[HN Gopher] Details on Xiaomi EV
___________________________________________________________________
Details on Xiaomi EV
Author : EA
Score : 100 points
Date : 2023-12-28 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.engadget.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.engadget.com)
| zihotki wrote:
| Another premium EV for a premium price. I wonder if it manages to
| find a spot in the market. It seems that at the moment there is a
| lot of premium EV supply while demand is cooling down.
| kkzz99 wrote:
| Doesn't really look like a cooldown cycle for me in China. The
| competition is extreme there. Weekly new releases with another
| cool state-of-the-art feature. Pure innovation going on there,
| which makes me, as a German, kinda worried...
| M_bara wrote:
| I agree. I was there a month back and the EV adoption is
| incredible. From small scooters, delivery vans to sedans. EV
| is roaring there and from the little I saw, innovation growth
| is crazy. Went into a small factory for making solar street
| lights and it was full of solar panels and EV battery
| cells... note that this was a small factory with container
| loads of cells!
| mathverse wrote:
| It is not innovation it is evolution coming from a
| consumerist culture.
|
| We in Europe foolishly thought we are beyond that and here we
| are.
|
| Thanks german industrialists.
| kkzz99 wrote:
| I mean, sounds like you haven't kept up with Chinese EV
| innovation...
| mongol wrote:
| I certainly have not kept up... do you want to elaborate?
| kkzz99 wrote:
| For Chinese EV insights I recommend
| https://twitter.com/tphuang
| addicted wrote:
| China is absolutely gonna destroy the West with EVs.
|
| Western companies are completely asleep at the wheel, pun not
| intended.
|
| The U.S. is trying to do some good old fashioned
| protectionism to protect its industry but it's either gonna
| fail, or it's gonna reveal the massively lagging U.S.
| economic system which is incapable of building infrastructure
| and is increasingly incapable of encouraging R&D and new
| industries.
|
| The only thing that could hold the Chinese back right now is
| the Chinese govt which has already managed to destroy 2-3
| industries over the past few years (the extremely fast
| growing tech industry comes to mind) with arbitrary policy
| and decision making.
|
| If I were a Chinese company right now, I would try and
| diversify my supply chain, R&D and even top talent into safer
| Western countries with auto making talent like Germany.
| However, fierce price competition in China may mean they
| don't really have the luxury to do so.
|
| I think now would be the time for the EU or individual
| European counties to sprinkle some light protectionism on
| their auto industry to give Chinese EV makers a reason to
| shift there without angering their Chinese govt overlords.
| fancl20 wrote:
| To be fair Chinese government does encourage Chinese
| companies manufacturing/investing abroad
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Out_policy). From
| companies' perspective the issue is always high cost
| (compare to China) and lack of experience.
|
| (BTW the tech industry is not destroyed by any means. Since
| the goal at that time was anti-monopoly...it did limit the
| market power of top players though hard to tell its net
| utility)
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| "The U.S. is trying to do some good old fashioned
| protectionism to protect its industry but it's either gonna
| fail"
|
| This is because in real politik vehicle manufacturing means
| the ability to make war machines and artillery. If we
| subsidize China more it is just asking for military losses.
| yorwba wrote:
| That's the supply side. But is there enough demand to buy all
| those cars?
|
| Every time a new model with better battery chemistry, longer
| range, faster charging is released, it makes a bunch of older
| models with previous-gen batteries, shorter range, slower
| charging obsolete to the point of unsellability. Then they
| end up rotting in an overgrown lot somewhere.
| https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/
|
| Because of the fast release cadence, a model might become
| outmoded before it sold enough cars to recoup the development
| cost, but of course manufacturers can't just stop to save
| money while everyone else is putting out new models at
| breakneck speed and eating into their market share. So
| they're caught in a hamster wheel, burning cash while hoping
| that someone else will go bankrupt first. WM Motor looks like
| a candidate: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/chines...
|
| There's some techlore floating around
| https://pandapawdragonclaw.blog/2023/12/03/bri-notebook-
| the-... claiming that the overcrowded market is actually good
| for the industry as a whole because it makes it more
| competitive abroad, but that's cold comfort for investors who
| hoped to make their money back and then some.
| novok wrote:
| It's a bit strange they don't even bother to recycle the
| battery packs for other usages.
| fancl20 wrote:
| This happened a lot in other industries if not every, like
| IEM (Chi-fi), PC gaming handheld, mechanical keyboard,
| smartphone, 3d printer, solar pannel...At this point it
| feels a combination of abundant manufacturing know-how,
| strong entrepreneur culture, fast pace decision making,
| government policy, fierce market competition and all other
| reasons creates a synchronizing effect that always causes
| overcapacity + racing to bottom.
|
| Ironically Chinese government has quite a lot experience
| handling overcapacity, sometimes caused by them sometimes
| not :/
| phtrivier wrote:
| "Non premium" EV would still have to handle the "we have 1000km
| of highway to do once a year on a charge, and we won't buy the
| car until it does". Which also translates as "non premium has
| to be as expensive as premium".
|
| We were supposed / dearly wishing to have solved that by now,
| thanks to all the "battery breakthroughs" that made it to the
| front page of HN in the last decade.
|
| Won't prevent us from waiting, though...
| edent wrote:
| Who is driving 600 miles without stopping for a piss at least
| once?
| ooterness wrote:
| That's why they call it "range anxiety" and not "perfectly
| rational range concerns".
| phtrivier wrote:
| How about "Someone who has to rush to a loved one on a very
| short notice" ?
|
| Sure, it's a worst case scenario.
|
| How about "someone who's traveling on the exact same bank
| holiday as the rest of the country, and will not for the
| love of any deity wait for an hour on a packed highway
| station while every one is recharging ?"
|
| My point is not that "it's what people actually need 99% of
| the time", but that "the worst case" is the bar to clear.
|
| Ironically, it's kinda the same issue as electricity grids,
| except you can't buy range from your neighbors.
|
| Oh, and it has to be cheap, too, by the way.
|
| I honestly though it would be done by the 20s. It's getting
| harder and harder to argue for EVs every year that goes by
| without such a model - which also happens to be "every year
| that goes by without me being able to afford an EV".
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| This is a huge problem. While Tesla has portable
| superchargers that they bring out on bank holidays to
| handle extra demand, everyone else is super bad at
| handling peak capacity (I only charge at home, except on
| holidays, when everyone else is vying for the same
| chargers!).
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Mechanically, over 300 miles, you take an airplane rather
| then drive 5 hours to your destination if it's a life of
| death situation. Making bigger batteries is a giant waste
| of resources there.
| phtrivier wrote:
| Not sure how you're going to travel the ~100km from the
| closest airport to the place you need to go, if you
| happen to have the audacity to dare having to reach
| people living in "the middle of nowhere".
|
| I completely agree this is a giant waste of resource to
| do that with the current battery tech, and that it
| results in completely unaffordable, suboptimal cars that
| most people can neither afford nor agree to buy.
|
| Which is also why we need better tech yesterdecade.
|
| The situation really has to improve a lot before the end
| of the 20s arrive, otherwise we'll see civil unrest
| unlike anything you can imagine. Our next election cycles
| in Europe will be 50/50 immigration ("they're coming from
| your job") and transportation ("they're coming for you
| car !"). Guess who wins this game ?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I'm dreaming of being able to drive an EV from Seattle to
| Anchorage, so that kind of range would reduce the amount of
| time spent at RV parks (until BC hydro completes their EV
| charging network in northern BC, then it won't matter as
| much anymore).
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Once the battery is bigger than 300 miles or so, charging
| speed matters a lot more than battery size, in my opinion.
| I've done 4 3000km trips in an EV.
| starwin1159 wrote:
| The price is not cheap
| ugjka wrote:
| If it is like their phones then every app and car part is going
| to ping back home to some servers in china
| kkzz99 wrote:
| This is no different then me being a German owning an Android
| or Iphone, which is going to ping back home to some servers in
| the US.
| chaostheory wrote:
| There's a difference between a foreign adversary and a
| foreign ally who's subsidizing most of your defense.
| diggan wrote:
| For a German, both of those are both foreign adversaries
| and foreign allies, at the same time. One is not "better"
| than the other.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Yes, one is not better than the other until there's a
| security issue in Europe that actively threatens the EU.
| Then miraculously Western Europeans will suddenly
| remember that the US is an ally. This is exactly why many
| US voters are growing tired of subsidizing the EU's
| defense.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I guess your media conveniently skips the part where
| joining NATO means destroying your own long range
| weapons. This is what they forced Bulgaria to do and they
| made a very big deal out of it.
| avar wrote:
| I'm not American, but here you can read some extensive
| American reporting on it:
| https://nonproliferation.org/bulgaria-reaffirms-plan-to-
| dest...
|
| What you're skipping over is that the reason the US asked
| for their destruction is that having a NATO ally with
| weapons that violated the INF treaty with Russia wouldn't
| have been good idea.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Yes, Russia and the US are equivalent.
| bestouff wrote:
| "Ally". The US has not exactly always been friendly to
| Europeans.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| To be fair, there weren't tons of reasons for the US to
| be friendly with Germany, historically speaking.
| chaostheory wrote:
| We have subsidized your defense for decades now which is
| a big reason how entitlements like socialized healthcare
| was able to work in the EU despite not having the long
| term birthrates to cover it. It's a much bigger gift than
| cheaply produced goods. Also every time there's a mess in
| Europe, we have to clean it up without getting paid
| unlike the CCP with their low cost goods. The cost in
| blood and taxes would be much easier to swallow for
| Americans if there was at least some gratitude from the
| Western Europeans.
| diggan wrote:
| > Also every time there's a mess in Europe, we have to
| clean it up without getting paid
|
| You're too high on your own supply if you really believe
| this to be the case... The reason Europe has proper
| healthcare is because the US has a huge army? Give me a
| break...
|
| Please, start provide some actual backing by numbers of
| what you're saying if you're gonna try to spread
| propaganda around here.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > We have subsidized your defense for decades now which
| is a big reason how entitlements like socialized
| healthcare was able to work in the EU despite not having
| the long term birthrates to cover it.
|
| No, socialized healthcare works in Europe because its
| cheaper than the US system, massively so. The US just
| chooses to waste extra money to assure that large
| segements of its population _lack_ access to quality
| healthcare.
| kkzz99 wrote:
| In my opinion, the US is as much a foreign adversary as
| China. The US isn't subsidizing defense, its occupation and
| hegemony.
| chaostheory wrote:
| One reason Germany has been able to afford more
| entitlements for its citizens like socialized healthcare
| is due to the fact that it virtually had no defense
| expenditures for decades. We can say the same for most of
| Western Europe. The US has subsidized the defense of the
| EU for decades.
|
| As for occupation, I wonder what Germany did in the 20th
| century to merit it?
| polotics wrote:
| You really have to understand and look at the numbers,
| and also model the economics of what you're writing
| about, to get a sense of how wrong you are. May i suggest
| you start on this big quest by looking up how inflation
| gets imported and exported?
| pelorat wrote:
| No one is forcing the USA to keep it's European military
| bases, and no one is forcing the USA to spend 3.5% GDP on
| its defense budget. You do that out of your own free
| will. And you spending that amount of money on military,
| has no bearing on whether you could have free health care
| or not, the obstacles to that are purely political.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| So I guess for most of Europe and the US you would be
| right. Thankfully that's just a relatively small part of
| the world though. If anything, all things considered having
| the US as your adversary is much much more risky. so
| outside of US vassals/allies, I think picking China as your
| poison in terms of spyware is the least risky option. China
| might like to pretend they are on the same level as the US
| but they absolutely cannot project their strength (or
| meddle in domestic affairs of other countries ) in any
| similar way.
| blackoil wrote:
| As an individual, most threat I have will be from my own
| govt. and politicians/police by simple virtue of overlap
| and the authority they have to mess my life. So given
| choice, I'll prefer minimum additional info to my govt.
| ugjka wrote:
| No, Xiaomi is crazier, they send something every 5 seconds
| once the phone is awake and every app of their built in app
| suite will do the same. I've observed this with a dns filter
| app. I've owned many phones and I've never seen anything this
| crazy
| starwin1159 wrote:
| fake news
| ugjka wrote:
| Right, buy a Xiaomi phone and install this https://play.g
| oogle.com/store/apps/details?id=dnsfilter.andr...
| starwin1159 wrote:
| thanks
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Yeah their android skin is literal malware (and I don't say
| that lightly, it is impossible to get rid of most of the
| apps, it installs random stuff constantly, will stop some
| features from working if you disable unrelated stuff, and
| is filled with ads). It also has that weird "chinese sales
| app" aesthetic that is common to banggood, AliExpress and
| even creality cloud. But you can't beat the price for the
| hardware, and it's super straight forward to just wipe out
| the OEM ROM since they allow for bootloader unlocking.
| ugjka wrote:
| The funny thing you can't block the requests unless you
| want to drain the battery because ...behold... there is
| no backoff logic when the connection fails so it goes
| into an infinite loop lol
|
| The custom roms were not an option since i needed
| google's safety net feature but i got a different phone
| eventually
| lehi wrote:
| _" Both iOS and Android...transmit telemetry data to their
| motherships even when a user hasn't logged in or has
| explicitly configured privacy settings to opt out of such
| collection. Both OSes also send data to Apple and Google
| when a user does simple things such as inserting a SIM card
| or browsing the handset settings screen. Even when idle,
| each device connects to its back-end server on average
| every 4.5 minutes...In the US alone, Android collectively
| gathers about 1.3TB of data every 12 hours. During the same
| period, iOS collects about 5.8GB."_
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/android-
| sends-20x-mo...
| aeyes wrote:
| 1.3TB? Their research seems flawed because I'd notice
| this on my phone bill.
| Tostino wrote:
| They said collectively, meaning across the entire fleet
| of phones deployed.
| artemisart wrote:
| The quote above made it a bit unclear, they measured it
| at 1MB vs 52kB per device:
|
| > When idle, Android sends roughly 1MB of data to Google
| every 12 hours, compared with iOS sending Apple about
| 52KB over the same period. In the US alone, Android
| collectively gathers about 1.3TB of data every 12 hours.
| During the same period, iOS collects about 5.8GB.
| pie420 wrote:
| Assuming you are German, then: The US liberated your country
| from fascism, saved half of your country from 50 years of
| soviet occupation, rebuilt your country with the Marshall
| Plan after your country started two world wars that killed
| 100 million people, and now defends your country from
| genocidal russian aggression because your country is too
| cheap/lazy to meet your NATO defence spending obligations.
|
| If you can trust the US to defend you from Putin, you can
| trust the US to handle your data. China doesn't have that
| relationship with Germany as far as i'm aware
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| Maybe we shouldn't have done that, if they're not at least
| a bit grateful.
|
| Social media makes me want to withdraw behind our oceans.
| Let them hate us for free, at a distance - no reason we
| should subsidize them if they don't even like us
| dontlaugh wrote:
| If only you would stay at home. Unfortunately, you keep
| interfering in the rest of the world. Of course those you
| steal from and bomb hate you.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| Agreed! We will stop bailing you out. Please remember
| this next time you ask.
| kkzz99 wrote:
| It was primarily the USSR that liberated us from fascism,
| while the USSR stopped its occupation of east Germany, the
| US never stopped. And wasn't it Christina Nuland that said
| "Fuck the EU" while instigating the Ukraine Coup? Wonder
| why we should trust the US when it has been one of the
| worst "Allies" we ever had...
| josephcsible wrote:
| > while the USSR stopped its occupation of east Germany,
| the US never stopped
|
| What do you mean by this?
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Presumably they mean the 40 army bases the US maintains
| in Germany[1].
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Ar
| my_ins...
| josephcsible wrote:
| But that's not what occupation means. Consider that the
| US has military bases in the UK too, but nobody could say
| with a straight face that the US is occupying the UK.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| occupying is also subsidizing defense spending...
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Yes, Germany's government is no different than China's in
| regards to data abuse.
| palemoonale wrote:
| Or Teslas secretly recording passengers so EM and staff can
| share the hottest stuff...
| izacus wrote:
| Sure, but Tesla calls back to Elon as well, so I'm not sure
| what's the difference for me as a user.
| vincengomes wrote:
| The only standout feature of this car is that it doesn't come in
| the usual white or black colors.
| margalabargala wrote:
| The 500 mile range is a pretty standout feature. That beats
| basically anything currently on the market aside from the
| eyewateringly-expensive Lucid Air.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Maybe you've already taken this into account, but CLTC
| ratings tend to be 20-40% higher than the way range is
| calculated in the US. eg a Tesla MY LR has 330 miles of range
| in US vs 430 miles in China, but it's basically the same car
| azinman2 wrote:
| And it doesn't really have 330 miles of range in the US.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Even adjusting for typical CLTC overestimates, the only
| vehicles with longer range remain are the Lucid Air and the
| Mercedes EQS.
|
| So even if we assume that their true range is only 75% of
| their claimed 800km, it will be in the top 3 longest range
| consumer EVs.
| tirant wrote:
| I'm 100% confident that in real-life tests (see Teslabjorn
| YouTube Channel)it won't beat competitors like the BMW i4 or
| Model 3.
| margalabargala wrote:
| That seems like an unreasonably high level of confidence to
| have when paired with no supporting material.
|
| A Model 3 has a battery no larger than 83kWh. A BMW i4 has
| a battery no larger than 84kWh. This car has a 101kWh
| battery. Considering the cars appear roughly approximately
| equally aerodynamic, it seems reasonable to expect the car
| with the 20% larger battery to be able to go about 20%
| further.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| That's downhill range.
| phtrivier wrote:
| Slightly off topic, but tengential : EV's range is usually
| measured using some sort of "mixed" cycle like WLTP where you do
| a bit of slow speed, a bit of high speed etc.
|
| Is there a "dumb" test that just fill up the battery, put the car
| on a bench, goes up to 130km/h (or whatever a sensible value for
| "highway speed" is), and waits for the battery to be empty ?
|
| If it's a completely stupid idea, why ?
| grecy wrote:
| Wind resistance is by far the biggest use of energy when moving
| at highway speed.
|
| Without it, you're not testing anything useful in the real
| world.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Increase the drag resistance on the bench appropriately,
| that's it.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| This is partially it, but it isn't hard to calculate the CdA
| of a car and then add resistance to the rollers equivalent to
| the expected wind resistance, however the bigger reason is
| that cars operate in a dynamic environment and you don't
| actually want to know how far they'd drive at 100kph with no
| additional wind in a straight line. It just isn't helpful.
|
| The driving cycles have a number of issues but they
| purposefully try and capture more of the range of dynamics to
| help consumers better understand what they should actually
| expect from vehicles.
|
| It is like comparing CPUs only on their ability to multiply
| quickly vs a suite of software benchmarks.
| phtrivier wrote:
| Thanks, I would not have suspected drag.
|
| Still, it seems like you're saying "the number would be
| unrealistic", but I'm not sure people want a realistic
| number, just a "worst case scenario"...
|
| I understand that standard tests try to measure something
| "realistic", but they end up giving a value that is not
| what people are waiting for - which is, again, and I can't
| stress it enough because it's 100% of the conversation i
| still have about EVs with every single person I talk to -
| "insurance that I will be able to visit my mum on a single
| charge at the other end of the country".
|
| I understand it's a bad question to ask and people don't
| really need _that_ range, but apparently they need _that_
| info :/
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Right, but those people would then get their EV, go for a
| 20km drive in bad EV conditions, see their range decrease
| by 30km, and call the manufacturer a liar. Been there,
| done that. Family member sold theirs because they weren't
| "confident in the range" despite never driving more than
| 80km in a day.
|
| Truth is I think some people just don't want them and
| they look for a "logical" out since that conflicts with
| their desire to be less impactful to the environment.
|
| A 75kwh battery pack has the same energy as ~8.5 liters
| of gasoline. While the conversion of that energy to
| movement is far more efficient than a gasoline engine,
| that's still a small amount of energy comparatively, so
| the variance is going to be very, very high.
| edent wrote:
| You could say that 1W can move a mass of 1Kg a distance of 1m
| in 1s.
|
| The battery can store NN kWh and the car weights XX Kg. How
| many Km can it travel?
|
| It ignores wind resistance, road incline, use of air con,
| external temperature, number of passengers etc.
|
| So it would even more meaningless than the somewhat synthetic
| tests already being done.
| out_of_protocol wrote:
| Also depends on speed - for electric cars most economic speed
| is kinda low, due to atmospheric drag. So in city cycle
| electric cars will do much much better than gasoline ones.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Ignoring wind resistance is what he wrote, but I think it's
| the opposite of what he meant. A highway test that
| accelerates once to a high speed and maintains that speed is
| mostly about aerodynamic drag.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Your test won't handle air resistance, which is a big part of
| why US EPA and Chinese range estimates tend to be so different
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's not stupid, but the test would be complex.
|
| E.g., one would have to model and output the relevant solar
| spectrum to heat the vehicle and see how it responds to the IR
| heat load in maintaining human and battery operating
| temperature. Same with cold cycles, and the details get
| complicated when you try to average out the experienced
| conditions.
|
| One of Tesla's mileage advantages comes from using the most
| advanced multilayer mirrors in their glass to minimize the
| effect of radiant heating/heat loss.
|
| Fun aside: An interesting side effect of the technology is the
| appearance of red droplets when rain or dew is on the glass
| with the proper sunlight conditions:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/9ustsa/ref...
| j1elo wrote:
| Will it show "suggested contents" in between the numbers of the
| speedometer?
| snakeyjake wrote:
| I was told automakers have been ruining auto design and foisting
| gaping-nostril'd abominations on us for years due to the chinese
| market.
|
| Xiaomi, more Chinese than Chinese, has released one of the most
| beautiful, nostril-less, vehicles in years.
|
| Is every automaker stupid?
| lttlrck wrote:
| It looks like a Taycan to me, albeit with McLaren-esque
| headlights.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Car makers do it all the time. I have curves of our older BMW
| 5 series (f11) burned in my head.
|
| New VW passat came out, I saw it from up close and all subtle
| front and side curves are there, at same spots, done in >98%
| same way.
|
| These automakers are mega corporations now, not some
| passionate geeks working out of garages. They follow trends,
| curb any unique excellence in order to have uniform brand
| design. Chinese, they take western brands with just
| copy&paste, I havent seen much more. Everybosy should see
| Taycan in that design.
| pie420 wrote:
| Western Automakers already control their respective markets and
| are seeking to break into china, so they design towards chinese
| consumers. Chinese automakers already control their respective
| markets and are seeking to break into the western markets, and
| thus design towards western consumer tastes.
|
| You would think that "savy" HN visitors who know about A/B
| testing, market data driven decisions, etc. would know that if
| something looks ugly it's usually designed that way for a
| reason. But keep being smug while you ruin your website/app's
| color schemes and layout based on the same data driven
| corporate design strategies.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| As it happens, and although China requires (or used to
| require?) a joint-venture to produce in the country,
| Volkswagen used to pretty much own the Chinese car market.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The new BYD saloon looks a bit similar, actually.
|
| It of course depends in personal taste but Chinese car makers
| seem to all be targeting global expansion and are all conscious
| of good design because they do make efforts in this area and
| none of their models is ugly.
| vsskanth wrote:
| Model 3 doesn't have a grille either.
| crowcroft wrote:
| Worth noting they haven't actually released anything yet.
| nsteel wrote:
| > Much like Volkswagen, Xiaomi already knows that car owners
| still prefer to have some physical buttons,
|
| Despite decades of experience in the industry, until very
| recently Volkswagen weirdly thought the opposite was true. It's
| incredible it's taken them this long to U-turn on what's been a
| blindly obvious problem with their current interior designs. It
| got the point where every other manufacturer, that did the (old)
| sensible thing, was praised.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| VW is a very slow moving behemoth with too many cogs. That's
| why things take forever there.
| hristov wrote:
| I am glad they went to 800V. The acceleration stat race is
| getting a bit stupid. But I think 800V is very important, at
| least for charging. It will not only let you charge fast it will
| let other people use the charger after you are done.
|
| I hope the industry moves both the fast chargers and the cars to
| 800V asap. (Naturally, fast chargers should retain 400V backward
| compatibility). When cars charge faster it is kind of like having
| more chargers.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Fast charging requires a lot more infrastructure and a lot more
| maintenance. We aren't good about maintenance, so the simpler
| the better.
| jitl wrote:
| Only way to git gud is to practice
| numpad0 wrote:
| Is EV charging actually voltage limited? I had impression that
| it's limited more by C rating and upstream capacity than by
| resistance and/or cable thickness requirements.
| nagisa wrote:
| Voltage is exactly what solves the cable thickness/resistance
| problem.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Somewhat? This voltage isn't (just) about the battery, but
| about all power connections. Cables can only take so much
| current after all! At 150 KW, you need 400 V x 375 A. That is
| an insane current figure. At 800 V, it's just half the
| current.
|
| I've used a 300 KW DC charging station once. The cable is
| very thick and heavy. There are practical limits.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Cable thickness is very much a problem with fast chargers.
| Many fast chargers now have water cooled cables, because when
| 500 amps is going down the cable, you either need it super
| thick with copper or to have the complexity of _two_ water
| cooling loops (one for the positive conductor, one for the
| negative conductor, electrically isolated coolant loops).
| londons_explore wrote:
| 800V is a cost saving measure too.
|
| 800V lets them have all the conductors within the car half the
| thickness.
|
| Back in 2015, it didn't make sense because EV's didn't charge
| that fast, and battery balancing tech was still expensive (and
| cost scales proportional to the voltage).
|
| However, now battery balancing tech is mere cents per volt, and
| customers demanding fast charging means super thick (and
| expensive!) wires in the car and battery pack.
|
| 1000 volt MOSFETS have also become a lot cheaper (used in the
| motor inverters), whereas before car manufacturers were reusing
| 600 volt mosfets designed for other things.
|
| The only downside of higher voltages are increased insulation
| requirements. However, PVC insulation allows 10kV per mm, so
| the insulation thickness required is still tiny (although
| clearly you cannot use outdoor air as an insulator in either
| case).
| croisillon wrote:
| the wheels remind me of Taiwan's national flower
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Are we having an Apple vs Nokia moment in the car industry,
| powered by the shift to EV?
|
| In Europe it feels a bit that way.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I have a feeling we're gonna loose the EV race same how we lost
| the software race and then the mobile race. Our auto industry
| could be the next Nokia.
|
| Sure, I'm confident the lobbied EU leaders will put speedbumps
| in place for the Chinese Auto makers in the EU market, but that
| will do more harm than good as the local brands won't be under
| enough pressure to innovate, knowing the governments have their
| back regardless.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > we lost the software race and then the mobile race
|
| Was the EU ever really in the race to begin with? They really
| wanted to be, but you can't actually centrally plan a working
| software or hardware economy.
|
| > EU leaders will put speedbumps in place
|
| That's the only tool they understand how to use. It's sad
| that this makes them feel they have to constantly use it.
|
| > knowing the governments have their back regardless.
|
| Yea.. you almost get the feeling these policies are
| _designed_ to create monopolies and have nothing at all to do
| with fostering competition.
| ororoo wrote:
| I would love to see Chinese violate patents and get away with
| it like apple did.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| In China that's just another Tuesday. I'm not sure why you
| don't think you are seeing it. Now, if they export such a
| product to Europe or the USA, that's another story.
| chetangole wrote:
| > The SU7 will have autonomous driving capabilities, too, thanks
| to its Xiaomi Pilot platform powered by up to two NVIDIA Drive
| Orin processors
|
| Interestingly, NVIDIA is making good moves in all the areas
| related to AI.
| janice1999 wrote:
| I wonder how many generations before those CPUs get replaced by
| a Chinese native competitor. I'm guessing the Qualcomm
| infotaintment processors will be replaced soon.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| High end semiconductors is one area where China has a lot of
| ground to catch up on. They can make them fast, or cheap, but
| can't make them fast and cheap yet. They have a similar
| problem with jet turbines, and most of it is related to
| materials engineering.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| But unlike cold war they have market based economy ... so I
| think that the west will be unpleasantly surprised how
| little we will be able to slow them down. Also -
| programmers have started to learn how to squeeze
| performance again out of the little hot rocks.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It has worked for a few decades now. While almost
| anything else is easy to reverse engineer, the trial and
| error used to come up with advanced semiconductors and
| jet turbine engines is really hard to discern by looking
| at end products, and the secrets are heavily locked down
| in Europe and the states (even Taiwan, Japan, Korea have
| to import materials and equipment from a very few locked
| down sources for their own fabs). China will eventually
| get there, but they are 10s of years and billions of
| dollars away from it. Because of the scale of the work
| needed, it is also unlikely to come from private
| industry, and with public research a lot of that money is
| going to be siphoned off to corruption.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Cars are an interesting example of where it might not super
| matter that the chips lag. Even a lot.
|
| If you are dumping kW of power into electric motors and
| climate control, having an inefficient hot not-great 200W
| computer or two running in car entertainment might not be
| super noticeable.
|
| The downsides of needing bigger VRMs to power the cores,
| and needing more cooling are both real costs, that diminsh
| the effectiveness of trying to save money on cores. But it
| is interesting to me that this feels like the one segment
| where people might not notice 100Ws of egregiously
| inefficient computing, because it's such a small fraction
| of the total power budget.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| There is a lot happening in this area atm - here is a
| description of Nio's homebrewed chip:
|
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/5nm-NIO-Shenji-autonomous-
| driv...
| tromp wrote:
| Besides lots more pictures, carnewschina [1] also reports:
|
| > According to Xiaomi, the SU7 is a pretty aerodynamic car with a
| drag coefficient of only 0.195 Cd, the lowest among production
| vehicles.
|
| No doubt this was helped by hiring James Qiu who had previously
| worked on Mercedes-Benz's Vision EQXX design, a concept car with
| a record setting 0.17 Cd.
|
| [1] https://carnewschina.com/2023/12/28/xiaomi-officially-
| unveil...
| toddmorey wrote:
| I couldn't get to the article or pictures due to the spin for a
| prize ads.
| jupp0r wrote:
| I recommend ublock Origin.
| xethos wrote:
| > SU7 base model is rear-wheel drive (RWD) with Xiaomi's in-
| house developed V6 engine with a maximum power of 220 kW and
| 400 Nm torque.
|
| The statement about the V6 is throwing me. Can anyone fill me
| in what they're using the V6 for? I thought the SU7 was full
| electric, not a hybrid.
| aeyes wrote:
| It's the name of the electric motor, they also a model called
| V8.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| A few decades back, EVs were little econoboxes.
|
| Has anyone considered making an inexpensive, reliable, simple EV
| for commuters?
| uxp100 wrote:
| The Chevy Bolt?
| bhpm wrote:
| The Chevy Bolt EUV is to my mind the perfect little city car.
| It's not really "little" by most standards but if I were
| buying an EV today this is the one I'd go with. I love my
| Teslas and will keep them for many years to come but I'm
| happy that Chevy has this one.
| happyopossum wrote:
| The Bolt is discontinued, and they're using the factory to
| build electric trucks.
| bhpm wrote:
| I heard :(. It's weird to say, but I think Chevy is
| moving too fast. The Volt should still be around, it's a
| great "starter" car for the EV shy. Now they're rushing
| headlong into trucks when I think there's a real market
| for the compact crossover EUV. I suppose trucks are high
| margin and now that "little" trucks are back they can
| take part of that segment.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > Has anyone considered making an inexpensive, reliable, simple
| EV for commuters?
|
| These have been around for awhile, they aren't really suited to
| the American market though; e.g.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV
| vel0city wrote:
| > propelling the car to a stated top speed of 100 km/h (62
| mph)
|
| Yeah, definitely not many American markets. Several highways
| around me have posted speed limits of 75MPH, traffic often
| flows even faster than that. Driving in a car that can barely
| reach 60mph would often result in a speed differential of
| like 15+mph with the rest of traffic. I'd feel _extremely_
| unsafe going almost 20mph slower than the surrounding traffic
| while in a subcompact car.
| bhpm wrote:
| For which market? China has many like that. Americans don't
| tend to favor small vehicles. The EU is better suited for it.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Sure, there are plenty. Nobody is buying them.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Yes of course. In which market are you?
| davmar wrote:
| Volvo EX30 is looking interesting
| https://www.volvocars.com/us/cars/ex30-electric/
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > Inexpensive
|
| > Starts at $35k
| bdcravens wrote:
| Average new car transaction price in the US is $48k.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a43611570/average-new-
| car-...
| reducesuffering wrote:
| And the average new home in the US is $480k, but at a
| median income of $31k I would never call it inexpensive.
| Let's save it for the truly high value purchases like $90
| espresso machines, $400 phone, $400 PC, and $300 TV.
| Maybe a $10k 10 year old Toyota with 150k miles left?
| krastanov wrote:
| It is a bit of a culture shock for me to see someone
| describing this car as "small" (how I understand
| "econoboxes"). This car is far from small.
| Spunkie wrote:
| All the impressions I've read about the ex30 is that it is
| much smaller in person than the pictures let on.
| krastanov wrote:
| It is a bit shorter and a bit taller than a Prius, which
| is why I reacted with surprise above (this does not seem
| "small" to me).
| dontlaugh wrote:
| Exactly, it's 4.25m. Small would be 3.5-4m.
| izacus wrote:
| This thing costs more than 45.000EUR with any kind of
| equipment and is massive - a far cry away from something like
| a Renault Clio or similar econobox.
| Philip-J-Fry wrote:
| The "Ultra" package barely adds anything that's worth it.
| The only options worthwhile are drive train but the base
| model is perfectly fine.
| seydor wrote:
| Indeed except for the fact that it has no dashscreen and
| everything is in the hideous tablet.
| daliusd wrote:
| Citroen Ami
| riffraff wrote:
| and the FIAT Topolino and Opel Rocks-e, which are all built
| on the same platform, and in the same factory, I think.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| In Europe there are a lot of choices these days for small
| electric cars.
| izacus wrote:
| Still quite expensive though - e.g. Renault Zoe is over
| 30.000EUR
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| The Zoe is not Renault's cheapest. The Twingo E-Tech starts
| here (Austria) at 26k.
| izacus wrote:
| Ah, wasn't aware of that one.
| namdnay wrote:
| From the Renault group the cheapest is the Dacia Spring,
| which is below 20k I think?
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Dacia Spring is still a Chinese car that's got nothing to
| do with the Romanian brand, it's just a rebadge to a
| brand the EU consumers are familiar with.
| avar wrote:
| The Biro is cheaper at ~15k or less, popular in The
| Netherlands, also used in at least the UK and Italy:
| https://birocars.co.uk/price-list/
| fh973 wrote:
| At least in Europe, the industry has lobbied away the
| possibility of cheap cars. From 2024, "Intelligent Speed
| Assist" and data recorders are mandatory for new cars.
| izacus wrote:
| Equipment for those costs like 500EUR.
|
| Where does the rest of 20.000+ increase of car prices come
| from? ;)
| fh973 wrote:
| There are still cars being sold for 15k-20k.
| stefan_ wrote:
| You mean the cars that had GPS maps and cruise control anyway
| will have to take the speed limit from the GPS map and apply
| it to the cruise control? Horror, the cost!
| fh973 wrote:
| Cars at the lower end don't have GPS, maps or cruise
| control.
|
| Anyways, speed limit detection works with cameras, not with
| maps.
| petre wrote:
| Chinese manufacturers are going to obliterate the EU auto
| industry.
|
| I saw Nio break the 1k range mark on a single battery charge
| the other day. That and their battery swapping stations. Now
| this.
|
| Meanwhile BMW is still making a diesel X5 with colorful
| lights for about >100k in 2023 and also a diesel series 7.
| The exhaust on these stinks like the one in a VW from 2004.
| Their electric and hybrid offerings are also a joke.
|
| Another player, Daimler, put a washing machine sized electric
| motor coupled onto the automatic gearbox into some of their
| hybrids, along with a underpowered 1.6L engine. The tumble
| dryier engine is powered by a 20kW battery. They had the
| gearboxes lying around from start/stop ICEs and found a use
| for them: dumping them onto an unsuspecting public. That is
| their idea of a hybrid. Of course it's underpowered and burns
| gas like a vehicle from the early 2000s.
|
| Renault is possibly the only brand with decent offerings.
| bb123 wrote:
| Yes. In Europe there is the Corsa-e and the e208. Both have
| >200 mile range and can be picked up less than 3 years old for
| under 10k.
| jitl wrote:
| I was in mainland China a week ago and rode in a few different
| domestic electric cars when taking DiDi (Uber), from BYD and
| others. All pretty great experiences, good build quality. A
| surprising percent of the cars on the street in Kunming were
| electric - maybe 25%. The other cards make me expect good things
| from the Xiaomi.
| beebeepka wrote:
| My problem with Xiaomi is the absolutely crazy data gathering.
|
| I visited one of their mall stores of theirs and literally the
| only product (out of many) not requiring an app was some sort
| of shaving machine. A goddamn pole fan requiring an app!
|
| On the other hand, all modern cars seem to be pretty bad at
| this. Tesla cars appear to be a privacy nightmare.
| dharmab wrote:
| You're not kidding about modern cars being a privacy
| nightmare: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotinclud
| ed/article...
|
| Some notable takeaways:
|
| - The car companies claim not only the owners' data, but the
| data of _any passengers_. I don't think people reasonably
| expect that sitting in a friend's car grants consent to
| collect data on them.
|
| - Almost no brands allow people to request their data be
| deleted.
|
| - Nissan claims the right to know their owner's sexual
| activity. Kia claims the right to know their owner's sex
| lives.
| kypro wrote:
| > Nissan claims the right to know their owner's sexual
| activity. Kia claims the right to know their owner's sex
| lives.
|
| I'd be interested in reading more about this if you have a
| source?
| vardump wrote:
| Probably only to prevent those activities during driving.
| I doubt they have any other interest.
| justinl33 wrote:
| maybe advertising a bigger car for an anticipated baby?
| dharmab wrote:
| https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/niss
| an/
|
| https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/kia/
| novok wrote:
| This is the behavior of pretty much all chinese tech with
| internet connected software / hardware. They are next level
| bad in general.
| pelorat wrote:
| They are a global brand now. If you use their apps in Europe
| you are presented with the choice of cloud locations
| (Germany) and they do comply with the GDPR. There are far
| worse actors out there then Xiaomi.
| mendigou wrote:
| Off topic: was Kunming's slogan still "civilized Kunming"? I
| found it pretty funny when I was there some years ago.
| chewxy wrote:
| Wen Ming Kun Ming (wenming Kunming) is such an amazing
| rhyming couplet
| lgkk wrote:
| Looks like a taycan
| OldManAndTheCpp wrote:
| > as well as chassis stamped by its die casting machines with a
| clamping force of 9,100 tons -- beating that of Tesla's
| apparently.
|
| This seems incoherent to me? Metal stamping is a process, and die
| casting is a separate process, from what I understand. Is there
| any reason to die cast a chassis? Does the press strength around
| the casting molds matter? I'd assume chassis parts would be built
| out of stamped and bent sheet metal?
| apendleton wrote:
| Tesla has switched their newer lines to casting. It seems like
| it's mostly about manufacturing efficiency rather than strength
| -- they can cast the whole underbody of the vehicle as a single
| piece rather than having dozens of stamped pieces that need to
| be welded or riveted together. Initially they were doing the
| front half as one piece and the back half as another, but
| they've needed to get bigger and bigger (higher- and higher-
| force) machines as they've gone from two-piece to single-piece
| construction.
| novok wrote:
| An actual HUD! The one major feature I wish teslas had, with
| carplay / android auto a close second.
| mikestew wrote:
| Well, Teslas aren't going to get either one anytime soon, but
| you could buy a Hyundai which has both features. (Granted,
| you'll have to get top-level trim for the HUD). You might also
| find that it is a better car than a Tesla.
| Sytten wrote:
| It's going to be a fun time when your car is vulnerable because
| the manufacturer decided to stop software patches. Xiaomi isn't
| known for long term support, their phones get max 2-3y of updates
| (they release so many versions it's crazy). I am going to stay
| with my low tech 2013 Toyota for as long as possible that's for
| sure.
| justinl33 wrote:
| what changes in conditions would make a previously stable car
| unstable? Genuinely curious. Because I'd assume software
| patches tend to exist solely to make incremental improvements,
| not fix glaring issues - if there were any I'm sure regulation
| would mandate that they get patched no matter how old the
| model.
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