[HN Gopher] BYD is about to open another EV plant overseas with ...
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       BYD is about to open another EV plant overseas with 150,000 vehicle
       capacity
        
       Author : zfg
       Score  : 10 points
       Date   : 2025-01-20 21:14 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (electrek.co)
 (TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
        
       | johnneville wrote:
       | it's in Indonesia
        
       | rUsHeYaFuBu wrote:
       | The U.S. is so freaking behind on EVs.
       | 
       | China went from making cars with 3 gears and lawn mower engines
       | (practically speaking) to mass EVs in like 15 years.
       | 
       | Meanwhile here the big automakers are crying about unfair
       | competition and Chinese subsidizes. Free market sucks when it's
       | not in your favor anymore, ain't it?
        
         | toomuchtodo wrote:
         | US automakers have already lost, their market will shrink to
         | whatever the US domestic market demands. Global light vehicle
         | TAM is ~90M units/year, and BYD is going to ramp as quickly as
         | they can to meet that.
        
           | rUsHeYaFuBu wrote:
           | Couldn't agree more.
           | 
           | Meanwhile the US is doubling down on fossil fuel energy
           | sources which will be decreasing in demand globally over the
           | next several decades as EVs grow in market share along with
           | growth in alternative energy generation.
        
         | constantcrying wrote:
         | >China went from making cars with 3 gears and lawn mower
         | engines (practically speaking) to mass EVs in like 15 years.
         | 
         | The history is a bit different. China is still making three
         | gear lawn mowers compared to their ICE competition. The EV
         | market opened an enormous opportunity, where suddenly every
         | single manufacturer had to start propulsion from zero, the
         | advantage of decades of ICE research instantly vanished. This
         | combined with Chinas long push in manufacturing and somewhat
         | recent push in high tech manufacturing made for a very good
         | environment.
         | 
         | >Meanwhile here the big automakers are crying about unfair
         | competition and Chinese subsidizes.
         | 
         | Not in Europe. The car makers are opposing the tarifs, the EU
         | leadership wants them.
        
           | rUsHeYaFuBu wrote:
           | > The EV market opened an enormous opportunity, where
           | suddenly every single manufacturer had to start propulsion
           | from zero, the advantage of decades of ICE research instantly
           | vanished.
           | 
           | That's not true though.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
           | 
           | U.S. automakers refused to invest and plan for the future
           | while they could continue to profit off their cash cow.
           | 
           | Now they are behind because of their negligence.
        
             | constantcrying wrote:
             | >That's not true though.
             | 
             | It is. Or do you think that any of the engineers at GM knew
             | how to make EVs, because 25 years ago they designed one
             | once? The advantage of that was completely negligible and
             | easily outweighed by Chinese companies being in direct
             | contact with e.g. battery manufacturers.
             | 
             | >U.S. automakers refused to invest and plan for the future
             | while they could continue to profit off their cash cow.
             | 
             | Which contradicts what I said how?
        
               | rUsHeYaFuBu wrote:
               | My point was that U.S. automakers did not have to start
               | from scratch with regards to propulsion as you claimed.
        
               | constantcrying wrote:
               | But they had to start from scratch. How many engineers
               | who know how to build EV motors do you think where
               | sitting around at GM between 1996 and 2020 doing
               | _nothing_? Exactly zero.
               | 
               | Do you think GM has been developing EV motors and
               | batteries since 1996 and just never used them for
               | anything? That is ridiculous. All of the people there had
               | to start from zero when designing EVs.
               | 
               | There is no advantage of having had an idea but
               | abandoning it 25 years ago.
               | 
               | If anything Chinese EV companies had an advantage as
               | getting specialist in producing batteries and motors is
               | surely easier if your country is one of the biggest
               | manufacturers.
               | 
               | What of course is true is that GM _could_ have had 25
               | years of development advantage, but chose to abandon that
               | idea. This does not conflict at all with my point that
               | they _did not_ have that advantage, as they did not
               | continue to make EVs.
        
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       (page generated 2025-01-20 23:02 UTC)