[King-Aaron]

I've got a friend whos a master tech/trainer with our state automotive body, and is HV certified etc for dealing with these cars. He's currently got a BYD Shark strewn across his workshop for an autopsy.

I have to say I'm super impressed with how heavy duty everything is. The control arms, subframes, etc all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear. The powertrain components all look to be extremely high quality.

I've poked around a few EV's with him now, and I do feel like the Chinese market cars are evolving to a really good standard faster than their Korean counterparts did back in the 80s/90s.

[gofastercloud]

In the last few years Chinese manufacturing has reached a very high-level. The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is because they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills.

While I reckon some other countries still have specialist manufacturing in key areas that surpasses China, most “common” parts can be made in China to a standard that meets or exceeds Western countries, if you’re willing to pay for it.

[roncesvalles]

>they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills

It's more complicated than this. Historically, Chinese manufacturing has been notorious for quietly undermining the quality of the product to improve their margins over time, in a way that the commissioning brand doesn't notice. If a Chinese manufacturer quotes you a price too good to be true, they're probably quoting you at-cost and will build in their margin later, once the orders start flowing in.

[epolanski]

People should realize China is huge and manufactures one third of world's goods.

You're going to have excellence and crap across such a gargantuan amount of production and companies, a high amount of variance.

[dumb1224]

High amount variance of quality is a daily reality and as any chinese consumer we are very used to that since the beginning of e-commerce. However there are multiple aspects to the quality feel. Production of high quality items is one thing (e.g one can do better QA etc), what I heard from some local car garages in China is that standardisation in the industry is still quite poor. E.g Parts to replace and bolts and nuts are not as standardised say as the German counter parts (purely from a mechanics point of view).

Having said that a lot of German car suppliers are in China, and the German car manufacturing industry evolved over a significantly longer period of time.

[handle584]

Also the enforcement of standardization is really poor, almost to the point nobody cares.

Chinese manufacturers can make quality stuff and can be rather honest to work with once you show certain knowledge of the field, they will even tell you which products are to avoid.

[King-Aaron]

A really good example of this is the luxury watch market. China manufactures a heap of shitty knockoffs. They also manufacture a heap of the high end legitimate brand watches. And they manufacture some nice and obscenely expensive high end luxury watches.

[snthd]

"Quality fade".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quality_fade

[rasz]

>Chinese manufacturing has been notorious for quietly undermining the quality of the product to improve their margins over time

Famously Gemtek Technology (https://www.gemteks.com/en/about/about), Apples small obscure modem OEM at the time, when presented with contract to manufacture 1999 AirPort Wifi cards made first batch of complete duds because factory owner saw picofarad smd caps and decided it will be more profitable to for him to GLUE tiny plastic rectangles instead, after all picofarad is like nothing so nobody will tell the difference.

https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10273798...

[raven12345]

Gemtek’s headquarters is established in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

[rasz]

Republic of what?

[UltraSane]

The most infamous example of this is hip implants made in China that had to be recalled due to being made wrong. This is also why Chinese structural steel is rarely used in North America and Europe.

[everdrive]

>The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is

I think most people just buy trash at WalMart and Amazon and it's 99% Chinese disposable junk. That doesn't mean that China is incapable of producing high quality goods, but just that the average interaction that people have with Chinese goods are low quality.

It's the manufacturing equivalent of "How could the government be efficient? Haven't you ever been to the DMV?" (set aside that fact that many DMVs seem to be quite efficient these days)

[radiorental]

While true, imho its more complicated than that

* PE, on the whole, has extracted wealth from quality. This is true at both the consumer level and B2B. E.g. its impossible to trust any aftermarket car part manufacturer, and some OEM brands have turned to dogshit too.

* "most people just buy trash at WalMart and Amazon" I'd rephrase that to: most people either can't or are unwilling to pay the premium for quality in an increasingly disposable world.

So, I'd say that similar to post war Japan, while Chinese manufacturing has an image problem, they're just producing what we asked for.

[DangitBobby]

I'm very willing to pay a premium for quality, I just can't seem to find any reliable signal for quality before buying. Price and brand are both increasingly meaningless signals.

[jermaustin1]

I'm in a similar boat, and it annoys the shit out of my wife, and any family member that thinks I'm "just cheap" or a "budget shopper".

I'm a value shopper. I was happy with the McDouble when it was under $1, but not now that it is nearly $2. It isn't worth that, but the BK Double Cheeseburger IS worth it even for $1 more than the McDouble (at least in my location).

Same is true for almost everything I buy. A certain fabric I want in my button ups, or a stich type I want in my pants. I hyper inspect almost every item of clothing I'm even contemplating buying. Same with furniture, with tools, with appliances.

It is almost a compulsion. I cannot pay more for something than I think it is worth... unless I REAALLLLLY want it.

[hylaride]

The lengths "drop-shippers" or similar groups are willing to go to game the system also has made almost all reviews and feedback useless. A few years ago I bought a feline water fountain and the lengths they went to get a 5 star review (extra free filters, etc) made me realize just how bad amazon reviews had gotten. I've slowed my amazon purchases significantly since then (along with other problems ordering from amazon has slowly introduced).

[garethsprice]

The book "The Paradox of Choice" led me to using Wirecutter and Consumer Reports in recent years - if it's not something I care that much about, I will just buy whatever their top recommendation is without second thought. The cost of the subscriptions pays for a human to wade through all the junk and select something that is at least adequate for the job, and is cheap compared to the effective hourly rate of having to search through mountains of junk.

For more niche stuff, Reddit groups like BIFL and seeing what niche hobby groups coalesce around is helpful for me. Which I suppose is the same reversion to word-of-mouth expertise when, as you said, brand and price are degraded signals.

[tremon]

I'm in the same boat. The only signal that I still trust is (for want of a better term) governance longevity, i.e. how long has the company/brand been under its current management structure. This requires some digging, but good salesmen are usually well aware of management changes at their brands. That may not apply to generic clothes shops, but in my experience this still works for tool shops and appliance stores. You'll want to talk to tradespeople though, not sales drones.

Then there's two signals that negatively inform my trust of a brand:

- company size: the larger the company, the lower they start on my trust ladder;

- advertising: when a brand is overly present in the public sphere, that to me signals that they're overcharging for their product.

[slaw]

I buy Xiaomi products. I know I get high quality products. From Xiaomi Kettle to Xiaomi SU7

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaomi_SU7

[infecto]

I don’t fully agree with either of those arguments. I think parts of it are certainly true but at the end of the day it takes two to tango. American consumers on average want high consumption for the lowest cost. I hate the argument “just buy less $5 coffees” but there is at least a kernel of truth in it. Consumers stretch the limits of their budget.

[viceconsole]

I find that Chinese manufacturing offers the complete range of quality for every price point. At reasonable prices, the quality meets or exceeds that of other countries. But if you want something cheap and cheaply made, you can find that as well. And at the extreme, you still have counterfeit parts and products.

[Cthulhu_]

> While I reckon some other countries still have specialist manufacturing in key areas that surpasses China

I don't think this is true. Maybe super specialist things like chip manufacturing products, but it's guaranteed China is spending heavily on R&D to develop their own. When it comes to cars / car parts they will be on par with if not surpassing most countries.

Also keep in mind China's sudden onset had a big impact on European and US car manufacturing, with VW / VAG closing major factories in Germany. Mind you, that's also because VAG was the biggest car manufacturer in China, until suddenly BYD and co opened up their factories and dominated the market in a short amount of time.

[smugma]

Apple in China is a great book and shows how good China is on focusing on quality when that is the given objective.

[acdha]

> The reason most people still believe that Chinese-made stuff is poor quality is because they will do what they are told and they are usually told “make this as cheap as possible” by whoever is paying the bills.

I’m reminded of all the dismissals people made about the skill levels of Indian software developers when the explanation was that the more skilled ones knew they could do better than the MBAs were offering to make the savings sound even more impressive.

[piltdownman]

Also because of the appalling track record of QA/QC, and subsequent cover-ups, at every level of government and enterprise from regional to national.

In the 2008 milk Scandal, for example, the offending company Sanlu were aware of infants becoming sick December 2007, but refused to test until June 2008. Shijiazhuang city governance failed to report the contamination to provincial and state authorities September 2008 and Sanlu subsequently asked the Shijiazhuang city government to assist them in controlling the media's reporting of the recall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

300,000 affected children were identified, among which 54,000 were hospitalized and 6 deaths were officially attributed to the adulteration and cover-up. If the government and industry were willing to collude to the detriment of their own populace so as not to sully the PR appeal of the Beijing Olympics, what level of care and consideration are we to attribute them in matters of low-consequence export to the West?

[acdha]

Yes, not having QA is one of the ways unscrupulous businesses boost profits. The answer isn't to say “everyone in China is like that” any more than it was to say “every meat packer in the United States will serve you dog meat and pink slime” but to accept that some things need to cost more.

I would also note that in the case of that melamine incident 2 decades ago, several of the business leaders involved got death sentences which seems relevant to the question of how much the larger country supports it. For example, I note that no member of the Sackler family has failed to die rich out of prison.

[therealpygon]

Very true, though it isn’t like we need to look very far to find similar instances of government and media collusion to control stories, laws passed to protect companies from liability for direct causally linked chemical dumping known to induce tumors, cancer, neurological diseases and other things, so on and so forth.

Every country seems willing to trade the lives or livelihood of citizens, much less people of other countries, to ensure their status quo. Some just pay more lip service to “rights” they will violate at the drop of a hat when push comes to shove.

[handle584]

The best part of this scandal is in a press conference a major producer, Mengniu, publicly announced that milk made for Hong Kong is not affected.

This one-sentence message demonstrates a lot of the problems of Chinese manufacturing if you think about it for a minute.

[p_l]

Unfortunately, the manager pushing the outsourcing pockets the money, outsourcing company pockets the money, and the local and indian teams get to be abused and latter gets extra blame for things outside their control.

I would say the problem is heavily structural and linked to few companies that very much pursue lowest possible effort, harming both employee and customer. We had a company that infamously pursued a somewhat similar (just with not as much leverage over employees) strategy in Poland - a common refrain was how other companies would get people jumping jobs from them who gave variants of "I needed some spending money while finishing my degree, escaped as soon as I could" story.

Unfortunately it seems a bit harder to do when some places apparently hire with only category appearing to be "according to census they speak english", then put them on project with minimal training and zero time or space to acquire more training.

[acdha]

Yes - I remember one time hearing someone from a big consulting company make the argument that even the top Indian graduates would work for peanuts (even by local standards) and asking them how likely it was that they’d be that smart but unable to determine their market value.

This was unsurprising after my entire life hearing people complain about declining quality and imported junk while always picking the cheapest item on the shelf at the store, even when they had plenty of money for a better quality option. There’s just a certain mindset which can’t look past the lowest possible price.

[p_l]

Also sometimes you have few big companies dominate local market to detriment of choice, even if your plan is on getting further away.

The polish company I mentioned was infamous for using still in education students especially from an university where its founder was a professor, and for his motto of "you can replace any specialist with finite number of students, and the number is usually one". I met some of them later who worked there for first few years only to setup conditions to jump ship.

But along the line I heard how few big outsourcing/consulting companies dominated IT hiring in bunch of cities in Poland, with Warsaw being the odd one out because suddenly you had to fight for candidates with 100-150 person "minnows". I imagine without such minnows finding sensible work would be way harder

[ninininino]

It's not just that they do what they are told, whether that is low quality or high quality.

It's that if you don't have a way to measure quality yourself (you're not an expert), or if you don't ask for exact specific features/qualities even if you offer a high budget and ask for high quality, manufacturers absolutely will cut corners, do stupid things, etc. to increase their own margin at the expense of quality and just hope you are none the wiser.

The US had the same culture in certain periods and certain industries, so I am not suggesting it's some innate Chinese characteristic. The meat factories exposed in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, where he documented unsanitary conditions, spoiled meat, rat infestations etc come to mind.

But one cannot just ignore that the China of today has had problems with fake baby formula, fake alcohol, fake medicine, fake everything and expect that that doesn't make its way into manufacturing of other classes of goods.

[uejfiweun]

I wish China didn't have such a hostile government to the West. Because I'd love to buy a BYD car and see this for myself, or try the Xiaomi car that MKBHD was so keen on. But because of the hostility I kind of get why there are bans.

[joe_mamba]

>I wish China didn't have such a hostile government to the West.

In what way are they hostile? I am also part of "the west" and they never threatened us.

The west != just the USA.

[km3r]

Are western companies able to freely compete in China? Last I checked, no, they need local partners at best, or are blocked completely at worst. And not just American but any outside company.

[King-Aaron]

What their government does in regards to local industry is effectively what donald trump is attempting to do with the US economy. Except they do it well.

[km3r]

And I don't approve of Trump doing it either. And I'd certainly call it Trump being hostile to the entire world.

[tw1984]

I consider you as a victim of the brainwashing by your main stream media.

there are tons of western cars on Chinese roads, tesla was given free land and close to interest free loan to build its factory in Shanghai. there are numerous apple shops in China. guess how many Chinese cars are driving on US roads, how many Huawei phones are being sold in the US.

if you are open to the idea of jumping out of your comfort zone of your favourite brainwashing media, some westerner actually went to China and counted every single car at an intersection for 30 minutes with all brands summarised. over 40% are western cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZKbEj39gEw&t=1496s

again - it is not your fault, you are the victim. I just feel sad for you.

[selcuka]

> And not just American but any outside company.

Would you call that "hostility to the West"? Sounds like an attempt to protect their own interests.

[km3r]

It's benefiting from the globalized market without freely competing in it. It gives them a massive edge in many industries and the world couldn't say no because of cheap manufacturing.

And certainly hostile when you add currency manipulation onto it as well.

[yorwba]

This is now limited to only some restricted industries: https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/zcfb/ghxwj/202504/P020250424307... Yes, the list is long, but it's a significant improvement to the before times when all industries were off limits save for a few exceptions where foreign investment was allowed. Notably, the car industry has been mostly unrestricted for a few years now.

[mldqj]

It's a myth. It depends on what the company does.

Internet services? Yes, you need a domestic partner, because you'll disseminate information to the public.

If you're in the automobile industry, you can import cars to China. China was Porsche's largest market until 2025, and all Porsches are imported. It used to be that a Chinese partner is needed to manufacture cars in China, but Tesla did not need one, and that policy was dropped. Anyway, it's nowhere close to the complete ban the US placed on Chinese cars.

In many other industries, you can create a foreign-owned company and operate in China.

[joe_mamba]

>Are western companies able to freely compete in China? Last I checked, no, they need local partners at best,

Tesla operates Giga Shanghai fully independently and competes freely.

>And not just American but any outside company.

So did Italy, Germany, Japan and Korea to build up domestic auto industries otherwise Detroit would have steemroled them.

[km3r]

Giga Shanghai is the exception the proves the rule. It's one of the few, if only, foreign businesses that operate without a joint venture with a local company.

[chadgpt3]

Lots of countries are like that though. America has an unusually free system where anyone can do anything for better or worse, but Walmart failed in Germany by ignoring all the local processes like employee protections. (But I hear Aldi is taking over the UK!)

[km3r]

Employee protections aren't hostile, blocking Facebook while exporting Tiktok is a hostile trade imbalance.

[infecto]

China is just as much of a guilty party as the “west” could be. From massive corporate espionage, open stealing of western IP, blocking western companies from entering markets. It is foolish to think they are not at some level an adversary. I would still absolutely buy a BYD car but China plays the same game, maybe even better, and that the west has also played for decades.

[joe_mamba]

>From massive corporate espionage, open stealing of western IP, blocking western companies from entering markets.

"the west" did the same. You can't play fairly if your opponents never did.

[infecto]

Did I not already say that? Both are just as guilty but your original thesis is simply wrong. Sorry.

[kouunji]

The hostility is a result of a long reading of history. If you think Chinese leadership has forgotten European colonialism, you are mistaken. If you want to understand how deeply the maximalist mindset runs in Chinese culture, look up what the name of the country - zhongguo - means. I love Chinese culture, and lived there, but make no mistake about how clear eyed their leadership is about competition with western hegemony.

[joe_mamba]

>If you think Chinese leadership has forgotten European colonialism, you are mistaken.

You are mistaken to think I forgot that. The west is the one who is mistaken if they think all other countries and cultures forgot that. If they can, they would gladly enact revenge over Europeans and whip them. Which is why it's best to arm ourselves to the teeth and ensure they'll never be in a position do that. So no, i haven't forgotten, the west has.

>but make no mistake about how clear eyed their leadership is about competition with western hegemony.

Isn't hegemony what US leadership has been doing since WW2, increasingly more vigorously and more intensely today? Except China is doing without bombing other nations and kidnapping their leader. So in this game China is the righteous ones.

[youre-wrong3]

BYD cars in China are not very good. But to export them they need to be higher quality to meet criteria. I would never buy one in China. Happily own one outside of China.

[Toutouxc]

I have a Chinese EV too, an MG4 built by SAIC. It’s a really cheap car, significantly cheaper than its non-Chinese counterparts like the VW ID.3 or (roughly) a Hyundai Kona.

The factory rust protection was maybe a bit on the lighter side, but everything else on it looks completely normal. The drivetrain is simple (no heat exchange mechanism between battery coolant and motor coolant, a slightly whiny motor), but also genuinely competent and modern for a 2022 design (a mature skateboard RWD platform with a thin CTP battery with large cells and generous cell/coolant heat exchange). There are no obvious wtf solutions, nothing that would look too thin or too flimsy. The infotainment and the SW of the car does have the occasional funny moments, but all that is happening on what looks and feels like a solid piece of hardware.

[hvb2]

Cars only show if they're well made after like a decade? These are not washing machines or something.

Sadly that's also why it's hard to buy a new car, you only know what's a quality car years down the line.

First impression matters though.

[Toutouxc]

The point is that you can't tell anymore just by looking underneath and counting the wtfs.

I have a friend who's a big Honda fan, amateur racer, a true "petrolhead" but with an intact brain. Runs his own shop. Naturally there was a barrage of jokes when I rolled up in my new Chinese EV, but then we put it up on a lift and there wasn't really much to joke about. The platform looks boring and mature. Things are where you'd expect them, they're the right size and shape, you can tell why they're there.

Obviously, the motor/reducer bearings in my car may fail in a few years (like in the Kona Electric or Škoda Enyaq) or the charging circuitry may fail (like the ICCU in the Ioniq 5) but then we're already comparing it against legacy manufacturers, and that's a pretty good position to be in.

[torginus]

From what I've seen of youtube teardowns by mechanics, Chinese cars often have the air of modernity and future tech about them, but under the hood, they like to use technical solutions that were abandoned by European manufacturers a decade ago or more, leading to the cars not being competitive in driving dynamics to what you would get from an euro manufacturer for perhaps slightly more money.

[ExoticPearTree]

> ... for perhaps slightly more money.

European cars are incredibly expensive these days and have been for a while compared to imports.

About 7 years ago I was looking for a new car and had only owned and drove VW cars. Naturally, I looked at VW, the Golf in particular. With all the bells and whistles, it came to about 35k EUR. A Civic was about 11K cheaper. Guess what I bought?

There was nothing in the Golf that could justify the extra cost. Nowadays is the same.

[erxam]

More fun driving dynamics aren't worth the extra twenty thousand dollars you need to buy the equivalent European car, let alone the ridiculous lifetime costs of ownership, such as maintenance.

I mean, seriously. I can buy a shitty Argentine-made base model used 5-year-old VW Amarok with 70K km on it for the same price as a brand new Chinese-made Changan Hunter (whether gas or REEV). The second one is also going to be far, far cheaper to fuel (if you choose the REEV), maintain and repair.

Let's not even talk EVs. Europeans exited the market before it even began. European brands only start to show up at around what, the 70-100K dollar bracket? Sure, the Porsche Taycan is cool and all, but I've never seen one. Meanwhile, BYDs, Deepals, MGs, and a million other random brands are only growing more and more common with each passing day.

[Toutouxc]

> Let's not even talk EVs. Europeans exited the market before it even began. European brands only start to show up at around what, the 70-100K dollar bracket?

The ID.3 starts at like 35k USD here in Europe. Škoda Elroq and Enyaq, both under 50k USD.

[asdff]

>Sadly that's also why it's hard to buy a new car, you only know what's a quality car years down the line.

Not always. Sometimes the components are a lot older than the car and have earned a bit of a reputation. The powerplant in my car is like 20 years older than the model year. The underlying platform is nearly as old as well. All proven to be boringly reliable.

I guess this changes in the EV era with faster rate of iterations compared to the ICE era. More lessons still to learn with the EV cars I'm sure. Meanwhile a 4 cyl compact car is practically a commodity and aside from safety widgets like backup cameras, have been relatively unchanged for 15 or 20 years.

[King-Aaron]

I think it depends on the car. I've seen VW products fall apart in months after sale, we actually had a Mk5 golf that went back to the dealer three times in it's first year for fuel system faults.

There are a lot of low price bracket Chinese imports (MGs mainly) that seem to have severe rust issues that are present at delivery.

And Toyotas a few years ago had a problem where certain colour cars would have their paint fall off in huge sheets as the primer was incorrect or something.

I do agree in principle that most modern cars should be pretty good for their warranty period/first owner, but I've also seen some egregious edge cases!

[arethuza]

A few years back my wife had a Toyota that had serious electrical problems (all instruments would stop working) that was eventually traced to a faulty sunroof combined with a terrible design...

[tecleandor]

> Cars only show if they're well made after like a decade?

Unless you have a wet belt in your Puretech engine that will blow up in 5-8 years...

Mechanics and enthusiasts around here (Spain) call this engines "pudretech" (rot-tech)...

[hvb2]

So in the first 5 years, no reason not to buy it. Basically proving the point I was making

[bluGill]

What will you do when you want something different? Used car values are partially a function of their expected remaining lifespan, and if the car isn't trusted to last it is worth less.

[lostlogin]

I’d be stoked if a washing machine lasted a decade.

[mesrik]

How so, not last a decade?

I had AEG Lavamat 1055 about 35 years (from 1982), worked well without hitch. It was quite small, top loading model etc. Fast spin-dry w/ variomatic (shaking also while spinning). Laundry out of it was quite dry already.

Then 2017 building plumbing had to be redone and gave reason to remake bathroom completely and replacing old equipment. I would have bought Miele model but it didn't fit reserved place and I ended up buying Electrolux instead.

That's now month short of 9 years and I have no reason to believe it will not work well at least another 10 years to come. regardless advertised 10 years warranty.

This current one has more electronic parts, but now searching by its model found only fault codes all seem to be user errors, overfilling, water hose not open, draining filter clogged etc. All non issues whoever bothers knowing how to maintain and operate that thing over years. No complaints about issues with electronics problems.

These were first used by a couple and later single (me) needs which are usually once a week plus twice a month washing 4-5 uses single day. Which becomes bit over 100 washing in year.

That's just 1000 washings in 10 years and 3500 in 35 years. For a family washing every day once it would be 3563 uses in 10 years.

If washing machine isn't badly kept against instructions and it isn't cheapest knock off plastic rubish, why would be a surprise if it doesn't last at least that 10 years use washing family laundry. And last many decades with single or dink use?

[rithdmc]

Be thankful you didn't buy Beko. I had a horrible uphill battle trying to get them to honour a 2 year warranty in Ireland after about a years usage.

After they finally engaged with the warranty, they had someone come out to 'fix' it once every couple weeks until I gave up and just bought a different brand washer/dryer.

I'm now sworn off Beko, and will happily tell everyone I can about my terrible service :)

[hvb2]

That's also a bit 'you get what you pay for'? Especially with large electronics/cars typically it pays off to go for the more expensive ones. Miele here as well and well past a decade

And there are still parts too

[lostlogin]

> How so, not last a decade?

Maybe it’s me then. We just don’t get that long out of them. We have tried Fisher and Paykel and Samsung. Never had more than and year warranty either.

They do run at least once a day often more, but that’s not enough to explain it.

[mesrik]

I understand that while small kids or baby then there is lot of laundry. But I've heard some people wash same fav clothes every day just to be able to use them fresh clean every day.

Gosh, but there are other ways to solve that issue like having bit more of fav clothes, so that you dont' have to wash same cloth every day but instead was a bunch of them end of week. Need white shirt every day at work, buy at least 10 of them, use one each day, wash & iron weekend, put on pile1 and use from pile2 next week rotating for even use and to have some redundancy, then pile1 week and so on. Get more trousers etc. whatever you need. This is what I did when had job where dress code told what to wear in office.

And kids, buy them more fav clothes too if it otherwise becomes fight what they want to wear daily.

But each to their own. Above is just my view and how I learned when I was kid looking my parents, and how I've done also.

[asdff]

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Whirlpool-3-3-cu-ft-White-Commer...

This would probably last a couple I expect

[bzzzt]

I'd be disappointed if it didn't. My Bosch is running for about 13 years right now and just as well as when I bought it. Maybe it helps I'm in the EU and there's a law stating you have right of compensation if it dies within a decade...

[RankingMember]

Look into Speed Queen. They're known for being well-built commercial-grade machines.

[spacebanana7]

Cars can still show that they're poorly made pretty quickly.

[tw1984]

> VW ID.3

VW ID.3 is designed by a Chinese team in China, built in Shanghai backed entirely by the Chinese ecosystem.

You need to be totally blind to consider vw being able to design & produce such a car on its own. let's be straight - the software in the car is not something Germany can build on its own. That 20 years gap won't be filled overnight.

[Peanuts99]

This is false, the ID.3 was designed primarily in Germany but they sell a model customised to the Chinese market. They're two different cars from different production facilities.

All the control modules for the German model at least are manufactured by Bosch and Valeo in France and Germany - where the software is also produced.

As an aside, Bosch produces control modules and the underlying software for just about every western car manufacturer. 80%+ cars sold worldwide use their traction control system for example so I'm not sure where this so-called gap is.

[tibbydudeza]

That would be the case for the new China only Audi E5/E7X - they are just using the word AUDI on the car and not the iconic 4 rings.

It is made by SAIC using their factory and EV platform - it was just cheaper to outsource it and meet the deadlines and pricing.

[antonkochubey]

The kind of software needed in a car (minimal or ideally none at all except for DME and CarPlay display) is indeed not something that Germans were able to build on their own in the recent times.

[dzhiurgis]

> software in the car is not something Germany can build on its own

Chinese can't either. BYD is a joke. Zeekr is close, but still not quite there. Soon they'll be unstoppable tho.

[benj111]

Not according to what I've just read. It's sold in china via a joint venture with saic and seems to have been slightly redesigned for the china market.

[Toutouxc]

What the hell are you talking about? Why are you lying?

ID.3 is a MEB car, its production started in Zwickau (Germany) in November 2019, two years before it even arrived to China, and one year before the SOP of ANY MEB car (ID.4 was the first one) in Anting (Shanghai).

[rasz]

>rust protection was maybe a bit on the lighter side

Iv seen MG cars in Poland come pre rusted straight from the dealer.

[asymmetric]

Genuinely?

[yuye]

>The control arms, subframes, etc all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear.

While I think the "chinese quality bad" narrative still applies to many Chinese brands, this isn't as universal as it was in the past.

I think my eyes were first opened when I bought myself a Huawei phone(before the Google ban). My first few smartphones had been Samsung, I've always felt the term "planned obsolence" was the best way to describe these phones: After just a year, the phone felt considerably slower, and after two it was almost unusable.

Huawei flagship phones were similar in price to Samsung, but I felt they lasted way longer.

[HerbManic]

I have had a fairly good run with a lot of these Chinese phones. Huawei when we could still get them was great. Xiaomi is great build quality but they are rotting out their OS with too much bloat and up sell. Oppo has been brilliant in that they are built well, cheap and allow you strip out anything you don't want.

[yuye]

I had one of the last available Huawei phones, the P30 Pro, for 3 years. The only reason I had to get a new phone is because it got stolen.

>Xiaomi is great build quality but they are rotting out their OS with too much bloat and up sell.

I've tried Xiaomi phones in their stores a few times. I feel like they're trying to copy the look and feel of iOS in a way, and I generally don't like the iOS UX.

[beAbU]

Pre google ban huawei phones were incredible. 2-day batteries, great screens, fantastic cameras and an awesome price. I had a Samsung after my last huawei and it felt like a solid downgrade, even though the samsung was way more expensive.

FYI, if you are looking for a post google huawei, check out honor phones.

[handle584]

That's exactly how Chinese android market works, every phone/pad is No.1 upon release and within a few week's PR campaign. After a couple months a new one is released with another No.1 bla-bla, while the old one goes on life-support.

Also have to mention their ads, built into the system, when every app opens, when you switch back, f*king everywhere. The funny thing is if you switch language to English or use it overseas, some of the ads will go away, ironic.

[dzhiurgis]

MG ZS EV and BYD Atto 3 have a lot of issues in NZ/AU, so it's not without a merit. I'm sure they improved with latest models tho.

[King-Aaron]

Oh man I miss my Huawei phones. I had an Oppo at one stage too.

As an aside the best phone I ever had was a HTC One X, another brand that I sorely miss.

[quijoteuniv]

Vertical integration matters. If BYD controls much of the chain from the mine to the ship, they’re not paying everyone else’s margin along the way. That can translate into more car for the money.

I own a BYD Tang, so I’m biased, but the value for money has been hard to beat.

Scale probably helps too. When you sell millions of cars using many of the same parts, availability is better and parts are more likely to stay affordable than on low-volume models with lots of redesigns.

[torginus]

Vertical integration is a double edged sword. When your car is a decade old or more, and stuff starts breaking, the only vendor that makes parts for it is BYD - and its up to them if they bother selling to you, at what price, provided they still make these parts at that time.

Time will tell how cheap and easy will they be to maintain, which affects residual value at the end of the lease, which affects payments.

Nobody pays sticker price for new cars as a lump sum. If BYDs (or whatever car) are impossible to maintain, that means nobody will want them used, and residual value will be low, which means BYDs will cost more to the end user to own than a more expensive car by a different manufacturer.

Which seems to be the case for now in places like Germany, but we will have to wait and see how the situation develops and the second hand market builds up.

[spacebanana7]

Additionally, vertically integrated companies don't get to tag along on innovations produced by upstream suppliers. Many EV companies will effortlessly have their range increase by a couple % each year, with battery costs falling, just because they can adopt the improvements of CATL/Panasonic/BYD etc.

[mjanx123]

The aftermarket would jump after such an opportunity in such case

[vladvasiliu]

> Vertical integration matters. If BYD controls much of the chain from the mine to the ship, they’re not paying everyone else’s margin along the way. That can translate into more car for the money.

This is interesting. Wasn't the idea in Europe (and maybe elsewhere, too, no idea) that outsourcing components would lead to economies of scale? After all, a Mercedes or BMW or VW seat is still roughly a seat?

It's interesting to me that we seem to switch back and forth between the two models, each time saying the new approach is "better".

[hylaride]

Outsourcing to somebody that can drive higher volumes for components can be cheaper, as they can amortize the manufacturing equipment over more widgets. If a car seat is just a car seat, then outsourcing makes sense. However, if you need to customize it or add some other value (heated seats, electronic movement, etc) then unless everybody is doing the exact same thing, you need to bring at least some of the components in house and/or pay for it.

The same is true in many industries. TSMC has dominated fabing chips because they scale wafers over many more customers, whereas intel mostly only focused on its own chips. The results was more expensive all around. (Intel also had to deal with bad western accounting attitudes to CAPEX spending, which IMHO is a huge reason so much manufacturing left North America, though lower costs also played a role).

[hermanzegerman]

VW, Mercedes and BMW also squeeze their suppliers very hard, and they operate with razor thin margins. So I agree and wouldn't say that doing everything in house is always going to be the cheaper way

[avhception]

My family operated a business on exactly these razor thin margins. You always live on the razors edge. You're unable to invest into the future, unable to improve your processes, and god forbid there is even a minor disruption. I don't think it's sustainable. We've since faltered, as have our many of our competitors and suppliers.

[taffronaut]

Having an adversarial relationship with your suppliers is not necessarily the best arrangement. It means that suppliers will nickel-and-dime you for every change and ship minimum possible quality to you. The cost of loss of agility and quality will impact your bottom line.

[bluGill]

The value in being a supplier is you make the replacement parts when they start breaking in 5-10 years. The real money is in selling to every auto parts store in the country.

[alberto467]

It does also just depend at what scale you operate at.

If you're already at a huge scale there isn't really a significant scale advantage by outsourcing to somebody who doesn't just sell to you.

[MagicMoonlight]

And also the simplicity of the products. You don't need to design a different engine for each car, you just vary the number of cells and change the motors. Your battery division can keep pumping out batteries, regardless of what models you make. If you design a new model, you can keep using the existing lines. It's perfect for mass production.

[emodendroket]

People talking about Chinese manufacturing all being junk are completely stuck in the past.

[UncleOxidant]

My grandfather in the 1970s used to complain about crappy Japanese tools. By the 1980s they were world-class. Same is happening with Chinese manufacturing.

[krelian]

There is a joke just about that in Back to the Future (1985)!

[StilesCrisis]

In BttF2, it is taken to the logical extreme and Marty's boss is Mister Fujitsu-san: https://youtu.be/UlEFqR4SaVA

[WorldMaker]

It also recurs in BTTF3 with Marty and 1950's Doc needing to replace a single Japanese-made IC with a large vacuum tube assembly.

[Theodores]

My great-grandfather used to complain about crappy German tools.

My great-great-grandfather used to complain about crappy Scottish tools.

He was English. I am not sure you can buy as much as a paperclip made in England now.

Has to be said that nobody on this side of the pond ever complained about the quality of American Snap On tools though, just so long as the boss was paying for them.

[pjc50]

Some of the old Sheffield toolmakers are still going: https://www.crownhandtools.ltd.uk/

The UK has mostly moved up the value chain. We make satellites and turbines now.

[vitaflo]

I’ve seen people say stuff made in china is junk while holding their iPhone. People say the dumbest things.

[monegator]

And they have really good designs (after all, they are taking inspiration from the most succesful european cars. I saw the station wagon the other day, it's amazing. the octavia EV as it should be.)

The problem is always going to be: what's going to happen in 10 years, or whatever, after warranty expires?

The problem with vertical integration is for the customer, and it's repairs: traditional manufacturing is more expensive because you have a constellation of companies manufacturing pars with official and unofficial second sources. While this increases the overall cost of the vehichle, it decreases the final price of every component because the customer (independent mechanic) can choose to use a different source. The market working as intended.

BYD is currently the only EV i would consider, because it's the best value and the engineering quality is indeed high, but because i want to own, not rent, i'm preoccupied of what's going to happen in X years.

Yes, it's the same fear we had three-four decades ago when toyota/suzuki/kia entered the european market, that bet paid off but also because cost of repairs went down over time as they were also traditional manufacturers. (Yet for some exotic components you still must go to the OEM, and pay 2-3 times the equivalent sensor/component for an european car.)

However, with vertical integration you are always at mercy of the manufacturer. Better engineering, yes. Better integration, better efficiency, but you will suffer for repairs if you can't have second sources.

Think apple. (and tesla. but tesla is shit quality)

Or john deere.

[pjc50]

I think we're going to have to accept that the EV market and technology is moving fast enough that cars behave a lot more like smartphones, or buying a computer in the 90s: one that's ten years old is going to look ridiculously dated even if it's still working fine. It's not unreasonable to estimate than in 10 years the average range will be 50% more or even double current range.

I've got a leased one on order as a result. Let someone else eat the depreciation.

[monegator]

my car is already 12 years old, but has at least 5 more under its belly. Has long paid for itself.

It would cost me considerably more to keep changing it with something i don't own and as a result always be unconfortable with (and also keep paying until the end of time).

But that's kind of beside the point: ex-lease are also being sold somewhere, nobody wants to lease an old car and nobody in their right mind will destroy a perfectly good car just because it's too old to be leased, so i think my point still stands.

[cucumber3732842]

>I have to say I'm super impressed with how heavy duty everything is.

But do you actually have a frame of reference though?

It's really easy to make stuff look good and then have it suck because someone in some other department nerfed it.

I'm not saying they're bad but HN is not a community I trust to make such assessments.

[fragmede]

Putting a slick plastic cover over the engine so it doesn't look grimy is easy. How do you fake it so it looks good to a CT scanner though?

[epolanski]

"chinese X bad" is really ignorant. One in 6 people on the planet lives in China, it's a gargantuan country that is the world leader in manufacturing. You're going to have a high variance of quality output for the mere fact that the overall output is massive.

People often equate low-value Chinese manufacturing that focuses on low cost with their manufacturing quality across all fields.

[King-Aaron]

I feel that in the west we have been fed a version of China that doesn't necessarily reflect the true image of the country.

[pepperoni_pizza]

Does the true version have slave labor, reeducation camps for minorities, needing permission to travel, running protestors over with tanks, and gutter oil by any chance?

[ahartmetz]

There are these things, but also that daily life does not feel very oppressive at all. Very different from Soviet Russia or the GDR.

[avhception]

This could be mostly due to the fact that China has been on the rise, economically. So people mostly see the system working, and mostly in their favor. We'll see the real oppression once that changes.

[dumb1224]

I don't think it's anyone (lay person)'s fault. As a chinese person moved to European in the early 2000s for the longest time I wouldn't touch a chinese product (although I'm very proud of the progress made in terms of industrialisation).

Things changed in 2012 when I bought a 'cheap-ish' Huawei phone, it was nothing of a flagship, no performance but it was really solid product. Very light and well built too. How ironic that was my first ever experience of buying a product exported to Europe.

[esskay]

BYD are genuinely decent cars. And they've skyrocketed in popularity across parts of the world.

In the UK the major car dealers are franchises, and you tend to see for example a Ford garage next to a Toyota garage, and they are operated by the same company. Most of these places have closed one of the branded ones and turned it into a BYD franchise dealership. Theres so many of them across the country now.

I'd take a BYD over something like a Tesla thats for sure - far better cars, it's not even a fair comparison anymore.

I dare say they'll struggle a little more in the US with the whole "China bad" propaganda engrained into society, which is likely why BYD have gone for the agressive expansion in Europe instead.

[alfiedotwtf]

> all look good and don't fit the 'chinese car bad' narrative you always hear.

“No wonder this circuit failed, it says made in Japan”

“What do you mean doc, all the best stuff is made in Japan”

[_DeadFred_]

It will be interesting to see if they can overcome the horrible resale value. The market seems to think these are disposable one owner only vehicles.

[m3kw9]

You cannot just eye ball a part and say is "high quality"

[dakolli]

I'd rather own Chinese everything over American. Everything America makes is slop and corners are cut for profits so the owners of companies can own their third home and maybe a yacht. The truth is Chinese engineering quality exceeds the West in almost every domain at this point.

I'd move there given the opportunity, the business owners of America are willing to poison and put the lives of their fellow citizens at risk for literal pieces of paper. I'm ashamed to be American.

[HerbManic]

I agree with the quality of some of the stuff coming out of China but when it comes to poisons and risking the lives of citizens, I have some bad news for you. That is how they undercut so heavily by foregoing those standards.

[emodendroket]

China has moved beyond being a "value" manufacturer and they've cleaned up a lot.

[don_esteban]

In China, they hang those that are responsible. In US, they get slap on their hand.

[King-Aaron]

Or they get cabinet positions.

[HerbManic]

Ha, yeah that is a fair point.

[davidwritesbugs]

Not saying you are wrong about many US business owners but having travelled in China I can tell you that Chinese companies have no qualms about poisoning their neighbours for enhanced profits - my guide there said it was what he hated about his country. Money drives ethics pretty much everywhere I reckon.

[maxglute]

This one of those if both country are spying on you, pick the foreign spy since their gov can't touch you. If industrialist from both sides poisoning backyards, pick the one that isn't doing it in near you.

[fooo1882992]

Imagine glazing the country where a dozen companies were caught mixing melamine into baby formula, hospitalizing 50,000 and killing 6.

This happened in 2008 by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

[jpleyden98]

I disagree with 'glazing' China but the USA really isn't much better

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

[King-Aaron]

The US is systematically winding back a plethora of health/safety regulations that prevent this sort of stuff.