Auto execs in the US, Europe, and Japan never thought Chinese EVs were a threat. Now they’re coming to wipe the floor with their Western counterparts.
“You won’t believe what’s coming,” warned the title of a January 2023 video from the Inside China Auto YouTube channel. “Europe’s premium car makers aren’t ready for this,” warned another video from the same channel, uploaded in July.
Produced by Shanghai-based automotive journalist Mark Rainford, a former communications executive for Mercedes-Benz, the channel is one of several by China-based Western commentators agog at what they are seeing—and driving.
American, Japanese, and European car manufacturers had decades head start in this area and they blew it chasing higher profit margins on large trucks and SUVs with lax EPA gas mileage restrictions at a time when climate change has become a major crisis.
Invested in lobbying instead of products
Who Killed the Electric Car is an excellent look at early EV business in North America
Petrol cars go brrrrrr
I still get angry thinking of what happened
And BS green washing with dead end hydrogen demo cars.
Yeah they’re so weirdly fucking attached to hydrogen cars even though there has never been anything even remotely approaching a solution to their problems.
The execs could make extra money double dipping from oil companies, they are taking marketing funds from oil companies pushing hydrogen too.
Utility companies are often public and even otherwise evs don’t really have the same margins for electricity.
I’m curious if the “climate change is a hoax” stuff is as prominent in China as the US. I’ve run into so many people who hate EVs solely because they think climate change is a hoax and EVs are just another way to scam them out of money for a lower quality vehicle… despite any evidence of EVs being better quality
Those weren’t the case in Europe, though. What happened there?
American gasoline cars suck and are more embarrassing than other country’s gasoline cars, but Chinese EVs are not at all a viable competitor in the market yet and so far have consistently failed to even gain a foothold for 15 years straight.
If you have any counterargument to that, I’d like to see it.
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Fair point, i was very vague in my initial comments. I was talking more from a reputational, manufacturing and corporate perspective more than the cars existing in the market at all, which I totally concede is the common usage. I talked about this in other comments, but the scorn of my initial comment is aimed at the absurd, valueless, propagandizing article itself, rather than the ev market in China the article is irresponsibly promoting the hopes and dreams of.
Chinese EVs haven’t really tried to gain a significant foothold because domestic demand still outpaces supply. The international markets are getting pennies in investment from the industry because the domestic EV market is the single fastest growing car market in the world.
Good point. My problem is more with the manufacturing and corporate problems Chinese EVs have that result in, at best, a similar product, but more often than not, a more dangerous, less reliable and less worker and environmentally responsible product as a result of corporate corruption or entirely fabricated corporations to boost industry reputation.
This view was not very clear in my initial comment as my intent was to express incredulity at the claims of the article.
This comment reads like you haven’t had too much exposure to non-Western perspectives on China’s EV industry. The absolutely cutthroat competition in the sector has put a lot of weaker companies out of business. You’re judging an entire industry based on the worst companies in that industry rather than the average or the best companies (which also tend to have more sales).
Imagine if you judged the American EV industry based on Nikola or if you only reported on American EVs built explicitly to murder pedestrians (like the Cybertruck). That’s what the current media coverage on China’s EV industry looks like because a success story is boring and doesn’t drive click-through rate.
No you’re making further strawman arguments based on your initial assumptive misinterpretations of my original comment about the article.
You’ve made a mountain out of your cultivated molehill.
Have you asked me that I thought of the industry? No you made incorrect assumptions and threw a tantrum.
Have you asked what I thought about the future of the industry? No, you made incorrect assumptions and threw a tantrum.
Have you asked about my familiarity with the industry? No, you climbed another rung on the ladder of your misperceptions and threw another tantrum.
You’re arguing against things that you are making up unrelated to my original point.
Keep chasing your own tail, but don’t pretend that you’re making any sort of a point.