Comment by numpad0
18 hours ago
Everyone thought Toyota was Nokia when Tesla appeared... I think those days are over. Toyota survived that one already with a facelift for Prius.
BYD Dolphin base in Japan is $19k, the new Racco kei car is $14k. They're not doing so well - they just have no selling point. They're not even the cheapest of EVs in Japan, let alone the cheapest of all cars for Japan - $19k is literally 4k over the current gen JDM Corolla. I think that is an indication that BYD has no secret sauce but their pricing are just introductory one to starve off last bits of Western industrial capacities spared by Japanese automakers.
Tesla never had the production ability to take out the established companies. Tesla simply saturated and moved on to other things, while Toyota etc. kept most of their untouched market.
China (BYD etc.) definitely has the ability to produce the entire amount of cars Toyota sells. It's a totally different scale of threat - the result of Toyota (etc.) not reading the signs in time. Tesla gave them a warning they did not listen to.
Teslas started out at 40k USD in mid-2010s money promising more affordable options that we're still waiting on (even companies like Slate will probably eat them up when they're able to ramp and gain a fanbase)
Chinese manufacturers are starting far below even the base of contemporary economy ICEs, this is another game entirely
one of the biggest reasons why they haven't taken over the US is because our infrastructure is decades behind. for most people to get a fast charge at home means they either need a new house or an electrical upgrade whereas chargers are everywhere in Chinese cities (even fast battery swap shops). given how balkanized transport authorities are (State's rights-to-not-work-together being in effect here) I suspect EV growth will mostly happen in urban centers willing to spend a little extra money on electrification rather than outfitting their police departments with milspec armored trucks
Tesla promised a 35k Model 3 in 2016.
Entering that into a CPI inflation calculator, that is $50k in 2026 dollars due to inflation.
A Model 3 today starts at $38, which is WELL BELOW the 2016 promise. Corrected for inflation, that's roughly $28k in 2016 dollars
They effectively overdelivered on that promise.
The complaint here, is that Chinese manufacturers, who are mostly in a death battle against each other and not profitable are even cheaper than Tesla and Toyota. In the long run, I suspect that picture will simply not be sustainable for those companies.
I love the pro-Tesla crowd's selective memories. There was a $25,000 model they promised in 2020 - that's $32k in today's money.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-promised-25-000-ev...
if the $4k difference in today's money is nothing to you, I've got a Venmo you can donate to. I'll even ship you a decade-old GTX 1080 that's still functioning :)
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> The complaint here, is that Chinese manufacturers, who are mostly in a death battle against each other and not profitable are even cheaper than Tesla and Toyota. In the long run, I suspect that picture will simply not be sustainable for those companies.
Citation needed. Yes, the many Chinese manufacturers are fighting each other... but I see no reason why they can't maintain prices. And I doubt they're all unprofitable, especially the big ones like BYD.
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The biggest obstacles to Chinese vehicle sales in the United States are political and they are tremendous. Whichever party is blamed for their entry will lose Michigan for a generation and car dealership owners across the country
That's where the power is
It certainly wouldn't help them but I don't know anybody in Michigan that isn't a c-suite that really cares that much about someone not buying American cars anymore. Most mechanics will tell you to buy a Toyota or Honda here. In the UP half of the cars are Subarus. The majority of automanufacturing has long ago left and nobody is happy about the quality of big 3 brands.
30 years ago I would have agreed, but most Michigan buyers at best begrudgingly buy American now.
this is a really good point. dealership lobbying is so weirdly under-covered and yet affects so much of our lived experience - from crash safety, to pedestrian experiences, to lemon laws. when I worked for the state consumer protection agency many moons ago, we had a drag-out fight with dealerships in the state legislature trying to advocate for having at least a nominal lemon law on the books. the original proposal would have protected consumers quite a bit - but it was quickly defanged with enough money flowing into the campaigns for the right rural legislators who sat on the right committees. I imagine this is the case everywhere with our legalized corruption system
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There is also the part where everyone's Chinese vehicle gets bricked when things get too hot between China and the US.
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the US lost all credibility. Nobody gives a fish about what the US says anymore. I bet their military is on par with Russia. Certainly the men in the US won't fight for a country that hates them.
Dems have long lost dealership owners. Those owners are a powerful lobby, but they're not popular... not many people enjoy the process of buying a car and getting it serviced.
facelift of prius which sells at 50k? Haven't seen one yet on the roads. Meanwhile i just got myself a byd. Rep said they got 50 sells for that car in this city within the past 30 days so i dont know where you get your numbers from but i test drove a lot of cars and its hard to beat that byd in stuff you get per dollar
Tesla never turned out to be Apple in this comparison though.
You could say same the thing about Toyota's EVs in China.
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I would say it is more likely to do with the fact that:
* BYD is new in Japan (since 2023) compared to other automakers which have built up trust over many decades.
* There are only 55 BYD dealerships in Japan vs 5,000 Toyota dealerships, 2,200 Nissan dealerships, 2,200 Honda dealerships, 1,500 Suzuki dealerships, etc.
* BYD offers a limited range of models in Japan - 6 in total. No minivan, for example, where minivans make up 6 of the 10 best selling (non-kei) car models in Japan
* Japan is very slow to adopt EVs in general. Charging infrastructure is poor
* BYD EVs and PHEVs qualify for a much smaller CEV rebate [1] than Japanese models, Teslas, etc. This eats away at much of the cost benefits
* BYD only just introduced their first kei model to Japan last month. It has been well reviewed, but even BYD isn’t expecting to sell a ton of them in their first year, let alone first month, due to the aforementioned circumstances.
Or we could just say it’s because Japanese are racist and won’t buy Chinese things - despite the fact that 22% of all Japan’s imports currently come from China. Because that feels correct, I guess?
To be clear I do recognize that are tensions between Japan and China. And there are plenty of Japanese people who would prefer to buy Japanese-made goods, or prefer to avoid Chinese-made goods (to the extent that's even possible). But there are plenty of Americans, Europeans, etc who feel similarly - and they aren't typically called racist for having the same preferences. There are valid reasons like wanting to support domestic businesses, or not relying on geopolitical rivals for manufacturing, that have nothing to do with racism. Canadians are boycotting US goods right now, for example. Is that because Canadians are especially racist?
And Japanese consumers are just as price sensitive as anyone else. As the end of the day, if they can get more car for less money buying Chinese cars (and if the cars and sales and support process can be sufficiently tailored to Japanese preferences), then Chinese automakers can be successful in Japan.
[1] https://www.cev-pc.or.jp/hojo/pdf/R7ho/R7ho_meigaragotojouge...
Thanks for the correct explanation with details!
Isn’t saying Japanese are known to be racists a bit racist?
Japanese atrocities during WW2 are documented. The comment was about Chinese vehicle sales in Japan. But Chinese vehicles are selling like gangbusters everywhere else. It is important to understand the context. There is animosity between these countries going back quite some time.
Do you think South Koreans would buy a North Korean made car, even if were better? Would Israeli's buy a car made by Iran? Would Indians buy a Pakistani made car?
Also, Japan's #1 export is automobiles. They have the future of their country tied to the automobile industry which is dying (China overtakes Japan in auto exports with boost from EVs :https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/china-overtakes...). Japanese wouldn't be super interested in buying Chinese cars and destroying their domestic market as well.
How the massacre still haunts China-Japan relations: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp89ed9j5ygo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_war_crimes_i...
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freetime2 has a better explanation (sibling comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49841283
Not familiar with the gaijin concept?
There's a lot of schadenfreude in the Netherlands about German car manufacturers but then we all know what happened the last time German industry went kaput... So I suppose we all have to support our brothers and sisters from the East until they get their act together.
Please don't. The arrogance with which they handle this situation is mind-boggling. Everyone else is blamed except their own greed and awful decision making. Germany and Europe will recover from this eventually and we're going to be better off without the auto lobby.
There was no arrogance.
Incompetence maybe, but no arrogance.
European governments and companies are like ships that change captains, while the direction of the ships is hard to change due to inertia.
Politically, I'm happy for this, on a business level, not really.
> Germany and Europe will recover from this eventually
One could characterize WWII that way, but maybe it still would have been better prevented.
VW doesn't sell new ICE models in the sub 25k€ segment anymore. Their new entry level car ID. Polo is an EV and when decked out (slight hyperbole, I primarily mean the battery upgrade) is costing the same the hypothetical $35k base Model 3 that never really existed in the first place, maybe it does today. Not to mention the 25k€ base model is not only real, but it is even acceptable if you don't care about range. Might still want to have some addons though.
> VW doesn't sell new ICE models in the sub 25k€ segment anymore.
Knowing VW, I read that as: "VW doesn't sell cars in the sub 25k€ segment anymore."
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Personally I won't, the amount of greed and contempt for customers in the EU automotive world is absolutely insane, they need all to feel the pain, at least a bit to remember that their place isn't a given, that they have to work for customers.
A good chunk of them don't even follow EU laws on warranty.
Ehhh we should support them otherwise they will come to kill us all again?
No, if they do that it's 100% on them.
And the German auto industry is really corrupt. See what they did at Volkswagen scamming the system and then refusing to own up to it.
I don't buy any cars anymore and if I did it wouldn't be German.
Personally I think it's time for the personal car to disappear anyway. Even an EV still pollutes a lot, it's not just about CO2.
Yeah, VW's tricks with diesel emissions testing just blew me away.
But nowadays, as I read more about LG's TV shenanigans ("We own the glass."), VW's behavior doesn't seem quite so horrendously criminal. Even though it was.
> Personally I think it's time for the personal car to disappear anyway.
Yeah I dunno. I think the majority of people will fight to the death if one tries to take away the individual mobility (and replaces it with either nothing or corporate-owned assets).
So yeah maybe that prediction in the first sentence is actually accurate, depending on how strongly that opinion is held and pushed.
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> See what they did at Volkswagen scamming the system and then refusing to own up to it.
If you mean Dieselgate, then agreed, horrible. It is worth noting that after the scandal we found out that a whole bunch of (non-german like Suzuki and Hyundai) manufacturers were actually worse (NOx) with emissions well beyond legal limits. It just didn't make the headlines nearly as much.
So while we can absolutely criticize VW, I don't think it's fair to generalize this as a german issue.
Personal cars can't disappear if we keep restricting ebikes and scooters or making it hard to legally use them for cargo. Individual mobility is important.
If you let state run public transit or corporate owned rentals and taxis dictate where you can go, that's giving up all your freedom. And everybody understand that. It's why there's so much pushback against things like the EU mandating sleep detection cameras.