Yep I've been thinking BYD is just some Chinese brand that's only in China, but I saw one on the road in the UK recently and looked it up and they actually have something like 80 showrooms in the UK already. Way more than Tesla.
Maybe making a dumb triangular truck that nobody wanted wasn't such a good idea after all. I imagine the BYD cars have such mod cons as rain sensors that work and indicator stalks too.
In the US best selling Tesla is Model Y, but even without the brand damage I'm not sure that type of design/price is going to do well in the UK, and Cybertruck is not well suited to UK's narrower roads (esp. in city).
Do anyone know why American brands never seem to agree to slim down cars by ~15% for export sales? IIUC, excessive width universal to every American cars including all Tesla models was always a massive detrimental factor outside US for past ~50 years.
Cars aren't like iPhones, and shipping cars across oceans really only makes sense for luxury vehicles, which is the real reason why Chinese cars aren't available in the U.S. yet.
Most non-luxury foreign cars available for sale in the U.S. are actually assembled in factories in Mexico or the United States.
If Ford wanted to sell cars to the E.U. (competitively), they'd design smaller models and manufacture them in Europe. If BYD wants to sell cars in the U.S., they'll built out a plant in Mexico.
Disagree here - I recently took delivery of a BYD Shark 6 and was especially impressed with the build quality and interior quality. I'd say on par with the BMW X5 we had, and slightly better than the Polestar 2 that we have.
The software on the other hand... I would love per-key profiles (like the polestar) and buttons doing the thing they're labeled for when using CarPlay - but I _hope_ these things can be updated OTA. The UI and responsiveness is really quick however, especially compared to the P2 which feels woefully underpowered with constant UI lags.
Terrible software seems to be par for the course in cars.
Yep it's not quality per-se as bad materials. It's just overall experience that just a bit like a wut. Note I'm coming from Tesla and only tested Atto3 which is a bit aged already.
Tesla's "build quality" is okay, but software is excellent. So quite opposite really. BYD materials are good, but software is garbage. The inside looks is kitsch. And IDK about you but I use software every day on my car and do not obsess on softness of the air vent material...
Software may have great features but the gimmicks are unsafe. When I rented a Model Y to see if we wanted to buy, my kids wanted to play a game while we were at a very long light - when the light changed, the car prevented me from shifting gear to Drive until we quit the game. Now, it was my fault I let my kids do this - but the design (game had priority over driving) made me question the company's priorities.
Convinced me that car really is a tablet with wheels.
I've been keeping an eye on BYD and they're just starting to appear in the UK, but there are already quite a few MG EVs - the old British brand MG was bought by a Chinese company. There's a light blue non-metallic colour which seems to be one of their standard colours and is very distinctive.
I saw one in the US a few weeks ago that had a Mexican license plate. Pretty interesting because I'm aware of the brand but had not seen one in person.
I'm baffled by the multiple levels of irony if you could go into Mexico and buy an EV that you can then use in the US. That would make even Elon's head twist off.
Not sure why its baffling. If you are near the border you will quite often see out of country plates (Canada/Mexico). I am guessing you would still need some kind residency to purchase the vehicle.
Not sure what it's like today but historically crash standards in Mexico did not exist. Toyota for the longest time was selling 20+y/o models as brand new. The crash tests of those were startling. It may have improved in the last few years though.
The only reason BYD was heavily "censored"/tariffed was because US said EU to do so.
Now that US soft-power is waning (800b from EU + 500b from Germany alone for militech) the floodgates might open and it will way surpass the Tesla. Maybe even some partnership between BMW/VW/Daimler with BYD can come out of it - imagine that.
The official reason EU added tariffs on Chinese cars, was that Chinese EV manufacturers receive unfair government subsidies. This allowed Chinese cars to be priced lower than European cars.
So it was to protect EU car manufacturers (which are still struggling a bit with EVs).
I don't think it was US "soft-power". However, the EU may impose tariffs on US produced cars as part of the coming trade-war, which may hurt Tesla in future (or maybe not as they also produce Tesla cars in Germany).
It is also worth mentioning, that the imposed tarifs are different for different chinese manufacturers - based on received subsidies. BYD is among the least affected. In the end, nothing stops chinese manufacturers to produce cars in EU - it is what they forced european manufacturers to do in china, so fair game.
You are right, but you miss one critical part. EU did not impose those same tariffs on Tesla, which arguably disrupted the EU EV market even heavier, which is in very similar category, especially now that Elon is basically the president.
Presumably it didn't have evidence Tesla is receiving unfair help from the Chinese state. It had such evidence for other manufacturers.
Also, Tesla has a factory in the EU. Soon, the Chinese manufacturers will have factories too.
Possibly, the important thing though is whether that is classified as an unfair advantage by the EU. The European tariffs on Chinese EV producers were calculated precisely on the amount of unfair advantage received for each one.
Also just had a look and Tesla has indeed been burdened with a tariff of 7.8% (for vehicles built in China), compared to 17% of BYD, 18% Geely and 20% to 35% for other companies.
I hope that Tesla will change its top management asap.
Imagine a situation where you have a new 800V infrastructure already applied to cybertruck and decide to update the Model Y with just “minor” adjustments. Which means that both M3 and MY will get 800V/48V when? 2/3 years minimum.
> I hope that Tesla will change its top management asap.
Change it to who?
Their price to earnings is like 100x. The entire market cap is built by Elon's non-stop hyping of FSD / Robo-Taxi / etc. We gunna resurrect Billy Mays here to do the marketing?
The entire executive office is just dumping their Tesla stock, they know the company has no value and if they get rid of Musk it's probably a nail in the coffin for the stock price.
> if they get rid of Musk it's probably a nail in the coffin for the stock price.
It's already significantly off its peak, and Musk is now so unpopular because of his political interventions that people are firebombing Tesla dealerships and vandalizing the cars. I can't really see how that's going to be good marketing.
Valuing it like a regular car company will bring share price below 50. Anything above requires faith that it will transform to some AI, energy, fsd transport company.
Good marketing for who? It's not like the cars themselves suddenly got worse. I think most people don't engage in victim blaming when someone or some group are targeted by domestic terrorists, which is definitionally what is happening (Oxford Languages: "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims").
The people who should worry about the marketing problem here are the Democrats. They're directly funding this violence and vandalism via their NGO network, don't seem to be condemning it and it's their inverted rhetoric claiming Republicans are Nazis that has now created a left-wing street army physically attacking anyone who supports the opposition: exactly the tactics used in the Weimar Republic. Irony is surely dead.
Also, a lot of the people getting vandalized or pressured to inconveniently sell their car at a loss are Democrats themselves, many of whom will certainly be wondering why they're supporting the team that would directly attack innocent people in such horrible ways.
It's unlikely Musk would care even if Tesla really suffered. His biographies make it clear enough. Getting rich has never been what motivated him, and he owns private companies that are basically terrorism-proof. They spin off enough money to sustain his often rather spartan lifestyle in any case. All these attacks will do is build sympathy for him, for the right, and radicalize them still further.
>So market cap is based on exaggerations and lies.
Market cap is defined by whatever stock buyers decide to justify their purchase. If people keep buying the stock to get it to the moon because of whatever hype, what else matters?
False claims would be good criteria. Tesla’s stock price massively benefited from “Full Self-Driving” hype over a decade of unkept promises; having penalties for misleading investors would help a lot of industries.
OK, what false claims did crypto make to justify its valuation? What false claims did tulips make?
What if a large part of the stock market is more people gambling or FOMO herd mentality rather than calculated choices? You don't have to justify stock valuations the same way you can't rationalize peoples' behavior and that's what stock values reflect. Just stay way from high risk meme stocks.
>Tesla’s stock price massively benefited
You mean the investors have benefited. Which is why they invested in Tesla stock to begin with.
Cryptocurrencies aren’t regulated securities. They arguably should be but this is a weird distraction from the question of whether someone who did make false claims in a regulated context should be held accountable.
You don't stop the buyer from buying on speculation about what the business might become. The buyer can do whatever they want based on whatever rationalization they want.
You stop the seller from pumping up the stock price based on lies.
According to Lars Moravy, the front gigacasting and steer-by-wire were not implemented for the new Model Y due to them having trouble switching the supply chain over [1]. I guess the 800V is for the same reason. Lars said it was much easier for the Cybertruck to change to the newer systems because they expected lower sales numbers. The Model Y on the other hand has to go into mass production straight away at 3 different factories, and they wanted to keep the production process the same at all three (he talks about this at 28:50).
I mean, we all know who the driver is to launch 'cybertrucks' and 'robotaxis' instead of more affordable variations.
Also, not sure what the whole 800v hype is about. I rent EVs for roadtrips and Tesla's are basically the fastest charging ones with current architecture, haven't had a need for 800v since at the cell level the charging speed is already maxed out.
Re: the Y, even though they won't sell because some hand gestures and behaviors, they did almost every complaint people have about the old model Y.
Looking at EVDatabase, it seems like the 800v cars charge quite a lot faster? The EV6 manages 205kW average compared to 124kW for the long range Model Y. From my experience, the EV6 hits those charging speeds very reliably.
Everything I've seen is that Hyundai/Kia's charge noticeably (though not massively) faster than Tesla's. I've never DCFC a Tesla to compare but my Ioniq is usually under 20 mins in practice
This was always going to happen. It was a matter of time for competition to come. Tesla having tech company valuation is ridiculous, since they have none of the economic advantages typical of tech companies: easy scaling, network effect and user lock-in.
They also didn't have the knack for handling compliance, quality assurance and sophisticated supply logistics that the established car industry already has and would be necessary in the long term.
Yeah moving fast and breaking things does not work for car companies. In a software company if some programmers fix a bug, they (generally speaking) fix it for all users. For cars, you have to recall and manually fix all cars individually.
A recall does not necessarily mean bringing vehicles into a shop. You can push OTA updates as a form of recall. You can decide for yourself whether that's a good idea though.
China has everything needed for cheap and efficient manufacturing. The design skills, the infrastructure, the cheap labour, the network of factories, etc.
The US does not.
The only reason the US might win at car manufacturing will be if there are sufficient tariffs or other trade barriers. In a free market, China will win.
The US is not going to win at car manufacturing outside the US anymore and right now it's not even clear it will win inside the US or with our closest trading partners. Tariffs are not being wielded effectively to protect US car manufacturing in the US.
Agreed. Tarrifs and doge are clearly being wielded to diminish US standing in the world. See also: shutting down relatively inexpensive aid programs that feed hungry people all over the world. And shutting down pro-democracy broadcasting throughout the world.
Our adversaries have never had a better opportunity to jump in as heroes. Or even just, not assholes.
Destruction of soft power directly by the tool in charge.
US influence around the world went poof in a matter of weeks. Xi and Putin couldn't have planned it better.
They were competing and holding their own. I wouldn't say they were winning. The major advantage BYD had was as a battery manufacturer who had also vertically integrated into lithium mining. Tesla has tried to replicate their manufacturing and mining operations but is still lagging in the development of those facets of their business.
How will US win with trade barriers? With them it can only secure the US market, and even this only provided the entire production chain is located in the US. Because you can forget about exporting goods weighted by trade tariffs - as you can see nobody accepts being tariffed without retaliating. So it can win, if you redefine the word "win".
> as you can see nobody accepts being tariffed without retaliating
I'm not defending our tariff strategy, but afaik this is actually the point being made that the US imports with low/no tariffs while US exports are tariffed in many countries.
> Doesn't the US have a point about an asymmetry in tariffs, such as the EU's 10% tariff on cars compared to the US's 2.5% tariff?
> Tariff structures vary between economies, with some EU tariffs higher than those of the US and many others lower. Both the EU and the US have equally low tariffs overall.
> While the EU applies a 10% Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariff on cars, it's important to note that the US imposes a 25% tariff on pickup trucks—the largest segment of the US auto market, accounting for about one-third of all vehicle sales. In fact, the best-selling vehicle in the US is a pickup truck, the Ford F-150.
> The EU remains open to balanced negotiations that foster a level playing field for both sides.
It's not even that the labor is as cheap as it used to be but it's generally a very able and willing workforce with a labor structure where there are no qualms with automating parts of the process. The auto manufacturing race has already been lost in my opinion. Nobody is doing it as well or at the same scale as China.
In a completely free market, it's less clear. A lot of what Chinese companies do could be called dumping, and they're doing it with government support.
> A lot of what Chinese companies do could be called dumping
I'd be interested to read more about this claim, if you have a link/source.
Regardless, we desperately need to de-carbonize our transportation sector. If China is the only country willing to put the dollars in to actually do that, then they deserve to reap the benefits of the new energy economy they helped build. Economics of the cars themselves aside, any effort put in to minimizing the costs of climate change will pay for itself by the end of the century.
There are lots of sources around Chinese dumping of steel for the past decade. Hard to find a good authoritative summary though, because every country and domestic steel lobby is running their own response. But e.g. from the UK in 2017: https://business.leeds.ac.uk/research-ceric/dir-record/resea...
I've heard this said often, but is there any proof BYD is selling their cars at a loss? And note that I'm not saying R&D loss - is BYD ever selling a car below what it cost to make and sell that unit?
According to their financials Q3 2024 they made 14bn pre tax profit on 201bn sales and were liable for 2bn tax on that (in CNY). So looks profitable and tax paying. Not sure if they get helped in other ways.
>A lot of what Chinese companies do could be called dumping, and they're doing it with government support.
European and American car makers have also gotten enormous support from their governments, except in other forms, like for example VW not being bankrupted to hell by the German government during Diesel gate for example.
Do you think that the NOx-affair consequences for VW were too little? What would have been appropriate in your opinion?
Every government can be expected to help local industry where reasonable, because that is in many ways what the constituents/electorate actually wants/needs.
>What would have been appropriate in your opinion?
What sentences do people get when they kill other people? Granted, VW never put a gun to anyone's head and pulled the trigger, but their increased emissions have had an effect in reduced lifespan of citizens breathing across the major markets, collective health issues which should carry more than a slap on the wrist.
>Every government can be expected to help local industry where reasonable, because that is in many ways what the constituents/electorate actually wants/needs.
Sure, but then let's stop singling out China as if only they're doing it and not western governments too.
First, I believe that focussing on health outcomes misses the mark a bit in this case; I see the main problem in the actions that were taken to intentionally and maliciously circumvent the regulations much more so than the actual harm from the emissions (because the excess was not multiple orders of magnitude, and estimates on the effects pale completely compared with general road fatalities too).
Second: There is a very adjacent historical precedent for this: Leaded gas. In the 1920s alone, 17 workers died from poisoning while producing fuel additives; by the 1940s, industry consortiums had the suppression of critical science down to an art (by publicly discrediting scientist, pressuring institutions and using law-fare).
You could make a strong ethical case in my opinion that a lot of people responsible for this should not just have been stripped of related profits, but actually put in front of a firing squad (millions died!). Absolutely nothing was done.
In the case of VW, on the other hand, they paid roughly a year of profits (double digit revenue percentage) and the CEO at least lost his job (not holding my breath for a criminal conviction though, which would've been very obviously deserved in my view).
Blaming Chinese manufacturing dominance on government subsidies or lack of environmental regulations or human rights violations or somesuch is simply delusional.
It is missing the forest for the trees. The core fact is that chinese manufacturing pays workers an average $25k/year ($15k before purchasing power adjusting!!) for a 49h week. Are american workers (or other westerners) willing to work for that? No. Are consumers actually willing to pay the difference? Probably also no.
I'm not saying that there are no problems with the above in China, but thats not where their manufacturing dominance comes from. On the other hand, their government did make a bunch of good decisions and they did provide a lot of the necessary prerequisites for local industry to thrive.
But longer term, rising wages are gonna affect them in the same way that they did US industry 60 years ago, and Japanese manufacturing 30 years ago. We have less local manufacturing now because we grew so rich and that is not the worst problem to have.
US manufacturers were running plants in Mexico where the wages were probably not much above that. The deeper problem is China has a lot of dedicated engineers developing stuff and dominating in batteries and the like that are largely churned out by automated machinery.
> The deeper problem is China has a lot of dedicated engineers developing stuff and dominating in batteries and the like that are largely churned out by automated machinery.
Deeper problem for what?
I don't think that automation changes the whole picture as much as you might think.
Sure, the wage component of product cost is gonna decrease, but you still need people to build, upgrade, maintain and operate those assembly lines, and cheaper wages there still mean lower costs. Which is why EU car manufacturers also moved a lot of their production eastward (Slovenia, Hungary, etc.) despite very high automation.
I don't know how if it's tariffs or something else, but the US has been preventing importing EVs from China for a long time. You cannot not notice all the Chinese EVs on the roads when traveling overseas. I always wondered why those cars don't make it to the US.
To be fair, the US auto industry has been in various states of mid-implosion since the 80s, and has only barely had a few years here and there (mostly just ford really) of NOT imploding.
Buying domestic has been a sucker's game in the US since at least Reagan. Occasionally a domestic vehicle might be cheap, but it hasn't been a "good deal" in my lifetime.
You forgot the total lack of enforcing even basic environmental regulations, the massive government subsidies (diect and indirect), Uyghur forced labor, etc.
And China is anything but a free market. In a truly free market, most Chinese carmakers wouldn't even exist. They mostly exist because Western carmakers were forced to form China dominated joint-ventures, share technology and ownership in order to enter the Chinese market.
The US has insulated the economic decision makers from consequences in the same way as centrally-planned economies like the USSR. We're seeing the same poor performance now.
For example, the tech sector spend the 2010s chasing dumb ideas like metaverse/vr, crypto, voice assistants, and so on. But it didn't lead to any shakeup or consequences for the people in charge. The same firms, investors, and executives were in power in 2020 after a decade of stagnation and failure. They are insulated from any upstart competition by strong monopolization and increasingly, capture of the state itself.
Hardly a surprise, the market is growing rapidly, so nothing strange that the first player is no longer the only player. Nevertheless it was Tesla that proved viability of EVs and has courage to create totally new market segment. We've seen this in the IT several times, Commodore, Atari, IBM (as a hardware producer, not consulting company as it is now) had their time coming up with a No 1. product and then others came.
Regardless of what you think of Elon Musk, the simple fact is that Tesla no longer has the market to themselves. Even in the US where they've enjoyed a home advantage (and import tariffs) that's becoming true.
It's not just the Chinese. There is a lot of competition. Korean manufacturers are very successful. In Europe, Stellantis has flooded the market with cars in price segments ranging from ~22K euros and up. And VW just announced a 20K ID.1. The cheapest Tesla in Europe is 44K or so. So, there's a rather large segment of EVs priced a lot cheaper than anything Tesla has on sale that is of course selling pretty well.
And you see the same in the luxury segment where there are a lot of EVs on sale that are more expensive than what Tesla has to offer. And let's be realistic, the model S plaid is nice. But it's nothing special in terms of luxury compared to some of the more expensive models from other manufacturers.
So the EV market is a lot larger than Tesla's corner of it. Which is basically the 44K - ~100K segment. And that segment is very crowded now as well. And it's no longer a given that Tesla is the best value deal at the prices they are selling. Even if you ignore the Elon Musk negative effect on the brand.
Tesla could lower prices, announce cheaper models, etc. of course. But the fact is that the EV market is simply becoming the car market. In a few years, most new cars will be EVs with a sprinkle of hybrids for the range nervous and dwindling number of ICE cars where they are still allowed. So, the EV market is becoming a low margin, high volume, commodity market. There's nothing Tesla can do to change that. From 2026 and on-wards, every price segment will have EV options. Cost won't be an excuse anymore.
Autonomous seems to be the wild card here. It will be a while for other manufacturers to build that themselves. Though some of the Chinese manufacturers are getting pretty good at that. This is a divisive topic of course. But it seems like a bet that could pay off if they get it to work. I have my doubts that they will have that market to themselves for very long though. Same with robotics. Or grid storage. Or electric trucks. Or solar roofs. Tesla is doing cool stuff for these things but they are hardly the only ones.
> So the EV market is a lot larger than Tesla's corner of it. Which is basically the 44K - ~100K segment. And that segment is very crowded now as well.
Sure but Tesla competes very well in that market. Ioniq 5 for instance is in their price range, which by all accounts is an amazing car, but there are hardly any of them on the road. Whereas Model Y is literally one of the best selling cars in the world.
Sure Tesla still has the scale. But not the sales. They've been postponing new factories, reducing production, etc. A few years ago they had no demand issues. Now they do.
BYD has a few models that compare well with Tesla's Model 3 and Model y. They are the biggest of several Chinese manufacturers with hundreds of thousands of EVs built per year. BYD is actually on track to challenge Toyota as the largest vehicle manufacturer in the world in a few years. Not all of those cars will be electric of course. But still.
The Koreans are getting there as well. Kia is looking to produce some 200K EVs this year. VW is not doing well financially, but they are producing a lot of EVs at this point and are close to catching up with Tesla even in terms of EVs produced per year (for the total VW group).
The EV market is growing (~20%/y world wide), Tesla's share of it is declining. And by volume it actually stagnated last year and declined somwehat even. While others are obviously growing at its expense. The big question is if they can resume growth and what will drive that. I'd say, it's not going to get easier for them with that many competitors out there.
And who knows Toyota might actually join the party at some point. Better late than never.
Tesla could complete with BYD if they weren't slipping into a global political crisis while simultaneously manufacturing vehicles that remain unaffordable to the majority of buyers.
Pulling a $19k Model 3 (delivered) out of the air is the only solution I can see. Musk will be forced to step aside if the sales continue to slip into Q3. They certainly will lose money on each delivery, but they will survive until the robocar tier is ready.
China is good at producing things (thanks to the infrastructure and cheap labor, for now), but is pretty bad at consistent service and general customer friendliness. We can also be sure that their cars are not made to any stringent standards, "chabuduo" attitude (negligence + cost cutting) is very much alive. I'm waiting with interest for the first cutoff "these cars should start failing about now" date to see how Chinese brands will handle repairs, parts, and general service. My bet is, besides most of the today's brands will even disappear by that time (since it was a subsidy grab to begin with), it will not be a great experience for the owners.
As far as Korea, the Hyundai Ioniq I had for six months (month to month rental by SixT) was just a better driving experience than Tesla. We rented a Tesla a few times when we were out of town.
Of course the Tesla infotainment center sucks next to CarPlay/Android Auto.
VW has a $20,000 EV coming soon, but I guess it remains to be seen what tariffs may be applied to it. Tariffs can hobble other manufacturer's US sales, but for Tesla to compete overseas it needs to do so on price as well as attempt to fix the Tesla brand damage that is ongoing.
We will see by the end of 2025, more so by 2026 if you are right, so far there is 21% year-over-year growth so far in EU EV manufactured car sales while US (which is basically one company - Tesla) is in rapid decline.
I agree with this. Most European car manufacturers produce EVs now, and a lot of them are looking quite competitive compared to Tesla.
While Tesla sold more EVs than any other brand in Europe 2024, BMW and Volkswagen both sold more EVs in Germany than Tesla. And Mercedes sold about the same number of units as Tesla in 2024 in Germany. Porsche's Taycan looks very competitive compared to Tesla's fastest offerings -- And tesla still doesn't have "sports car".
Non-german car manufactures such as Skoda, Renault, Volvo, and Jaguar (if those last two are still "European") also sell a lot of interesting EVs.
Admittedly, I haven't seen many Stelantis branded EVs except for Fiat 500e.
US EV sales are up 28% so far in 2025. Will be interesting to see the upcoming quarterly results at the end of March, and for the rest of the year as well.
That happened a while ago though. I figure focus on people doing bad stuff in the present. All countries did bad stuff in the past if you go back far enough.
I don't know why you are getting down voted. The koreans are obviously ahead of the japanese and europeans in the EV game. Hyundai has gone through more generations of EV cars than any of them and their Kona/Ioniq series are very high quality.
Do you think that the Hyundai/Kia engineers know the cause of the ICCU failures and are just hoping to not have to replace every one? Or is it still an unknown root cause to the issue?
It seems that internal politics in the legacy companies is really against EVs. My own conspiracy theory is this is because of the internal prestige of the engine teams. Toyota are still stuck on hydrogen delusions, although they produce awesome hybrids that are widely used as taxis.
Koreans are doing great though: Hyundai Ioniqs are now EV-only.
Maybe making a dumb triangular truck that nobody wanted wasn't such a good idea after all. I imagine the BYD cars have such mod cons as rain sensors that work and indicator stalks too.