Comment by ericmay
9 hours ago
Right but who will they sell the cars to and at what price?
"The number of Chinese EV brands selling at least one product rose to a record 143 at the end of 2025, according to a tally by management consultant AlixPartners.” (Overcapacity subsidized by the CCP)
"Now, in a country with a shrinking population, reliable big-city mass transit and a growing robotaxi industry, sales of passenger cars to regular Chinese families are unlikely to ever again record a sustained surge, analysts said. But cities and their private-sector partners are reluctant to admit that their lofty ambitions won’t be fulfilled, which would result in factory closures and lost jobs.” (Lack of domestic demand means exports are the main path toward growth)
"In recent months, Germany’s once-towering trade surplus with China in automotive products has turned into a deficit. Germany—the country widely credited with inventing the automobile—is embracing Chinese brands, while German automakers are struggling in China.” (EU will begin restricting Chinese auto imports or enacting tariffs)
"In the U.K., BYD is selling its flagship Seal hybrid sedan for the equivalent of around $44,000, more than $10,000 less than a similarly equipped Volkswagen Passat. These vehicles are sold at Chinese price points we cannot match with European cost structures,” said Volkswagen Chief Executive Oliver Blume in an August memo to staff."
"About the only major market where Chinese automakers aren’t causing upheaval is the U.S., where tariffs and restrictions on Chinese vehicle technology have all but locked out the country’s automakers. General Motors and Ford are among the few automakers still pumping out relatively healthy profits.” (America isn't going to let them come in and destroy the US auto industry)
So who will China sell these cars to and will that be enough to satisfy their domestic build capability?
Who is going to buy a $10k EV that can charge in five minutes? The world my dude. Per my last comment, "total global TAM is ~90M units/year." They might price higher in some countries, but the demand for China produced high quality low price EVs will be voracious in a world of high oil prices for at least the next year or two.
https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... (constrain both graphs to EVs only)
BYD’s global sales rise 17% in September - https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/byd-global-sales-r... - October 8th, 2026
BYD’s $10,000 EV Is Getting A Huge Upgrade, With 5-Minute Charging - https://insideevs.com/news/809788/new-byd-seagull-dolphin-su... - September 28th, 2026
- Everybody knows that China’s EV landscape is vastly different from what we get in the United States, and the main difference is just how cheap cars can get over there. One such example is the BYD Seagull, which now retails for the equivalent of roughly $10,000.
- Thanks to its low price and more than decent equipment, the Seagull, sold as the Dolphin Surf in Europe, was once China’s best-selling car, and now there’s a brand-new one that promises to offer more of everything.
Hyundai Motor CEO warns of Chinese vehicle surge in the US without guardrails - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/hyunda... - September 17th, 2026
- Hyundai Motor CEO Jose Munoz warned on Thursday that the US could face a similar wave of Chinese auto imports that has disrupted Europe's car market unless Washington maintains tariffs and other market-access safeguards.
- Chinese automakers have rapidly expanded in Europe, eroding the market share and profitability of established manufacturers including Hyundai and Volkswagen, by offering vehicles at significantly lower prices.
- Munoz said Chinese vehicles are 30% to 40% cheaper than rival models in some markets, including Italy, Spain and France. That is despite trade barriers including tariffs or minimum pricing commitments that the European Union imposed on Chinese-built electric vehicles after concluding they benefited from unfair state subsidies.
BYD becomes Australia’s first brand since Holden to nearly outsell Toyota - https://www.drive.com.au/news/byd-becomes-australias-first-b... - July 3rd, 2026
- BYD has smashed its monthly sales record in Australia, becoming the first brand other than Toyota to deliver more than 18,000 cars since Holden's early 2000s peak.
BYD wants to become the world’s largest automaker in five years. Stella Li is the executive selling that vision to the world - https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/byd-wa... - June 15th, 2026
- In the past few years, BYD has been on an impressive sales trajectory. In 2022, the company dropped pure internal-combustion models from its lineup, focusing solely on electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. By 2024, global vehicle sales had reached 4.27 million units, ranking the company fourth among global car manufacturers. In 2025, BYD sold a record 4.6 million new-energy vehicles, making it the world's top-selling EV maker by pure-electric sales—stealing the crown from Elon Musk's Tesla.
- Much of this growth has been driven by its global expansion. International sales more than doubled in 2025 to just over 1 million vehicles as BYD pushed into Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, where higher pricing helps offset fierce domestic competition and ongoing price wars in China's EV market. In May, BYD sold more than 160,000 vehicles abroad, up 80% year on year, and is targeting 1.5 million overseas sales in 2026.
> Who is going to buy a $10k EV that can charge in five minutes?
Can't make enough money doing that, plus not everyone wants a $10,000 USD EV that can charge in 5 minutes. Americans for example want Ford F-150s. Chinese people aren't even buying them since sales are down and China is focusing on exports while subsidizing factories (what does that tell you about demand and the economics?).
So you can't just say "BYD build this car therefore China will own every market" which is what you're implying here. Also BYD still has to compete in the Chinese market - race to the bottom means commoditization. Android sells the most phones, but Apple makes the most money. You'd always rather be Apple.
> The world my dude. Per my last comment, "total global TAM is ~90M units/year."
Can you provide a breakdown by country if you have one? For example the US wouldn't be included in that TAM, obviously, since we won't allow their cars here. Europe will follow as well with tariffs and sales quotas at a minimum because they will protect the industry before they'll adopt Chinese EVs, but until they formally do I think it's fine to include the continent in that TAM.
> They might price higher in some countries, but the demand for China produced high quality low price EVs will be voracious in a world of high oil prices for at least the next year or two.
Yes and no. There's a lot of nuance to be had here.
Bookmark my comment for five years from now, see if I'm wrong. China has shown they can scale, the rest of the world has not.
Chinese carmakers now sell one EV abroad for every two at home - https://restofworld.org/2026/china-ev-exports-overcapacity-g... - August 18th, 2026
- Some 540,000 EVs left China in July, a monthly record, while about 980,000 were sold at home, according to a report from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a London-based research firm. That worked out to one EV exported for every two sold domestically, compared with one for every five last July.
- The move abroad is permanent rather than a response to one bad year, and the price war that has played out inside China for two years is following the cars overseas, Lei Xing, founder of Chinese auto industry consultancy AutoXing, told Rest of World. Chinese cars are inexpensive, widely available, and carry the technology buyers want, much like Japanese and German cars did when those countries built their own export industries, he said.
- EV sales outside China, Europe, and North America almost doubled to 1.7 million units in the first seven months of this year, and Chinese brands supplied half of them, up from a quarter in 2023, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
- “The expectation is that significantly more EVs will be sold in the rest-of-world region this year than in North America,” George Whitcombe, senior EV analyst at Benchmark, told Rest of World.
VW is laying 100k workers off, for example.
Volkswagen to cut further 50,000 jobs as it ends row with union over revival plan - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/03/volkswagen-... - September 4th, 2026
BMW 8000.
BMW to cut ‘as many as 8,000 jobs’ under pressure from Chinese rivals - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/29/bmw-cut-job... - July 29th, 2026
I don't care who profits, profit doesn't matter, I care about units moved. Who cares what Americans want? It is a shrinking market. You can safely ignore it as an EV exporter. The opportunity is the rest of the world. The US is currently less than 19% of the global light vehicle market, and will continue to shrink over time as India and Africa grows.
A ‘perfect storm’ points to a much smaller U.S. auto market by 2040 - https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/28/us-auto-market.html - June 28th, 2026
- Ten years ago, a record 17.6 million cars, trucks and SUVs were sold in the U.S. Some forecasts say the country might not come close to that number again.
- Analysts at consulting firm Bain & Company said several signs indicate the market is about to shrink even more. Falling birth rates, behavioral changes, high car prices and a growing array of alternatives could drive sales down by more than 2 million units by 2040, according to their analysis.
- These indications point to a future where automakers fiercely compete for a shrinking number of customers, said Mark Gottfredson, a partner at Bain & Company.
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