My God the Chinese are at it again beating the United States at capitalism
It’s not on, it really isn’t, the Chinese shouldn’t be allowed to engage in the free market. They’re supposed to be the enemy.
They should be sanctioned so that Western car makers can continue to put out vehicles for ludicrous prices, the way God intends.
I get your sarcasm, but Chinese products are life savers in 3rd world countries like mine. My brother bought a Chinese pickup truck for $3500 brand new. American trucks are at least 10 times that. People there work a whole month for $500 - $900. No one can and will never afford that shit. Same goes for other products like cellphones, computers… Etc. an iPhone there costs $1200 - $1400 and a Chinese one costs $300 max and it does the job no problem. People in those countries love China.
Which countries?
3rd world countries. Or do you want specific names?
Yes, I asked “which countries”, not “what kind of countries”?
Iraq is where I’m originally from, and Chinese products are ubiquitous there. They even built schools and hospitals there. Sorry for misunderstanding at first.
Don’t apologize to that heifer
Lord. The irony. Could have had a little US in Iraq after us essentially living there forever. Now it’s Chinatown
Guatemala
I know someone is going to read that and not get the implied /s
I don’t know, I feel like it works on both levels really. There are actual people that think like that and it’s insane. The US trade war doesn’t really help, It paints China as the bad guy even though they’re only doing the same thing as every other country in the world.
By all means demand China improves in areas which makes sense such as blatant copyright violation and human rights abuses but not this. Making cheap cars is hardly nefarious.
It depends on how it’s done. If the Chinese government is directly subsidizing the cheap cars then it’s a problem.
Kind of like the US subsidizing farmers and then dumping the cheap corn on other countries such that their local farmers go out of business.
That’s capitalism. You don’t get to complain because someone else gets a better deal.
China will always be able to produce cheaper products because the cost of living is lower there. But that is hardly a major revelation.
You forgot the uyghurs and slave labour…
Convenient.Well the US has 1.2 million prisoners who get paid on average 86 cents a day. So effectively slave labor. That they aren’t directly building cars doesn’t matter because money is fungible. Every dollar saved not paying prisoners is more money elsewhere in the economy.
Yes I did, I mentioned human rights abusers, it’s right there in the comment that I made, I can still see it.
I find it’s always a good idea to actually read the comments before getting angry about them.
they have dropped subsidies, and the companies making terrible product, and those with unsustainable business models are collapsing… Weltmeister, Lepin… all defunct.
I don’t care about them
I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not…
There‘s a word for that „Greedflation.“ This is what western car makers do. Luckily, the Cinese car makers grasp their chance and disrupt the market
While that is part of it, the other, bigger part is that Western countries actually do have higher labour costs: better salaries and conditions for our workers.
When China was outcompeting us on undesirable, low productivity, jobs, we accepted that. It was better to raise a billion Chinese out of poverty than to protect our lowest productivity factory workers. And those workers mostly transitioned to other jobs with higher productivity.
But now China is richer and their labour force is shrinking, so they will compete with highly productive factory jobs.
Politically, it is unlikely that car workers will accept unemployment. Nor will other highly paid workers.
So a trade war is brewing, you better brace yourself for it.
China wasn’t “outcompeting us on undesirable, low productivity, jobs”. Corporations were shipping jobs to China to undercut highly productive factory jobs back then, too, so they could save on labor costs. It’s only now that China is undercutting corporate profits that these same corporations come crying and shitting their pants. That’s also why you see a ramping up of negative media pieces on China. It was never about charitably raising people out of poverty. It was always about corporations undercutting labor to gain greater profits. Fuck 'em, bring on the cheap cars.
I hate it when corpos use the “oh we can’t lower prices because our staff is getting paid too much”-narrative. What about the CEO who takes half the profits for himself?
It’s the workers who create value for a company, they don’t take it away by getting paid for their work.The sad fact of the matter is… math
A corporation might have 10 C-level guys dividing $50 million amongst themselves and 10.000 workers earning $70K, which costs about $100K due to overheads (health insurance, retirement, etc). Together, that’s a billion, which is 20x more than the C level guys.
The C level guys aren’t the big expense, not by a long shot.
Labour, government and shareholders divide most of the earnings amongst themselves.
For the record, I do think we need to tax the wealthy more and the workers less.
Dude, I’m old enough to have lived through it.
Making toys and other plastic shit was never a high paying job in the West.
And no, it wasn’t charity, it was a win-win that increased living standards on both sides.
But it did have an impact on low paying manufacturing jobs in the West and that impact was accepted by Labour unions for the two reasons I gave: we (rightfully) concluded there were enough other, better jobs available and didn’t want to keep Chinese workers poor.
Yeah I’m confused by the charity argument. When have American corporations ever done anything out of the kindness of their hearts?
Read what I said. Labour Unions, not corporations.
Don’t think labor costs is a big factor. Car production is the sector that is most automated. Just think of this endless bands of hanging cars with robot arms working on it. Tesla even topped this.
It’s mainly the unwillingness to design and sell cheap cars due to less profits. In Germany we had electric cars for 20k€ or even combustion cars under 15k€. But they stopped building it. Although it was sold out in weeks.
In my region there was a Startup by the Aachen University RWTH (which is an elite university in Germany) bulding small EVs for around 20k€. They simply bought all parts from suppliers and just assembled it. And engineered and designed it first. Unionized and still competitive. Unfortunately, they didn’t fly.
EV building is rather simple. The software is key. And this is the missing part at car makers capabilities.
I second your thoughts on trade war. However, I guess it will be much simpler with high taxes, high quality regulations, and may be less support by car workshops. We will see…
There is still a shit ton of people working in a car factory. Tesla had to scale back their amount of robot workers since humans could work much faster. Tesla expects to have 60,000 people working in their Gigafactory in Texas when the production of the Cybertruck ramps up.
Chinese manufacturers are being heavily subsidised and even making a loss on their cars.
They’re trying to kill off our domestic car industries.
No reason why western countries also can’t subsidize EV car companies to remain competitive.
Like…what are we supposed to do? Be content with ridiculously priced EVs and be willing to pay a small fortune for them? Fuck off with that noise.
Western corporations have had no problems fucking over the average consumer for decades or laying off thousands of employees at the first sign of trouble. Let them adapt or die I say. Competition is always good. Western corporations have the smarts and the resources to compete, they just need to be forced to.
Controversial take: the problem isn’t car prices. They haven’t increased that much when compared to inflation, and you’re getting far more and far better cars for your money when adjusted for inflation.
The problem is wages haven’t risen and housing prices have risen too much, meaning people have less to spend on a car.
E: I googled. In the US the cost of a median house was 18k in 1953. An average car cost 3.5k.
Now, the median house costs 400k.
400k/18k x 3.5k = If car prices had risen as much as house prices, the median car would cost 77k.
Not a controversial take at all IMHO. You’re not wrong. Housing is absolutely ridiculous right now.
Selling at a loss to enter a market or gain market share is a time honored tradition at this point.
It is, but as the article mentions some manufacturers are making a loss of 35k per car.
If those cars are then sold for 5k less than the US/EU/Japanese equivalent, despite lower wages and environmental standards, you have to ask yourself questions.
Good
Nooooo anything but more environmentally friendly vehicles that people can actually afford. Won’t somebody think of the profits?
Chinese EVs are being sold at a loss of up to 35k per car:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/business/nio-china-electric-vehicles.html
The Chinese government is subsidising their car industry, so they can engage in dumping, and decimate our car industries. When our domestic car industries are dead, they’ll raise prices. It’s like Amazon or any other scummy megacorp that kills local businesses.
This being said, it’s hard to feel sorry for companies who also receive plenty of government subsidies and tax breaks, broke the law on emissions testing and likely killed a lot of people because of it, and refused to innovate or lower prices out of sheer greed.
Selling at a loss is how you build volume and reach the economies of scale that drive down costs.
If you fiddle around half-heartedly putting out small numbers of EVs, you’ll never come close to competing with a company that puts out over a million a year. A lot of automakers still aren’t willing to commit, and they’re whining about the position they chose to put themselves in.
gee the market has been clamoring for a decade while the auto industry said “BIG TRUCKS AND SUV’S!”
I mean people also eat it up like good luttle piggies.
Yes, people being dumb is the real source of all issues.
I mean there’s still a good amount of people in my position where you can’t fit 3 car seats in any ev in the market. Haven’t checked in the past year, maybe it’s changed but I also can’t afford to waste 60k+
Or in a five-seater car or crossover. It’s ridiculous. Carseats and boosters are massive, even the ones with the smallest bases. Then after that you need space for sports equipment, musical instruments, other friends, etc. I’m not sure what the solution is here, other than acknowledging that for a few years in a family’s life they’re going to need a bigger vehicle, and it would be great if manufacturers offered a hybrid or EV solution for them, too.
Mazda is finally coming out with a PHEV three row next year, starting around $55k. Not sure who else, besides Rivian with their new fully EV three row at $75k+, which is completely unaffordable for most families.
Kia EV9 has three rows and starts at $55k still expensive but definitely in range for a middle class family
Oh, nice! I didn’t have that one on my radar. Our next family car needs to be either hybrid or EV, and I’ve just started looking.
Honestly it feels like most companies producing child seats and strollers and whatnot (as well as the stores that stock and sell them) have stopped putting any focus on solutions for 2 or more children and instead only produce solutions for only children. I’ve got 2 young kids 2 years apart and we had a heck of a time finding a double stroller among other things
Safety and reliability are two of the biggest factors in family cars. You would think they would want to make larger family vehicles with those selling points.
I just looked it up and the only minivan EV is 114k…
“We can’t lower the prices, it’s impossible so soon”
Hear me out: a bare minimum electronics car extremely reliable, no screens no bells and whistles and with the smallest possible engine battery that costs less than $5.000 💥
Citroën Ami is available. Closer to $8000 and technically a quadricycle. All bare minimum to make it street legal.
What a compact thing, also charges to full in just 3 hours from a normal outlet 🤯
It’s great Citroën is making a small, cheap EV … but why did they make it look like a cross between a Fiat Multipla and a pug?
That thing is ugly.
That thing’s front and back are exactly the same. It saves on fabrication costs to use the same part but it gives a weird look.
You can get an electric motorcycle for that price. Even electric microcars cost more than $5000. Unless you want to buy a Chinese tin can death machine on four wheels that aren’t street legal.
I mean, it’s not like micro cars are safe
So they CAN make cars cheaper. I bet they still post profit while claiming they’re losing money.
Somewhat unrelated: IINM most Europeans don’t drive even a quarter of the max range of EVs on most of their trips. The current range of EVs should be just fine it you plug it in every day like your phone. Getting an EV that can get you to work and back or to a friend and back without charging should already allow to buy an EV that’s quite affordable.
Most Europeans have one, max 2 cars per household. A fuckton of Europeans also go on holiday with their cars once or twice a year.
One car needs to work for most use cases. It’s fine if you have more cars than people in the house that one of them is a 100 mile range commuter, but a different kettle of fish if the same car needs to do an 800+ mile trip to the Mediterranean in summer and a 500 mile ski trip in winter.
Then a plug in hybrid or elecric car with range extender motor makes more sense. I think it’s pretty dumb to be carrying around expensive, heavy batteries everywhere you go that only get used fully twice a year.
IINM
That’s a new one to me. I’m surprised because I thought abbreviations in that style are starting to die out.
If I’m Not Mistaken. IDK, I’ve seen it quite often 🤔 It’s not esoteric.
China isn’t making EVs for the sake of going green and the companies making them should have their manufacturing methods questioned.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
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Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
In Southern Ca these are becoming popular, we also have the largest Viet population outside Vietnam I believe.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
LONDON/DETROIT, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The rise of inexpensive Chinese electric vehicles has upped the pressure on legacy automakers who have turned to suppliers, from battery materials makers to chipmakers, to squeeze out costs and develop affordable EVs quicker than previously planned.
“Automakers are really now only turning to affordable vehicles, knowing they’ve got to or they will lose out to Chinese manufacturers,” said Andy Palmer, chairman of UK startup Brill Power, which has developed hardware and software to boost EV battery management system performance.
Palmer, formerly Aston Martin’s CEO, said Brill Power’s products could boost EV range by 60% and enable smaller batteries.
Stellantis (STLAM.MI) is building a European plant with China’s CATL (300750.SZ) to make cheaper LFP batteries and recently unveiled the Citroen electric e-C3 SUV, which starts at 23,300 euros ($24,540).
Vincent Pluvinage, CEO of Palo Alto, California-based OneD Battery Sciences, said that on his recent visits with European automaker customers, every meeting started with the same refrain: “‘Reducing costs is now more important than anything else.’”
Veekim CEO Peter Siegle said using cheaper ferrite and low-cost processes - including 3D-printed copper wiring - can cut an EV motor’s price by 20%.
The original article contains 809 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yeah but where can I get these cheap Chinese EVs? I’ve never seen any for sale in the States
The $2,000 price was legit, but that didn’t include batteries. It was another $300 or so for heavy lead acid batteries, $500 if I wanted a lithium-ion battery pack (3 kWh), $710 for a bigger lithium pack (5 kWh), and $1,050 if I wanted a giant lithium battery (6 kWh).
The article goes on to say that shipping is a big deal, too. It requires thousands for a space in a container. But the total clocked under $9K IIRC
Yeah but those aren’t street legal
… the same ‘cheap chinese evs’ that keep spontaneously combusting all over china?
Wow. Can’t wait…
