No one should be surprised that BYD is dominating. Doug Demuro did a review of the Han and its nice. A $43k EV with stitched leather interior and is intended to compete with vehicles that are priced above $60k.
Also, China is where the US probably should be with EV adoption, but to say that we aren’t committed is an understatement.
That’s what happens when there’s no bureaucracy and regulations standing in the way of progress. But there’s a cost
Bureaucracy and regulation that help corporate greed are bad, sure, but bureaucracy and regulations that help the consumer are good things for progress.
For example, the usa homeownership rate was in the 40% range until programs post ww2 boosted it up into the 60% range. Great Britain was even worse. Some economist somewhere decided homeownership was good, and now usa/canada/aus/gb all put programs in place that boosted their numbers to the 60-70 range we see today.
Compared to china’s 90% it is not as high, but there were some costs to that as well.
No bureaucracy in China? Source ?
I think he means that in China, if the government decides something happens, it happens. For example, with China’s rapid expansion of their high speed rail network, environmental concerns were often ignored and consultation with local residents near the proposed tracks often did not take place or was brushed aside to get the project underway as quickly as possible. Compare this to a western country where a project like a high speed train line would spend years getting bogged down in environmental consultations and feedback loops from stakeholders.
Nationalism and country disputes are also most reason why Japanese automakers and Hyundai sales only going worse, so they seem very difficult to stay in China.
VW still has chances to stay in China, but they really need to push harder in their EV effort.
China’s leading the way (along with several US startups such as Tesla, Rivian, Lucid).
Drove VW’s ID.4 and was extremely disappointed given the price point. Nearly $50k, manual seats, smallish screens for an EV, sunroof optional, power liftgate optional, etc. plus the whole crappy dealer experience. The game has changed and I’m not sure that most of the traditional automakers have figured it out.
Typical German car nickel and diming for every feature.
the launch edition ID3 only had speakers in the front, none in the back. This is a 40,000+ eur vehicle and it was the special edition launch model.
It’s weird how luxury brand like Audi and Mercedes now feel like old and unmodern. I know it’s not like that but their ev is lacking design. I love Mercedes c and e class design but their ev is straight up ugly.
VW is so slow to react. Since the moment the id3 and id4 were released buyers said they hated the capacitive controls, but it took VW a year to acknowledge the issue and then it’ll take another two for them to fix it, rather than just swapping the capacitive steering wheel controls for the button controls from the lower trims right away.