[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.