I think electric cars need to be simpler. They should be more like economy cars of today with the drivetrain simply swapped. No touchscreens, no fancy door handles, no cameras, etc. Those features should be optional with some trims. They need to be reliable and long life to maximize raw material efficiency. Imagine the Chinese electric cars are similar to this but the article is lacking much detail.
I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system. This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions (at least until we transition to carbon neutral energy infrastructure). A gallon of diesel would last for months if it was just used for heating the cabin, and it would improve the range. It might even be an effective solution for keeping the battery at optimal temperatures but obviously a lot of math is required here to see if the tradeoff is worth it vs integrated battery heating.
Touchscreens are how electric cars are simpler and cheaper. Buttons, knobs, their wirings and linkages are surprisingly expensive once you include fully load the cost (ie, wiring is often done by hand).
> Imagine the Chinese electric cars are similar to this but the article is lacking much detail.
No, Chinese cars are usually loaded with gimmicks. Even the $10,000 Dolphin has two screens.
> This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions
Even more efficient is to utilize the waste heat from motors, as a proper heat pump system does.
What really kills the range of an EV in the winter is bringing the battery & cabin up to temperature at the beginning. Once the car is moving, the heat pump can scavenge heat from the motor to relatively efficiently heat things. So if you pre-warm your car while it's plugged in the range loss isn't too bad.
Diesel heat would prevent you from doing this because you can't run a diesel heater in the garage. So ironically, a diesel heater could reduce your battery's range even though it doesn't use battery power.
That's a good point but I can't understand how it would add up vs servos or other electric air controls vs a manual lever that physically opens the baffle. It really doesn't make sense to me how an lcd can be less expensive than a bit of metal and plastic in a switch but I suppose you're right due to economies of scale.
The touch aspect itself is really cheap. The big benefit of screens over "simpler" instruments is that regulations actually vary quite a bit across the world. Being able to use a screen that can display anything greatly reduces the sku count, simplifying supply chains and assembly lines.
It would be hard to justify not using a screen these days, IMO.
> It would be hard to justify not using a screen these days, IMO.
Unless you were concerned about the safety of someone having to look at a screen to operate vehicle controls. Otherwise you could just make it a smartphone app and ditch the screen entirely.
That would be atrocious (but not really much worse than the all-in-one infotainment screens we already have...) But my gut says automakers haven't gone there because it would make support and liability that much more complicated - "the operator was distracted at the time of the collision... but they weren't trying to turn on the defroster, they were watching Youtube!" On the plus side instead of being stuck with a never-upgraded head unit, with an orphaned 3G modem, you'd at least have connectivity that kept working.
The cost of the vehicle components is a surprisingly small part of the overall cost of a vehicle. The cost of the line time and the additional tolerances to fit those cheaper components is vastly higher than the cost of stuff they're going to install anyway.
Being able to separate design decision timelines on how the UI works from manufacturing timelines is also very helpful organizationally.
I think the importance of heatpumps is overblown. If you go for a highway trip, your car consumes 10kW+ and 1kW heating won't matter much. Additionally, on longer trips the cabin's already warm, no need to run the heater that much.
Kinda. Im leqd to believe heatpump is a $50 device that manufacturers charge $2k for (must be more to it honestly).
If that saves 10% of range that’s 10% less batteries which cost more than $50. Eventually all these savings add up so much that EV is lighter and cheaper than similar ICE vehicle…
It’s happening. The mg3 is very common in the third world and has touch screens now in the latest model. They have a few buttons on the wheel but the majority of features are on the tiny touchscreen in the center. If you see cars in the 3rd world without touchscreens they are older models is all. Sometimes it just takes a while for the new cheaper way to do things to become widespread.
Firstly, they're often older cars shipped from richer countries if it's a better deal than scrapping.
And for new build cars, they often lack a lot of the entertainment and safety systems required in western countries, so they also don't have the onboard computers that would run the touch screen.
When your car already has a backup camera required, so it _has_ to have a screen, and add at least handsfree bluetooth phone connectivity, bluetooth audio and digital radio since I haven't seen a new car without them for years, you have an onboard general purpose computer already. Switching to a touch screen is a small marginal cost over that, and you can lower costs by removing physical controls which not only removes the part cost, but also labour cost of installing, wiring, and quality control.
Also all the features not found in cars for low-cost markets don't need controls, so even if physical controls cost more per-item than touchscreens the total number of controls is much lower.
Where do you live? Everything you said could be a mental exercise in this third world country: It makes sense, but it is not reality.
New cars in here (at least chevrolet, isuzu and toyotas) are being shipped with a touchscreen. As you say, it covers the camera display, the infotaiment and map navigation. Everything else still has manual controls, THANK GOD. For instance AC, lights, wipers.
I currently have a 2017 Mazda Bt50
it didnt have the touchscreen. It does have a rearview camera, and the image is displayed in a little square screen in the central rearview mirror. It also has a frontal camera and both of them can record video continuosly. You can have Features without a "general purpose computer"
The most common transmission is manual, automatic costs around $1000 more. Why? Market preference. We do have some poorly maintained roads, and some dirt roads, mind you.
The only reason to ship all controls in a touchscreen is because it is fancy, and since it is already there, they want to save some money by not including physical buttons.
Touchscreens are more expensive than buttons and knobs. But screens are required by law in the USA and EU as they require backup cameras. And a digitizer is a lot cheaper than some buttons and knobs.
>>No touchscreens, no fancy door handles, no cameras, etc.
We own a Volkswagen e-Up, it's exactly like this. We love it too, it's just such a great little car, you can easily get 150 miles out of its 32kWh battery and it fits everything, has no touchscreen, good old buttons for the climate controls and even proper analogue gauges for speed and battery level. I will own it until it falls apart.
>>I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system.
I honestly doubt that anyone would like the "convenience" of having to fill up the tank for it with diesel every now and then.
>>and likely generate less carbon emissions
CO2 - yes. But these heaters(and devices like Webasto etc) are hugely polluting because unlike the exhaust from your engine their exhaust isn't filtered or treated in any way, all the bad stuff goes directly outside.
>>A gallon of diesel would last for months if it was just used for heating the cabin
No, it wouldn't - I own two cars with a webasto and they both use about 0.4L of fuel for hour of operation, it's not much but it's not insignificant.
Besides, this is a fixed problem - just use a heatpump instead of a resistive heater. A 500W heatpump will produce as much heat as a 2000W resistive heater.
The reason we went with 4y old leaf and not brand new e-up was that it looked like a coffin made out of matchbox. Compared to leaf which is still simple and conventional but has much more space to absorb impact and full of safety features.
I don't understand why your Webasto is using so much fuel. I use one to heat my sunroom in the winter and 2.4 gallons lasts me several days. A small, insulated cabin should require much less.
Because it also heats the engine as well maybe? Also I guess a car loses heat much faster than your stationary cabin because the flow of air around it as you drive is very good at taking the heat away. Also there is no insulation anywhere.
Anyway, from its spec sheet it says it can actually use up to 0.6L/h at full load:
Full load is way too much unless you're arctic trucking. The lowest setting is plenty for my sun room until it gets below 20f or it's especially windy. This uses about a gallon in 6 hours.
But you're right, without any insulation, the moving vehicle will lose heat much faster. The room has terrible insulation but at least it has bare brick for the bottom 3 feet which probably retains a lot of the heat. I suspect with proper insulation your fuel usage would be drastically reduced.
OP's rate of usage equates to using 2.4 gallons in about 23 hours. Assuming you are only using yours during the few hours a day the sunroom is occupied, several days sounds about right.
Yes i run it 6-8 hours a day when I'm using the room. It really surprises me how effective and cheap it is vs a space heater. A solar powered heat pump would be even cheaper, I suppose but this solution was only about $200 to build. I doubt a heat pump would last long enough to pay for itself unless i could figure out away to cheaply acquire and install it.
It is. Modern high-efficiency single stage air-source heat pumps will only have a COP of between 2-2.2 in -20°c/-4°F, so your 500W heat pump would output 1000W-1200W of heat.
However at 0°C/32°F this bumps to 3.5-3.8, so you'd be getting much closer to the quoted 2000W.
If you're operating in -20°C or below for much of the year a heat pump might not be the best option, but even in Yellowknife that's only three months of the year and it's still twice the heat per kW.
My presumption is that batteries have been expensive enough up until now that it's been most sensible to target upmarket without sacrificing specs vs ICE. My expectation is as prices continue to fall cheaper and cheaper cars will become commercially viable.
Cheap EVs suffer the most from the drawbacks that make electric kind of suck (smaller batteries reduce range, more sensitive to heating costs, etc). Once you can shove a 60kwh pack in a cheap car, most of those drawbacks go away.
> They should be more like economy cars of today with the drivetrain simply swapped.
This is how most first generation EVS from legacy car makers were made, and they dramatically underperformed in range, performance, and comfort due to the assumptions, parts, and manufacturing methods inherited from ICE cars.
Look at the Dacia Spring. The entry level barely has a screen at all, and no camera, not even a backup camera, it doesn't even have a display for it. Also: no A/C, no thermostat, no rear power windows. You have to pay if you want these, and even if you take the "premium" model that has a touchscreen, it is pretty basic, essentially that's just a display for Android Auto / Apple Car Play, and you get a backup camera.
That's what you would expect for an economy car. It is less than €20k. Unfortunately, it also has a pretty bad range and overall performance because of its small battery. Of course, batteries are expensive, and it is a cheap car. It means you won't get far with it. That's unlike "A-segment" gas cars (ex: Fiat 500) that while not the most comfortable, have no problem driving cross-country.
> This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions
Perhaps in the case of an EV using resistive heating, however, most have moved on to using heatpumps.
Heatpumps have COPs that range anywhere from 2 to 10. Which means for every 1kWh in, you get 2 to 10kWh of heat out. A resistive heater has a COP of 1.
Fossil fuel power plants operate at ~40->60% efficiency, which means that past a COP of ~2 you are going to be more efficient for heating even if your power source is directly from fossil fuels. It's sort of neat.
When talking about generation mixed grids (which most are now) the COP level needed to beat having a diesel burner for CO2 output plummets.
But one more point to consider, a modern EV needs an HVAC to ensure the proper operating temperature of a battery. The thing that killed the old Nissan Leafs was the fact that they didn't have any sort of cooling system for their batteries. Put those in hot climates and you are talking major and fast degradation.
So, it wouldn't even be (much) lighter to omit the heatpump. To convert the HVAC system for the battery into a climate system is pretty much just requires a single valve.
> more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system. This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions
Is this true? Honest question. My understanding is that for cars in general (implicitly driving range), electric cars are lower impact on the energy grid as a whole (ignoring last mile) because of how energy intensive oil is to refine.
Is it that diesel specifically is less energy intensive because of how it differs in refinement to petrol? Or is it that because heating is effectively 100% efficient it doesn't matter that you're using the energy in refinement?
Some of it comes down to the rocket equation because it takes a lot of energy to warm a battery up. If that energy has to come from a battery itself, then the vehicle needs even more battery. Carrying around that extra battery all the time will consume even more energy. And you lose about 8% total electrical energy by putting it through the lithium battery.
In comparison two litres of diesel fuel with a nearly 100% efficiency can absolutely be more efficient from a full-system standpoint.
My friend has a Mitsubishi kei van Electric and it’s exactly what you describe. It’s just like a regular kei van but electric. It is a wonderful, wonderful car. Because of the low center of gravity of the heavy battery. It has no roll around corners like a regular kei van. It’s like a sports car. It is as simple as a car could be.
Only thing that’s missing g for me is a 4x4 model.
Cars should be Being Your Own Infotainment ready and support that.
Software is a cost center. Your car company probably isnt going to win on it. Enable everyone else to compete to be a good infotainment for your base car.
The people buying Teslas must have a absolutely odd definition of sexy. I put them at a 4/10 at best. Shit I put my daily driver Civic at 6/10 because the driver cockpit is phenomenal and has a significant amount of attention to detail for a cheap car, but I have driven many high end 6-figure cars as well.
> The only reason Tesla succeeded is by making sexy car.
I don't think so. They succeeded because the batteries made by Tesla seems incredibly good. A Model S owner I know swapped his batteries after... 280 000 km (175 000 miles). They seem to live long and have better mileage.
But neither the Model 3 nor the model Y nor the model X are "sexy": they just have a weird shape. Although I'll grant you the Model S is good looking.
To me the german, Porsche and Mercedes for example, make way better looking EV cars than Tesla and with much better interiors. But inferior batteries.
I don't know whether Tesla batteries are actually better than average. What Tesla absolutely does better than average is their battery management system. Tesla does an exquisite job of keeping their batteries at the optimal temperature and never overcharging them or charging them too fast.
Any lithium battery -- even a bad one -- will last much longer with a great BMS.
They succeeded by making an electric car that looked like a normal car not a glorified golf cart or a cartoon car. Secondly they had decent/usable range for many use cases, and they had good performance.
BYD is a state-backed enterprise with unknown levels of profitability when full subsidies are accounted for.
Tariffs will be needed by countries that refuse to create state backed companies but which also want an automotive industry and a manufacturing base that can make weapons of war.
Which still doesn't solve the problem: the real issue is that Western companies are financialized to the max. That's why Elon repeatedly lies to get a stock bump. Also, why companies like Google, Boeing, and Intel allow product quality to degrade, as long as they can prop up stock price for the next quarter.
So, tariffs won't solve anything. Which is why despite the Jones Act, China builds 200x more ships that the US.
Or, hasn't Tesla received billions in government assistance? what about the major automakers that'd have crumbled around 2008 if not for the US gov. pouring rivers of cash into them?
So, protectionism is only a band-aid: it doesn't change the fact that American businesses have developed a short-termist culture that only cares for the next quarter.
If you want long-term thinking then people have to be able to buy into stories about what's going to happen long-term. When Musk does that, you call it a lie. The benefit of financialization is that it provides cheaper access to capital, which should make long-term investment easier, not harder. America still has lots of capital intensive industries that are capable of thinking long-term. I don't think financialization has much to do with the strategic problems that many American companies face.
At the same time that Intel was allowing product quality to degrade, Nvidia, a 30 year old company, was continuing to innovate.
No, I don't have a personal axe to grind against Musk. I'm just pointing out his persistent, repeated lies. Being an engineer, he should be able to gauge their capabilities accordingly, or at least make those optimistic predictions closer to the finish line.
GM, Ford, and Chrysler (now Stellantis or whatever they call themselves) could easily be described as the same with all the subsidies and trade protection they get.
For example, aero headlights were not legal in the US for ages until Ford wanted to use them in the upcoming Taurus. European and Japanese companies had to use US-specific headlights, usually sealed beam units.
This nonsense still goes on today. Why do you think CCS has a unique-to-US charge connector? To make things more expensive for foreign car companies.
Then we have the insane "must be built here" restrictions...
Tesla got $300million for battery swapping and $1 billion for a Buffalo solar plant. Many other billions total with federal and Nevada, Texas. And various state incentive programs.
Their partner Panasonic is a keiretsu and I think has gotten billions in EV battery related subsidies overall.
I thought it was because China was subsidizing the cars a ton. Or have they really cracked EVs and economies of scale just got them there. Maybe a bit of both?
When USA and Japan wake up from their gasoline obsession the world would have moved on and Asia, South America and Africa would be on Chinese Evs. Europe will drive EU made cars from Chinese and European brands.
Outside of BYD, Every Chinese EV is losing money with every sale. Insiders say that every one of them will fold within the next 3 years. and when the EV company disappears, your car is now a worthless block of metal.
Nobody should be buying Chinese EVs, and only BYD if you have to.
>every one of them will fold within the next 3 years
The same way China has been predicted to collapse every year since 1990? No matter how much money you lose, you can grow yourself out of it. Which is why OpenAI can raise $6b at nearly $150b, despite losing $5b annually. So, why do you suggest the CPC will let BYD - their EV golden goose that has thoroughly thrashed Western competitors - to fail?
> The source article highlights the so-called “E-Axle” used by BYD, which is comprised of eight different components.
> It includes not only the motor, inverter, transmission and controller but also the onboard AC charger, the DC-to-DC converter and the battery monitoring system (BMS).
Sounds like that if one of those ever needs replacement you might as well just replace the whole car.
What does this high level of integration mean for repairability? Lack of/difficulty in repairability can raise lifecycle costs or reduce longevity. The latter is especially worrying for lifecycle carbon emissions.
Although it's in Chinese, Google Translate can help you out.
The TLDR version is that BYD integrates many components of the electric drivetrain into a single sub-assembly, and shares said assembly between multiple vehicles to achieve volume cost savings.
Which is fine for bringing the costs down, but keep in mind their cars have zero repairability, which might be a concern, considering the engineers though the components aren't protected well enough agains water ingress.
Although, I admit my skepticism might be unfounded. I've owned the same car for close to a decade, and I haven't replaced anything besides consumables and fluids.
> The TLDR version is that BYD integrates many components of the electric drivetrain into a single sub-assembly, and shares said assembly between multiple vehicles to achieve volume cost savings.
What do you mean? Multiple vehicles can use the same electric motor and battery, exactly the same as ICE vehicles share the same engines across different model lines.
One of the characteristics of ATTO3 is the promotion of component integration. In the electric drive device "E-Axle", in addition to the motor, inverter, and reducer, a total of 8 components such as the on-board charger and DC-DC converter (DC voltage converter) are integrated. This can reduce component costs and reduce weight.
For one, they have spent years shedding all their talent and outsourcing all their components.
Now they are the mercy of their vendors, with limited knowledge of how to do things any other way than to keep depending on them.
Sometimes there are only 1 or 2 vendors they can pick from, with so little competition, it is no wonder the prices keep going up.
If Tesla actually focused on making a cheap car, I am sure it would cost far less, but instead they need the Model 3 to be a cash cow to make up for all the other dumb decisions being made.
Maybe, but base Nissan Leaf is $28k off the lot today with L2 self driving. Sure, air cooled battery, CHAdeMO, hatchback design... but it's not like those deficiencies would cost full $15k/car to fix; it's not like Big CHAdeMO is burning that much per each Leaf. So that kind of "Tesla would have this and that" arguments don't really hold water.
That said, my model 3 performance is faster than any car under $100k and costs less than half that. So it’s actually cheap for what it is. Comfier too.
Look at profits of legacy auto. It’s not the labor, they’re prioritizing profits over investment to deliver on EVs (kicking the can and making it the future’s problem).
There is also the choice of whether or not they make affordable cars.
In the 1970s my dad had the worst time trying to buy compact cars from US dealerships, in the 2000s I thought US automakers were as bad but Japanese brands were better, by 2018 or so Japanese dealers were using the same toolbox (“You’re saying I can’t buy a Honda Fit because the factory washed out in a flood but you have 100 SUVs in a row that nobody wants to buy made in the same factory?”)
Then I got home and I am sure to read some article in the auto press which repeats, like the brainwash soldiers from The Manchurian Candidate that Americans only want to drive huge vehicles. Sure, an American might want a size L vehicle on average but from their point of view it is a disaster that somebody would could possibly buy a $50k vehicle walks out with a $25k vehicle (that Sales Manager won’t be able to work you over for another decade) so they will try to sell you an XXL vehicle.
Tesla, GM, Toyota and many others have refused to make affordable EVs, it’s that simple. Their hope is that a 100% tariff on BYD means they’ll never have to service the affordable vehicle market.
You're missing one of the principal actors here. It's not GM or Toyota selling you a car, it's a dealership. The dealership is only viable if they average $2-4k per sale. That margin simply doesn't exist on a $10k car, so they don't even want to offer it except to get you in the door.
Manufacturers in turn (except Tesla) have no one to sell these vehicles, and would have to take a risk that they could make up the lost margin on volume. They don't have the cultures to do that either.
>Tesla, GM, Toyota and many others have refused to make affordable EVs, it’s that simple.
I think GM is at least trying, with the sub-$35,000 Equinox EV. And the rumor is that the 2026 Bolt will be ~$30,000. Definitely going to be interesting to see what comes around in the next couple of years with battery prices falling.
Taking just Ford, they sold 1,995,912 vehicles in 2023 [1]; assuming it's divided evenly across vehicles, CEO compensation adds $13.25 to the price of a Ford. Probably CEO compensation is less substantial for a BYD vehicle, but it's just not a large component of the cost.
EDIT: Fixed the math, thanks mperham, I had $1.35 earlier.
The OP said "Look at profits of legacy auto. It’s not the labor, they’re prioritizing profits over investment [...]". Are you arguing that this is incorrect by showing some examples of large labor expenses these US auto companies have? My understanding is that profits is what is left over to be paid to shareholders after they stop spending on employees/investment/opex/etc.
Hybrids have become increasingly popular as the charging infrastructure is still lacklustre in many parts of the world. And that's not a problem that can be solved overnight.
Even if EV charging was ubiquitous, legacy auto would sell what nets them the highest profit, which is not EVs. China’s EV market is hypercompetitive, and does not suffer legacy auto type incumbents. It’s why US automakers will likely leave China.
At least we have BYD and Tesla, just gotta scale up faster. Global light vehicle TAM is 90M units/year. 20% of all vehicles sold globally last year were BEVs or PHEVs, onward and upward.
Sadly (for myself) the only compact-ish plug-in hybrid that exists in my part of the world (Australia) is the Cupra Leon. Neat car, we're genuinely considering it, but it's $80,000AUD, vs. the $50,000AUD that a top-end hybrid Corolla would cost. And they're still much more expensive than my partners VW Polo... worth it for us, as we have a one car shared between the two of us, but I wish there were more compact-ish hybrids available.
Honestly same goes for EVs, though the BYD stuff is starting to fill that niche quite nicely. And compact + decent range is sort of at odds with itself.
I am thinking about getting a third car for the farm if I could get an inexpensive low range EV. If I am only driving to work with it or to go shopping or see a sports game at my Uni I can just it when I get home. If I need to go see a game in a distant city, well, I’ll take one of the gas cars so my son will take the EV and not the Buick to work one morning.
This is badly misinformed. They make the market. When you buy a car, do you have it custom made, or do you select one that actually exists?
That's exactly what happened with SUVs. SUVs didn't happen because people were begging car companies to make them something big, dangerous, and wasteful. They happened because car companies in the US found a legal loophole where they could cut costs by skirting safety and emissions regulations, while simultaneously marking up the product as a premium one. Then they ran ads to tell people SUVs were super safe [for the passengers]. So when people started buying SUVs en masse, that wasn't organic demand, it was the result of a successful national misinformation campaign (because modern SUVs and other "light trucks" are so large you're more likely to just drive over your own child without seeing them than even get in a crash).
Or maybe the rest of the world has way less population per area and therefore more gas stations, therefore filling up was less of a problem compared to the US...
Lack of focus on EV which leads to lower production volume (Chinese carmakers focused on EVs long before Tesla got popular), trend of over-sizing which means it's big and heavy, dogged obsession in road tripping rather than playing to EV's advantage in city driving, and of course Chinese carmakers get/got a healthy dose of subsidies.
In USA, EVs are traditionally built as an aspirational rather than utilitarian article. Tesla will design whatever it wants, make it expensive, and you will buy it if you want to be cooler than your peers. Chinese sell cheap EVs because they're regular cars no one will envy.
Or in a crude analogy, USA sells EVs like iPhones, China sells them like Androids.
Affordable - made cheaply - is equated in this article heavily as “better” but that is not always the case. I would still hesitate to buy a Chinese vehicle over safety and quality.
Nah - I own a Volvo XC60 that was built in China and it's about 10x better in terms of build quality than my last Mercedes that was entirely built in Germany and creaked like an old horse cart, I was in the dealership probably once a month fixing various issues with the interior. I've owned the Volvo for 4 years now and it has had zero issues, no creaks, fit and finish is great. So no, I wouldn't be concerned about owning a Chinese made vehicle, not in the slightest.
All cars today are being made to squeeze maximum profit. The plastics will last maybe 10 years and the electronics will be NLA soon after the warranty expires. If your main computer dies the car is scrap. There is no serious effort to make new cars repariable or maintainable other than for very routine things like brakes. Cars are becoming more and more disposable items, by design.
Motor Trend just gave the Lincoln Nautilus - a SUV made in China - their award for SUV of the year[0] and noted its build quality. While "Made In China" still carries a bad rap, I think that's going to change pretty quickly for more luxury goods like cars.
Well-designed off-roaders protect their occupants against the kinds of accident that might occur at relatively low speeds on rough terrain, with very rigid frames to prevent the occupants being crushed when rolling over. That is the very opposite design philosophy to most road vehicles, which are protected chiefly against high-speed collisions with other vehicles. The NCAP tests only cover the second kind of accidents.
I don't know whether the off-roading safety philosophy applies to your car though, as many SUVs and crossover cars are only designed to look the part, and are in fact more similar to ordinary road cars in safety design.
Clever design with reusable (between models) components. That’s “efficiency”. Efficient design often means better quality.
All countries that get into car manufacture seem to follow a similar path. 10-15 years of crap cars while building scale and expertise, then maturity with much higher quality. I think we are seeing the mature Chinese car industry now and it’s frankly impressive.
I think electric cars need to be simpler. They should be more like economy cars of today with the drivetrain simply swapped. No touchscreens, no fancy door handles, no cameras, etc. Those features should be optional with some trims. They need to be reliable and long life to maximize raw material efficiency. Imagine the Chinese electric cars are similar to this but the article is lacking much detail.
I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system. This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions (at least until we transition to carbon neutral energy infrastructure). A gallon of diesel would last for months if it was just used for heating the cabin, and it would improve the range. It might even be an effective solution for keeping the battery at optimal temperatures but obviously a lot of math is required here to see if the tradeoff is worth it vs integrated battery heating.
Touchscreens are how electric cars are simpler and cheaper. Buttons, knobs, their wirings and linkages are surprisingly expensive once you include fully load the cost (ie, wiring is often done by hand).
> Imagine the Chinese electric cars are similar to this but the article is lacking much detail.
No, Chinese cars are usually loaded with gimmicks. Even the $10,000 Dolphin has two screens.
> This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions
Even more efficient is to utilize the waste heat from motors, as a proper heat pump system does.
What really kills the range of an EV in the winter is bringing the battery & cabin up to temperature at the beginning. Once the car is moving, the heat pump can scavenge heat from the motor to relatively efficiently heat things. So if you pre-warm your car while it's plugged in the range loss isn't too bad.
Diesel heat would prevent you from doing this because you can't run a diesel heater in the garage. So ironically, a diesel heater could reduce your battery's range even though it doesn't use battery power.
That's a good point but I can't understand how it would add up vs servos or other electric air controls vs a manual lever that physically opens the baffle. It really doesn't make sense to me how an lcd can be less expensive than a bit of metal and plastic in a switch but I suppose you're right due to economies of scale.
The touch aspect itself is really cheap. The big benefit of screens over "simpler" instruments is that regulations actually vary quite a bit across the world. Being able to use a screen that can display anything greatly reduces the sku count, simplifying supply chains and assembly lines.
It would be hard to justify not using a screen these days, IMO.
> It would be hard to justify not using a screen these days, IMO.
Unless you were concerned about the safety of someone having to look at a screen to operate vehicle controls. Otherwise you could just make it a smartphone app and ditch the screen entirely.
That would be atrocious (but not really much worse than the all-in-one infotainment screens we already have...) But my gut says automakers haven't gone there because it would make support and liability that much more complicated - "the operator was distracted at the time of the collision... but they weren't trying to turn on the defroster, they were watching Youtube!" On the plus side instead of being stuck with a never-upgraded head unit, with an orphaned 3G modem, you'd at least have connectivity that kept working.
The cost of the vehicle components is a surprisingly small part of the overall cost of a vehicle. The cost of the line time and the additional tolerances to fit those cheaper components is vastly higher than the cost of stuff they're going to install anyway.
Being able to separate design decision timelines on how the UI works from manufacturing timelines is also very helpful organizationally.
I think the importance of heatpumps is overblown. If you go for a highway trip, your car consumes 10kW+ and 1kW heating won't matter much. Additionally, on longer trips the cabin's already warm, no need to run the heater that much.
Kinda. Im leqd to believe heatpump is a $50 device that manufacturers charge $2k for (must be more to it honestly).
If that saves 10% of range that’s 10% less batteries which cost more than $50. Eventually all these savings add up so much that EV is lighter and cheaper than similar ICE vehicle…
> Im leqd to believe heatpump is a $50 device that manufacturers charge $2k for (must be more to it honestly).
Turning an AC unit into a heatpump is indeed pretty simple, but that type of heatpump doesn't work well when the temperature gradient is too high.
What you'd need to heat a car during winter is a "high temperature heat pump", which usually requires multiple stages, different thermal fluids, etc.
That's a much more complex and expensive system, not well suited to vehicles.
Then why don't all the 3rd world cars use touchscreens?
It’s happening. The mg3 is very common in the third world and has touch screens now in the latest model. They have a few buttons on the wheel but the majority of features are on the tiny touchscreen in the center. If you see cars in the 3rd world without touchscreens they are older models is all. Sometimes it just takes a while for the new cheaper way to do things to become widespread.
Firstly, they're often older cars shipped from richer countries if it's a better deal than scrapping.
And for new build cars, they often lack a lot of the entertainment and safety systems required in western countries, so they also don't have the onboard computers that would run the touch screen.
When your car already has a backup camera required, so it _has_ to have a screen, and add at least handsfree bluetooth phone connectivity, bluetooth audio and digital radio since I haven't seen a new car without them for years, you have an onboard general purpose computer already. Switching to a touch screen is a small marginal cost over that, and you can lower costs by removing physical controls which not only removes the part cost, but also labour cost of installing, wiring, and quality control.
Also all the features not found in cars for low-cost markets don't need controls, so even if physical controls cost more per-item than touchscreens the total number of controls is much lower.
Where do you live? Everything you said could be a mental exercise in this third world country: It makes sense, but it is not reality.
New cars in here (at least chevrolet, isuzu and toyotas) are being shipped with a touchscreen. As you say, it covers the camera display, the infotaiment and map navigation. Everything else still has manual controls, THANK GOD. For instance AC, lights, wipers.
I currently have a 2017 Mazda Bt50 it didnt have the touchscreen. It does have a rearview camera, and the image is displayed in a little square screen in the central rearview mirror. It also has a frontal camera and both of them can record video continuosly. You can have Features without a "general purpose computer"
The most common transmission is manual, automatic costs around $1000 more. Why? Market preference. We do have some poorly maintained roads, and some dirt roads, mind you.
The only reason to ship all controls in a touchscreen is because it is fancy, and since it is already there, they want to save some money by not including physical buttons.
Touchscreens are more expensive than buttons and knobs. But screens are required by law in the USA and EU as they require backup cameras. And a digitizer is a lot cheaper than some buttons and knobs.
I'm confused. Are they more or less expensive?
My presumption is you meant cheaper?
Screens are more expensive than buttons and knobs.
Making the screen into a touch screen with a digitizer is cheaper than buttons and knobs.
So if you already have a screen, making it a touchscreen is indeed cheaper.
Because building software is hard. If you can do it though …
Where on Earth is a Dolphin only 10,000$ ?
Probably mixed up with the BYD Seagull which is indeed USD$10,000 (before tariffs).
>>No touchscreens, no fancy door handles, no cameras, etc.
We own a Volkswagen e-Up, it's exactly like this. We love it too, it's just such a great little car, you can easily get 150 miles out of its 32kWh battery and it fits everything, has no touchscreen, good old buttons for the climate controls and even proper analogue gauges for speed and battery level. I will own it until it falls apart.
>>I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system.
I honestly doubt that anyone would like the "convenience" of having to fill up the tank for it with diesel every now and then.
>>and likely generate less carbon emissions
CO2 - yes. But these heaters(and devices like Webasto etc) are hugely polluting because unlike the exhaust from your engine their exhaust isn't filtered or treated in any way, all the bad stuff goes directly outside.
>>A gallon of diesel would last for months if it was just used for heating the cabin
No, it wouldn't - I own two cars with a webasto and they both use about 0.4L of fuel for hour of operation, it's not much but it's not insignificant.
Besides, this is a fixed problem - just use a heatpump instead of a resistive heater. A 500W heatpump will produce as much heat as a 2000W resistive heater.
The reason we went with 4y old leaf and not brand new e-up was that it looked like a coffin made out of matchbox. Compared to leaf which is still simple and conventional but has much more space to absorb impact and full of safety features.
I don't understand why your Webasto is using so much fuel. I use one to heat my sunroom in the winter and 2.4 gallons lasts me several days. A small, insulated cabin should require much less.
Because it also heats the engine as well maybe? Also I guess a car loses heat much faster than your stationary cabin because the flow of air around it as you drive is very good at taking the heat away. Also there is no insulation anywhere.
Anyway, from its spec sheet it says it can actually use up to 0.6L/h at full load:
https://www.webasto-comfort.com/fileadmin/webasto__media/web...
Full load is way too much unless you're arctic trucking. The lowest setting is plenty for my sun room until it gets below 20f or it's especially windy. This uses about a gallon in 6 hours.
But you're right, without any insulation, the moving vehicle will lose heat much faster. The room has terrible insulation but at least it has bare brick for the bottom 3 feet which probably retains a lot of the heat. I suspect with proper insulation your fuel usage would be drastically reduced.
OP's rate of usage equates to using 2.4 gallons in about 23 hours. Assuming you are only using yours during the few hours a day the sunroom is occupied, several days sounds about right.
Yes i run it 6-8 hours a day when I'm using the room. It really surprises me how effective and cheap it is vs a space heater. A solar powered heat pump would be even cheaper, I suppose but this solution was only about $200 to build. I doubt a heat pump would last long enough to pay for itself unless i could figure out away to cheaply acquire and install it.
> A 500W heatpump will produce as much heat as a 2000W resistive heater.
Isn’t this highly dependent on the outside temperature?
It is. Modern high-efficiency single stage air-source heat pumps will only have a COP of between 2-2.2 in -20°c/-4°F, so your 500W heat pump would output 1000W-1200W of heat.
However at 0°C/32°F this bumps to 3.5-3.8, so you'd be getting much closer to the quoted 2000W.
If you're operating in -20°C or below for much of the year a heat pump might not be the best option, but even in Yellowknife that's only three months of the year and it's still twice the heat per kW.
I guess it's a concern if you live in Norilsk?
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/docs/documents/1117/cop_h...
My presumption is that batteries have been expensive enough up until now that it's been most sensible to target upmarket without sacrificing specs vs ICE. My expectation is as prices continue to fall cheaper and cheaper cars will become commercially viable.
Cheap EVs suffer the most from the drawbacks that make electric kind of suck (smaller batteries reduce range, more sensitive to heating costs, etc). Once you can shove a 60kwh pack in a cheap car, most of those drawbacks go away.
> They should be more like economy cars of today with the drivetrain simply swapped.
This is how most first generation EVS from legacy car makers were made, and they dramatically underperformed in range, performance, and comfort due to the assumptions, parts, and manufacturing methods inherited from ICE cars.
New wave of car makers too, Tesla's first was built on a Lotus platform.
> I think electric cars need to be simpler.
Look at the Dacia Spring. The entry level barely has a screen at all, and no camera, not even a backup camera, it doesn't even have a display for it. Also: no A/C, no thermostat, no rear power windows. You have to pay if you want these, and even if you take the "premium" model that has a touchscreen, it is pretty basic, essentially that's just a display for Android Auto / Apple Car Play, and you get a backup camera.
That's what you would expect for an economy car. It is less than €20k. Unfortunately, it also has a pretty bad range and overall performance because of its small battery. Of course, batteries are expensive, and it is a cheap car. It means you won't get far with it. That's unlike "A-segment" gas cars (ex: Fiat 500) that while not the most comfortable, have no problem driving cross-country.
> This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions
Perhaps in the case of an EV using resistive heating, however, most have moved on to using heatpumps.
Heatpumps have COPs that range anywhere from 2 to 10. Which means for every 1kWh in, you get 2 to 10kWh of heat out. A resistive heater has a COP of 1.
Fossil fuel power plants operate at ~40->60% efficiency, which means that past a COP of ~2 you are going to be more efficient for heating even if your power source is directly from fossil fuels. It's sort of neat.
When talking about generation mixed grids (which most are now) the COP level needed to beat having a diesel burner for CO2 output plummets.
But one more point to consider, a modern EV needs an HVAC to ensure the proper operating temperature of a battery. The thing that killed the old Nissan Leafs was the fact that they didn't have any sort of cooling system for their batteries. Put those in hot climates and you are talking major and fast degradation.
So, it wouldn't even be (much) lighter to omit the heatpump. To convert the HVAC system for the battery into a climate system is pretty much just requires a single valve.
> more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system. This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions
Is this true? Honest question. My understanding is that for cars in general (implicitly driving range), electric cars are lower impact on the energy grid as a whole (ignoring last mile) because of how energy intensive oil is to refine.
Is it that diesel specifically is less energy intensive because of how it differs in refinement to petrol? Or is it that because heating is effectively 100% efficient it doesn't matter that you're using the energy in refinement?
Mostly the latter.
Some of it comes down to the rocket equation because it takes a lot of energy to warm a battery up. If that energy has to come from a battery itself, then the vehicle needs even more battery. Carrying around that extra battery all the time will consume even more energy. And you lose about 8% total electrical energy by putting it through the lithium battery.
In comparison two litres of diesel fuel with a nearly 100% efficiency can absolutely be more efficient from a full-system standpoint.
EVs are full of gimmicks because battery cost never hit $100/kWh and they have to justify the premium over ICE, that's it.
I though we hit sub $100/kWh in 2024?
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-lithium-ion-batteri...
>No touchscreens, no fancy door handles, no cameras, etc.
Those things cost a few dollars now. This isn't the 00 where it was advanced tech. Physical buttons cost more.
Everything you just said can be applied to regular cars as well.
My friend has a Mitsubishi kei van Electric and it’s exactly what you describe. It’s just like a regular kei van but electric. It is a wonderful, wonderful car. Because of the low center of gravity of the heavy battery. It has no roll around corners like a regular kei van. It’s like a sports car. It is as simple as a car could be.
Only thing that’s missing g for me is a 4x4 model.
It seems like all the cars like this are only available in Europe
Kei cars are a Japanese thing. Mostly unavailable in Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car
Cars should be Being Your Own Infotainment ready and support that.
Software is a cost center. Your car company probably isnt going to win on it. Enable everyone else to compete to be a good infotainment for your base car.
They already are. Android auto and Apple carplay use your smartphone's brains to display on the car's touchscreen.
Ah yes, also pedals in case you run out of battery. And a tullock spike so you drive safely.
The only reason Tesla succeeded is by making sexy car.
Sure we are at the cost point where you can making boring EV. It would cost almost the same and only appeal to 1% of market.
The people buying Teslas must have a absolutely odd definition of sexy. I put them at a 4/10 at best. Shit I put my daily driver Civic at 6/10 because the driver cockpit is phenomenal and has a significant amount of attention to detail for a cheap car, but I have driven many high end 6-figure cars as well.
> The only reason Tesla succeeded is by making sexy car.
I don't think so. They succeeded because the batteries made by Tesla seems incredibly good. A Model S owner I know swapped his batteries after... 280 000 km (175 000 miles). They seem to live long and have better mileage.
But neither the Model 3 nor the model Y nor the model X are "sexy": they just have a weird shape. Although I'll grant you the Model S is good looking.
To me the german, Porsche and Mercedes for example, make way better looking EV cars than Tesla and with much better interiors. But inferior batteries.
I don't know whether Tesla batteries are actually better than average. What Tesla absolutely does better than average is their battery management system. Tesla does an exquisite job of keeping their batteries at the optimal temperature and never overcharging them or charging them too fast.
Any lithium battery -- even a bad one -- will last much longer with a great BMS.
They succeeded by making an electric car that looked like a normal car not a glorified golf cart or a cartoon car. Secondly they had decent/usable range for many use cases, and they had good performance.
So basically an electric bike?
BYD is a state-backed enterprise with unknown levels of profitability when full subsidies are accounted for.
Tariffs will be needed by countries that refuse to create state backed companies but which also want an automotive industry and a manufacturing base that can make weapons of war.
> Tariffs will be needed by countries that refuse to create state backed companies
Which countries are those? All western car manufacturers are backed by the state as far as I'm aware.
Which still doesn't solve the problem: the real issue is that Western companies are financialized to the max. That's why Elon repeatedly lies to get a stock bump. Also, why companies like Google, Boeing, and Intel allow product quality to degrade, as long as they can prop up stock price for the next quarter.
So, tariffs won't solve anything. Which is why despite the Jones Act, China builds 200x more ships that the US.
Or, hasn't Tesla received billions in government assistance? what about the major automakers that'd have crumbled around 2008 if not for the US gov. pouring rivers of cash into them?
So, protectionism is only a band-aid: it doesn't change the fact that American businesses have developed a short-termist culture that only cares for the next quarter.
If you want long-term thinking then people have to be able to buy into stories about what's going to happen long-term. When Musk does that, you call it a lie. The benefit of financialization is that it provides cheaper access to capital, which should make long-term investment easier, not harder. America still has lots of capital intensive industries that are capable of thinking long-term. I don't think financialization has much to do with the strategic problems that many American companies face.
At the same time that Intel was allowing product quality to degrade, Nvidia, a 30 year old company, was continuing to innovate.
No, I don't have a personal axe to grind against Musk. I'm just pointing out his persistent, repeated lies. Being an engineer, he should be able to gauge their capabilities accordingly, or at least make those optimistic predictions closer to the finish line.
Lieutenant, I think you forgot one detail: customers.
The same customers who might now have jobs instead of seeing them shipped offshore?
The purpose of an economy is not to increase shareholder value when the majority of the shares are held by .1% of the population.
> BYD is a state-backed enterprise
And Tesla isn't? https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...
GM, Ford, and Chrysler (now Stellantis or whatever they call themselves) could easily be described as the same with all the subsidies and trade protection they get.
For example, aero headlights were not legal in the US for ages until Ford wanted to use them in the upcoming Taurus. European and Japanese companies had to use US-specific headlights, usually sealed beam units.
This nonsense still goes on today. Why do you think CCS has a unique-to-US charge connector? To make things more expensive for foreign car companies.
Then we have the insane "must be built here" restrictions...
Chinese subsidies are an order of magnitude larger, which makes it a difference of kind (according to various government treasury departments).
Tesla got $300million for battery swapping and $1 billion for a Buffalo solar plant. Many other billions total with federal and Nevada, Texas. And various state incentive programs.
Their partner Panasonic is a keiretsu and I think has gotten billions in EV battery related subsidies overall.
This website does not make it seem as though the BYD Atto 3 is so great in terms of efficiency:
https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-electr...
Seems breadly comparable with the Model Y LFP, slightly less efficient, slightly larger battery, lower price.
Relevant: https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-driving-xiaomi-su7-...
"The CEO of Ford says he's been driving a Xiaomi EV for the past 6 months and doesn't want to give it up"
I thought it was because China was subsidizing the cars a ton. Or have they really cracked EVs and economies of scale just got them there. Maybe a bit of both?
That's how you bootstrap a disruptive technology. The west also subsidizes EVs, but in a weak and disorganized way.
Most of the direct subsidies ended in 2022.
When USA and Japan wake up from their gasoline obsession the world would have moved on and Asia, South America and Africa would be on Chinese Evs. Europe will drive EU made cars from Chinese and European brands.
Outside of BYD, Every Chinese EV is losing money with every sale. Insiders say that every one of them will fold within the next 3 years. and when the EV company disappears, your car is now a worthless block of metal.
Nobody should be buying Chinese EVs, and only BYD if you have to.
As Chinese EV makers close, drivers of “smartphones on wheels” say software updates and maintenance are in jeopardy. https://restofworld.org/2024/ev-company-shutdowns-china/
>every one of them will fold within the next 3 years
The same way China has been predicted to collapse every year since 1990? No matter how much money you lose, you can grow yourself out of it. Which is why OpenAI can raise $6b at nearly $150b, despite losing $5b annually. So, why do you suggest the CPC will let BYD - their EV golden goose that has thoroughly thrashed Western competitors - to fail?
Parent was fairly explicit that BYD won't be allowed to fail, but the rest don't have the same state-funded assurances.
Japan has a hydrogen obsession more than a gasoline one.
How much does a scooter cost vs a Chinese EV in Asia?
> The source article highlights the so-called “E-Axle” used by BYD, which is comprised of eight different components. > It includes not only the motor, inverter, transmission and controller but also the onboard AC charger, the DC-to-DC converter and the battery monitoring system (BMS).
Sounds like that if one of those ever needs replacement you might as well just replace the whole car.
What does this high level of integration mean for repairability? Lack of/difficulty in repairability can raise lifecycle costs or reduce longevity. The latter is especially worrying for lifecycle carbon emissions.
Generally I think it's much more useful to link the orignial, rather than the churnalism article written about it.
https://cn.nikkei.com/industry/icar/56879-2024-10-09-09-00-2...
Although it's in Chinese, Google Translate can help you out.
The TLDR version is that BYD integrates many components of the electric drivetrain into a single sub-assembly, and shares said assembly between multiple vehicles to achieve volume cost savings.
Which is fine for bringing the costs down, but keep in mind their cars have zero repairability, which might be a concern, considering the engineers though the components aren't protected well enough agains water ingress.
Although, I admit my skepticism might be unfounded. I've owned the same car for close to a decade, and I haven't replaced anything besides consumables and fluids.
> The TLDR version is that BYD integrates many components of the electric drivetrain into a single sub-assembly, and shares said assembly between multiple vehicles to achieve volume cost savings.
GM has been doing the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultium
How can multiple vehicles share a drivetrain?
What do you mean? Multiple vehicles can use the same electric motor and battery, exactly the same as ICE vehicles share the same engines across different model lines.
It means multiple models share the same design and components. It doesn't mean multiple individual cars share literally the same gears and whatnot.
It was meant to say that multiple vehicles share the same drivetrain model, not the same unit.
I find your reply even more confusing than the question :P
They use the same design of part in multiple different models of vehicle instead of designing a new one with small differences
From the (translated) article:
One of the characteristics of ATTO3 is the promotion of component integration. In the electric drive device "E-Axle", in addition to the motor, inverter, and reducer, a total of 8 components such as the on-board charger and DC-DC converter (DC voltage converter) are integrated. This can reduce component costs and reduce weight.
Timeshare.
A more interesting question is why are EV's built in the West so expensive.
For one, they have spent years shedding all their talent and outsourcing all their components.
Now they are the mercy of their vendors, with limited knowledge of how to do things any other way than to keep depending on them.
Sometimes there are only 1 or 2 vendors they can pick from, with so little competition, it is no wonder the prices keep going up.
If Tesla actually focused on making a cheap car, I am sure it would cost far less, but instead they need the Model 3 to be a cash cow to make up for all the other dumb decisions being made.
Maybe, but base Nissan Leaf is $28k off the lot today with L2 self driving. Sure, air cooled battery, CHAdeMO, hatchback design... but it's not like those deficiencies would cost full $15k/car to fix; it's not like Big CHAdeMO is burning that much per each Leaf. So that kind of "Tesla would have this and that" arguments don't really hold water.
That said, my model 3 performance is faster than any car under $100k and costs less than half that. So it’s actually cheap for what it is. Comfier too.
Cost of labor is much higher. Safety regulations are more strict. Environmental protections are more strict. It's more expensive across the board.
Look at profits of legacy auto. It’s not the labor, they’re prioritizing profits over investment to deliver on EVs (kicking the can and making it the future’s problem).
There is also the choice of whether or not they make affordable cars.
In the 1970s my dad had the worst time trying to buy compact cars from US dealerships, in the 2000s I thought US automakers were as bad but Japanese brands were better, by 2018 or so Japanese dealers were using the same toolbox (“You’re saying I can’t buy a Honda Fit because the factory washed out in a flood but you have 100 SUVs in a row that nobody wants to buy made in the same factory?”)
Then I got home and I am sure to read some article in the auto press which repeats, like the brainwash soldiers from The Manchurian Candidate that Americans only want to drive huge vehicles. Sure, an American might want a size L vehicle on average but from their point of view it is a disaster that somebody would could possibly buy a $50k vehicle walks out with a $25k vehicle (that Sales Manager won’t be able to work you over for another decade) so they will try to sell you an XXL vehicle.
Tesla, GM, Toyota and many others have refused to make affordable EVs, it’s that simple. Their hope is that a 100% tariff on BYD means they’ll never have to service the affordable vehicle market.
You're missing one of the principal actors here. It's not GM or Toyota selling you a car, it's a dealership. The dealership is only viable if they average $2-4k per sale. That margin simply doesn't exist on a $10k car, so they don't even want to offer it except to get you in the door.
Manufacturers in turn (except Tesla) have no one to sell these vehicles, and would have to take a risk that they could make up the lost margin on volume. They don't have the cultures to do that either.
>Tesla, GM, Toyota and many others have refused to make affordable EVs, it’s that simple.
I think GM is at least trying, with the sub-$35,000 Equinox EV. And the rumor is that the 2026 Bolt will be ~$30,000. Definitely going to be interesting to see what comes around in the next couple of years with battery prices falling.
https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/equinox-ev
CEO salaries for comparison:
Jim Farley (Ford CEO): $26.5 million
Mary Barra (GM CEO): $27.8 million
Koji Sato (Toyota CEO): $3.88 million
Atsushi Osaki (Subaru CEO): $1.05 million
Makoto Uchida (Nissan CEO): $4.5 million
No idea what the compensation for auto executives in China is, but probably even smaller than Japan's.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230925-uaw-auto-strik...
https://www.automotivedive.com/news/gm-ceo-compensation-fall...
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2024/0...
Taking just Ford, they sold 1,995,912 vehicles in 2023 [1]; assuming it's divided evenly across vehicles, CEO compensation adds $13.25 to the price of a Ford. Probably CEO compensation is less substantial for a BYD vehicle, but it's just not a large component of the cost.
EDIT: Fixed the math, thanks mperham, I had $1.35 earlier.
[1] https://media.ford.com/content/dam/fordmedia/North%20America...
My math ($26.5m / 2m) says you're off by an order of magnitude: $13.25
What about the entire C suite?
$1.32 per car is a lot!
The OP said "Look at profits of legacy auto. It’s not the labor, they’re prioritizing profits over investment [...]". Are you arguing that this is incorrect by showing some examples of large labor expenses these US auto companies have? My understanding is that profits is what is left over to be paid to shareholders after they stop spending on employees/investment/opex/etc.
They are simply following the market.
Hybrids have become increasingly popular as the charging infrastructure is still lacklustre in many parts of the world. And that's not a problem that can be solved overnight.
Even if EV charging was ubiquitous, legacy auto would sell what nets them the highest profit, which is not EVs. China’s EV market is hypercompetitive, and does not suffer legacy auto type incumbents. It’s why US automakers will likely leave China.
At least we have BYD and Tesla, just gotta scale up faster. Global light vehicle TAM is 90M units/year. 20% of all vehicles sold globally last year were BEVs or PHEVs, onward and upward.
https://fortune.com/2024/06/19/elon-musk-tesla-china-carmake... (“Bank of America tells Detroit’s Big 3 they can’t make money in China and should just leave the hypercompetitive car market ‘as soon as they possibly can’”)
Sadly (for myself) the only compact-ish plug-in hybrid that exists in my part of the world (Australia) is the Cupra Leon. Neat car, we're genuinely considering it, but it's $80,000AUD, vs. the $50,000AUD that a top-end hybrid Corolla would cost. And they're still much more expensive than my partners VW Polo... worth it for us, as we have a one car shared between the two of us, but I wish there were more compact-ish hybrids available.
Honestly same goes for EVs, though the BYD stuff is starting to fill that niche quite nicely. And compact + decent range is sort of at odds with itself.
Not sure how much it matters.
I am thinking about getting a third car for the farm if I could get an inexpensive low range EV. If I am only driving to work with it or to go shopping or see a sports game at my Uni I can just it when I get home. If I need to go see a game in a distant city, well, I’ll take one of the gas cars so my son will take the EV and not the Buick to work one morning.
> They are simply following the market.
This is badly misinformed. They make the market. When you buy a car, do you have it custom made, or do you select one that actually exists?
That's exactly what happened with SUVs. SUVs didn't happen because people were begging car companies to make them something big, dangerous, and wasteful. They happened because car companies in the US found a legal loophole where they could cut costs by skirting safety and emissions regulations, while simultaneously marking up the product as a premium one. Then they ran ads to tell people SUVs were super safe [for the passengers]. So when people started buying SUVs en masse, that wasn't organic demand, it was the result of a successful national misinformation campaign (because modern SUVs and other "light trucks" are so large you're more likely to just drive over your own child without seeing them than even get in a crash).
> They are simply following the market.
So is global warming. This excuse rang hollow 30 years ago and it still rings hollow today.
Or maybe the rest of the world has way less population per area and therefore more gas stations, therefore filling up was less of a problem compared to the US...
Is paying more for a product that meets higher safety standards and more environmentally friendly a bad thing?
No, probably not.
That said, the lowest pricing point is a massive competitive advantage.
The Chinese made cars meet the same safety standards as US and EU made cars (at least the ones sold outside of China do).
I thought GP was talking more about the safety standards for workers in the factories - which do cost more to meet.
I can't imagine the recent tariffs have helped much, either. Less competition and pricier parts is a bad combination for consumers.
They have cheap ICE cars
Something not said, but China often lets others do the expensive R&D
Lack of focus on EV which leads to lower production volume (Chinese carmakers focused on EVs long before Tesla got popular), trend of over-sizing which means it's big and heavy, dogged obsession in road tripping rather than playing to EV's advantage in city driving, and of course Chinese carmakers get/got a healthy dose of subsidies.
Model 3 is like $5k more and you get completely different level of tech.
In USA, EVs are traditionally built as an aspirational rather than utilitarian article. Tesla will design whatever it wants, make it expensive, and you will buy it if you want to be cooler than your peers. Chinese sell cheap EVs because they're regular cars no one will envy.
Or in a crude analogy, USA sells EVs like iPhones, China sells them like Androids.
A nice stereotype, but it doesn't seem to really match reality. See for example: https://insideevs.com/features/719015/china-is-ahead-of-west... At least Chinese consumers (and increasingly more European consumers) just seem to prefer the Chinese EVs.
Lots of advantages from labor to financing to government subsidies and environmental regulations. It would be nearly impossible to compete with that
Affordable - made cheaply - is equated in this article heavily as “better” but that is not always the case. I would still hesitate to buy a Chinese vehicle over safety and quality.
Nah - I own a Volvo XC60 that was built in China and it's about 10x better in terms of build quality than my last Mercedes that was entirely built in Germany and creaked like an old horse cart, I was in the dealership probably once a month fixing various issues with the interior. I've owned the Volvo for 4 years now and it has had zero issues, no creaks, fit and finish is great. So no, I wouldn't be concerned about owning a Chinese made vehicle, not in the slightest.
Was your Volvo in China? I didn’t think any Volvos manufactured by geely were being exported, and production volume was still very low
All cars today are being made to squeeze maximum profit. The plastics will last maybe 10 years and the electronics will be NLA soon after the warranty expires. If your main computer dies the car is scrap. There is no serious effort to make new cars repariable or maintainable other than for very routine things like brakes. Cars are becoming more and more disposable items, by design.
Motor Trend just gave the Lincoln Nautilus - a SUV made in China - their award for SUV of the year[0] and noted its build quality. While "Made In China" still carries a bad rap, I think that's going to change pretty quickly for more luxury goods like cars.
[0] https://www.motortrend.com/news/lincoln-nautilus-2025-suv-of...
It's generally acknowledged that the Chinese made Tesla's are higher quality than the American ones.
You can and should check euroNCAP or IIHS for independent safety ratings if you care.
BYD's 4 model entered in euroNCAP have 5 stars.
What does "[insert nationality] vehicle" even mean? Most cars are made up of designs and parts that come from all around the world.
Any discussion of the topic of product origin and quality is always heavily oversimplified.
There are many variables at play here: target marketing, design, manufacture, regulatory environment, etc.
European NCAP has given great marks to BYD vehicles in crash tests. Just google "BYD crash test", most of the results come from them.
Compared to them, my Wrangler is a square death machine, although almost anything is safer than a Wrangler.
Well-designed off-roaders protect their occupants against the kinds of accident that might occur at relatively low speeds on rough terrain, with very rigid frames to prevent the occupants being crushed when rolling over. That is the very opposite design philosophy to most road vehicles, which are protected chiefly against high-speed collisions with other vehicles. The NCAP tests only cover the second kind of accidents.
I don't know whether the off-roading safety philosophy applies to your car though, as many SUVs and crossover cars are only designed to look the part, and are in fact more similar to ordinary road cars in safety design.
Clever design with reusable (between models) components. That’s “efficiency”. Efficient design often means better quality.
All countries that get into car manufacture seem to follow a similar path. 10-15 years of crap cars while building scale and expertise, then maturity with much higher quality. I think we are seeing the mature Chinese car industry now and it’s frankly impressive.
Heh, that used to be German and then Japanese cars.
TLDR: Economies of scale.
I would call out design optimizations as distinct, though maybe economies of scale helps enable those.