Does anyone know what Chinese car quality is like? I guess there aren't any 15 year old Chinese EVs. Whenever someone says a Chinese product is exactly the same but half the price, it usually isn't the same quality.
We get a significant range of new Chinese cars in Australia, and generally they are fine; in the low end of the market they are about the best quality for the money, in the middle they show issues where they can't deliver a overall polished product, so you get things like crappy driving dynamics or poor ADAS or janky UI. Think like you took a top trim Merc, and made one part very shit, and then priced it like a Toyota.
There doesn't seem to be any significant longevity concerns, but they have also not been around that long.
They are running circles around competitors in build quality, technology, range, performance, etc. What happened is that car companies went to China to outsource production, taught the Chinese everything there is to know about car manufacturing, and the Chinese paid attention.
This is not true at all. Quality of cars in China is abysmal compared to what they ship to EU/AU/NZ. If you try driving a BYD in China vs say Australia. It’s like 2 completely different cars. What they ship internationally meets standards. But in China they don’t live up to those and standards.
So you are saying that they adapt to the local market but are perfectly capable of selling perfectly good vehicles abroad when they want to? This doesn't match what I know of the market. It also doesn't make much sense. Basically most of the BYD market is China but it's a hyper competitive market where there's a price war going on. I'd say there's very little room for chronic under performers in that market. As there are literally dozens of companies eager to step up and do better. From what I've seen if you want to get a glimpse of the future of road transport, you need to go to China.
I don't know if the claim itself is correct, but I am confused why you say it "doesn't make much sense"?
Surely the Chinese market being hyper competitive and in a price war would imply bosses selling to this market needing to cut costs even when doing so comes with the consequence of reduced long-term quality?
Donno about your experience but mine was in China the BYD I drove looked fancier and had more features but the build quality wasn’t there. It felt cheaply put together. It didn’t feel like there was weight to the car. If I hit something would I survive? There was no weight to the door. Things felt loose. In Australia my friends BYD is great. Feels safe. Feels solid. Drive smoothly. Makes me want to replace my Toyota with one.
If that were the case, then US manufacturers would be doing far better with EVs than they are. Yet they are not able to keep up with BYD and are failing at hitting their own milestones.
That's because the Chinese are far ahead in battery technology and related supply chains. US manufacturers are only now starting to use LFP in larger volumes. Reason: limited amount of local producers capable of producing LFP batteries. This is starting to change as some local producers are now licensing technology from the likes of CATL. For example Ford is doing this.
They are years behind with sodium ion which is being mass produced in China already and being used in ultra cheap EVs that simply don't exist in the US market.
And then solid state batteries are also something that China looks to be on track with to start producing in larger volumes in the next year (low volume production is already happening). And that's despite companies like Amprius, Quantumscape, etc. being based in the US. In short, the US car manufacturing industry has long lost its leadership position. And that's including Tesla that until a few years ago was producing better EVs than others. No longer true and they are struggling to keep up currently.
Agreed, and that's my point: US companies only valued ICE skills, which has left them weak and vulnerable now that the truly valuable skills are in batteries and looking for efficiencies with a far simplified rest of product.
By treating batteries as a component roughly on par with an air filter, US manufacturers have lost out on multiple R&D cycles and put themselves in such a poor strategic position that it's unlikely they will be able to survive without major restructuring.
I ride on the atto frequently (grab has an ev option). For a cheap car, the quality is surprisingly good. I don’t know longer term how reliable they are but EVs are simple and don’t have an engine which is where most of your car problems come from.
At the Atto's price point, comparable to the equivalent entry level Tata, Suzuki, or VinFast EV.
The discount from an American perspective kicks in at the $20K and above range.
Mind you, it's a discount if you earn in dollars or a salary comparable to the West, which most Chinese, ASEAN, and other Asians do not (aside from the Asian Tigers or those working in top tech or finance roles in CN/ASEAN/IN).
If you're household post-tax income is around $6k, a $12K let alone a $20K car is expensive given that housing is fairly pricy as well, and saving for rainy days is much more critical.
When it comes to new car producers there's always yhe "quality" question.
We saw that with Japenese cars in the 70s (turns out quality was high) and some of the most valued brands now are Japenese (Honda, Nissan, Toyota etc.)
Then it was the Korean turn. Cheap right, so low quality? Turns out Kia, Hyundai, Daihatsu etc are nice cars.
Sure, there are a few early iterations that needed improvement, but in each case those quickly got ironed out. And Chinese cars are far past the "early" stage. They're genuinely good cars for very competitive prices.
When it comes to EVs They're ahead in quality. BYD particularly seems to come with a very good reputation.
Sure, the US is obsessed with large SUVs. But the rest of the world isn't. US car makers are not making cars that the rest of the world wants, and the export market is closing. (I'd count Ford as something of an exception here, they still produce small cars for foreign markets, but they're cutting corners on quality and reputation is falling...)
My dad dailies a previous gen Chinese ICE (Geely) as an experiment, 100k km and nothing major broke yet. It is not the most fuel efficient but maintenance is cheap.
I drove a BYD while in Thailand and it was pretty janky in some ways (buggy UI, kinda cheap feel, and a few other things I can’t remember) however for its extremely low price it was fantastic
