[digerata]

China's push for electrification of transportation is admirable and worth praising.

But this article is vapid click bait with nothing backing up its headline. The manufacturing of cheap junk that doesn't meet safety or reliability standards and stealing IP to bypass research and development is hardly leaving established car companies in the dust.

[melling]

What stolen battery/EV IP was stolen? I didn't see it mentioned.

"Cheap junk" is what we said about Japanese cars in the 1970's. Chinese companies can develop the important EV technology then increase reliability, safety, etc when it comes time to export.

In the meantime, I think they are racing towards EV's to address the pollution in large cities and reduce imported oil.

[lsc]

>"Cheap junk" is what we said about Japanese cars in the 1970's. Chinese companies can develop the important EV technology then increase reliability, safety, etc when it comes time to export.

Going from your first sentence (which is correct) to the second is... not trivial. I mean, clearly you have proof it's not impossible, but there's a lot of really difficult work between the two. For that matter, I think that it was easier for Japan than it will be for China, just 'cause the American car companies of the '70s were focusing on 'big and loud' and not putting a lot of effort into what a fan of Japanese cars would call 'quality' or safety, reliability or price.

I think established automotive companies are doing a much better job now, and that it's going to be really difficult to beat them on anything but the last criteria, and I think that even just winning the last criteria without sacrificing too much of the first three will be a challenge. (certainly not impossible; in fact I bet they will get it eventually. I'm just saying, this is a decidedly non-trivial undertaking)

But... I've been hearing about efforts to bring a fully Chinese car to the US market since the '90s. I mean, sure, it'll happen eventually, but having heard it so many times makes it hard for me to take any new pronouncements seriously. Clearly, there is something difficult involved

[_ea1k]

I think that the success Tesla has had in building safe cars is evidence that this leap can be made fairly quickly.

But the possibility doesn't imply the inevitability, and I still ultimately agree with your conclusion. I also have been hearing about Chinese cars for about 2 decades now, but I haven't yet seen a serious effort to build quality cars that are suitable for the US market.

[ahi]

Tesla sells luxury cars with margins big enough to accommodate safety engineering. I have read reports that they can't compete on price with the Bolts and Leafs which is why we haven't seen a base model 3.

[woodandsteel]

>The manufacturing of cheap junk that doesn't meet safety or reliability standards and stealing IP to bypass research and development is hardly leaving established car companies in the dust.

You have to look at overall trends. 25 years ago China manufactured hardly anything exportable to the West. So like Japan before it it started at the bottom of manufacturing and since then has been steadily moving up the value chain.

Now the government has a goal of first switching to EV's internally and then making them good enough to sell to the West. There is no reason to believe they will not be able to succeed.

You know, you are making the same mistake that Detroit and US manufacturers of all sorts of goods made when the Japanese first showed up, namely that they would never be able to match American skill. But they did, and countless US companies either went out of business or moved their manufacturing to China.