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Power China Transportation

Chinese Electric Cars are Already Surging in Popularity in Mexico, Europe, Asia, and Africa (msn.com) 184

Posted by EditorDavid from the charging-ahead dept.
"The Chinese government has long subsidized carmakers with the goal of becoming a major auto exporter," notes the New York Times. But this week they reported on dozens of dealerships around Mexico that are now selling China-made electric vehicles, saying it could be "a potentially grave threat to the North American auto industry."

One employee said their dealership "was selling cars as fast as they arrived from China," including "a small but capable four-door electric compact that costs about $18,000." Chinese carmakers are effectively barred from the United States by tariffs that double the sticker price of vehicles imported from China, and they are not yet manufacturing significant numbers of vehicles in Mexico that could be exported across the border. But their ambition to expand overseas is on vivid display in Mexico and across Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Ads for Chinese brands are in airports and soccer stadiums and loom above Mexico City streets on large billboards. Chinese cars, both gasoline and electric models, are an increasingly common sight. BYD and others are also looking for places to build factories in Mexico, although none have announced firm plans. Initially, the plants would serve Latin America, part of a campaign by Chinese automakers to erode the dominance of Japanese, American and European carmakers in places like Brazil and Thailand.

But there is little doubt that, eventually, Chinese carmakers hope to use Mexico as an on-ramp to the United States.
One of Mexico's EV dealers suggested to the Times that "maybe next year BYD can enter the United States." And he added with a smile, "If not, I can deliver." It is very unlikely that the Dolphin or any other Chinese car brand will be available in the United States soon. Because of the high tariffs, Chinese carmakers have not tried to establish dealerships or get approval from federal regulators to sell in the United States. (BYD does make electric buses in California.) And someone buying a BYD from a Mexican dealer like Mr. Alegría would have a hard time registering and insuring it in the United States because the cars have not demonstrated that they meet safety standards... But in the years to come it may be difficult to explain to consumers in the United States why they're not allowed to buy inexpensive electric vehicles that are readily available across the border, especially if they're made in Mexico, which already manufactures millions of cars for the United States.

Less than 20 years ago, Chinese cars were widely seen as inferior, even by many Chinese drivers. But in recent years, the country's manufacturers have pulled even with foreign rivals in mechanical quality, analysts say, and often surpass U.S., Japanese and European carmakers in battery technology, autonomous driving and entertainment software. (Think in-car karaoke and rotating touch screens)... [T]he auto industry does not appear to have seen anything like the current wave of Chinese brands, which have quickly overtaken Japanese companies as the world's largest auto exporters. Chinese carmakers have made deep inroads in countries where they have local production or face few significant trade barriers. In Brazil, Chinese brands have a 9 percent share of car sales, up from 1 percent in 2019. In Thailand, they have 18 percent of the market, up from 5 percent in 2019, according to JATO.
The article notes that for the world's largest car market — China itself — General Motors just announced "a more than $5 billion hit to its profit" to restructure China operations that have been losing money in recent years. And the article includes this quote from Felipe Munoz, global analyst at the research firm JATO Dynamics.

"Before the pandemic, the rules were set down by the Western carmakers. Now it's the opposite."

Chinese Electric Cars are Already Surging in Popularity in Mexico, Europe, Asia, and Africa More | Reply

Chinese Electric Cars are Already Surging in Popularity in Mexico, Europe, Asia, and Africa

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  • If a non-Chinese automaker made a "small but capable four-door electric compact" for $18K, I'd buy one.

    But so long as they try to push over-priced, over-sized SUVs and other stupidly large and expensive vehicles on us... no thanks.

    • All the US, Japan, Korea, and Europe need to compete on the low end with China is to massively subsidize car manufactures.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        We need to develop battery technology and supply chains.

        Toyota might be able to get ahead if their solid state battery tech pans out.

    • If a non-Chinese automaker made a "small but capable four-door electric compact" for $18K, I'd buy one.

      But so long as they try to push over-priced, over-sized SUVs and other stupidly large and expensive vehicles on us... no thanks.

      They already have, the BYD Seagull [electrifying.com] is just one example. The EU version is expected to cost less than EUR 20.000, a hypothetical US variant might be a little cheaper.

    • The Dongfeng EV EX1 is distributed outside China since 2021 as Renault Kwid E-Tech (Latin America) or Dacia Spring (Europe). Checking the Dacia website, the base model is currently sold 16,900 € (Germany), 17,900 € (Spain, Italy) 18,900 € (France).

    • What would be nice is a relatively low tech vehicle, with modern safety features. Yes, it take a number of items to do auto-braking and such, but a vehicle doesn't have to be so needlessly complicated that a board failure somewhere among the hundreds of modules can render a vehicle into scrap.

      If a car maker could do things like have a straight windshield, so replacements can be made by any glass shop, body on frame construction (EVs already get a pass on weight, might as well add a bit more for repairabili

  • Is because they don't meet our safety requirements and if they were re-engineered to do that then they wouldn't be cheap anymore. American cars have to be able to take a full-on hit from a giant SUV. Add to that the inevitable tariffs because we are gearing up for a cold war with China and we aren't going to see their cars here for cheap anytime soon.

    That said in Europe where giant American SUVs are less common the Chinese cars can do just fine. Same goes from Mexico and Africa. From a practical standp

    • I think the other car companies will be fine but I think it's going to absolutely kill Tesla. Tesla's tech is pushing 5 years and the CEO is planning on a absolutely enormous pay package that's going to deprive the company of the money it needs to start seriously updating tech. Now that they are facing real competition from companies like Kia and Hyundai and even BMW that's going to be a problem.

      It's not going to kill Tesla. Haven't you heard, tariffs will solve all our problems. Also, Leo will just pay Trump to make it illegal to drive non-tesla cars, who will then get brib....political donations from other manufactures to make their cars legal again in the US.

      American Corruption so great, Putin is drooling. Make America Corrupt Again

    • It's worse than that. Musk didn't confidently push idiotic ideas at the beginning like he did with that fugly weak ass truck; the more he can stay away from Tesla the better their chances. As if often the case, people accredit successful businesses with flawless decision making without considering tons of good luck. Like when they used to say everything IBM did was smart; then Microsoft, then Google... Once successful and large, they can afford to survive massive errors.

      A lot of bitching we hear about Chi

    • Is because they don't meet our safety requirements and if they were re-engineered to do that then they wouldn't be cheap anymore.

      Not true. Many chinese cars (including some BYD and Dolphin) are acing european crash tests:

      https://carnewschina.com/2023/... [carnewschina.com]
      https://carnewschina.com/2024/... [carnewschina.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      European safety standards are higher than US ones, and they meet those while still being cheap.

  • Low pricing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @12:54PM (#65013253)

    If the quality is as good as they say, how is the price that low? Subsidized dumping? Uyghur slave labor? Lack of union bureaucracy? Lack of government bureaucracy? Or just good ol' efficient manufacturing?

    • If the quality is as good as they say, how is the price that low? Subsidized dumping? Uyghur slave labor? Lack of union bureaucracy? Lack of government bureaucracy? Or just good ol' efficient manufacturing?

      Pundits in the West make a lot of noises about subsidies and the Chinese government does subsidies its car industry but so does the US and the EU nations. Once you strip away the subsidies the Chinese are still just better at making cars more efficiently. One reason is that EVs are just far simpler mechanically than an ICE vehicle making them quicker and easier to design. For example, according to Tesla their drivetrain has 17 moving parts, the engine basically has one major moving part meaning that the ent

      • Pundits in the West make a lot of noises about subsidies and the Chinese government does subsidies its car industry but so does the US and the EU nations.

        There's a difference between subsidized dumping and incentives to buy. Dumping is where you use government funds to sell at below cost in foreign markets in order to knock out foreign competitors. Basically what the robber barons of old used to do to shut down competitors. China has already done this with solar panels.

        All manufacturers, foreign and domestic, are eligible for EV incentives in the US.

        • Basically what the robber barons of old used to do to shut down competitors.

          And what Amazon. Tesla and virtually every other tech startup does to build "market share".

    • If the quality is as good as they say, how is the price that low? Subsidized dumping? Uyghur slave labor? Lack of union bureaucracy? Lack of government bureaucracy? Or just good ol' efficient manufacturing?

      Well, when they talked about pulling even in "quality", one might notice they didn't list the most expensive line item when it comes to matching western vehicles - safety:

      But in recent years, the country's manufacturers have pulled even with foreign rivals in mechanical quality, analysts say, and often surpass U.S., Japanese and European carmakers in battery technology, autonomous driving and entertainment software.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      If the quality is as good as they say

      What other Made In China products have good quality and why EV cars would be any different?

    • If the quality is as good as they say, how is the price that low? Subsidized dumping? Uyghur slave labor? Lack of union bureaucracy? Lack of government bureaucracy? Or just good ol' efficient manufacturing?

      Or maybe: your salary is too high [worlddata.info]? Americans fall behind [nikkei.com] in innovation? Or some of your accusations are given by Nayirah [wikipedia.org]?

    • Re:Low pricing (Score:4, Informative)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @06:43PM (#65013921)
      No, it's because they hold the technological lead in employing automation:

      https://english.news.cn/202407... [english.news.cn]

      This actually worse for us than cheap labor would have been. It means China's upcoming population bust won't destroy their manufacturing capability.

    • Chinese manufacturers are highly mechanized. They have integrated many more robots into their production. They have a huge market and the economies of scale that come with it. They have a very large local manufacturing sector as a supply chain. And producing low priced electric vehicles doesn't cannibalize their a whole line of established ICE models.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Efficient manufacturing and supply chains, and better technology. They got ahead on batteries and are using that advantage to offer lower prices AND longer warranties. SAIC has lifetime battery warranties in some markets.

  • They missed the opportunity to have ADAS/autonomous features.

    • Mercedes is the only brand delivering any autonomous driving at all and it's a shitty follow the duckling mode for traffic jams. BYD is hardly special by not having any autonomous (ie. level 3+) driving features.

      Everything else is just toys for suicidal idiots if you try to use them for autonomous control.

      • China absolutely does have self-driving cars in operation at home:

        In China, itâ(TM)s possible to travel six miles in a driverless taxi for just about 50 cents.

        Self-driving cars, commonly called robotaxis, are being popularized at cut-throat prices in Wuhan, a sprawling metropolis of over 11 million people in central China. It has ambitions to become the worldâ(TM)s first driverless city, even as the vehicles often struggle to navigate the streets.

        âoeYouâ(TM)ll never have to buy a ca

        • Robotaxis are geofenced low speed traffic blockers with an army of people doing on demand remote control when they get confused, that has little to do with autonomous personal cars.

        • But waymo needs an exact digital scan of everywhere which won't scale well. They will need to keep up with every construction zone and road block anywhere they drive. Then what about snow clearing?

    • Re:BYD sucks (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @02:19PM (#65013407)

      Good autonomous driving is still science fiction
      I have a Tesla. They turned on FSD for a month to let me test it
      I tried it and turned it off after a short while
      It drives like a not very talented teenager with bad eyes trying to pass a driving test with a very critical instructor

  • Very skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @01:03PM (#65013279)
    “Analysts” claim they’ve matched Japanese quality? What analyst, exactly? Maybe it’s true, but maybe it’s not. My money would be on “not”.

    Their battery tech is better? That’s a tall claim. Gonna need real proof. A slick website and a pdf spec sheet won’t convince me.

    If I buy a Toyota, I can reasonably expect 150-200k miles over a solid 15 years or more. I know the warranty will be honored. If I need replacement parts, the car shop down the street can order them and get them the next day. I know that any safety issues will be addressed by a recall. The Chinese auto industry has a history of iterating models super fast. That’s great but they abandon previous model to the trash heap. Your $18,000 EV isn’t a good deal if it breaks in year 3, the company won’t return your calls and no shop can get replacement parts.

    Sure, it’s possible, maybe China managed to replicate and surpass the 50 years that Japan invested into polishing their cars to today’s level of near-perfection, and it only took them 5-10 years to do it. Eyeroll.

    • itâ(TM)s possible, maybe China managed to replicate and surpass the 50 years that Japan invested into polishing their cars to todayâ(TM)s level of near-perfection, and it only took them 5-10 years to do it. Eyeroll.

      There's definitely some wisdom in your comment, but not in this part. China has been making cars for a lot longer than that, and more importantly, their manufacturers produce a bunch of cars designed by other nations under license. They can learn from those designs, they're not stupid. Yeah those are mostly older vehicles, but guess what? The peak of Japanese reliability was the better examples from the nineties. Obviously there were some big messes like the 3000GT or Z32 300ZX but there were also out-of-th

      • Japanese cars from the 90s most definitely did not regularly make it to 200k miles. Nowadays, they do. They didn’t peak in the 90s. They kept getting better.

        • Japanese cars from the 90s most definitely did not regularly make it to 200k miles

          Hondas, Toyotas, and Nissans with four bangers all did. Even Subarus commonly would, if you stayed up on your coolant changes. (Most people still don't, and it's still a major cause of failures.)

        • Reliability from that era is legendary. I bought a 1996 Acura Integra with 100k miles in the early 00s and drove it for 10 years. Finally had to scrap it at 250k miles because of rust. The engine and interior were still in perfect shape. I never even had to replace the clutch.

    • If I buy a Toyota, I can reasonably expect 150-200k miles over a solid 15 years or more. I know the warranty will be honored. If I need replacement parts, the car shop down the street can order them and get them the next day. I know that any safety issues will be addressed by a recall. The Chinese auto industry has a history of iterating models super fast. .... That's great but they abandon previous model to the trash heap. Your $18,000 EV isn't a good deal if it breaks in year 3, the company won't return your calls and no shop can get replacement parts.

      What you are saying about Toyota is what people said about US and EU car companies when the first Japanese cars arrived in the US and Europe. Now you are talking about the 'polish' and 'near-perfection' of Japanes cars. I just bought a BYD Seal. BYD is one of the biggest car makers in China and showing every sign that it will reman one the biggest, I'm not worried about my car being abandoned to the trash heap. If anything I expect that BYD has the potential to eat Toyota's lunch.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MpVpRb ( 1423381 )

      Parts are a big problem
      I have a Tesla and was shocked and more than a bit angry when I discovered that they don't sell parts

      • Are there second-tier manufacturers for tesla replacement parts by now? Or were you actually stuck with an unrepairable tesla for lack of a part?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Check Bjorn Nyland's channel on YouTube where he reviews some Chinese luxury cars. They are up to German standards of quality. Having sat in a few I can confirm that, and that the cheaper models are well made too but with different materials.

      As for battery tech, Tesla uses them so we can compare directly between US made Japanese batteries and Chinese ones in the same car. The Chinese ones are better. Faster charging, more power output, less degradation. Some Chinese manufacturers offer a lifetime warranty n

    • They definitely appear to be close to Japanese quality, they certainly passed the garbage made in the USA. They are also becoming extremely popular here in Aus.

    • Toyota maybe an exception in its almost religious-like pursuit of quality. However, I had nothing but trouble with not just one but two current Honda vehicles, with the engines requiring expensive and frequent engine maintenance and repairs. And the V6 in Pilot literally died without reaching even 100,000 miles. I am really disappointed and won't be a repeat Honda customer again.

  • AFAICS the BYD cars in Mexico aren't priced much differently from the cheap cars finally coming out of non Chinese manufacturers in the EU (Hyundai Inster, Citroen e-C3, Fiat Grande Panda, Renault 5-etech and Twingo). Sure if BYD would sell their cars at the same price as in China they would be unbeatable, but they don't by a long shot.

    • There are shipping, handling, and regulatory compliance costs to consider with importing cars into a different country. Those costs need to be made up.
      For example, they need to pay for local dealers, pay local taxes, do local paperwork involving local lawyers, prove regulatory compliance, etc...

    • AFAICS the BYD cars in Mexico aren't priced much differently from the cheap cars finally coming out of non Chinese manufacturers in the EU (Hyundai Inster, Citroen e-C3, Fiat Grande Panda, Renault 5-etech and Twingo). Sure if BYD would sell their cars at the same price as in China they would be unbeatable, but they don't by a long shot.

      Not really, the Chinese cars are generally at least 10% cheaper, and better value because they are higher quality, have better tech and this at even in entry level variant of the entry level model. Since you mentioned them specifically, the main difference between the BYD variants is generally just the number and power of motors, battery size, more colours and a choice of nicer rims. For example, to get Hyundai with a 360 parking cam I have to buy the Style or Premium variant at a huge price increase over t

  • "now selling China-made electric vehicles, saying it could be "a potentially grave threat to the North American auto industry."

    One can only dream. Has the US auto industry considered selling affordable cars? They're not supposed to cost more than a cheap house.

  • Yup... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @01:42PM (#65013361)

    But in the years to come it may be difficult to explain to consumers in the United States why they're not allowed to buy inexpensive electric vehicles that are readily available across the border, especially if they're made in Mexico, which already manufactures millions of cars for the United States.

    In the YEAR to come it may be difficult to explain to US purchasers why cars are even more "too expensive" to purchase than they currently are.

    Twenty-five percent tariffs will bring US domestic car production to its knees both on the manufacturing side and on the selling side. Canadian raw materials and parts that go into US-made cars will be hit with 25% tariffs, while cars going from the US to Canada and Mexico will be hit with 25% retaliatory tariffs. US vehicles will be even more unaffordable than they currently are, both at home and abroad.

  • Chinese subsidies (Score:4, Informative)

    by hackingbear ( 988354 ) on Saturday December 14, 2024 @02:15PM (#65013401)

    "The Chinese government has long subsidized carmakers with the goal of becoming a major auto exporter," notes the New York Times

    And conveniently avoid mentioning what the US governments have accomplished:

    * In the competition between [US] states and localities for new automotive jobs and investment, economic development incentives often play an integral role in influencing corporate location decisions. Incentives -- which can take the form of cash grants; tax credits, exemptions or abatements; free or discounted land and buildings; and employment training assistance (among others) -- are able to materially offset the large upfront investments required by many production facilities, mitigate risks, and/or reduce projected operating costs. To provide direct financial assistance to win highly competitive projects, some state legislatures have set aside large sums of money -- often called “deal closing funds” or “governor’s funds” -- for the purpose of attracting new jobs and investment [blsstrategies.com]. Stipulations such as pay-for-performance measures (under which job creation and investment milestones must be achieved before cash payments are received) are commonplace for these programs. Cash grant awards can range from several hundred thousand dollars to $10 million (or more) depending on the state and the project.
    * Example 1: Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) [texaswideo...siness.com], with typical awards ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 per job depending on the number of jobs created, average annual wage, capital investment and availability of funds.
    * Example 2: The Michigan Business Development Program (MBDP) [michiganbusiness.org] is another discretionary cash grant program that has been used by the automotive industry quite frequently.
    * Example 3: Kentucky offers a discretionary refund of sales and use taxes (currently 6%) paid on building and construction materials through its Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act (KEIA) [thinkkentucky.com].

    At the federal level, "In May 2009, Treasury provided $1.9 billion to Chrysler [google.com] (Old Chrysler) under a debtorinpossession financing agreement for assistance during its bankruptcy proceeding. Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy in June 2009 as a newly formed entity, Chrysler Group LLC (New Chrysler)" as part of the 2008 auto industry bail out [wikipedia.org], while "Tesla empire separately benefited from about $4.9 billion in government subsidies [usatoday.com]."

    So somehow in the mind of American media, government, and people, it is entirely OK for the US governments to subside its industry but not OK for Chinese? And don't even mention those American programmes when bashing China. This is not about "what-aboutism"; this is about hypocrisy and hate. (Oh by the way, it is actually a lot more reasonable for China to do these programmes because China has been and still is a developing country, as measured in per capita GDP.)

    Americans should look at the mirror.

  • The rest of the car-making world has been asleep or pushing crappy futuristic designs only (Tesla). So for actual value-for-money China rules in that space and will continue to do so for a long time. And no, I do not find that a good state of affairs. But denying reality does not change it.

  • I'm wondering if I could buy a Chinese car in Mexico, register it there and then drive it to the US?
    Technically, I wouldn't be "importing" it, just traveling to the US to "sight see".
    I could return to my "home country" of Mexico regularly.

    • If you have residency there, and spend more of your time there, yes. If you spend most of your time here, and the feds notice (or if you are spending most of the rest of your time in CA, the state as well) then they will want you to start paying taxes on everything here and register your car here but won't let you register it, bummer.

    • Probably. Cops rarely pull people over anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      Until you are in an accident, doesn't matter who's at fault. The insurance companies will be motivated to decide where you are resident, deny your claim and perhaps get you charged with using an illegally registered car, $500+ fine here.

  • In ten years the next environmental crisis will be the disposal of the batteries. By attempting to mitigate climate change we're causing another huge problem. It all has an eerie ring to the 80s and early 90s when we were all told to switch to plastic grocery bags to save the trees. Now we realize that was a mistake, but the damage has been done. Sadly the very idea that grocery bags were depleting our forests was a misnomer to start with. It turned out the cheap pulp used for bags was either from sustainab
    • Disposal is easy to solve - qualified. You need dedicated well spaced disposal center's in case one catches fire (not to cause a chain reaction) , which is rare unless physical hit. It should employ lots of people to remove and replace and rebalance cells. This is discouraged, as the margin and tax on new battery packs is a lot. Maybe Mexico can shine here. One forsees China or Mexico selling 'skin only cars', and 2nd hand battery packs as the norm. One way the US can kill Chinese imports is demanding spa

  • American car makers will lobby for i and will probably be successful.

    The problem is everything in the USA costs more than the rest of the world. Until this changes (It will eventually, but it won't be pretty), large corporations will fight tooth and nail to protect their business models.tooth

  • Chinese increase supply (cheaper), rest of the countries increase demand (more expensive) by giving tax breaks and such. Guess which is better.

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