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by _3u10 16 days ago
All you need to know is that BYD cars are good enough that the US had to effectively ban them.
3 comments

I don’t think BYD would be a hit in the US as they are in Europe. It’s an entirely different market. They may be relatively successful just not to the point of taking an important market share, they would probably be like Mazda. Many of the subsides for Chinese EV ended this year too, and they are now realizing price alone is not a differentiator. So even if BYD eventually makes it to the US, they will be priced close to other brands like KIA and Tesla, but without the advantage of the brand and strong local presence. So no, there’s no concerns with BYD and we may see them sooner than later in the US.
BYD only entered the Australian car market in 2022.

They are now the 2nd biggest seller after Toyota (https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/insight/byd-overtakes-rivals-...).

They are also priced much lower than KIA and Tesla.

FWIW I now own a GWM Cannon Αlpha PHEV pickup. Have also owned a Jeep Wrangler - the tech, build quality and reliability is not even on the same planet.

I can't imagine how the US manufacturers would compete with the Chinese ones on a level playing field. Not from the US, but it's hard to see how any administration would allow that. Would be the end of the local industry.

In Australia, the cheapest BYD EV is cheaper than the cheapest Toyota.
US manufacturers' niche is half-ton and above trucks. Even mighty Toyota's offering is playing distant #4 in that market with Nissan capitulating after 20 years of trying.
The BYD Shark 6 is already a hit, and the upcoming Shark 8 is aimed squarely at the ginormous US-style truck crowd.

https://bydautomotive.com.au/shark-6

https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/byd-shark-8-co...

Fun fact: Australia's most popular vehicle has always been utes (aka pickup trucks)

Last year it was the Ford Ranger.

They're selling well just 5 miles from El Paso with reportedly much interest from US customers.

The U.S. Wants to Ban China's High-Tech Cars but They're Already Here in El Paso - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48363751

* WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/chinese-cars-byd-geely-u-...

> It’s an entirely different market

One without cheap cars or EV's, even though that's what people want and need now.

BYD is not just zippy little city cars. The BYD Sealion 7 SUV (EV) and Shark full-size truck (PHEV) are incredibly popular in Australia, which is a very similar market to the US, and I'm sure they would sell like hotcakes if allowed into the US.

https://bydautomotive.com.au/sealion-7

https://bydautomotive.com.au/shark-6

It's worse than that. Trump's tariffs have knee-capped North American auto companies right when they needed to be upping their game. The auto sector is tightly integrated across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Or was... Now there's tariff's on every part and frame that crosses a border. The American plan seems to be to put up a wall and force Americans to buy domestic while nobody else in the world buys American cars.
The lada and movkvisch of car brands with people willing to cross the wall to buy BYD in Mexico
Potentially predicated on anti-dumping rules.
I am torn on this. Anti-dumping is one thing, and yet disruption was an overused keyword for a long time in Silicon valley.

1. Huge scale subsidies like this are effectively a manufacturing attack. This is mean at the level of international politics and yet the world recently seems to be waking up to the idea they were handing over every practice of manufacture to China.

2. On the other hand, while the Chinese car companies are finding their footing they have not yet perfected the bullshit tiered marketing approaches that see relatively cheap to manufacture features gated to "high-equipment level" cars.

For example, now even the cheapest cars can have 360 degree parking cameras. Of course, the Chinese engineering level remains to be seen but many would argue this is competition in the market.