Electric Vehicles including hybrids and plug-ins

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I Went To China And Drove A Dozen Electric Cars. Western Automakers Are Cooked (insideevs.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] absquatulate 65 points 7 months ago (2 children)

For an article that size, it's surprisingly light on actual numbers and facts. A lot of auto-show impressions, lots of "ooh look at that" and "ooh that feels nice", even more he-said-she-saids, but no proper comparisons. It's also pretty incoherent and it features A LOT of chinese praise, including whole paragraphs of praising tiktok ( in a friggin car article ). Yeah, I'm not gonna hold my breath that "western car makers are cooked" just based on what this guy wrote.

[–] Maggoty 13 points 7 months ago

They aren't cooked. But they aren't in a great position either. The government is going to need to subsidize them a bit. China just went all in on EVs as a national project before anyone else and now it's paying dividends. Western car manufacturers can and will catch up.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's full of comparisons, some examples:

I’d later learn that the auto show had more than 100 new model debuts and concepts. That’s a far cry from the Detroit Auto Show last September, which only featured one fully new model. Two other models were refreshed versions of current cars already on sale. None were electric.

Western automakers aren’t entangled deeply with tech companies in ways that would serve the end user, Chinese or otherwise. They didn’t get way ahead of the curve to establish a battery supply chain in the ways China did. And they don’t seem to want to cater to the Chinese market (or any market, rather) through continuous updates and agility with their product line.

Even Tesla in China can’t be bothered to update one of its most important products, the Model Y, in this hyper-competitive market. Instead, it relies on margin-hurting gimmicks to move units, like constant price cuts, subsidized trade-in incentives, and 0% financing to get customers to buy a car that is aged and now uncompetitive.

Tesla didn’t even have a presence at the Beijing Auto Show. Elon Musk came and went to Beijing during the show, only to make a case for his robotaxi pivot with government officials. It’s like he’s already given up on cars here.

GM blew it here too. Up until the Beijing Auto Show's debut of a PHEV version, the GL8 was one of the few vans in the segment without any plug-in capabilities. Green-plated New Energy vehicles are an important market in China, as are luxury vans. Why weren’t Western automakers paying attention? Why didn’t GM get an electrified vehicle on sale faster?

[+] [email protected] -30 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

If anyone thinks lemmy doesn't have bots: so far 4 of my downvoters are from accounts created during the reddit exodus, and have zero comments or posts.

[–] Eldritch 47 points 7 months ago (2 children)

People read and lurk. It's not a new phenomena. If they are bots, it would have to be the saddest smallest swarm ever.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They could do it manually for some reason.

[–] Eldritch 9 points 7 months ago

Oh absolutely. That would be extremely petty and pointless. But definitely within the realm of possibility. But it wouldn't be bots. It's just as possible it could be people who just don't like bourgeoisie propaganda. Regardless of whether it is Western or Chinese bourgeoisie pushing it. Two wrongs don't make a right.

It is however supremely illustrative of the Privacy problems Lemmy as a whole has. Any admin of any Federated service can see all that activity at any time. You'd just hope that a moderator or administrator of a larger instance such as this would have a thicker skin. 4 down votes and they go searching for a reason to be a victim of something? I think it's something perhaps we've all done at one point in time or wondered to ourselves. But ante out that way publicly never a good look for anyone with authority.

I tried to bring a number of people over at that time when I joined. I know many of them browse and likely vote. But I also know that many of them don't interact or comment much due to the association with ML. I thought it a little too paranoid on their part. But Behavior like this doesn't help. Honestly about nine times out of 10 when I comment on an ml domain hosted Community or thread. It's because I didn't check. And just engaged with the content. I know there are others that feel the same. So it's not that far-fetched for people to read and vote but not interact.