this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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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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[–] NateNate60 41 points 11 months ago (8 children)

That view is unfortunately out of date.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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] NateNate60 20 points 11 months ago

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

[–] mriormro 3 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] pycorax 7 points 11 months ago

Lenovo has lost all sense of reputation for me after the whole superfish fiasco.

[–] Aceticon 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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).

[–] macrocephalic 3 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

There is nothing unfortunate about being able to buy products that are both cheap and high quality.

[–] teamevil 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] NateNate60 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's true but these cars aren't. There are consumer protections in China. They just tend to be a lot less noticeable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

How are the cars on the privacy front?

[–] NateNate60 8 points 11 months ago

Probably rubbish. There is no such thing as digital privacy in China.

[–] _apokalipto_ 3 points 11 months ago

If you get the windows tinted nobody should be able to see you inside.

[–] reddit_sux 1 points 11 months ago

They r very private, everything you do stays between you and ~~government~~ God.