[HN Gopher] The first Geely was a fake Mercedes-Benz E-Class bas...
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The first Geely was a fake Mercedes-Benz E-Class based on a real
Audi 100
Author : krn
Score : 75 points
Date : 2022-12-03 13:56 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chinacarhistory.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chinacarhistory.com)
| fumar wrote:
| I hope the American auto companies can respond quick enough.
| Rivian, Tesla, Canoo and similar are exciting to watch. American
| car companies didn't have the industry's attention until
| recently.
| perardi wrote:
| Yup, real exciting to watch Rivian trading at $100 less than
| its IPO.
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/RIVN?p=RIVN&.tsrc=fin-srch
| fumar wrote:
| Have you visited r/rivian lately? I think Rivian can sustain
| itself given the market opportunity and the end product is
| well received. Their R1 platform has won accolades across the
| auto community both established and new like Doug Demuro.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I had a 1998 W210 diesel Mercedes. The drivetrain and cabin were
| great; the body was painted with a new environmentally friendly
| primer/paint process that was an utter failure, resulting in many
| of those cars being driven early to the junkyard with a great
| drivetrain and terminally rusted chassis.
|
| It'd be a coin-toss for me to take an unknown Geely over the
| actual, known W210 in New England.
| themitigating wrote:
| Do you have an articles about this? I'm curious what they
| changed. I did Google it but nothing obvious came up
| sokoloff wrote:
| Some quick searching failed to turn up anything official from
| MB. I do know my car had both spring perches replaced at 5
| and 7 years (an almost unheard of repair on other models at
| even 4x that age). One of those was covered by MB. It had
| both front fenders replaced, a quarter panel repair, and two
| outer rockers replaced, all out of pocket and all in the
| first 10 years. I ultimately scrapped the car rather than
| doing a full inner and outer rocker replacement to keep the
| car safe.
|
| This has a few more words about it, but is "just a web page":
| https://eeuroparts.com/blog/common-mercedes-w210-e-class-
| pro...
|
| The next series (W211) changed the prep process to better
| galvanized panels and the rust problems returned to "the
| other cars of that age" level.
|
| Googling "w210 rust" will give you plenty of forum and owner
| experiences, but nothing about the particulars of the water-
| based primer/finishing process.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| I think it was the new waterborne paint process or something
| that ruined an entire generation of those cars.
|
| If you see one today, it's guaranteed to have rust on the
| bottom of the doors, rear wheel well and especially surrounding
| the mid-door rub strips ... all with factory paint and no
| accident damage.
|
| https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lnMpF03D1ss/VZ2zs7CfPXI/AAAAAAAAC...
|
| https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NLf8s6yX5kM/VZ2ztggMgEI/AAAAAAAAC...
| encoderer wrote:
| I've bought nothing but Mercedes since I was 27. I've owned 4 of
| them. I would never buy a Chinese owned Benz.
| Calvin02 wrote:
| Have you considered how much of your current car is made in
| China?
| chihuahua wrote:
| > He says he wanted to show that a Chinese company, his company,
| was able to produce a similar car. And therefore he decided to
| build a "Chinese Benz".
|
| And then it turns out what he actually does is buy another
| Chinese car based on an Audi 100, and replace the body panels
| while keeping the drivetrain, suspension, and interior. As far as
| I can tell, that proves absolutely nothing. Am I missing
| something?
| wmf wrote:
| Maybe the prototype allowed Geely to raise enough money to
| actually make cars.
| qzw wrote:
| If you want to prove you know how to program, and you take some
| well known open source software but change it substantially
| enough to make it a different product that's useful to some
| customers. Does that prove you can write software? I think it's
| arguable, but it does prove you're at least not completely
| incompetent around software.
| brookst wrote:
| I mean I learned programming typing in programs from printed
| magazines and then modifying them a tiny bit, then a lot,
| then just glancing at the source, and then not at all.
|
| There is nothing wrong with learning by disassembly and
| modification. Tesla outright sold Lotus rolling chassis for
| their first car. Learnings from that produced the model S.
| [deleted]
| wil421 wrote:
| No this is more akin to you buying off the shelf software
| from a local reseller, slapping a new UI, and then reselling
| it as a look-a-like competitors software.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Geely also owns Volvo cars.
| pcurve wrote:
| Gotta start somewhere. No one is laughing at Chinese cars any
| anymore
| number6 wrote:
| Not? They are still laughing at Tesla
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| That's because Tesla is a company that advertises itself as
| saving the world, curing cancer, crafting a backup plan for
| humanity...
|
| Then you see the thing and it's ugly as sin outside, you get
| inside and it's cheap and empty with an iPad sticked there to
| save money on components.
|
| The richest country on Earth can't possibly have that as
| their flagship car brand. China however considering where
| they were just 15 years ago, you look at a 2022 Geely and it
| feels like it's attacking the Japanese brands positioning and
| by the end of the decade they could take on the Germans. They
| will never be able to attack the Italians but Ferrari and
| Lamborghini are special and nobody can touch them anyway.
| phlipski wrote:
| Lamborghini is German through and through now. VW owns
| them.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > Lamborghini is German through and through now
|
| Just because VW has a controlling stake in Lamborghini
| doesn't make Wolfsburg the capital of supercar design.
| For a whole bunch of reasons, mostly cultural, it will
| always be that triangle between Florence, Milan and
| Turin.
|
| Foxxcon might become big enough to buy Apple one day.
| Still if you were to visit the 2 HQs, and the 2 cities
| you'd understand where the devices are designed,
| regardless of the cap table and who owns who
| Dextro wrote:
| Wolfsburg? Doubt it. But Ingolstadt? A bit more likely.
| The Audi R8 shared quite a bit with one of the
| Lamborghini models (can't remember the name).
|
| And don't forget the SUVs
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| I don't know, when I look at an R8 I can sense that it
| was designed in Germany, whereas if I look at a
| Lamborghini Aventador it's clear it was designed in
| Italy.
|
| The new Corvette C8 feels like it comes from Italy as
| well. In fact the Corvette has been Ferrari-zed both in
| external design as well as engine positioning
| wazoox wrote:
| They're building Teslas in China. Almost all Teslas sold in
| Europe come from China, because they're of a _much better
| build quality_ than US-built Teslas.
| [deleted]
| quakeguy wrote:
| The ones from the Brandenburg fab sure are.
| extrememacaroni wrote:
| Mainly because they're nowhere to be found outside China?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| China sells some to Australia and other countries. You won't
| see many of them in the USA due to huge tariffs (reciprocated
| by China), but any polestar you see was made in China (by
| Geely).
| forinti wrote:
| There are tons of Chinese cars in South America and lots of
| Geelys in Brazil. I've being seeing electric JACs lately.
|
| I've also been recently to Uruguay and saw lots of gas BYDs,
| which quite surprised me, because I thought they only made
| electric vehicles.
| giobox wrote:
| This is an extremely dated take on where Chinese cars are
| sold - you haven't visited or paid attention to what is
| happening in the European auto industry recently. Xpeng, MG,
| Ora - lots of new Chinese car brands on sale across Europe,
| and often offering better electric car range for less money
| than say a VW ID 3. We just don't see them in USA as politics
| and tarrifs have prevented it to a large extent.
|
| If you are curious - tons of videos by British/European
| YouTubers reviewing Chinese cars on sale in Europe today.
|
| Here's a review of the Xpeng p7 by famous uk auto publication
| Autocar, as another example. On sale in Norway and several
| European countries:
|
| > https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/xpeng/p7
|
| The mg 4 on sale across Europe:
|
| > https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/mg-motor/4-ev
|
| The ora cat on sale across Europe:
|
| > https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/ora/funky-cat
|
| > polestar (Gheely, also on sale in U.S.A.)
|
| Etc etc. there are a lot more coming too, and the traditional
| big European auto makers are extremely scared of competing at
| entry level with these brands who already offer more tech and
| range for less money on their entry level EVs. Just like the
| Koreans managed (KIA, Hyundai etc), these brands will
| eventually crack how to style for western audiences too.
| Polestar already has. The MG is extremely competitive
| especially at low price.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I've generally found most mainstream attitudes to China
| being a decade out of touch. There's still the perception
| that "China only makes cheap trash" when even a cursory
| glance at all the stuff in their house will show them that
| half the stuff is made in China, and that you can get
| practically any quality made in China - as long as you're
| willing to pay for it.
| msworddebugger wrote:
| You see them in some MENA with loose import laws. They're
| ugly as sin but they're the cheapest new cars you can buy.
| MikePlacid wrote:
| They are rather popular in Russia, especially trucks. And
| their market share will only increase now.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| They are. The MG SUVs are sold here in Spain and they are
| selling like hotcakes. They look nice, they have every modern
| feature you need as standard equipment (apple carplay, dual-
| zone A/C), 5 star crash test, all for a laughably low price
| (13k EUR, cca. the same in USD). Every car that has the same
| equipment (and looks) cost at least double, or triple. I
| think they are using Spain as a test market and will expand
| soon.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Don't know where you are from but in the UK MG are outselling
| a whole bunch of the big car makers. I think possibly even
| the 3rd biggest by sales volume at the moment.
|
| The age of the Chinese car is coming. I think in the
| transition to electric cars they are going to take a big
| chunk of the lower end of the market. I get a feeling this is
| why a lot of mid market brands like Mazda and Volvo are
| trying to push into the upper end of the market.
|
| Cars like the MG4 are getting rave reviews for example.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Volvo is bought by the Chinese
| thedrbrian wrote:
| Cheap shit outsells expensive stuff. News at 11
| gambiting wrote:
| I drove both the ZS EV and MG4 and neither one felt like
| "cheap shit". In fact they felt more premium than some
| more expensive EVs - and you could see a lot of parts
| from VW, which shouldn't be surprising as VW is part
| owner of SAIC.
| jumberoa wrote:
| OTOH the MG3 (1.5L ICE) is a piece of garbage. The engine
| vibrates/rattles like an old tractor. The 4 speed
| transmission revs like mad at the slightest incline
| before going up a gear and almost stalling the engine
| with the huge jump in gear ratio, and causing heaps of
| knocking until the engine crawls it way above 2.5k RPM
| only to do it again with the next gear.... The suspension
| was horrible again, much too soft making the whole car
| bounce up and down long after hitting pot holes (I'm
| taking seconds.) The interior quality was quality was
| okay for the price of car but definitely very plastic-y.
| Seats were like seats on LCC planes. Good thing it was
| only a rental.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| The one thing which made the MG4 feel cheap to me was the
| dash board. It looked to me like it was using programmer
| graphics, waiting on the design team to decide how to
| make it look nice. Mismatched icons and text sizes
| everywhere. Someone said shipit and they went to
| production.
|
| Other than that it was a fun easy to drive little car.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I leased a MG ZS EV recently and was quite surprised at
| the apparent quality. Sure there were some cheap-feeling
| bits like the glove box and panoramic roof shade, but
| generally it felt solid, felt we'll put together, and
| drove reasonably nicely (corners were not it's best bits,
| but otherwise pretty good)
|
| The self driving features were utter shite though
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Japanese cars were cheap shit till they took over the
| world. Korean tv/devices were shit till they took over
| the world. Same is going to happen with China made stuff.
| themitigating wrote:
| Were japanese cars cheap or did the oil crisis give them
| a foothold?
| qzw wrote:
| Both. The important thing is that in the beginning they
| were considered inferior to American cars in all relevant
| respects, so they were not taken seriously. The oil
| crisis happened to highlight one of their key strengths
| and accelerated their adoption. But it's highly likely
| the same end result would've eventually happened anyway
| because the incumbent American automakers were
| unwilling/unable to respond to the threat for several
| decades.
| qzw wrote:
| Exactly, Korean cars, Taiwanese semiconductors, and
| Brazilian jets are also good examples. Seems like GP is
| not yet acquainted with Clayton Christensen's theory of
| disruptive innovation.
| 2143 wrote:
| > The age of the Chinese car is coming.
|
| Globally, I'd say Japanese cars had a pretty good run.
|
| However, they -- Honda and Toyota atleast -- seem to be
| hesitating with the EV transition. It's not like they don't
| have the engineering prowess.
| kube-system wrote:
| Japanese engineering has always fascinated me. It seems
| to be both revolutionary and conservative at the same
| time.
| Veliladon wrote:
| Because good process design doesn't throw out the baby
| with the bathwater. Like how Toyota was the only car
| maker able to keep going through the silicon shortage
| because they recognized the limits of lean manufacturing
| and that chips are not commodity items, as much as we
| like to think of them as one. So despite having
| everything that was a commodity as JIT lean manufacturing
| they still kept a massive stockpile on stuff that might
| become hard to source on hand.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| TIL, thank you. A bit more about Toyota and silicon
| shortage: https://www.autoblog.com/2021/03/09/toyota-how-
| it-avoided-se...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Polestar and MG are two very popular Chinese brands in
| Europe.
| nikanj wrote:
| Isn't Polestar a Volvo?
| kfajdsl wrote:
| Volvo is owned by Geely.
|
| Personally, I'm not sure those count as an example of
| China's design prowess, since those cars aren't designed
| in China.
| tpmx wrote:
| The now public Volvo Cars is majority-owned by Geely.
| (Volvo Cars, not Volvo.)
|
| Volvo makes trucks, buses and construction equipment.
| It's one of the largest manufacturers of heavy-duty
| trucks globally, including e.g. the Mack brand. Geely
| owns 8.2% of Volvo. I think it's still majority Swedish-
| owned, but I'm not certain.
|
| They share the Volvo brand via a long-standing agreement.
| netsharc wrote:
| And fascinatingly in China there's a construction machine
| manufacturer who uses the brand... Lovol.
| tpmx wrote:
| Of course there is.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I'm not sure those count as an example of China's
| design prowess, since those cars aren't designed in China
|
| How about manufacturing prowess then? A number of
| Volvo/Polestar models are _only_ made in China.
|
| Design is far easier to outsource or hire lead designer
| from Germany/Switzerland/Italy while bootstrapping talent
| locally, compared to manufacturing. KIA went this route
| to good effect by hiring Peter Schreyer.
| bri3d wrote:
| I think that most conversations about where cars are
| designed or made aren't very clear cut with the
| _exception_ of a lot of Chinese brand cars, which is an
| interesting commentary in and of itself.
|
| For example, Polestar cars are designed in Sweden on
| joint Swedish-Chinese engineered platforms and made in
| China.
|
| Most vehicles are highly globalized like this until you
| get to the Chinese-market ones, which are designed (or
| "designed," depending), engineered, manufactured, and
| sold just in China.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Also I would add that Geely really revitalised the Volvo
| car brand after Ford almost ran it into the ground. The
| Geely Volvos have a much clearer (and better looking IMO)
| design and are strongly pushing into the luxury market.
| bri3d wrote:
| Polestar is a joint venture between Volvo (majority owned
| by Geely anyway) and Geely themselves. Their cars so far
| are indeed made in China, with a US manufacturing
| facility coming online soon.
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| I'm not sure if they share a platform with actual Volvos
| but yes Volvo owns the majority share, followed by Geely.
|
| All Polestars are manufactured in China as opposed to
| other Volvo models, lots of which are still coming out of
| Sweden and Belgium if I'm not mistaking.
| ojl wrote:
| Polestar currently have production in China but will
| later also be produced at some Volvo factory in the US.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The Volvo XC40 EV is also currently made in China, in the
| same factories as the polestars. As far as I can, these
| are the only cars exported to the USA (other Volvos are
| made in Europe).
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Really? When did we stop?
| rippercushions wrote:
| Check out Polestar. Also a Geely brand, as it happens.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polestar
| fakedang wrote:
| Polestar is still Volvo-style engineering. On the other
| hand, most Chinese-style engineered cars are pretty shite
| (Geely, GAC, Hong Qi, etc).
|
| Edit:- shite, not white
| porphyra wrote:
| Maybe you haven't seen the newer cars like the Zeekr 001
| which is amazing (Zeekr is one of Geely's sub brands).
| Nio ET5, Xpeng P5, BYD Seal, are also very attractive
| cars aimed squarely at Tesla.
| tpmx wrote:
| Polestar cars are designed (at a component level) in
| Gothenburg, Sweden and manufactured in Chengdu, China.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I had a polestar v60, sir, and that thing is no Polestar.
| this_steve_j wrote:
| I had a Volvo V90 with the Polestar software upgrade, and
| I'd say we are both fortunate. It became much more
| driveable with extra power in all the modes. Perhaps
| Volvo would have sold more units if it was standard
| instead of $1500, but at least it wasn't a monthly
| subscription.
| [deleted]
| perardi wrote:
| Seeing a fair number of comments about "Chinese cars aren't just
| junk now".
|
| Which is...not a shock? Japanese cars used to be jokes. And
| certainly, within my living memory, South Korean cars were
| regarded as abysmal little shitboxes--hence Kia's 10-year
| warranty plan. But now those countries and corporate cultures
| produce fantastic cars, and compete at the highest levels. (Check
| out Genesis reviews, world-beating luxury cars from Hyundai.)
|
| But I'm not sure if Chinese cars will make a significant dent in
| the US market. The US, both by regulatory standards and consumer
| expectations, puts a lot of demands on the content of cars. Very
| strong safety standards on the regulatory end, and expectations
| on mileage and features and lots and lots of cupholders in
| pseudo-SUVs that never ever go anywhere near offroad on the
| consumer end of things. By the time you get all the laws covered,
| and by the time you design and manufacture a car that meets
| customer demand, you have a vehicle that's pricey to make, and
| then has to compete in a saturated market.
|
| And that's before any incipient trade wars.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Chinese made cars are heavily tariffed into the USA, which is
| why polestars (and their sibling Volvo EVs) are so expensive.
| Geely will solve this by setting up a factory in the USA.
|
| The USA does the same (Tesla's Shanghai factory).
| simplyaccont wrote:
| Volvo already has factory in USA
| yywwbbn wrote:
| EU is the same
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| China's EV industry legitimately seems 5-10 years ahead of the
| rest of the world. So many options, so many price points, and
| so many features.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Kia and Hyundai don't have good reputations because of the
| build quality of their engines. Their poor quality piston rings
| means the engine eats itself. They've had to recall basically
| every engine they've produced in the past decade.
| abawany wrote:
| Yep, not to mention the recent scandal with car security
| (keywords: kia, usb cable) because they cheaped out and
| didn't include security keys until 2019.
| Grazester wrote:
| Yeah I was like wasn't there some issue with some of their
| engines.
|
| I think they have still come a long way since the early 90's.
| My mother owner one. Brand new off the show room in 1991 and
| the thing broke down at least once a month. Besides that the
| interior started falling apart right away(handles breaking,
| windows that wouldn't go up, etc) That was the shortest
| period she ever owned a car. She traded it in for a Nissan.
| If Lemon laws existed in that country then she would have had
| a case.
| gambiting wrote:
| I mean, my Volvo XC60 was made in Chengdou, China, and it's the
| most well made car I have ever owned(especially compared to my
| last Mercedes Benz which was actually assembled in Germany yet
| had the build quality of a wooden horse carriage)
| tpmx wrote:
| Your car was designed at a component level in Gothenburg,
| Sweden. Components were designed and built around the world.
| It has then been assembled in Chengdou, China. This has been
| a goal of the Geely/PRC ownership.
|
| It's a bit like with the iPhone being designed in California;
| made in China.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well yes - my point is just to say that cars made in China
| can be very high quality(even though it's not strictly
| "Chinese car"(although Volvo is owned by Geely so......)
| [deleted]
| tommiegannert wrote:
| In mid-2020, I was interested in an S90 here in Switzerland,
| and I was told it's _only_ manufactured in China, so with
| CoVID going on, delivery would be 9-12 months. (Instead
| bought a Mercedes and had it delivered in 3-4 months.)
|
| I understand why some long wheelbase versions are Chinese-
| only, but I found it odd that Volvo's entire flagship sedan
| series is all-China.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yeah mine is the T8 and apparently all plug-in hybrids for
| the right hand drive market are assembled in China. The
| order to delivery time was 9 months(ordered in 2019 June,
| delivered in March 2020).
| qzw wrote:
| > I understand why some long wheelbase versions are
| Chinese-only, but I found it odd that Volvo's entire
| flagship sedan series is all-China.
|
| I think the reason is that the S90 isn't high volume enough
| to warrant more than one factory, and China is a
| substantial enough market for them that it makes sense to
| build them there vs US/Europe.
| newsclues wrote:
| I watched a podcast (9 Hole Reviews) with asian gun dealers in
| the USA and China sold high quality firearms to the US which
| they used the profits to reinvest in machines for factories
| etc.
|
| Essentially modern Chinese industry was financed in no small
| part by selling guns to Americans.
|
| China has always had a spectrum of workers and production, and
| was able to exploit the gaps in labour rates, which aren't as
| great and therefore Chinese manufacturing is less competitive
| but is still sticky because of the massive supply chain.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > But I'm not sure if Chinese cars will make a significant dent
| in the US market.
|
| Spoken like someone who has not driven a Polestar 2 or checked
| out its build quality, I believe. Of course they're really
| Volvo built by the super modern Geely factory in China, last i
| saw.
| coredog64 wrote:
| I owned a Great Wall for two years (H5/Haval). It wasn't
| terrible (it had a Mitsubishi gasoline engine and GM engine
| computer), but GW did the integration engineering themselves
| and it showed. My go to example was the belt tensioner. It
| tensioned the belt, but all the forces went through one bolt
| head. Whereas my '95 F-150 had a specific boss cast into a
| bracket that accepted a half inch ratchet allowing you to use
| a breaker bar.
|
| Ford and GM have more than a hundred years of experience in
| what works and what doesn't (although cost-cutting may not
| really let the former shine). It's not until these vehicles
| see widespread adoption in the native market that the
| industrial practitioners will build their own knowledge base.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Do you mean (I can't tell) that Volvo doesn't have
| experience like Ford and GM?
| qzw wrote:
| My personal take is that the Chinese car makers have somewhat
| missed their opportunity to introduce their own brands to the
| US market. Due to the pandemic and China's own policies, the
| tide is now against them. But Chinese companies do own a number
| of western brands (Volvo, MG, etc.) and those can continue to
| be viable or even grow and expand.
|
| > The US, both by regulatory standards and consumer
| expectations, puts a lot of demands on the content of cars.
|
| When Buick began selling a lot of cars in China, they had to
| _improve_ the quality of their interiors in order to live up to
| the standards of the Chinese car buyers! It actually led to
| them also improving the interior quality of the cars they sold
| in the US. But it was too little, too late for them here, so
| the Buick brand now only exists in the Chinese market. They
| recently announced a 100K+ USD luxury minivan in China that
| would be ridiculous overkill in the US:
|
| https://jalopnik.com/buick-century-returns-as-an-ultra-luxur...
|
| The mid/high end Chinese market is just as demanding as the
| rest of the world, and maybe more so in some respects. So many
| Chinese carmakers already know how to make cars that are up to
| US/EU standards.
| atdrummond wrote:
| Buick still exists in the US.
| qzw wrote:
| Wow, you're right! I had thought they got shut down in the
| US for some reason. But I see they're down to just three
| models.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Buick only survived in the US _because_ of the Chinese
| market. Otherwise Saturn should have been the survivor.
| rasz wrote:
| GM bailout had stipulations to shut down overlapping
| brands, Pontiac and Saturn got the axe.
| digitalcancer wrote:
| > https://jalopnik.com/buick-century-returns-as-an-ultra-
| luxur...
|
| Jeez, that site is the equivalent of digital cancer.
|
| When you scroll down a video highjacks half of the screen on
| mobile and you CANNOT even close it! Of course it also
| autoplays.
|
| Disgusting.
| qzw wrote:
| Oh yeah, it's pretty terrible without ad blocking. Seems
| like car related sites are all similarly bad when it comes
| to ads.
| abawany wrote:
| Try theautopian.com - most of the good (imo) contributors
| from the above moved here and the site so far is relatively
| cancer free.
| odysseus wrote:
| In this luxury minivan, "Inside, if you opt for four, there's
| a full wall partition separating you from the driver"
|
| I've been wanting this for years with noisy kids on long road
| trips.
| mertd wrote:
| EV drivetrains are the iPhone moment of the car industry. The
| landscape of the dominant brands may be unrecognizable in ten
| years compared to today.
| tpmx wrote:
| As a Swede, I say: Sweden needs to deal with the Chinese majority
| ownership of Volvo Cars for strategical reasons. Conflict is
| brewing between US/EU and China. It will be cheaper to deal with
| it sooner than later.
|
| The newly installed Swedish PM has a strong hands-on
| understanding of the issues at hand - he spent years working in
| China. He's also strongly critical of China's policies.
|
| (Geely is the majority owner of the now public Volvo Cars
| company. Volvo Cars AB is one of the largest Swedish companies in
| terms of number of employees.)
| peppertree wrote:
| Ford drove Volvo into the ground before selling it Geely. While
| I agree CPP needs to be kept at arms length, sentiment like
| this is pure nationalist dog whistle.
| tpmx wrote:
| Hang on a moment here. You're saying my resistance to CCP
| ownership of Volvo Cars is a "dog whistle"? Well, it's not,
| I'm saying it out loud. It's a really bad idea that Sweden
| needs to do something about. It doesn't have to be Swedish
| ownership, but it can't be the CCP.
|
| Volvo Cars will also be more successful without any ties to
| the CCP.
| rippercushions wrote:
| Unlike eg Huawei, Volvo is not exactly a strategic target for
| anybody though.
| tpmx wrote:
| It's strategical to Sweden because of the branding, the
| number of employees and the dependencies on a very large
| number of component suppliers in Sweden.
|
| At one point the PRC _will_ decide to just pull the design
| part of Volvo Cars out of Sweden. It would be incredibly
| naive to not think this would happen. Hence there needs to be
| an intelligently designed government intervention.
| timidiceball wrote:
| Something like one third of new vehicles sold in Norway last
| month were Chinese EVs. All internet connected, always on
| like all new EVs
| slaw wrote:
| > the Model Y is ahead with 3,063 units, followed by the
| ID.4 (903), Enyaq (629) and Model 3 (602). Also well placed
| are the Polestar 2 (343) and the Volvo C40 (338) - with the
| electric version of the Volvo XC40 adding another 239 new
| registrations. The BMX iX establishes itself with 296 units
| ahead of models such as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 (262), Audi Q4
| e-tron (250) and VW ID.5 (237).
|
| It looks like 80% of cars were made in China. Tesla, Volvo,
| Polestar.
|
| https://www.electrive.com/2022/10/04/bevs-reach-77-market-
| sh...
| tpmx wrote:
| Volvo C40/XC40 Recharge is made in Ghent, Belgium.
| Source:
|
| https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-
| gb/media/pressrele...
| slaw wrote:
| Yes, Chinese XC40 are sold to different markets. Europe
| gets XC40 from Belgium.
| tpmx wrote:
| Ah, you're correct:
|
| https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-
| gb/media/pressrele...
| pwinwood wrote:
| The new Smart #1 EV is a joint venture between MB and Geely
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_1
| yawnxyz wrote:
| Talk about a Red Flag...
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Modern London taxis (the electric ones) are made by LEVC (1)
| which is "a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese automaker Geely."
| (2)
|
| And also an excellent real-world testbed for commercial electric
| vehicles.
|
| 1) https://levc.com/
|
| 2)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Electric_Vehicle_Compan...
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