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This article doesn’t give any real context from where these numbers come from, what countries, or why are BYD cars more enticing over Tesla vehicles. Honestly, I’ve heard of the rising popularity of Chinese cars in developing countries due to their reduced cost, but the reason could be because the Chinese government has purchased them to boost sales numbers like shown in another article here.
They started selling them in the UK this year, and I’ve already started to see them on the road. They claim to be on track for around 30,000 sales per year in the country, which would put them at about half of the number of Teslas sold (about 60,000).
Why are people buying them? Well, the same reason people buy any car. They’re sold with a relatively high trim for a relatively affordable price, and they’re reviewing well with the auto press. It’s not like there’s any magic to it. China’s a cheap manufacturing country, and they’re undoubtedly willing to throw profit margins to the wolves to boost market share.
But the government didn’t buy them to boost sales numbers in the other article here. If you actually read it it says that a bunch of ride sharing companies bought them, admittedly with some government subsidies, and then when several of thouse companies went out of business hundreds of their vehicles got stuck in a lot for a few years before they could be auctioned off. A wonder of capitalism that companies can be founded, grow, and then collapse so fast that they can’t even sell their hard assets sure, but hardly the government funding an entire industry.
Probably from Bloomberg report
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-03/tesla-sales-drop-sees-byd-close-gap-in-race-for-ev-supremacy
Yeah specially watching serpentza’s video on BYD throwing literally fields of electric cars fully completed, with their license plates and under 30 miles on them, to just rot in there. So whenever hearing EV sales from Chinese car makers… Suspicious-fry.jpg
While there has been confirmed reports of smaller manufacturers faking the number of cars produced by claiming partly completed frames, why would BYD fully complete a car just to leave it in a field. No only is it leaving money on the table, but given the cost to build a car is far higher that the subsidy they’d be loosing money on every car.
I also sopose that serpentza confirmed that the cars were owned by BYD and completely unconnected to the fields of EVs left over when the Chinese ride share bobble collapsed and several EV ride share companies went bankrupt.
Sold to whom? As far as I know the government is paying fora lot of EVs which end up abondent https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/
They are suddenly everywhere in Australia, I can tell you that much.
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Unless I’m reading it wrong, that’s not what the article said? It seemed to suggest it was ride sharing companies which bought them and stopped ride sharing
Fair enough, I should have said “government is paying by subsidizing for a lot of EVs”. It doesn’t say it in this article but from other articles I read in the past it was a substantial part of the price which the government paid so that it was worth it. Don’t forget that those subsidiaries are the reason why the EU is investigating if they should put on extra taxes on Chinese EVs or not.
Much like with solar panels, the EU hasn’t invested in the factory capacity to meet demand and is now working to protect its own industry by being outcompeted by competitors who did. It’s also silly since the EU and US do the same exact thing.
So let’s assume that the EU and the US are doing the same, where are the mountains of discarded EVs like we see in China?
Umm, Uber and Lyft don’t own thier own cars, and haven’t gone out of business, ao why would there be a few parking lots full of company cars left over after a bankruptcy in the US?
How do they stack up for data privavcy? Are they continously connected to the cloud?
If anyone has any actual information, I’d appreciate it. Just based on the fact that it’s a Chinese automaker, though, I wouldn’t expect privacy to be very high on their list of priorities.
No, and I don’t want to be particularly sinophobic. But I’m generally very concerned about manufacturers’ post-sales controls over cars anyway.
I agree - sinophobia is hateful and irrational. I just don’t trust the CCP not to force the company to play along with their surveillance plans, ya know?
I think that’s fair.
Fucks sake. Criticism of China is not sinophobic.
Are we just copying the Israel playbook now?
Criticism of China isn’t necessarily sinophobic. However being particularly concerned that a Chinese automaker is doing something most US automakers do might be. Especially when you consider that on an individual level it is less of a concern for Chinese companies to be tracking you then US companies. If you live in the US then local companies will gladly turn over information to authorities or shut off features for some reason. And to be fair I also think it would be better for a Chinese person to use a foreign for similar reasons.
To the extent that it is worth distinguishing between hatred of Jews and disllike of Israel’s policy towards Palestinian civilians, feel free of accusing me of following the “Israel playbook”
BYD has a factory in California where they make electric buses and commercial trucks.