Electric vehicle war, is gas soon to be toast?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by jar_e

Well I did just turn a year older today so this is fitting LOL

Happy Birthday!!!

[Street Pharmacist]

Legacy automakers are getting killed globally. Trump can do whatever he wants, but the shift is on. GM took a $5B write down of is China assets. VW is fighting with the Union over cutting thousands of workers in Germany and it's future looks murky. Nissan and Honda looking at a merger as they're in trouble and now Mitsubishi is thinking about joining them as their global sales are tanking too. Toyota has had sales decrease for nine months in a row. Stellantis loses it's CEO because it lost 40% of its value this year with missing profit forecasts. The reason for all of this is China.

China is the largest car market in the world, is still growing that lead, and was a source of sales growth for all of these brands. Chinese car brands like BYD, Nio, Geely, and now tech companies like Huawei are absolutely eating their lunch. That alone is scary for some of these automakers. China is a big market for them. But that's not the scary part. The scary part is China is also stealing all the other emerging markets.

Here's the 2023 numbers, and now China is at 6 million and the rest have decreased:



BYD sold around 700,000 vehicles in 2021. They'll do well North of 4 million this year. Huawei never sold or made a vehicle before last year and will turn a profit on around 250,000 in vehicle sales this year. The margins on a BYD Seal are around 50% and VW iD4 is at best 20% and is an inferior car.

American car market is shrinking, not growing, and while it's the most profitable, Americans are not going to want to be left behind technologically forever. These makers are going to find it tough to balance the push against EVs in their major market with Trump now in charge, and losing out on pretty much all growth markets.

Interesting times ahead

[calgarygeologist]

I watched a YouTube video last night on the Xiaomi SU7 and that vehicle looks awesome. Styling is very nice with a lot of elements pulled from other nice looking vehicles and the range looks very good. The tech seems to be amazing which is not surprising. It is just a shame that we will probably never get cars like this over here in Canada/North America.

[Fuzz]

Amazing what you can do when you can work around regulations, have unlimited government funding, and a good supply of slave labour.

Frankly, I'm kinda disgusted hearing the lamentations of people who wish they could jut hand their money over to China, if someone would let them. But, hey, I guess that's the modern world. Remember when we used to worry about blood diamonds? So quaint!

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Amazing what you can do when you can work around regulations, have unlimited government funding, and a good supply of slave labour.

Frankly, I'm kinda disgusted hearing the lamentations of people who wish they could jut hand their money over to China, if someone would let them. But, hey, I guess that's the modern world. Remember when we used to worry about blood diamonds? So quaint!

Yeah, it sucks. But it also sucks that I can't get a nice, capable vehicle with high quality materials, good styling and the latest tech (albeit the Chinese tech is still better) for less than the median household income in Canada.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Amazing what you can do when you can work around regulations, have unlimited government funding, and a good supply of slave labour.

Frankly, I'm kinda disgusted hearing the lamentations of people who wish they could jut hand their money over to China, if someone would let them. But, hey, I guess that's the modern world. Remember when we used to worry about blood diamonds? So quaint!

But who’s being punished now? Don’t we want affordable EVs for the masses? If NA manufacturers and governments are going to drag their feet forever, I am not surprised or disappointed except that NA, despite talking about the need, making it harder and more expensive for mainstream adoption.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Wormius

But who’s being punished now? Don’t we want affordable EVs for the masses? If NA manufacturers and governments are going to drag their feet forever, I am not surprised or disappointed except that NA, despite talking about the need, making it harder and more expensive for mainstream adoption.

Uh, the slaves and people downstream I guess?

By not permitting slave labour and environmental destruction, while being funded by the government to massive amounts? If that's the kind of country you want to live in, move to one. The reality is things cost money, and there are only so many ways to make them in a manner that respects human rights, employment, and what's left of the Earth. If you just throw those things out, then ya, you can have cheap. That's what China chose.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Amazing what you can do when you can work around regulations, have unlimited government funding, and a good supply of slave labour.

Frankly, I'm kinda disgusted hearing the lamentations of people who wish they could jut hand their money over to China, if someone would let them. But, hey, I guess that's the modern world. Remember when we used to worry about blood diamonds? So quaint!

Amazon. The word your looking for is Amazon

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Interesting times ahead

Gee who knew knowingly restricting supply would have an effect on sales.

The "legacy" car manufacturers did this to themselves. Screw them all with their tactics the last few years.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Gee who knew knowingly restricting supply would have an effect on sales.



The "legacy" car manufacturers did this to themselves. Screw them all with their tactics the last few years.

There's certainly some dirty tactics after the pandemic, but the reason they're losing now is they make worse cars that cost more. Full stop.

And yes Fuzz, done of that is lax environmental standards and poor working conditions. But not all of it.

A good chunk though is the Chinese EV companies are miles ahead in R&D, and China has been building factories at a crazy pace since we offshored everything to them. They own the world's best infrastructure building know how. They went from breaking ground in Shanghai in January 2019, to production in October. It took 3 years in Germany just to begin production and still haven't gotten close to peak capacity. China can build a battery factory in the blink of an eye because that's what they do .

And on the R&D front, BYD has 110,000 engineers and scientists working on pushing the limits of their vehicles. They've spent more than their profits on R&D in 13 of the last 14 years. Toyota spent just 2.8% of their revenue on R&D, and most of that on gas and hydrogen. That ain't it

[Shazam]

They left market demand up for grabs. It was taken.

White people want regulations and oversight. Chinese don't care as much about that sort of stuff. As long as the kleptocracy continues over there anything goes.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

There's certainly some dirty tactics after the pandemic, but the reason they're losing now is they make worse cars that cost more. Full stop.

And yes Fuzz, done of that is lax environmental standards and poor working conditions. But not all of it.

A good chunk though is the Chinese EV companies are miles ahead in R&D, and China has been building factories at a crazy pace since we offshored everything to them. They own the world's best infrastructure building know how. They went from breaking ground in Shanghai in January 2019, to production in October. It took 3 years in Germany just to begin production and still haven't gotten close to peak capacity. China can build a battery factory in the blink of an eye because that's what they do .

And on the R&D front, BYD has 110,000 engineers and scientists working on pushing the limits of their vehicles. They've spent more than their profits on R&D in 13 of the last 14 years. Toyota spent just 2.8% of their revenue on R&D, and most of that on gas and hydrogen. That ain't it

Because they have access to lots of cheap labour they can treat poorly, don't need environmental assessments, government approvals etc. I don't want to live in a country that functions like that, which means I'll accept that we have to pay more for things we make here.


It's not magic, these are tradeoffs. Magic would be doing it without tradeoffs, which everyone seem to think is how it happens.


Do they also have rapidly improving knowledge based workers? Yes, because they have the resources to funnel money into it. Resources we gave them by offshoring production to the cheapest places possible, and now they are using them to beat us at all of our own games, because they don't play by the same rules, and will steal IP from anyone they need to to win. I mean, it's almost like a lesson should have been learned by us on this one, but apparently not, 'cause y'all keep finding ways to justify continuing it.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Because they have access to lots of cheap labour they can treat poorly, don't need environmental assessments, government approvals etc. I don't want to live in a country that functions like that, which means I'll accept that we have to pay more for things we make here.


It's not magic, these are tradeoffs. Magic would be doing it without tradeoffs, which everyone seem to think is how it happens.


Do they also have rapidly improving knowledge based workers? Yes, because they have the resources to funnel money into it. Resources we gave them by offshoring production to the cheapest places possible, and now they are using them to beat us at all of our own games, because they don't play by the same rules, and will steal IP from anyone they need to to win. I mean, it's almost like a lesson should have been learned by us on this one, but apparently not, 'cause y'all keep finding ways to justify continuing it.

Again, I'm not condoning human Rights abuses, IP theft, or even their political structure. You're being far, far too binary here. It's not like there's only two ways to do this, our current one or theirs. And as for cheap labor, Chinese wages are rising as well and are not as cheap as they once were. The cost advantages are actually mostly due to a) financing costs (subsidized), efficient production (a skill/culture issue), b) land costs (subsidized), and extreme competition. Many of these factories are almost entirely automated. There are hundreds of Chinese EV startups and only the strongest survive.

Our car companies are going to collapse because they don't only sell in North America and Europe. Us paying more for our auto company cars will not help because being in our market alone will cause a massive drop in sales for all of them. On top of that, less cars are sold in Canada and the US every year. They're exposed to Chinese competition globally and we can either say screw it and get out of the car market or we can use tools like the IRA in the States to boost cleantech. Giving up that ginormous industry to China would be a giant mistake. No energy in history is growing like solar and batteries, and EVs are a quickly growing monster sized market. For instance, more money is being spent on solar alone than in the entire oil industry and that gap is growing at crazy speeds. Nevermind batteries, electrolyzers, etc.

Simply saying "they're not playing fair so we'll just buy our own" solves nothing and makes our position much worse.

[Fuzz]

Saying "they are not playing fair so we may as well buy from them" isn't really great either. Unfortunately it's a global marketplace, and if we do want to compete globally, you either need to level the playing field by using things like tariffs, or do what they do(I'd love to see a politician try to implement that...).

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Saying "they are not playing fair so we may as well buy from them" isn't really great either. Unfortunately it's a global marketplace, and if we do want to compete globally, you either need to level the playing field by using things like tariffs, or do what they do(I'd love to see a politician try to implement that...).

There's a lot of options beyond tariffs. Tariffs are a good idea in my mind (though not 100% tariffs). There are hundreds of different policy levers that governments in the West can use. There are trade agreements, direct subsidies, tax deferrals, tax credits, streamlining approval process, aligning incentives between different silos, and lots, lots more.

Our industries die if we let them in unfettered because the lead they have is substantial. But 100% tariffs are simply delaying the inevitable. That's the stick, but where's the carrot? How do we provide clear direction to industry and make the path one that companies are willing to take risk in?

[Fuzz]

Fair points. I think one of the problems is governments aren't always great at picking winners and losers, and polices to support them. In an economy as big as China, you can throw endless stuff at the wall and keep the best. We have to gamble.

[savemedrzaius]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I watched a YouTube video last night on the Xiaomi SU7 and that vehicle looks awesome. Styling is very nice with a lot of elements pulled from other nice looking vehicles and the range looks very good. The tech seems to be amazing which is not surprising. It is just a shame that we will probably never get cars like this over here in Canada/North America.

See them every once in a while here in China. The sportscar looking ones. Beautiful looking cars.

[Fuzz]

Brazilian officials found 163 Chinese nationals working in "slavery-like conditions" at a construction site for a factory owned by Chinese electric vehicle producer BYD in Brazil's Bahia state, the local labor prosecutor's office said on Monday.

According to the authorities, the workers were hired in China by another firm and brought to Brazil irregularly.

They were laboring for long hours, in excess of those allowed by Brazilian law, sometimes for seven days a week, while being kept in what authorities described as degrading conditions, among other labor violations, the authorities added.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...il-2024-12-23/


Exporting slavery now, but that's cool as long as we can get cheap batteries. We should do this in Canada so we can keep up with the international marketplace of capitalism.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...il-2024-12-23/


Exporting slavery now, but that's cool as long as we can get cheap batteries. We should do this in Canada so we can keep up with the international marketplace of capitalism.

Isn't that why our federal government is bringing in so many warm bodies just to fill spots for Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons, Uber and Skip on the cheap?

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by chemgear

Isn't that why our federal government is bringing in so many warm bodies just to fill spots for Canadian Tire, Tim Hortons, Uber and Skip on the cheap?

You mean companies?