12mo ago

China’s Tesla-beating EV maker BYD has carmakers around the world ‘in a state of shock’ over its prices

fortune.com China’s Tesla-beating EV maker BYD has carmakers around the world ‘in a state of shock’ over its prices

BYD owns its entire EV battery supply chain and its CEO is both a relentless cost-cutter and "natural engineer," as Charlie Munger put it.

When China’s BYD recently overtook Elon Musk’s Tesla as the global leader in sales of electric vehicles, casual observers of the auto industry might have been surprised.

But what’s caught other carmakers around the world off-guard is something else about BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway: its low prices.

“No one can match BYD on price. Period,” Michael Dunne, CEO of Asia-focused car consultancy Dunne Insights, told the Financial Times. “Boardrooms in America, Europe, Korea and Japan are in a state of shock.”

BYD can keeps its costs low in part because it owns the entire supply chain of its EV batteries, from the raw materials to the finished battery packs. That matters because a battery accounts for about 40% of a new electric vehicle’s price.

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116 comments

Uh... yeah? China beats nearly everyone on price but you don't go there for quality and durability.
- The American car companies haven't exactly been stellar with regards to quality, reliability, and safety lately either.
  
  Lately?
  
  My VW-built EV seems pretty high quality. China and USA aren't the only game in EVs.
  
  Get Yourself an European car???? That's where you go for quality
  
  Then get yourself a Japanese car. That's where you go for reliability.
  
  Depends on the make and model.
  
  Mazda non turbos are very reliable. My 2014 Mazda 2.5l only ever needed oil changes, removed fluid changes and now at 130k miles I have to do the front control arms. My VW 2010 Passat wagon 2.0tsi needs constant maintenance, like carbon cleaning, water pump dsg fluids, pcv and so on, but I have 200k+ miles on it with no oil burning and original suspension parts.
  
  removed
  Woah woah we don't use those words here buddy
  
  Didn’t the Japanese car industry only just finally jump in the EV game?
  
  I think toyota and hyundai are in the game now
  
  They are, they just wasted a lot of time with Hydrogen tech instead building up their EV capabilities
  
  Strange how that reputation persists even when they tak, a car made by someone else and put their name on it.
- Maybe you haven't looked into just how badly Teslas are made, it's become a meme.
  
  Oh, I find that even more hilarious. But that's a Musk issue, not a place of manufacturing.
  
  Actually, that's also a place of manufacturing issue. Apparently teslas made in China are higher quality than teslas made in the US.
  Eg. https://insideevs.com/news/381527/chinese-tesla-model-3-better-than-american/
- As if Tesla was famous for its quality and durability either.
- That view is unfortunately out of date. Many Chinese products are of equal or superior quality to their global counterparts. Think Lenovo laptops and OnePlus smartphones. Chinese stuff can be cheap and high quality.
  
  Then it's got to be what the person below said: beating the hell out of their workers, poor conditions and benefits, stuff like that.
  
  You are one hundred per cent correct. There're a million things you can criticise Chinese manufacturing for but universally poor quality isn't one of them
  
  One of the reasons these commodities can get so cheap is because the true cost is obfuscated through the vicious exploitation of labor at every step of the chain.
  We may not have paid the full cost of the product, but those who were directly involved in their fabrication certainly did.
  
  Lenovo has lost all sense of reputation for me after the whole superfish fiasco.
  
  In my own experience trying the waters for a business importing and selling LED Light Bulbs from China, they're a mix of little crappy companies and large more well established ones and the larger ones are perfectly capable of designing and making good products but due to the market pressure for "make it as cheap as possible" end up mainly cutting down on component quality and using cheaper designs to make it cheaper.
  Sure, the tiny companies are generally crap and the local culture (at least in Electronics, and at the time which was a decade ago) was to expect things to be cheap and break down often, but the larger companies are professional and can actually make quality products, its just that they generally are very weak in branding so can't really get people to pay them for quality, hence end up either mainly competing on price or working as suppliers for non-Chinese companies which are little more than Brand-management outfits (which is pretty what all big name Brands in the West are nowadays - managers of one or more famous brands, not creators of superior products).
  
  I've heard the exact same thing before: Chinese manufacturers will build to whatever quality you pay for, but almost everyone just asks for the absolute cheapest. The profit margins on the absolute cheapest quality are better than competing with other countries who can also produce higher quality goods.
  
  Lenovo is mostly American. The Thinkpad division was bigger than Lenovo when they bought it. Many of the directors and teams are based in the USA.
  
  There is nothing unfortunate about being able to buy products that are both cheap and high quality.
  
  Yeah but lots more Chinese stuff is cheap shiny trash. If there's a way to lie and cut a corner they'll ,do it...not that America would be any different but they dont make anything here anymore.
  
  That's true but these cars aren't. There are consumer protections in China. They just tend to be a lot less noticeable.
  
  How are the cars on the privacy front?
  
  Probably rubbish. There is no such thing as digital privacy in China.
  
  If you get the windows tinted nobody should be able to see you inside.
  
  They r very private, everything you do stays between you and ~~government~~ God.
  
  Both Lenovo and OnePlus are garbage.
  
  Lol Lenovo laptops are cheap shit and One plus make the single worst phones I've ever seen.
  
  That's a pretty unfortunate viewpoint. At least in the corporate world, Lenovo laptops have a decent reputation for reliability (read: last long enough to where the replacement cycle is economical). Where I last worked IT, the lifespan of a Lenovo laptop was four years. That doesn't mean that they break after four years, but just that we recycle and replace them with a new computer after that. That seems to be average for a corporate laptop.
  Calling them "cheap shit" means you're either uninformed and unfamiliar or you hold your standards far higher than the average computer buyer.
  
  Oh I know the corporate world loves the idea of Lenovo laptops.
  They're cheap and can easily run web apps and office. All that most people need them for.
  If you have to run any software of consequence though, they're simply not up to it.
  
  I run software of consequence and have no issues with performance, heat or general functionality. You'll need to cite some evidence to back up your claim.
  
  What do you consider "software of consequence"? I worked for a mid-size municipal government. We had hundreds of users (or at least hundreds of Active Directory accounts). Everyone used Lenovo laptops. We had city planners running ArcGIS on them, the engineers at the public works department planned roads and sewage lines on them, HR calculated payroll on them, the council used them for their meetings, the municipal court staff used them for managing filings and tickets, and the police department used them to issue said tickets.
  If none of that is "software of consequence", then what the goddamn fuck is?
  
  I believe if you look a second time the person you replied to has become someone who replied to them.
  
  I think we're mixing up the consumer grade Lenovo laptops (cheap crap) with Lenovo Thinkpads (business grade and built like a tank). We use a lot of Thinkpads and they're good - nice even, and they survive a lot of abuse.
  
  Both Lenovo and OnePlus are garbage. Out of all the shitty companies and you go to those two for an example of quality?
  
  Sources or stfu
  
  👌👍
- That's what the British car industry said in the 60s and 70s about Japanese cars. Everyone bad mouthed anything made in Japan as being poor quality.
  The Japanese succeeded through good products and their domestic rivals (in Britain) being arrogant, xenophobic and letting standards slide thinking they were great and couldn't be beaten.
  I've a Japanese Honda CRV (ironically built in UK) and a Chinese built MG5 EV. The EV is best built car I've owned in 35 years.
  Many established car brands are going to disappear Tesla, I believe, being one.
  
  I once read that the failure of British industrial policy to engage labour as a long term competitive edge instead of a dispensable short term concern saw Germany overtake British car makers. Germany dealt with labour strikes more comprehensively by engaging labour in policy structures. Like including Labour representatives in boardrooms.
  I wonder how this may reflect on Chinese / Western competitiveness.
  Found the piece: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23406467
  
  I wonder how this may reflect on Chinese / Western competitiveness.
  Sounds like it's almost a 1:1 copy of what happened with the Brits.
  For whatever reason, English speakers are easily-duped into thinking non-English speakers can't compete.
- Your iPhone / Samsung is manufactured there. So no, that's a bad take. You get what you pay for, and good quality is still cheaper than made elsewhere.
  
  Samsung is slowly moving some production from China though. For instance, my phone is manufactured in Vietnam instead.
  
  That doesn't say much about the build quality though as the reason companies are moving out of China is Chinas increased manufacturing costs.
  
  Samsung isn't building their phones in South Korea anymore?
- They produce a lot of quality and durable products in China. Apple and Tesla are both producing there, as do many thousands of other companies.
  
  Quality and durable (produced under slave labor)
  
  Do you have any proof of that? I've seen people say the same thing about Adidas and Nike, yet I have friends working for their factories and have never seen or heard of such a thing.
- You gotta be a special kind of innocent to think Americans make quality automobiles.
  
  All the side said was that it is cheap Chinese shit and nothing about MERICAN vehicles.
  
  Sweden makes quality automobiles. Both their brands were/are good.
  
  One was destroyed by GM, the other belongs to Geely.
- The BYD cars they sell in the West are pretty decently build. I’d be more worried about the aftersales services. Chinese electronics companies always have shitty customer service. Like Lenovo and Huawei. And since a car always needs some repairs during its lifetime I will never buy an EV from a Chinese brand unless they have proven to have good aftersales service.
  
  This is why I love my Toyota - only recently brought my first Mazda after 8 or so Toyota.
  
  Daewoo. Had a gf that owned a Daewoo. It was a car, lol. Only real problem was we had to drive an hour and a half to get the thing serviced.
- Not to mention: I’ll eat my hat if the CCP isn’t providing some sort of subsidization, for no other reason than the fact that it’s a national pride thing for them
  
  Most carmakers get heavily subsidized. All the German ones for example. It’s a big industry and states like to keep their brands competitive.
- furiously typed into their Chinese Assembled IPhone....
  
  South Korea Samsung....
  
  Samsung phones are largely assembled in Vietnam. It looks like they're one of the few phone companies not relying on China though.
- BYD is better quality than the shit Stellantis puts out
- Depends on what you are buying and the price you pay.
- People who have bought them seem happy. That looks like they have comparable value for money.
- So where would you go for that?

116 comments