecting the public at all.
In any case, I'm not making some innovative new argument or
hot take. This is pretty standard, orthodox academic stuff.
See eg [1] What's an Epstein? Is that some other company you
don't like?
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#Argume...
seanmcdirmid wrote 9 hours 2 min ago:
That isnât true at all. You need to take your insider
trading again (every bigcorp makes you do it) and learn
what insider trading actually is, and why it is illegal,
and why youâll probably get caught. Iâve heard too many
sad stories where immigrants from a country with looser
laws came to the USA for very high paying tech jobs, and
throw them away for just $100k of insider trading gains.
eru wrote 8 hours 46 min ago:
The company is allowed to trade on their insider
information. That's perfectly normal and legal.
When Warren Buffett decides that he wants to buy stock in
a company, he knows that if this became public, the
target company's stock would go up. Nevertheless, he's
allowed to trade on this insider information (about
himself!) without informing the general public first.
> You need to take your insider trading again (every
bigcorp makes you do it) and learn what insider trading
actually is, and why it is illegal, and why youâll
probably get caught. Iâve heard too many sad stories
where immigrants from a country with looser laws came to
the USA for very high paying tech jobs, and throw them
away for just $100k of insider trading gains.
That's true but also entirely irrelevant to my point: in
these cases the company does not consent to the employee
using the information. And, yes, that's illegal.
Insider trading law in the US is about breaching
fiduciary duty. If the company consents, there's no
fiduciary duty that was broken. (But the conditions are
more complicated. So let's go with the simpler example
of a company trading on its own secret, insider
information.
It's a fun little legal Gedankenexperiment to craft the
conditions that make what would otherwise be insider
trading legal in the US. But as you suggest, it's not
very relevant in practice, because they all require the
company's consent, which you normally don't get. Matt
Levine sometimes likes to write about these sorts of
things in his 'Money Stuff' newsletter.)
sdwr wrote 8 hours 16 min ago:
Clearly not true. In 2020, the SEC fined Andeavor for
buying back its own stock while negotiating a potential
merger. The duty is to affected shareholders and the
integrity of the market, not the company.
Don't know how you got this from Matt Levine. Isn't his
catchphrase "Everything is securities fraud"?
eru wrote 4 hours 29 min ago:
> Clearly not true. In 2020, the SEC fined Andeavor
for buying back its own stock while negotiating a
potential merger. The duty is to affected
shareholders and the integrity of the market, not the
company.
No, no, you can still construct scenarios where it's
legal. But yes, buybacks are especially heavily
regulated. And yes, you have a fiduciary duty to
shareholders. (But not to the 'integrity of the
market'. There might be some duties and vague laws
there, but it's not a fiduciary duty.)
In any case, what specifically are you referring to
that's "clearly not true" in my comment? I
constructed some examples that deliberately avoid a
company (or an employee of said company) buying their
own stock.
> Don't know how you got this from Matt Levine. Isn't
his catchphrase "Everything is securities fraud"?
He has more than one catch phrase. The relevant one
here is that insider trading in American law is about
misappropriating information and fiduciary duty.
Which he contrasts to French law amongst others,
which is about fairness and a level playing field.
However, regulators in the US often want to spin the
rules to be about fairness, but courts so far mostly
disagree.
One example he brought up was: suppose you work for
Bank X and you take the train in the morning to work.
You overhear an employee of Bank Y talking about
some deal on the phone (and that other guy doesn't
notice you). You have no fiduciary duty to Bank Y.
By French law, you couldn't trade on the information
you gained.
But by American (and UK law, where the example was
from) your fiduciary duty to your employer, Bank X,
might even compel you to use the information to their
advantage. Especially if you were on company time
when you overheard the conversation.
chii wrote 9 hours 11 min ago:
the OP isn't wrong about insider trading - it's just that it
lacked the crucial bit about being _transparent_ about
insider trading.
Current insider trading laws are about _preventing_ it (but
it still happens). This makes it so that insiders who do
trade and get away with it make bank, but this does little to
benefit the over all market information equilibrium.
What needs to make insider trading "good" (instead of bad),
is to make the insider's trades 100% transparent and instant
(instead of the months of SEC filing currently needed before
it becomes public info). Doing this will ensure that
insider's trades immediately gets reflected and
copied/arbitraged against, and will allow the price of a
stock to reflect information not yet released but is acted
upon by insiders.
eru wrote 9 hours 6 min ago:
See also
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading#Argu...
thrwaway55 wrote 9 hours 22 min ago:
Epstein is good for the economy because it ensures
politicians get goods before they would be considered market
ready allowing for policy to be created proactively. /s
NooneAtAll3 wrote 14 hours 22 min ago:
your very mistake was trading stocks at all
stocks and the whole money-as-a-business is US thing - making actual
product is the China thing
thegreatpeter wrote 14 hours 24 min ago:
Purely on the air coming out of Elonâs mouth as well as the 1
million cars sold world wide, 165 successful Falcon 9 launches and 9
million Starlink subscriptions
csto12 wrote 13 hours 25 min ago:
Nice. Now take the car sales out of the vacuum and letâs see how
great sales look year over across the world. Now letâs factor in
how Elonâs government ended subsidies for electric cars. Should I
go on?
sgerenser wrote 14 hours 17 min ago:
SpaceXâs success have no bearing on Tesla. And Teslaâs sales
for the year are down for the second year in a row. Hardly a
logical reason for the stock to go up.
xedeon wrote 52 min ago:
> "Hardly a logical reason for the stock to go up"
Surely this can't be a serious nor a logical statement so I'll
have to assume it's a joke or engagement bait. Here are 3 that I
can think off the top of my head.
1. Robotaxi TAM: Tesla's already running unsupervised Robotaxis
(no safety driver) in Austin tests as of late 2025, with plans to
expand cities in 2026 â that's not vaporware, it's early
scaling of high-margin autonomy.
2. Cross-country FSD milestone? Legit: A Tesla owner just nailed
10,000+ intervention-free miles on FSD v14.2 coast-to-coast in
Dec 2025, including parking and Supercharging â verified via
telemetry. [1] 3. Model Y #1 for 3rd year? Tesla proudly claimed
it in their 2025 recap as of the latest DEC 2025 data.
Stock still up ~11-25% in 2025 despite EV headwinds and ending of
EV credits because the market prices in future upside: autonomy
software margins, energy storage boom, Optimus, and robotaxi
fleets. That's logical valuation, not "no reason."
Dismissing all that while cherry picking doubts is at best
nothing but drivel.
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnLswbNB0SU
cko wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
I think he's implying that SpaceX's success is evidence that Musk
can possibly deliver on the robotaxis and Optimus forecasts, thus
justifying TSLA's multiple. I for one am skeptical.
andrewinardeer wrote 7 hours 56 min ago:
Tesla is more than one person. Plenty of incredibly talented
people at Tesla that is not Elon.
ulfw wrote 6 hours 39 min ago:
Who haven't launched an actual proper real new car in a decade
except for one that failed utterly
tonyhart7 wrote 9 hours 49 min ago:
"Hardly a logical reason for the stock to go up"
I think its because Elon would continue to be CEO of tesla , Elon
is a brand at this point
its well known "brand", Yes there is a lot to hate but you cant
ignore his huge follower
I mean Elon can come to Saudi and Saudi can invest in his company
because they like him, that is just the way it works
eru wrote 10 hours 21 min ago:
You are right that SpaceX is a separate company.
> And Teslaâs sales for the year are down for the second year
in a row. Hardly a logical reason for the stock to go up.
If the market originally expected and priced in an even bigger
decline, the stock would logically go up. Because of all the
possible anticipations stock price movements are hard to
understand, even in retrospect.
newyankee wrote 14 hours 28 min ago:
No AI, self driving hype in BYD
culi wrote 14 hours 2 min ago:
BYD's self-driving is free and much more widely available. Not to
mention it uses LiDAR. I'm not gonna get into whether or not their
God's Eye is better or worse than Tesla's FSD but it's at least
widely acknowledged that they are at least comparable.
Tesla is also not very transparent so it's hard to cite statistics
but a recent study found that Tesla had the highest rate of fatal
accidents of any brand in the US
HTML [1]: https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study
nutjob2 wrote 15 hours 2 min ago:
> Meanwhile Tesla stock soared purely on the air coming out of
Elonâs mouth.
Wrong orifice.
Etheryte wrote 15 hours 10 min ago:
This is the story of nearly every Chinese stock ever. Their market is
very different and even simple intuitions don't carry over.
culi wrote 13 hours 58 min ago:
Anytime China targets an industry we get a situation where
basically every major city has their own brand that they're
backing. There's a lot more competition in China compared to
western markets that tend to be dominated by a few major players.
There's over 100 EV brands in China today, e.g. BYD (Shenzhen), NIO
(Hefei), GAC Aion (Guangzhou), and SAIC (Shanghai)
There's been a lot written about China's "Fiscal Federalism"
HTML [1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014...
seanmcdirmid wrote 3 hours 19 min ago:
Most of those pronounces have greater than 50 million people.
Anhui has 60 million, guangdong has 127 million. Shanghai only
has 26 million people as a city. The federalism exists because
the numbers China is working with are huge. Itâs not some small
podunk town in North Carolina deciding to make cars, itâs a
province on par with that have a populous country. We canât
judge China based on a much smaller scale of US states and
cities.
api wrote 10 hours 42 min ago:
Werenât US industries like this before the huge consolidation
we saw towards the end of the 20th century?
culi wrote 10 hours 8 min ago:
Possibly, I'm not very familiar with the US history. But this
is a recurring pattern in China as well. It's called the
"shakeout phase" and we saw it with bike sharing as well as the
solar industry. Every industrial sector backed it own company
and after a few clear leaders emerged there was a massive
consolidation phase. This is a purposeful effort by China and
is driven by specific policies, increased regulation, and
reduction in cheap financing options. It's essential for them
to minimize subsidization and combat involution or
counterproductive competition. It's also why you should always
ignore articles critical of china's "overcapacity".
Overcapacity is a planned phase of their economic strategy to
capture an industry. And, so far, it's been quite effective
I have no doubt the same will happen with EVs. But that's
another reason to hold off on investing in any specific Chinese
company rn.
next_xibalba wrote 12 hours 22 min ago:
They usually go through a major, government driven consolidation
phase to establish a handful of national champions. I would bet
weâll see the same in EVs. This ensures scale by which they can
dominate the global industry-an explicit target of the CCP.
narrator wrote 13 hours 31 min ago:
How they do financial bailouts by printing their own debt-free
money and having fine-grained control of the banking system is
also something that the west doesn't do.
eru wrote 10 hours 29 min ago:
Chinese cities can't print their own money.
> How they do financial bailouts by printing their own
debt-free money [...]
What do you mean by that?
> [...] and having fine-grained control of the banking system
is also something that the west doesn't do.
Giving bureaucrats even more levers to pick winners badly isn't
a good idea. There's a reason China isn't as rich as the west.
narrator wrote 7 hours 56 min ago:
Non-performing loans of state-owned entities get bought by
asset management companies (AMCs) with AMC liabilities.
People's Bank of China liquifies AMC Liabilities so the banks
keep lending.[1] AMCs often then can't pay because the
state-owned entity isn't able to pay on the loan it bought.
They then get bailed out by the Ministry of Finance, but the
actual source of funds inside the government is difficult to
discern [2]. [1]
HTML [1]: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2024/ap...
HTML [2]: https://newbagehot.yale.edu/docs/china-1999-asset-ma...
dzhiurgis wrote 16 hours 53 min ago:
Chinese stocks donât seem to follow any reality either. BYD is
basically flat over 5 years.
DecoPerson wrote 5 hours 14 min ago:
I know little about stocks, but I've heard China doesn't allow
shorting stocks and many other "advanced" stock
products/instruments. You can buy, sell and trade stocks, and
nothing else. They also audit to ensure stocks are not
oversold/traded (e.g.: selling stock you donât own in the hopes
youâll obtain some in time to fulfil an order).
Maybe that's why they behave differently?
bobthepanda wrote 15 hours 11 min ago:
You could say that about the Chinese stock market in general.
Neither the SSE Composite nor the Hang Seng correlate all that well
with Chinese GDP growth.
bparsons wrote 15 hours 12 min ago:
Chinese companies are optimized to grow and build stuff. US
companies are optimized to deliver returns to shareholders.
bobthepanda wrote 14 hours 59 min ago:
Chinese stocks have historically done poorly due to poor
governance and auditing failures.
Tiktaalik wrote 15 hours 32 min ago:
The explanation that I'm finding more and more compelling is that
this is because there's actual competition in China, whereas in the
west conglomerates have been able to carve up the market into
fiefdoms and feast, with increasing amounts of cash that they can
funnel into dividends and buybacks.
From the NA vehicle POV it doesn't look healthy. Stocks of the
major auto makers have done well this year, while product gets more
and more expensive and limited. Barely seems possible to buy
anything but a F150like anymore.
phatfish wrote 14 hours 14 min ago:
Western corporations optimise for share price. The way to do that
is by pulling strings at the government level to block your
competitors and by getting nice tax breaks; not by having the
best product for the consumer.
China and Chinese companies still want to shake off the "China
means bad quality" image, so they actually want to make a great
product at a good price for the consumer. To-the-moon share price
growth doesn't happen by giving your customers a good deal.
Also the CCP doesn't want corporations forgetting who calls the
shots, so there is some internal pressure keeping things less
"frothy" than Western markets (where most governments are running
scared of the big global corps).
thesmtsolver2 wrote 15 hours 14 min ago:
Outside of EVs and more broadly China rates near the bottom for
market freedom [1] If the broader market is rigged, investors
donât rush in for just one segment.
HTML [1]: https://gfmag.com/data/economic-freedom-by-country/
culi wrote 13 hours 52 min ago:
It's not so much that the broader market is rigged. It's that
every major industrial hub funds its own player: BYD
(Shenzhen), NIO (Hefei), GAC Aion (Guangzhou), SAIC (Shanghai),
etc. It might seem "rigged" to a westerner because it's so
subsidized but China has a LOT of industrial hubs and therefore
a lot of competition.
The US also heavily subsidizes EVs but the subsidies mostly
only go to one company. Just take a look at the mind-boggling
amount of subsidies we've given to Tesla both federally and on
a state-by-state basis. Nevada's almost 2$ billion being the
most blatant
HTML [1]: https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-...
bparsons wrote 15 hours 10 min ago:
Interesting definition of freedom. The top three countries
happen to be the places most permissive to international tax
dodgers.
eru wrote 10 hours 23 min ago:
What do you mean by tax dodgers?
The US allows much more tax dodging than Singapore, for
example. Try not paying your taxes or violating any other
law in Singapore any time, if you want to find out.
Sayrus wrote 14 hours 52 min ago:
> produced by the Heritage Foundation
> Twelve are the factors related to four key aspects of the
economic environment that are graded from 0 to 100 and
averaged to determine a countryâs score: rule of law (and
related sub-categories: property rights, government
integrity, judicial effectiveness); government size
(government spending, tax burden, fiscal health); regulatory
efficiency (business, labor and monetary freedom); open
markets (trade, investment and financial freedom).
Quite the definition they made up.
atvrager wrote 11 hours 15 min ago:
> produced by the Heritage Foundation
why bother to read past that? save yourself some time.
hn_throwaway_99 wrote 18 hours 36 min ago:
"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
But as another comment pointed out, they have tons of debt, and TFA
states that their "revised" target was revised downward, meaning
earlier stock valuations were priced for higher sales.
gtirloni wrote 19 hours 25 min ago:
I see electric/hybrid BYD cars more and more every day. Meanwhile,
US/EU automakers are still struggling to offer anything barely
competitive.
tw1984 wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
> US/EU automakers are still struggling to offer anything barely
competitive.
Imagine yourself being one of the top management guys in one of those
legacy car makers, you've spent your entire life building what you
"earned" in that company...Suddenly the company tells you that you
will be sidelined so more resources that once thought to be under
your control can be allocated to an EV project so you can be further
marginalize in the near future. what will be your reactions? You
offer to help in the project (by building junks with your legacy
understanding on cars) or you do anything possible to sink that
project.
The result is the same - your legacy carmaker company is fxxked.
It is not like just US/EU legacy automakers struggling to offer
anything competitive - Chinese legacy automakers that have been in
the exact same market for decades with direct access to the exact
same supply chain and government subsidies are suffering from the
exact same problem. It is not about regulations, market access or
subsidies. It is just human nature.
dalyons wrote 12 hours 59 min ago:
Legacy automakers EVs are just ICE cars with the engine swapped out.
Whereas BYDs, teslas etc are a ground up rethink, vertically
integrated with battery manufacturing and software.
Classic innovators dilemma - it seems to be almost impossible to
align incentives inside legacy auto to do the necessary revolutionary
change. Every individual and sub group are internally invested and
short term focused on their legacy frames, drivetrains, layouts,
electronics, software and supply chains. Thatâs why you keep
getting offered the same car, but now as a sub par EV. So they will
lose, because they canât adapt.
eunos wrote 9 hours 0 min ago:
BYD at least also started as ICE car makers from acquiring some
bankrupt state owned car makers.
Only from 2019 or 2020 I believe they stopped making ICE.
dalyons wrote 7 hours 57 min ago:
well they were a battery company first. I cant know for sure but
i presume they bought the ice car manufacturing lines always with
the intention of going fully electric over time.
stephen_g wrote 11 hours 2 min ago:
They are getting a lot better in the drivetrain at least, watching
videos of teardowns (like Munroe Live) - a couple of years ago a
lot of the legacy car brands were using OEM motors and inverters
etc. from companies like Bosch, but the newer models are getting a
lot more advanced. Probably Lucid had the nicest motor and
electronics package and everyone seems to have converged on motor
windings a lot like theirs (including Tesla and the legacy brands).
But there is still a lot to be desired in legacy EVs, but generally
at least some of the brands are slowly moving in the right
direction.
dalyons wrote 9 hours 15 min ago:
point taken on the motors. But perhaps drivetrain was the wrong
word for what i was trying to focus on - perhaps "platform" is
closer? As an elaboration - the legacies are still proudly
talking up their upcoming "unified platforms", that allow them to
build models in a single factory and interchange ICE and EV
powertrains in the same model based on demand. Same cars in
everything but drivetrain.
That's the sort of thing that sounds great to a legacy incumbent
(yay think of the reuse!), but inevitably leads to building bad
EVs compared to the new companies who are building reimagined
EV-only platforms from the ground up. Handling, suspension,
range, battery integration, software are always going to be
better in an EV-first design. The incumbents are trying to have
their cake and eat it too - building EVs, but not cannibalizing
their main ICE profits.
So, they will lose. Its their kodak moment.
baby_souffle wrote 7 hours 47 min ago:
> the legacies are still proudly talking up their upcoming
"unified platforms", that allow them to build models in a
single factory and interchange ICE and EV powertrains in the
same model based on demand. Same cars in everything but
drivetrain.
I still remember when ford was _super_ proud of their ability
to push OTAs to their mach-e mustang and lightning. This was in
2020, not 2010 when it would actually have been considered
innovative and cutting-edge.
> So, they will lose. Its their kodak moment.
Agree. It's only a question of how many years the decline is
stretched out over. We'll learn a lot about the long term
viability of US auto over the next 36 months as
slate/teleo/scout start to ship.
rapsey wrote 19 hours 18 min ago:
EU car makers need to confirm to insane EU laws regarding every
little thing.
nutjob2 wrote 14 hours 54 min ago:
> every little thing
ie, killing people and polluting the planet, mostly.
victorbjorklund wrote 18 hours 40 min ago:
Exactly the same rules for BYD, Tesla etc (maybe with the exception
of second hand private import)
monooso wrote 18 hours 59 min ago:
Every car maker selling cars in the EU needs to comply with EU
laws.
That's why Europe is mercifully free of Cybertrucks: they can't
legally operate on roads within the EU, because they don't meet the
safety requirements (one of your "little things").
rasz wrote 13 hours 13 min ago:
There are some cybertrucks in EU, registered using loopholes like
T3b title meant for farming equipment, quads etc
runako wrote 19 hours 17 min ago:
Don't Chinese makers need to conform to the same EU laws when
selling cars in the EU? That's how it works in the US.
raverbashing wrote 19 hours 17 min ago:
BYD selling to Europe would also need to conform to these
TulliusCicero wrote 19 hours 22 min ago:
I know that "laziness" is kind of a generic/useless criticism to
throw at a company or sector, but there really is that vibe for EVs
in the West.
jlarocco wrote 12 hours 55 min ago:
The problem is that few people in "the west" wants EVs.
It's basic supply and demand - the sales are tanking, and without
subsidies nobody will buy them, and the car companies are realizing
that.
A few models (Teslas, for example) do okay with the upper class,
but the lower and middle class can't afford them, don't have
anywhere to charge them, and have to drive too much to depend on
them.
Even in a trendy, wealthy city like Boulder, CO which is all about
saving the environment and going green there isn't nearly enough
charging capacity for everybody to use EVs.
An EV is better than no car at all, but they're a downgrade from an
ICE in most cases.
HDThoreaun wrote 8 hours 0 min ago:
EVs are a superior car if you have a private garage and rarely
take long trips or have multiple cars so you donât need the EV
for trips. Great for suburban living, which is where most
Americans live. Never having to go to the gas station is
legitimately a game changer and itâs worth swapping to EVs for
that alone given you check the 2 boxes. Then you consider the
better torque and lower noise and easier maintenance and itâs a
no brainer.
Boulder is not a great EV town because everyone road trips all
the time. 70% of Americans live east of the Mississippi where
road trips are less common.
Thlom wrote 2 hours 36 min ago:
It's not a problem to drive long distance with a modern EV.
dalyons wrote 9 hours 3 min ago:
Consumers in the US haven't actually been given a chance to show
what they "want". The cheap EVs have been kept out, of course the
$100k ones arent selling that well. Remove the tariffs and
import restrictions, and then people will show you what they
actually want!
> An EV is better than no car at all, but they're a downgrade
from an ICE in most cases.
Totally disagree. ~70% of americans live in single family homes.
If you can charge at home which they can, and you dont have some
edge case super distance driving needs, EV is better in every
way.
brikym wrote 12 hours 3 min ago:
It depends where you live and your driving distances. The US is
the worst case for EVs because of longer driving distances and
cheaper gas. I plug mine in at my own home so I never have to
stop to fill it up a tank which is really nice. A renter might
struggle to find anywhere to charge though. ICE is horrible to
drive in comparison. They are noisy and lack torque and lots of
moving parts need maintenance.
For sparsely populated areas or city to city driving plug-in
hybrids should bridge the gap and allow people do most driving on
electric and get the benefits of EV performance.
cyberax wrote 12 hours 5 min ago:
The "west" doesn't want expensive EVs. The most popular (or the
second most popular) EV in China now costs $5000 for the base
model. And for $15k you can get a very reasonable car.
Beefing it up to the US/EU safety standards and even accounting
for higher labor cost, it would be around $20k. I'm pretty sure
consumers would be quite interested in something like this.
smallmancontrov wrote 14 hours 4 min ago:
Triffin Dilemma, not laziness. This is a macroeconomic problem.
sudosysgen wrote 7 hours 33 min ago:
That's only for the US, not the West writ large.
ZeroGravitas wrote 18 hours 26 min ago:
Not angering the oligarchs who profit from oil appears to be the
root cause.
This then flows downstream to inconsistent and patchwork
government support for the transition to EVs.
The short term incentives aren't all properly aligned for car
makers to fully commit to build EVs and support the supply chain to
do that.
Tiktaalik wrote 15 hours 15 min ago:
Decades from now we're going to look at the oil patch lobbyists
as the villains that killed countless jobs in NA and enabled
China to take over whole industries.
You had some politicians like Justin Trudeau that tried to create
a frame work that would guide and advantage capital toward
investing in innovative green technology and future jobs, but
then politicians saw the advantage in politicizing and opposing
everything and they tore this all down.
Now China has continued to move ahead meanwhile NA remains at
square one with increasingly backward technology, with no
incentive to change.
It's going to get really bad!
raverbashing wrote 19 hours 17 min ago:
I really wonder what are the parts where BYD gets its
competitiveness from vs where it might be behind
Software explains a lot, dumping explains some of it but it might
not be all of it
tonfa wrote 14 hours 15 min ago:
Isn't China at the forefront of battery technology (and BYD was
initially a battery company).
timbit42 wrote 14 hours 30 min ago:
Japanese engineers disassembled a BYD vehicle said BYD's E-Axle
drive system was so advanced it would take them 10 years to
replicate it. BYD's blade batteries are also a major competitive
advantage.
asa400 wrote 19 hours 27 min ago:
It's like the 1970s all over again with how the US Big 3 makers are
facing an existential threat held at bay only by protectionism. They're
going to have to learn to compete yet again.
energy123 wrote 11 hours 5 min ago:
You can't compete if you have minimum wage and immigration
restrictions. The labor market is far too costly compared to what
Chinese companies have access to.
jillesvangurp wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
Like BYD, there's nothing stopping GM, Ford, and other
manufacturers from opening factories anywhere in the world and
employing the locals at a discount. They certainly did that in the
past. But that's not leveling the playing field because their
products are simply lacking. Too expensive to make, too
inefficient. That's fixable but it would require investment and
right now the US car manufacturers seem to want to invest less
instead of more. It's hard to see how they would catch up. Ford is
currently doing the pragmatic thing which is partnering with other
companies to produce cars for the international market. VW and
Renault in the EU, various Chinese manufacturers in China. US
models are a non starter for those markets.
The Chinese are actually investing heavily in robotics and
automation. They rely a lot less on cheap labor than you seem to
assume. And their production is going global as well they are
building manufacturing plants on most continents. They are opening
plants in Europe and South America. BYD factories are state of the
art.
asa400 wrote 9 hours 24 min ago:
Germany would have something to say about that.
Mountain_Skies wrote 10 hours 2 min ago:
Where is China importing labor from?
pm90 wrote 19 hours 19 min ago:
Did they ever learn to compete then? The only thing that protected
them then was that Japan was a US âallyâ and could be
âpersuadedâ to go along with protectionism. China has no such
need.
I would argue that the 70s were a trial run for whats happening today
but instead of becoming more competitive the automakers focused on
lobbying for Government help; a playbook that wonât help them
today.
And even more stupidly, traditional American carmarkers are
discontinuing EV models and shutting down factories JUST when they
finally had an edge over their japanese competitors.
KeplerBoy wrote 3 hours 11 min ago:
what makes you think that playbook won't work this time?
There are no BYDs on US streets anytime soon.
Really there are no US made cars anywhere but the US, it's a
totally isolated market with some minor imports from european
luxury brands.
englishspot wrote 14 hours 52 min ago:
ford in particular seems to only ever give up on everything. they
couldn't compete on compacts, so they killed the focus and fiesta.
they couldn't compete on EVs, so they killed those too. next thing
you know toyota will start carving away at the F-150's market share
and they'll kill that, too.
eunos wrote 8 hours 56 min ago:
Probably not the correct way to see it, but compared to new car
makers like Tesla, BYD, Xpeng and so on, Ford seems not doing
anything. The formers invest heavily on softwares, robots (in
house or funding external cos), ADAS, remote sensing etc. I don't
see giant legacies doing the same.
moogly wrote 4 hours 28 min ago:
Ford's only move seems to be to form "skunkworks" teams, like
the one that produced the Mach-E (not a bad car), and they
started another one recently. But if the output of that is a
single model and not the entire future platform direction, it
seems like the wrong approach to me and it's more highlighting
a symptom of the majority of the company being rotten.
asa400 wrote 18 hours 36 min ago:
> Did they ever learn to compete then? The only thing that
protected them then was that Japan was a US âallyâ and could be
âpersuadedâ to go along with protectionism. China has no such
need.
Oh, indeed. I was attempting to be generous, but it's arguable
whether they deserve that generosity.
> I would argue that the 70s were a trial run for whats happening
today but instead of becoming more competitive the automakers
focused on lobbying for Government help; a playbook that wonât
help them today.
We're still paying for this today with the so-called "Chicken Tax"
(and all of the other crash and emissions regulations) that has
deprived us so many good Japanese trucks over the years.
Recurecur wrote 19 hours 0 min ago:
Outside the purely electric vehicles (where I believe Tesla
competes very well, where is BYD at with FSD?), is there a Chinese
equivalent to:
- The upcoming EREV (mostly electric extended range hybrid) F-150
truck? This is expected to have ~700 mile range, and of course no
charging hassles. Itâs main advantage over the now defunct
Lightning will be towing range.
- The Chevy Corvette Stingray? Say what you want, but the high end
ICE sports cars have an appeal of their ownâ¦
I believe the USA still has an edge in some areas of the market.
manquer wrote 13 hours 52 min ago:
> BYD at with FSD?
Setting aside the performances of similar systems, the more
fundamental question is why is this even important to Chinese
carmakers?
1. They are shutout of the U.S. market with tariffs from both
parties, that doesn't seem likely to change.
2. Self driving systems are far more difficult to work well on
the roads of Europe, Asia or Africa. The kind of wide roads and
planned development only exists in U.S, Canada or Australia. On
top of it the issues with weather handling are still on-going
problems.
3. Labor is not near as expensive as in the U.S. in the rest of
the world (dollar is expensive) so automation ROI is not as
attractive given the costs.
Thlom wrote 2 hours 27 min ago:
Tesla was a third of the new car market in Norway last year,
but most people buy without the FSD. I don't know anyone that
drives around using FSD as anything other than a gimmick or
glorified lane assist.
yen223 wrote 13 hours 59 min ago:
The BYD Shark, which is a PHEV ute, sold like hotcakes last year
in Australia.
lossolo wrote 14 hours 46 min ago:
> where is BYD at with FSD?
I'm not sure about BYD, but other car makers have FSD that works
like Tesla's FSD, and in some cases it even outperforms it. Here
is a test from a few months ago: [1] > - The Chevy Corvette
Stingray? Say what you want, but the high end ICE sports cars
have an appeal of their ownâ¦
The world is moving to EVs, ICE will mostly be collectors cars in
20 years in developed countries. As to Chinese sports cars Xiaomi
SU7 Ultra: "June 2025, an unmodified SU7 Ultra (with a maximum
1,139 kW (1,527 hp; 1,549 PS) power) lapped the Nürburgring in a
hair under 7 minutes, 5 seconds. It is not only faster than the
fastest Tesla Model S Plaid and Porsche Taycan versions, but also
faster than a Rimac Nevera, one of the most high-end and
expensive electric sportscars."
U9 [2] is a supercar produced by BYD, fastest in the world.
"It achieved a maximum speed of 496.22 km/h (308.33 mph) at
Germanyâs ATP Automotive Testing Papenburg, making it the
fastest car in the world and breaking the record previously held
by the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ at 490.484 km/h (304.773
mph)"
HTML [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuDSz06BT2g
HTML [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangwang_U9
rasz wrote 13 hours 20 min ago:
>I'm not sure about BYD, but other car makers have FSD that
works like Tesla's FSD, and in some cases it even outperforms
it. Here is a test from a few months ago:
This one is imo better comparison [1] [2] Tesla won every
category despite this being a test performed in China by
Chinese outfit.
HTML [1]: https://www.dongchedi.com/video/7530078571931435566
HTML [2]: https://carnewschina.com/2025/07/24/chinas-massive-ada...
lossolo wrote 12 hours 59 min ago:
From what I can see, Tesla did not passed every test
scenario, but it passed most of them (so it won): 5/6 in the
first table (highway test) and 8/9 for the Tesla Model X in
the second table (urban test), the two Chinese cars placed
second and third with one less passed test than Tesla (7/9),
while the Tesla Model 3 passed only 5/9. Interestingly, both
Chinese cars passed the test that Tesla failed. Considering
Tesla has millions more miles of driving data and more years
of development, it seems like it's only a matter of time
(with more data and iteration) before the Chinese cars pass
the rest of remaining tests, which is great because
competition is healthy.
Tiktaalik wrote 15 hours 25 min ago:
> - The upcoming EREV (mostly electric extended range hybrid)
F-150 truck? This is expected to have ~700 mile range, and of
course no charging hassles. Its main advantage over the now
defunct Lightning will be towing range.
Interesting question. Maybe this is the niche where existing auto
makers can thrive though if China automakers have a blind spot to
outdoors enthusiasts where range is more important.
The problem is that no one really needs or wants this outside of
NA, Australia, maybe Russia and Africa? But there is a market.
Range anxiety and towing is a niche problem and companies will
get rich selling the next Toyota Camry/VW Golf for the median
consumer.
EREV is niche on niche and that's sort of where I expect the NA
market to be going under the NA auto makers. We're going to have
this protectionist wall where we have these bizarre (increasingly
ICE dominated) market while the rest of the world moves on.
moogly wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
> Interesting question. Maybe this is the niche where existing
auto makers can thrive though if China automakers have a blind
spot to outdoors enthusiasts where range is more important.
The whole EREV trend actually came from China (and if you look
at reporting from Chinese car shows, outdoorsy/cross country
stuff is all the rage right now). But the EREV sales seem to be
falling off, maybe because the masses have overcome range
anxiety (and the charging networks have been built out).
> EREV sales in China increased 218% year-over-year in 2021,
130% in 2022 and 70.9% in 2023. In other words, growth has been
tapering off for the last few years.[1]:
HTML [1]: https://insideevs.com/news/782978/range-extender-popul...
dalyons wrote 13 hours 27 min ago:
Couldnât agree more. And the niche market will only hold on
because of protectionism. If the US let in the wave of cheap
EVs that are coming, people would buy them - suddenly noone is
going to care about ârange anxietyâ when you can get a 20k
ev that does 300miles.
dzonga wrote 18 hours 21 min ago:
American car manufacturers don't play to their strengths e.g
affordable sports cars - Chevy Corvette Stingray | Mustang GT how
many are sold in foreign markets
the Bronco could make a killing in Africa but is it sold there
NO. I understand here in the states the 4runner has no
competition - yet ford wants to kill it using the Bronco. Why not
use the Bronco to kill the land cruiser in markets where people
default to a Land Cruiser / Fortuner and force Toyota to play
defense.
E.g in Africa certain markets Ford started selling the Ford
Ranger Raptor and they're making a killing - and actually
starting to cause Toyota to compete and not bring their usual
stale cars.
However Chinese have brought their A-game too - Tank 300, BYD
Shark etc
beAbU wrote 15 hours 8 min ago:
There is no way that a land cruiser owner in Africa will ever
consider anything made by Ford. That's like blasphemy. The LC
has decades of proven reliability, that the bronco needs to
compete with.
It's true, the Ranger is immensely popular. But Ranger owners
and LC owners do not see eye to eye and you'll have a tough
time convincing the LC owner to change allegiance.
For South Africa specifically, the Ranger is about as large as
you can go in terms of personal vehicle, before it becomes a
serious hassle. Our infrastructure does not really support
bigger cars. How does the bronco compare with the Ranger size
wise?
Lastly, the Ranger is built in South Africa, I think Ford knows
and understands the Southern African market very well.
dzonga wrote 17 hours 19 min ago:
also American car manufacturers have a good advantage in diesel
engines: Duramax etc
jmyeet wrote 19 hours 28 min ago:
We are seeing the culmination of the 50+ China industrialization
project at the samme time as the West's 50+ year financialization and
deindustrialization project, all to concentrate even more wealth in the
hands of the 0.01%.
China is really the only country capable and willing to build
infrastructure. The ban on selling lithography AND chips to China is
massively backfiring. The chip ban in particular has created a captive
market for Chinese chips. In 1945, American exceptionalists believed
the USSR would take 20+ yars to copy the atomic bomb, if they could do
it at all. It took 4 years. China will do the same thing with EUV in
the coming years.
Tesla is a trillion dollar company that was created entirely by
government subsidies that only continues to exist because of the
tariffs and import bans on BYD in the US and much of Europe.
Additionally, Tesla is completely dependent on Chinese rare earth
exports for its products.
As an example of how China uses state power, a famine in the 20th
century caused China to decide that food security was a national
security interest. The availability of cheap, quality food is viewed as
essential and the state intervenes to ensure that continues. Likewise
for housing.
Western companies seem increasingly focused on the top 10% because the
bottom 90% have nothing left to eextract.
refurb wrote 11 hours 12 min ago:
Iâve never seen a comment so misinformed.
You claim Tesla is created by government subsidies yet ignore the
$230B in subsidies for the Chinese market?
jjcc wrote 13 hours 14 min ago:
As you mentioned EUV machine, I happened to read an article from a
former Executive of ZhongXin, a domestic competitor of the famouse
Huawei and also sanctioned by US. He said that China had no insentive
to develop lithography technology including EUV until Trump blocked
the sales of EUV machine in his first term. [1] There are tons of
other cases, like EDA software, etc. It used to be a bilateral
business. Now China become more and more independent of the rest of
the world due to external pressure.
BTW, I've been working and living in the West (more specifically , in
Canada) for almost 30 years but also have access to Chinese language
media. I've been watching a lot of misunderstanding or
misinformation. It's less in recentl years. I have to stay way from
some of the topics to avoid being downvote because misinformation
believers strongly believe I'm wrong for those topics.
HTML [1]: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VCEbmtljCS6jRCLaGxCa1A
kasey_junk wrote 14 hours 39 min ago:
China is a food importer and Chinese housing, especially in the tier
1 cities, is as expensive as anywhere in the world.
modeless wrote 19 hours 14 min ago:
I've never seen a comment simultaneously be so right on some things
and so wrong on others.
> The ban on selling lithography AND chips to China is massively
backfiring
Agreed. We will be screwed once China surpasses us in chip fabs, and
they will. The idea that we can get a "durable advantage" by reaching
AGI a few years before China is ridiculous. Using that to justify
bans that only slow them down a few years at the cost of creating a
chip fab juggernaut later is folly.
> Tesla is a trillion dollar company that was created entirely by
government subsidies that only continues to exist because of the
tariffs
Tesla is not supported by subsidies significantly more than any other
car company and less than many including BYD obviously. They also
compete directly with BYD without tariff protection worldwide and in
China and do well. They are worth a trillion dollars because of the
potential of their self-driving software which is far ahead of any
other car company's including those in China.
> Tesla is completely dependent on Chinese rare earth exports for its
products.
Tesla has rare earth free alternatives. There is no urgent need for
them right now but they can switch if necessary.
jmyeet wrote 18 hours 34 min ago:
> Tesla is not supported by subsidies significantly more than any
other car company
Tesla was saved by a DOE loan [1]. Tesla was kept afloat with
carbon tax credits. Yes, the Big Three got bailouts in 2008. And
now, most importantly, import barriers are the only thing keeping
Tesla afloat.
[1]
HTML [1]: https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/573148-dept...
modeless wrote 18 hours 24 min ago:
"Tesla got some subsidies" does not refute my argument. All
carmakers get subsidies. BYD gets tons! And Tesla is selling
plenty of cars in places without import barriers protecting them
including China itself.
Recurecur wrote 18 hours 45 min ago:
> Agreed. We will be screwed once China surpasses us in chip fabs,
and they will. The idea that we can get a "durable advantage" by
reaching AGI a few years before China is ridiculous. Using that to
justify bans that only slow them down a few years at the cost of
creating a chip fab juggernaut later is folly.
Iâm quite sure advanced semiconductor fabs are considered a
strategic necessity by China regardless of restrictions. Further,
China is now getting the H200 chipâ¦
> Tesla has rare earth free alternatives. There is no urgent need
for them right now but they can switch if necessary.
There are also plenty of rare earth extraction projects coming
online outside of China!
object-a wrote 19 hours 46 min ago:
For anyone who has tried cars from both automakers, how does BYD
compare to Tesla on similar trim vehicles?
faizmokh wrote 9 hours 56 min ago:
In my opinion, BYD car looks more premium than Tesla. Reasonably
priced too.
t0mas88 wrote 19 hours 32 min ago:
BYD Sealion 7 is better than a 2025 Model Y Standard and worse than a
Model Y Premium in terms of ride quality/suspension and driving
dynamics.
The interior is more taste dependent, but the Model Y Standard is
clearly a low budget version (with fabric seats) that's below the
BYD. The Model Y Premium interior and seats felt higher quality to
me, but it has a more minimalist design while the BYD has a more
traditional setup with a screen behind the wheel.
The Tesla screen/app seem more responsive and premium. Also above for
example VW where things are often sluggish and don't feel as well
designed from a UX perspective.
object-a wrote 14 hours 14 min ago:
Thank you for answering the question
AnotherGoodName wrote 19 hours 42 min ago:
If you had to pay US/EU prices for a Tesla vs BYD you'd go with BYD
no question. But the majority of Teslas are made in China and when
put a Chinese made Tesla alongside a Chinese made BYD it's a coin
flip.
So as an Australian I'd roughly rate them the same with BYD high end
matching Tesla's high end and BYD having a low end that Tesla doesn't
compete with (the Atto which is ~USD $15000 for a small electric
hatchback has no Tesla equivalent).
zipy124 wrote 18 hours 16 min ago:
Isn't the seagull the cheapest model at like $8k?
dworks wrote 7 hours 55 min ago:
Correct. I believe the cheapest I could buy it for is about
60,000 rmb.
AnotherGoodName wrote 17 hours 58 min ago:
Same car, called the Atto 1 in Australia and with the steering
wheel on the other side and slightly better than base specs in
Australia.
mvdtnz wrote 18 hours 40 min ago:
BYD doesn't sell in USA.
AnotherGoodName wrote 18 hours 19 min ago:
The point is the difficulty of the comparison. They are tariffed
in the EU and NA to the point of near inviability so I donât
see that as a valid comparison. Outside the EU and NA they are
Chinese made cars.
So basically you either compare current NA/EU Teslas to a
hypothetical untariffed BYD (I donât think this is fair) or you
compare Chinese made Teslas to BYDs (which of course leads to
similar prive perf ratios).
SapporoChris wrote 18 hours 28 min ago:
Byd Auto Motor, Inc.
1800 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90015
HTML [1]: https://www.byd.international/city/los-angeles
jlarocco wrote 12 hours 48 min ago:
Leasing a building and having an english section on the website
doesn't mean they're available here yet.
The pricing page shows none available in the USA:
HTML [1]: https://www.byd.international/pricing
linsomniac wrote 18 hours 12 min ago:
Ok, but "where the rubber meets the road", I've seen 0 BYDs in
the wild in the US, including a recent 1,800 mile trip half way
across the country. Earlier in 2025 I took a trip to Scotland
and they had 2 dealerships I saw and I saw a couple of them on
the roads.
padjo wrote 19 hours 52 min ago:
Iâve been hearing about the rise of the Chinese car industry for 20
years, judging by the number of BYDs Iâm now seeing it has finally
happened.
cdmckay wrote 11 hours 4 min ago:
In Lima I would say half the cars I see on the road are Chinese, many
Iâve never heard of. Itâs crazy.
vbezhenar wrote 13 hours 16 min ago:
In my country over last 5 years the majority of new cars now from
China, it happened so swift. I still think that Japan cars are the
best, but it's hard to justify paying 2x and getting inferior (in
terms on features) product, while reviews of new chinese cars are
largely positive.
dalyons wrote 13 hours 12 min ago:
Which country?
vbezhenar wrote 12 hours 57 min ago:
Kazakhstan
dalyons wrote 12 hours 17 min ago:
Interesting thank you. When I was there in 2012 or so I was
surprised to see a huge number of small Daewoo branded cars, a
long extinct brand in the west. Small getabouts seemed very
popular. That was a long time ago I know, but I imagine some of
these cheap Chinese small models are filling that segment now?
rasz wrote 11 hours 33 min ago:
Nearby Uzbekistan was the location of maybe the only
surviving post 2008 Daewoo car factory outside of Korea?
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UzAuto_Motors
dalyons wrote 9 hours 35 min ago:
Hah there you go. Fun little bit of history
renewiltord wrote 14 hours 29 min ago:
If you only travel to North America and Europe youâd never know but
I went to South America and India and the former mostly had Chinese
cars and the latter had big ads for a BYD MPV everywhere in
Bangalore.
So the Chinese car makers are popular outside the West. I drove a
couple of Changan cars and they werenât even as nice as my Subaru
in terms of handling but they functioned well as cars.
stephen_g wrote 12 hours 45 min ago:
They've suddenly all appeared in Australia too - we had BYD for
quite a while and brands like Volvo and Polestar (owned by China's
Geeley), but suddenly we have Leapmotor, Deepal, Omoda Jaecoo and
Geeley themselves (just the ones I can think of, probably others)
having all appeared on our market in literally something like six
months...
aunty_helen wrote 13 hours 27 min ago:
Can confirm. Colombia based, a year ago I had my first Uber trip in
a BYD, now I would guess about 10% of my journeys are Chinese EVs.
It's impressive how fast they've caught up and mostly surpased
their competition. If the Japanese took 20 years, the Koreans 10,
then the Chinese have done it in 5.
phatfish wrote 13 hours 45 min ago:
BYD is very much present in the UK (Telsa still seem the most
common, but BYD are getting close), it must be the same in mainland
Europe unless the EU is blocking them more aggressively. The Ford
dealer down the road from me turned into a BYD service centre in
the last couple of months.
machomaster wrote 12 hours 15 min ago:
> BYD has overtaken Tesla in overall European registrations for
the first time in 2025 (BYD outsold Tesla across EU + EFTA + UK
in several months)
> Across EU+EFTA+UK in October 2025, BYDâs registrations (~17
470) were ~2.5Ã Teslaâs (~6 964), and YTD BYDâs total (~138
390) was closing the gap on Teslaâs (~180 688).
Still not as strong as in other markets. In Finland, BYD is not
even in top10:
- 1. Skoda Enyaq (~1614 units)
â 2. VW ID.4 (~1582)
â 3. Tesla Model Y (~1516)
- Other brands include VW ID.7, Kia EV3, Volvo, Audi, Polestar.
justinhj wrote 18 hours 54 min ago:
They also migrated 100s of millions of mopeds to electric bikes and
shipped new ebikes over the last 10 years. That enormous scale no
doubt fed directly to battery technology and assembly techniques that
help with cars. Many Chinese don't own cars. (That's changing fast).
the_arun wrote 19 hours 31 min ago:
Xiaomi is another maker. I saw a good review on Xiaomi SU7 - [1] by
Marques Brownlee
HTML [1]: https://youtu.be/Mb6H7trzMfI
melling wrote 19 hours 33 min ago:
China is the largest car market in the world. Almost twice as large
as the United States.
culi wrote 13 hours 48 min ago:
China is also over 70% of the world's EV production
dhx wrote 19 hours 53 min ago:
Compare at the same scale:
Vantor Legion-2 image of the BYD plant in Zhengzhou as captured on 18
January 2025: [1] Vantor WorldView-3 image of the Tesla plant in Austin
as captured on 31 January 2024:
HTML [1]: https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/wayback/#mapCenter=113.9361%2C3...
HTML [2]: https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/wayback/#mapCenter=-97.6189%2C3...
pengaru wrote 16 hours 22 min ago:
Uncaught TypeError: this._shaderModuleClass.inputs.findLast is not a
function
toomuchtodo wrote 19 hours 51 min ago:
The size of BYD's factory - [1] - November 2024 (615 comments)
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42228138
aeonfox wrote 11 hours 27 min ago:
No two ways to look at it. Electrification is the inevitable next
step for mobility, and BYD are going to be top dog. It's pretty
obvious why Tesla is 'diversifying'/divesting into robotics, but
Asia has plenty of movers in that space too, not least BYD. SpaceX
is the only moat Elon has left.
toomuchtodo wrote 10 hours 41 min ago:
China is currently performing test flights of reusable launch
vehicles, so SpaceX moat is temporary.
China just carried out its second reusable launch attempt in
three weeks - [1] - December 23rd, 2025
(Long March 12A)
HTML [1]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/12/china-just-carried...
tw1984 wrote 3 hours 52 min ago:
> China is currently performing test flights of reusable launch
vehicles, so SpaceX moat is temporary.
extra fun - China is also spending lots of $$$ on
electromagnetic rocket launch.
China does bet on any particular technical path, it invests on
all possible paths.
AnotherGoodName wrote 20 hours 11 min ago:
I think EU/NA residents are a little naive on how much Chinese cars are
dominating the market. Chinese cars don't sell just in China. They
utterly dominate globally outside of EU/NA where they face extreme
tariffs. To the point where certain cars that you'd say were American
(eg. Tesla) actually make most of their cars in China.
Right now around the world in non EU/NA countries Tesla's a bit on the
nose. All Tesla's in Australia are Chinese made regardless but it's
then a choice of Chinese made Tesla vs Chinese made BYD and the BYDs
are by all reports excellent cars.
PS to Canadians: You could be paying ~50% less for the same car, even
same model to same model by allowing Chinese made cars in and it'd help
you screw over a country that threatened you.
DustinEchoes wrote 19 hours 1 min ago:
> PS to Canadians: You could be paying ~50% less for the same car,
even same model to same model by allowing Chinese made cars in and
it'd help you screw over a country that threatened you.
The sheer irony of an Australian saying this! I mean youâre in
danger, dude! [1] The naivety of the comments here is just
astonishing.
HTML [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/24/world/china-live-fire-drills-...
greggoB wrote 19 hours 56 min ago:
Your entire comment reads a bit like an ad for Chinese cars,
conveniently omitting the damage these automakers are doing to the
global car industry by dumping cheap supply wherever they can to
secure market share, all enabled by heavy state subsidies. [0]
> PS to Canadians: You could be paying ~50% less for the same car,
even same model to same model by allowing Chinese made cars in and
it'd help you screw over a country that threatened you.
Because given the chance, China 100% would never do the same (or
worse).
[0]
HTML [1]: https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/chinese-ev-dil...
didibus wrote 19 hours 8 min ago:
I feel like closing off access is a bad long term strategy. Instead
of being forced to compete and match or outmatch competition
Canadian manufacturing can get complacent and lean on restrictions.
But the whole thing feels like a ticking bomb.
dalyons wrote 13 hours 19 min ago:
I mean you donât have to go off vibes - this has historically
happened in every protectionist industry. The protected companies
make a worse and more expensive product
shimman wrote 19 hours 8 min ago:
I'm not really seeing the issue with this. Capitalists will tell
you this is a good thing because consumers will benefit, or is that
only capitalism if it benefits the American elites?
Why should I care that the CEO of Ford is struggling when he pays
his workers so terrible? If they want another government bail it,
we should just nationalize the industry and implement workplace
democracy for the staff so they can be accountable to the workers +
people in some fashion.
But yeah, it's sad seeing the demise of US liberalism but what do
you expect when the last 50 years was naked imperialism for
corporations while denying any social responsibility for the
country?
runako wrote 19 hours 38 min ago:
> dumping cheap supply wherever they can to secure market share,
all enabled by heavy state subsidies
Assuming for a moment this is more true for China than for other
countries. Why would the average Canadian prefer to pay more for
their next car versus having a similar car subsidized by the
Chinese taxpayer? Most Canadians do not work in the auto industry.
Further, the protectionism practiced in the EU/US/Canada is not
likely to be successful long-term, meaning those auto industries
are doomed.
Best path forward is to let in competition, make the domestics
stronger, and let consumers get cheaper cars in the meanwhile.
Provide some additional temporary support if necessary. (This is
more or less how the US absorbed Japanese and then Korean cars.)
demosito666 wrote 16 hours 55 min ago:
> Best path forward is to let in competition
To compete with China in the âopen marketâ now, Canada will
need:
- 25 years of investments in infrastructure and education in STEM
and manufacturing
- Targeted state subsidies of chosen branches, which will require
- transition to at least partially planned economy, which will
require
- at least partially transitioning to some form of dictatorial
governance
- increase population at least twofold (you need multiple
multi-million metro areas to support large high-tech clusters)
- devaluate CAD about 2x and accept about the same drop in local
purchasing power (which likely will happen anyway, but could be
not that harsh and fast).
China at the moment has like 10x advantage in industry ober
Canada, itâs impossible to compete. Itâs like saying that
your immune system must be able to handle bubonic plague, so
letâs just inject the body with the pathogen and let it adapt
without any external support. A noble idea, but youâll likely
die in the process.
runako wrote 8 hours 47 min ago:
> Canada will need:
- Also a much larger population to create the labor pool
necessary.
I was speaking mostly about the Western bloc of countries (EU +
USA & Canada) that have their heads in the sand. As a
semi-unit, they already have most of the pieces necessary to be
competitive.
AlotOfReading wrote 18 hours 28 min ago:
The auto industry is a shockingly high percentage of the Canadian
economy, somewhere around 10% of GDP. Direct auto manufacturing
roles are themselves about 1% of jobs nationally. If we start
counting everyone involved with the sector, it's >5% of people in
Ontario. It's not a winning political move to make all of those
people unemployed.
maxglute wrote 17 hours 19 min ago:
Let's be real, if Trump wants to reshore US auto factories from
Ontario to Detroit, as he has stated explicitly, Canadian
politicians can't do shit, USMCA be paper after all. Right now
CAN just waiting for term to blow over and hope there's no
Trump3. But ultimately if CA auto is going away / shrinking to
irrelevance, at some point winning political move is to give
masses cheap cars.
runako wrote 18 hours 9 min ago:
Fair for Canada. In the US, the entire auto production economy
employs fewer people than Amazon does in the US.
seydor wrote 19 hours 40 min ago:
it's not like cars are necessities like food. and i doubt these
companies are unprofitable - the chinese govt has no incentive to
provide the world with free cars.
overfeed wrote 13 hours 56 min ago:
It's shocking how (presumably) free-market maximalists on HN, who
usually tout the benefits of competition look at Chinese EVs and
go "These low proces can't be due to competition and innovation.
It has to be government intervention". Domestic competition in
China is red in tooth and claw, while car manufacturers in the US
manufacturers innovate on buyer financing.
oreally wrote 7 hours 3 min ago:
Indeed. Everyone wants cheaper, faster goods until it threatens
their jobs.
azinman2 wrote 19 hours 26 min ago:
It does if it meant everyone else went out of business and became
dependent then on China
seydor wrote 18 hours 54 min ago:
that's like saying that apple should sell the iphone for $10 to
capture the market. meanwhile apple does the opposite
The chinese are not entering a saturated market here, they are
building it and apparently dominating it by creating the best
value
They did the same with PV panels, their plan was to make PV
cheap for china, and in the process they became supercheap for
the rest of the world too.
swarnie wrote 19 hours 49 min ago:
Lets assume all this is true, why should i be concerned about it?
If the Chinese tax payer is going to help me buy a new car then
thanks, my own government isn't going to do that.
refurb wrote 9 hours 22 min ago:
For the same reason countries donât like it. It guts their
domestic industry and puts you at the mercy of an authoritarian
country?
I thought the last few decades of the US losing key industries to
China was a lesson everyone learned?
skeeter2020 wrote 18 hours 53 min ago:
The Chinese tax payer isn't voluntarily helping you though, it's
China's forced resource extraction from its own citizens (wage
and QoL suppression), to maintain a stranglehold on global
manufacturing. Everybody (except your specific car purchase)
would be better off if they used these resources domestically. Do
you think they'll ever want payback? if not from you, then from
the next generations.
oreally wrote 6 hours 58 min ago:
When you start presuming that the cause of this is that China
is evil and wants world domination, let me remind you that it's
the propaganda getting to you.
China had a mandate to contribute to climate action goals years
ago. Their government sponsored that growth. Now their
companies need to make a profit and selling overseas. It's
simple free market forces.
azinman2 wrote 19 hours 24 min ago:
Because over time when your own industries suffer and then become
jobless, your country is less secure and wealthy.
interactivecode wrote 19 hours 50 min ago:
Are the big capitalist car companies scared of some strong
competition? Maybe they should innovate instead of lobby against
international competition
embedding-shape wrote 19 hours 57 min ago:
> They utterly dominate globally outside of EU/NA where they face
extreme tariffs.
Even inside of EU, seemingly BYD have reasonable prices, especially
compared to their EU competitors. I'm an current Audi owner in Spain,
who is currently very close of getting a BYD DM-i Touring, and
compared to what I would get from Audi for the same price, BYD still
offers a lot more in everything except "nice steering feeling", at
least from what I've gathered from my test drives.
andsoitis wrote 12 hours 30 min ago:
> offers a lot more in everything except "nice steering feeling"
Isnât it wise to prefer a nice steering feeling? Your body is,
after all, going to be feeling it every time you drive.
embedding-shape wrote 1 hour 44 min ago:
There are lots of choices that go into choosing a car, not just
feeling of the steering, although it's very important (for me at
least). Not to mention I'm not the only person in the car, and
the passenger experience is important too. Almost more
importantly, the BYD I'm looking at have AC inside of the seat,
which if I want to have a new Audi with that, it's a big price
change, and with BYD it's a smaller change. Same goes for many
features between them, which makes it look like if you want the
same amount of features in an Audi as I'd get with a BYD, you're
looking at almost double the price.
t0mas88 wrote 19 hours 25 min ago:
As a long term BMW driver instead of Audi I have the same. I'm
swapping one of my two BMWs for a Model Y Premium. Also tried the
BYD 7 but the Model Y felt nicer to drive and with more space.
The BMW iX1 is disappointing in range, interior luxury and power.
It's below an older 6 series (that I'm switching from), and much
less powerful than a Model Y AWD. No idea why BMW thinks they can
price it like they do. The other option was the BMW i5 Touring but
it's more expensive and feels "old" already.
eisa01 wrote 19 hours 51 min ago:
That's because the car lobby only cared about electric vehicle
tariffs, the petrol cars from China are tax free
(There's also anti-dumping tariffs on electric bikes from China, I
wonder if it's the same lobby...)
alecco wrote 20 hours 35 min ago:
> Source: company statements
Meanwhile they are dumping thousands of cars in public parking lots:
[1] And BYD sits on a pile of debt they use to pay suppliers expecting
ever-increasing sales (Evergrande business model).
HTML [1]: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-news/byd-australia-accused-of...
HTML [2]: https://medium.com/@davidsehyeonbaek/a-deep-dive-into-byds-sus...
ulfw wrote 6 hours 26 min ago:
You write and I quote: "Meanwhile they are dumping thousands of cars"
Your own link to proof your quote says: "Hundreds of cars alleged to
be illegally stored at a NSW fun park"
nl wrote 12 hours 59 min ago:
They have $5.6B in debt, around the same as Mazda and Polestar and
roughly half Tesla's $13B. [1] And vast parking lots full of cars
isn't dumping, it where they put them before sending them to dealers:
> its parking areas are still brimming with new BYDs fresh from
arriving at nearby Port Kembla ahead of their delivery to BYD
dealers.
HTML [1]: https://companiesmarketcap.com/automakers/automakers-with-th...
bigfatkitten wrote 15 hours 0 min ago:
Dumping notwithstanding, BYD is still selling cars into the
Australian market in enormous numbers. Four of the top ten EVs sold
this year are BYD, as are the top two PHEVs.
If you account for the fact that Australian market Teslas are built
in China, then China is producing 8 of the top 10 EVs.
HTML [1]: https://www.drive.com.au/news/australias-best-selling-cars-b...
dalyons wrote 13 hours 38 min ago:
Which is direct evidence for what would happen if they were allowed
to sell fairly into the US and Europe. The future of cars is
Chinese, the US automakers canât survive on protectionism forever
ehnto wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
Not that I am for it, but why not? If no other cars enter the
market, or they're forced to be uncompetitive, then what choice
would consumers have?
bigfatkitten wrote 15 hours 1 min ago:
Dumping notwithstanding, they're still selling cars into the
Australian market in enormous numbers. Four of the top ten EVs sold
this year are BYD, as are the top two PHEVs.
HTML [1]: https://www.drive.com.au/news/australias-best-selling-cars-b...
thesmtsolver2 wrote 15 hours 11 min ago:
Also their abysmal human rights record
HTML [1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/human-rights-...
SapporoChris wrote 18 hours 33 min ago:
regarding: "Meanwhile they are dumping thousands of cars in public
parking lots"
Sure you can post a speculative article, but this link is far more
informative. [1] It doesn't really appear to be anything of grand
significance.
HTML [1]: https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/byd-car-park-mystery-s...
toomuchtodo wrote 19 hours 49 min ago:
BYD owns their own fleet of car carriers for export, with the
capacity to have ~30k vehicles shipping to other markets at any one
time on their vessels. From this piece:
> BYD Deliveries outside of China hit 1.05 million in 2025. The
company has set a goal to expand overseas sales to between 1.5
million to 1.6 million units in 2026, according to a Citigroup Inc.
report in November that cited a meeting with BYD management.
Edit: The debt is irrelevant, China isnât America. Theyâll
nationalize and inflate away any institutional debt or wipe it out,
but still have a third of the worldâs manufacturing capacity. Tesla
exists on vibes, Chinese EV makers build, for example. jmyeetâs
comment mostly nails this: [1] [2] (citations)
(global light vehicle TAM is ~90M units/year, and Chinese EV
automakers are going to soak the market with their production
capacity)
HTML [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46456020
HTML [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46424124
specialp wrote 18 hours 48 min ago:
China has a huge deflation problem that they export to the world
via cheap products. They have a lot of capacity and not enough
consumers. So in China, an unstated mild Keynesian approach makes
sense. They can sweep debt under the rug and take in inflation from
net debtor countries
csomar wrote 3 hours 32 min ago:
Only a capitalist high on stocks can convince you that falling
prices are bad. I, for one, welcome these falling prices. I
thought inflation was the problem?
HPsquared wrote 14 hours 19 min ago:
Falling prices, sounds like the way things should be as real
technology and markets develop. Inflation is not natural.
baxtr wrote 16 hours 43 min ago:
Which on the one hand is great because through that China exports
material wealth to the world.
At the same time production capacity outside of China has to
compete with this "rigged" system, which is near impossible to
do.
faitswulff wrote 19 hours 1 min ago:
> Theyâll nationalize and inflate away any institutional debt or
wipe it out
This is just the reverse, actually, China isnât afraid to go so
far as to jail CEOs. There is no such thing as too big to fail in
China, and all the Chinese domestic companies know it. The bailout
playbook is a western thing.
victorbjorklund wrote 18 hours 42 min ago:
They only jail the people that upset the regime.
ben_w wrote 18 hours 24 min ago:
From the outside, it appears that "upset the regime" includes
"cheating your way into profits".
That said, it's very difficult to be sure if what I see from
the outside is propaganda. Or rather, it is always propaganda
even when it's true, and I can't tell how much of it is China's
own self-promotion vs. other people giving negative propaganda.
victorbjorklund wrote 17 hours 41 min ago:
You donât think president Xi:s family and friends cheated?
Of course they have. Yet they donât go to prison.
ben_w wrote 17 hours 35 min ago:
I'm saying from the outside, it doesn't look like that.
That's a much weaker statement, as should've been obvious
from what I went on to say about propaganda.
Example of cheating: [1] And: [2] Nevertheless, it would be
interesting if someone could, you know, prove, and not
merely allege, that Xi Jinping's family or friends cheated.
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officials_implicated...
HTML [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_sc...
victorbjorklund wrote 4 hours 0 min ago:
so you think that Xi:s family just lives on his official
salary and he hasn't made any money more than that?
ctchocula wrote 16 hours 10 min ago:
HTML [1]: https://panamapapers.org/case-study-china
ben_w wrote 13 hours 28 min ago:
Yup, that's the kind of thing I have in mind.
Even with the sub-heading "It's legal, and that's the
problem."*, and even though this kind of cheating is
broader than this reply chain from "There is no such
thing as too big to fail in China", this is absolutely
within bounds for what I asked for :)
* and the not-proof-read AI generated image, that never
helpsâ¦
toomuchtodo wrote 18 hours 58 min ago:
China has been performing debt swaps with local governments to
clean up their balance sheets [1], so used as an example. Agree
with all of your comment. People make the mistake that China
plays by artificial US capital market rules around profit and
debt; they do not. They optimize for physical world success, not
line go up. [1] Why China Is Hoping $1.6 Trillion Can Fix Its
Hidden Debt Problem - [1] | [2] - April 16th, 2025
HTML [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-16/china...
HTML [2]: https://archive.today/HsaHV
refurb wrote 11 hours 18 min ago:
There is no free lunch. Debt in China is still owed to
someone. Printing money creates inflation. Oversupply leads
to deflation.
Itâs why Chinaâs real estate company debt is dragging down
the economy as a whole. Itâs all connected.
China very much is held to the same rules as the US, especially
as it engages with the global financial system.
Which is why they are in so much trouble. The economy is
anemic. The last stimulus package barely made a difference.
Debt overhang remains.
amrocha wrote 4 hours 10 min ago:
There actually literally is a free lunch. Debt owed to the
government by itself isnât real. Assets and infrastructure
are real.
It doesnât matter how much you think China is in trouble
financially, at the end of the day they still manufacture a
third of everything in the world.
faitswulff wrote 18 hours 52 min ago:
Ah, I think I get it. Are you saying that regardless of BYDâs
continued existence, China will still have 1/3 of the worldâs
manufacturing capacity?
toomuchtodo wrote 18 hours 46 min ago:
Yes, exactly. Just as in the US, when an enterprise gets
wiped out and recapitalized, all of the physical assets
remain. In Chinaâs case, they are the backstop of last
resort, and will always recapitalize according to their
nation state planning and target outcomes. They allow
companies to operate the assets as long as the Chinese
government is willing to allow it, but they remain assets of
China.
truetraveller wrote 12 hours 55 min ago:
So, essentially, there is a root company called China, Inc.
Correct?
tifan wrote 1 hour 53 min ago:
Exactly. Not strictly China Inc, but SASAC ( [1] )
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_Assets...
baxtr wrote 20 hours 8 min ago:
A friend of mine works in the chemical industry in Europe. One reason
European producers are currently facing challenges is that Chinese
producers are dumping chemicals into the global market at heavy
discounts.
The underlying cause of this is that the Chinese housing market,
which previously absorbed almost all chemicals, has effectively
stalled (Evergrande, et al.).
I wonder whether we're observing a similar effect in the automobile
industry as well.
tokioyoyo wrote 13 hours 52 min ago:
Are they actually dumping, or extraction/refinement of materials is
actually much cheaper in China, so it feels like dumping?
Frankly, I donât mind it, because western companies should also
engage in this behaviour, if they can. Sell physical items for
cheaper than it takes to produce them! Theyâre doing it with
services and etc. anyways, might as well do it with physical
products too.
themaninthedark wrote 12 hours 28 min ago:
How is extraction/refinement of materials much cheaper in China?
I have been told they are reaching wage parity with the west, so
not labor cost.
Reuters agrees with op:
HTML [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-goods-dumpin...
smallmancontrov wrote 19 hours 32 min ago:
Yes, but causality is backwards: the Chinese housing market stalled
because China took the debt punch-bowl away from housing and gave
it to the industrial sector.
It's also worth mentioning that loan subsidies play a bigger role
in Chinese capital markets: Chinese industry is largely capitalized
with state debt rather than private debt/equity or public markets.
Zooming out, as a response to Trump's 1st term tariffs China went
on a big autarky push by redirecting its citizens' and companies'
deposits into a loan bazooka for the industrial sector. We are now
seeing the fruits of that. The big questions have to do with (true)
profitability and (true) balance sheets: can the new industries
service their debts well enough for the government to hold face?
bryanlarsen wrote 20 hours 26 min ago:
A car transport holds thousands of ships. Therefore requiring
temporary storage for thousands of cars is normal.
Even if you count the massive "hidden debt", BYD's debt load is
still a small fraction of the big car makers, many of whom hold over
$200 billion in debt.
honeycrispy wrote 19 hours 20 min ago:
Which car makers? Ford, GMC, Chevrolet are all closer to $100
billion. Tesla holds $13b.
chollida1 wrote 18 hours 56 min ago:
HTML [1]: https://companiesmarketcap.com/automakers/automakers-wit...
thelastgallon wrote 14 hours 10 min ago:
Wow! Toyota $269B debt vs BYD $5.6B debt
woodpanel wrote 12 hours 56 min ago:
> its Net Debt/EBITDA was around 3.7x, indicating strong
earnings cover for its debt
TLDR: Toyota can afford it
AnotherGoodName wrote 20 hours 29 min ago:
It seems that BYD are storing cars improperly but thereâs nothing
in the first link about financial engineering.
ZeroGravitas wrote 20 hours 36 min ago:
Selling that many cars despite intense competition at home and trade
barriers abroad seems the more natural way to express that story.
They instead focused on how in evil communist China you need to
continue to make better cars than rivals in order for your business to
succeed and grow.
What a strange system they have over there. If only they were
capitalist like the US and being an incumbent connected to the regime
was all you needed to keep extracting money from the population despite
product stagnation.
djohnston wrote 20 hours 20 min ago:
Two things can be true at once:
1. BYD has rapidly surpassed many western companies in terms of
product quality / desirability
2. Chinese automotive industry is a strategic threat to Western
military capabilities. If they are successful in usurping European /
American auto manufacturers, it will be a death blow to an already
hollowed-out industrial base that is critical to any sustained
military engagement.
So, yes, western companies have stagnated, and yes, the West needs to
keep these dinosaurs around through subsidies (which Chinese
manufacturers also receieve from their regime).
runako wrote 19 hours 32 min ago:
Re #2 -- locking Chinese vehicles out of the market will also lead
to the downfall of our industrial base over time. In general,
Americans (including those who work in US manufacturing) do not
understand that Chinese vehicles are very competitive. At some
point, those vehicles are likely to surpass domestic capabilities
(they are already there viewed through a price/performance lens).
All of this is down to the simple fact that essentially no American
has ever driven a Chinese vehicle and does not know anybody who
has. They are not even getting secondhand reports. This is worse
than the '80s when the Japanese makers arrived in the sense that in
the '80s everybody could see the quality of the Toyotas and assess
quality/performance for themselves. It's much worse to not even
know how good the competition is.
From a business standpoint, it's especially bad for the domestic
industry because the majors actually do need to be competitive in
fast-growing regions like Latin America, Asia, and Africa. It's not
a viable strategy to depend on protectionism at home while ceding
countries where most people live.
potato3732842 wrote 18 hours 47 min ago:
Everyone's take on the 1980s has been perverted by an internet
viewpoint written by a bunch of weeb fanboys projecting the state
of the car market in 2006 onto 1985. The actual cores
components of the cars themselves are basically within spitting
distance for Japan vs Domestic. These were not high quality
cars. They were all low quality cars. But Japan was making the
king of low quality cars that people wanted. (And by 1990 all
these early 1980s platforms from all makes were all comparatively
trash).
In the late 1970s early 1980s if you tried to buy a compact
american car it was like buying the burger at a fish restaurant
or the vegetarian option at a steakhouse. It was there to check
a box. It wasn't well thought out or a core product they gave a
shit about and they were almost always last to get any
innovations. You want power widows AND an automatic, sorry we'll
have to special order that, we don't stock those on the lot.
In contrast, the Japanese gave a shit about those product lines.
So someone making "In better times I'd be buying a bigger car
from Chevy" money could go to them and get something configured
how they wanted without being told no a bunch of times and the
sales guy trying to get them into something bigger car didn't
want like would happen at the Chevy dealer. Toyota or Honda or
whoever literally didn't have those products to upsell you into.
Yeah I guess they could sell you a landcruiser but people didn't
buy SUVs then. That would be like trying to sell an Econoline to
some rich woman who's shopping for a 3row Landrover.
At the end of the 1980s the domestics were basically back with
their own new "modern" FWD platforms (e.g. Taurus) and new larger
stuff (minivans, midsize SUVs) which made money hand over fist
for 10yr or so. The Japanese were basically on the sidelines for
all of this. Like yeah they had the 4Runner and Pathfinnder and
Passport and stuff but no amount of 2020s fanboyism is gonna make
those sales numbers any less of a joke. What the Japanese did do
very well though was give a crap about their smaller cheaper
offerings, Rav4s and CRVs and small and midsize sedans which the
domestics neglected. So when the SUV craze came to an end with
the high gas prices and bad economy of the mid-late 2000s they
were there ready to be bought. And it's this great success from
the mid 2000s that every idiot on the internet seems to want to
project back into the 1980s when the 1980s were far different.
runako wrote 18 hours 0 min ago:
> Everyone's take on the 1980s
Nope, I was there.
You're generally agreeing with me? You're making an argument
that American makers improved by exposure to Japanese makers,
and yes I am suggesting they also need exposure to Chinese
makers for the same reasons.
> Japan was making the king of low quality cars that people
wanted
This is China today, except by all accounts they are simply
inexpensive and not low quality. Your bit about buying a
compact car in the 80s has echoes in American automakers
largely exiting the market for cars. (IIRC it's only Tesla,
Lucid, the Mustang, and a couple Caddy models remaining.)
The main point is that in the 80s we could all see for
ourselves Japanese cars. We could talk to people about how they
liked them. People working at Ford could drive a Honda and
figure out how to compete against it. That laid the ground for
the resurgence of the American makers. Protectionism is
depriving the automakers of this opportunity to retool to
compete with the Chinese.
potato3732842 wrote 16 hours 34 min ago:
>You're generally agreeing with me? You're making an argument
that American makers improved by exposure to Japanese makers,
and yes I am suggesting they also need exposure to Chinese
makers for the same reasons.
Partially. I agree on the economic lines. But disagreeing on
the oft circle jerked quality bit.
These were not "high quality" cars even in their day nor were
they "higher than the competing product" on any
non-subjective axis (the Japanese and europeans did make very
different decisions than the americans on some preference
based things though). By "low quality" I do not mea low
value. I mean low end. These were not designed to be "nice"
cars. They were built to a price. These were not cars you
got into and said "man, everything I touch feels solid" and
"this is a pleasurable driving experience". They got called
tin cans for a reason. They were inexpensive compacts and
midsize vehicles but what they got right was they nailed the
contribution of attributes everyone wanted and so they sold
very well.
I absolutely agree that exposure let the other OEMs get
better.
otterley wrote 18 hours 34 min ago:
Also, the U.S. auto makers had a well-deserved reputation for
building unreliable vehicles, probably exacerbated by the
phase-out of lead from gasoline, while Japanese vehicles were
easily exceeding 100,000 miles without any significant
breakdowns. This provided a tremendous advantage to Japanese
makes and proved extremely attractive to American customers.
seydor wrote 19 hours 36 min ago:
we keep saying these things while industry-after-industry gets
disrupted by the chinese
Next industry to be disrupted is housing, because seemingly the
entire western world has is not even trying to provide housing (a
necessity) to everyone.
Subsidies are dangerous in the long term
_DeadFred_ wrote 17 hours 11 min ago:
Chinese party members reading this thread, please get into
modular housing construction in a form that can be shipped to the
USA and acceptable to the average person (so not mobile
home/trailer park style stuff).
If you hit us with sucking funds from the housing market you will
gut our economy even more, and there is zero support in the US to
protect homebuilders right now when the two younger generations
can't afford their product. If you offered a bad ass modular
housing system that could quickly/cheaply build decent homes
(current US Spec grade or higher) that might get really
interesting.
nebula8804 wrote 12 hours 0 min ago:
NIMBY would block it. Thats a big problem in the states where
anyone would really want to live. Even now after states like NJ
ram condos down the throats of old ridgid towns, they haven't
given up and are trying anything and everything to stop further
development. Its a system build on greed of existing homeowners
just trying to offload their properties at maximum profit when
they retire and holding back progress until they do so.
thechao wrote 19 hours 1 min ago:
Housing in the US is labor constrained. When I talk to GCs, subs,
etc., they'll say that materials a bit more expensive, and labor
is a bit more expensive; but what the complain about â and this
can be for hours, if I get one going â is the complete lack of
labor in all trades. This isn't a new problem; the "old hands"
(GCs in the 60s and 70s) noted the labor drop out even 30+ years
ago. The only saving grace we had was a strong trade force
incoming population (immigrants); but, we've cut that off.
It wouldn't surprise me if our industry is also labor
constrained? I know my brother had a machine shop to make
aftermarket titanium parts for (motor)bikes, some cars, etc. He
had a policy of nonstop looking for new machinists, even if he
was fully staffed, because a machinist could just wander off at
any time. With only 4 employees, he could find himself at at
25â50% loss of ship time in just a few days, at any time. It's
not even like the machinists were getting more money. They'd just
leave, because the new shop was 5m closer than his.
Fixing the labor pool issue is a decades long issue. More money
in that pool won't fix things. I don't even know what's going on.
Maybe I can just blame modern financialization for the issue?
That seems easy, if wrong.
But, for sure, the complete lack of social safety net for labor
can't be helping. Maybe if we guaranteed child care, 100%
round-the-year safe spaces (we could use the fantastically
expensive schools which are empty 75% of the time?),
3-free-meals-per-child, and free education through an associates
degree? None of those are particularly expensive, even at the
national scale.
AngryData wrote 12 hours 38 min ago:
In my 2+ decades in the trades, the biggest problem is low pay
and shitty bosses. Trade unions are absolutely packed full of
people wanting to join them because they pay better, have more
training, and offer paths towards advancement/pay/benefits over
their hiring wage. But outside of the unions people pay
crackhead wages then wonder why only crackheads want to lose 20
years off their life and wear out their body for customer
service wages despite having a specialized trade experience and
skills. Everyone who works in the trades also knows its a boom
and bust cycle and they will get the shaft as soon as it is
convenient for their employer which isn't a significant risk in
many other industries and jobs.
And things get confused more when people only look at the top
inflated wages for trade workers in the most expensive cities
in the world, completely ignoring that most trade workers can't
afford to live in those places and commute into the cities for
their work and they almost never actually get offered the kind
of wages that are advertised.
thechao wrote 11 hours 26 min ago:
Real income in trades is up; that doesn't mean it's great
pay, just up. Real housing costs have greatly outpaced that.
It's the crazy post-2000 low interest boom-bust cycle that's
wrecking the housing trades as a functional job. Trades are
hugely oversubscribed during the boom, and the busts are too
long to maintain the labor force.
If we want to build housing, we'll need a stabilizing force
for that. I don't see a way to make that happen outside of
govt intervention.
_DeadFred_ wrote 17 hours 8 min ago:
Add in giving people guaranteed healthcare so that people were
comfortable exploring job options more.
spaceman_2020 wrote 20 hours 0 min ago:
So the free hand of the market isnât quite as free after all
If the 20th century was a repudiation of soviet communism vs
capitalism, the 21st century seems to put capitalism on the
backfoot
blackjack_ wrote 20 hours 7 min ago:
If the US had a competent government they would react by pulling
the same playbook as China to compete. Heavily subsidize and
incentivize production of EVs by new companies to replace the
rotten core of existing US automakers to produce price competitive
and quality competitive vehicles, then let the old guard burn down.
Subsidizing the rotten core of corrupt US automakers will not
produce a new or functional industrial base. It will simply
maintain the illusion of an industrial base until anything of
importance needs done. But thatâs basically the MO of any
âmatureâ industry in the US.
rangestransform wrote 19 hours 46 min ago:
What youâre proposing is basically the EV subsidy, which got
gutted because Americans got pissy about lifting a single finger
to benefit anyone slightly more fortunate than themselves
pm90 wrote 19 hours 23 min ago:
No it got gutted by Americans that were tragically fed a
constant diet of misinformation as to the actual policies of
the GOP. EVs still poll very well in the US and so does
combating climate change.
toomuchtodo wrote 21 hours 9 min ago:
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