I reluctantly concede that BYD makes a good car. I’ve ridden in half a dozen of them in the last two weeks. Smooth, comfortable, the ergonomics are good and clean. The driver assist visuals are clean. (Pulling out of a restaurant last night the driver could see the projected path of the vehicle and widened his turn to prevent scraping the rear right quarter panel). My one complaint is that there appears to be an internal rgb disco mode.
Oh and they appear to start at $21k. (Don’t quote me on that, my conversation math might have been wrong)
If the projected total cost of ownership holds, these cars (and those of the other 4 big Chinese electric car companies) will own the global market over the next decade (minus places that implement protectionist tariffs like the 100% tariffs in the US)
I drove my first BYD car last week, a hybrid Seal. I was pleasantly surprised by the confort and power, it kept up with the Audis on das autobahn. Only downside was the suspension, not european enough i would say.
However, software wise... They obviously are too cheap to pay a native to translate the UI. some translation end with _1.
The worst offenser was the copilot button, where you never know if it is on or not. It makes crazy moves and seem to move the steering wheel even while off (lane assist is off)
Also the Adaptative Cruise Control is not the best calibrated, but it works well
> I reluctantly concede that BYD makes a good car.
why the reluctance? If they make a good car, there should be no reluctance in accepting it. Other than, of course, nationalism and/or racism. Just like how in the past, japanese cars were "reluctantly" accepted as good quality cars at cheap prices.
The reluctance was in part tongue in cheek. In part reluctance to attribute quality and durability to a newcomer. Cars are complex and history is littered with failed car companies.
DeLorean is a good example. Ex GM designer, decided he’d make his own car company. Killer styling, shitty PRV motor. The 88mph thing from Back to the Future is a bit of a joke on the underpowered engine in a heavy car. It’s actually quite a challenge to get that thing up to speed.
In that example the engine fails the long term quality test due to (among other things) the valley of death, a V shape in the top of the engine where water pools and rusts right through.
The chassis fails maintenance tests because the cooling system uses a combination of hard and soft lines (remember the engine is in the back, radiator in the front) so replacing degraded cooling hoses takes days as you replace 30 different rubber hoses.
Both of these maintenance shortcomings only become apparent years later.
So BYD looks good so far. But time will tell. (Will the batteries last? Are the electronics repairable? Are there unexpected shortcomings?)
> The 88mph thing from Back to the Future is a bit of a joke on the underpowered engine in a heavy car. It’s actually quite a challenge to get that thing up to speed.
If the projected total cost of ownership holds, these cars (and those of the other 4 big Chinese electric car companies) will own the global market over the next decade (minus places that implement protectionist tariffs like the 100% tariffs in the US)