[Grombobulous]

I even thought that the example of automobiles proved the jet engine analogy wrong.

Sure, automobiles aren’t as complex as a jet engine, but they’re still complex, especially the internal combustion variants.

Something like 10 years ago we were laughing at videos of Chinese cars spectacularly failing crash tests, and now China is selling to very heavily regulated markets.

Same deal with things like high speed rail.

[labcomputer]

HSR is just a willingness to say "fuck you" to people who want to hold up progress by refusing to sell land for any price, or who sue to stop a more environmentally-friendly transportation on the grounds of... <checks notes>... environmental impact.

Say what you will, but I don't consider eminent domain to be some kind of mystical technology that only wizards possess.

For automobiles, China didn't compete with the West on its own turf in heavily regulated markets. They embraced EVs from the beginning. Complex auto regulations can't save Europe because EVs are an end-run around all of the complexity of building an economical, low-polluting engine.

Indeed, Europe is talking about relaxing some of its environmental regulations for petrol cars, now that those regulations are more of a barrier to home companies than foreign ones.

[Grombobulous]

China is winning contracts to build out HSR in other countries. It’s not just about land sovereignty within China. CRRC has won construction contracts in multiple countries in Europe and Asia. When you build more high speed rail miles than the rest of the world combined, you tend to know what you’re doing.

I will point out, the #3 top selling vehicle in the UK is a Chinese SUV with a gasoline engine (Jaecoo 7).

I think the idea that China just can’t make a reasonably competitive ICE vehicle is another outdated notion about China.

[queenkjuul]

CRRC is, iirc, now the largest rolling stock manufacturer on earth, selling trains to countries all over the world.

Don't need eminent domain to do that.

Also, eminent domain is used routinely in the US, like for Texas' most recent highway expansions. And highways require a lot more land than rails. I don't buy that eminent domain is the real reason here.

[torginus]

Very surprisingly it's never mentioned that car turbos have very similar requirements - spin at 10K+ RPM at 10000K+ for or tens of thousands of hours with little expected maintenance.

They are often made of superalloys, yet regular cars, down to econoboxes costing 20-30k or less have them, and are made by the millions.

[ReptileMan]

If you figure a way for airplane to stop on a cloud in mid flight to wait for a tow vehicle I have a Nobel award for you in whatever field you want.

[queenkjuul]

If you enforced aircraft-grade maintenance and inspection regimes for automobiles, i bet you'd practically never need a tow truck

[moi2388]

Do blimps count?

[SecretDreams]

> but they’re still complex, especially the internal combustion variants.

I'm not sure China is known for their ICE designs. Like Korea, I suspect China partially pushed hard for EV specifically because the complexity in a battery + motor system is meaningfully simpler than the ICE equivalent and there's relatively little overlap in many facets outside of some first principles.

Jet engines are like ICE, but with a very reliability threshold. ICE is already complicated, but OEMs will accept a certain deviation on reliability if they need to because occurence might be low and severity is manageable. Not so in jet engine design. A single failure is a big deal.

[toast0]

Chinese automakers do (or did) make ICE and hybrid cars, too.

I suspect it's wouldn't have been good strategy to try to build those cars for the US, CA or EU markets. An ICE engine is relatively straightforward, but hitting emissions and fuel efficiency targets is complex. [1] And the future of ICE cars, especially in those markets, is limited... why build out emissions expertise, when you can get your foot in the door with EVs?

[1] I recently bought a 1981 VW Vanagon which I try to maintain. That's a perfect time period to see how emissions control forces engine design. My engine has fuel injection and EGR, but a few years back has the same engine block with a carburetor; california emissions uses the same engine, but adds electronic ignition and an o2 sensor in the exhaust for closed loop injection control. A couple years later and they added water cooling. Every so often emissions and efficiency standards got harder to meet and you have to do more stuff.

[userbinator]

Chinese automakers do (or did) make ICE and hybrid cars, too.

Mainly copies of Japanese and US designs.

[coredog64]

My Great Wall SUV had a Mitsubishi engine and a GM computer.

[coldtea]

So? Japanese cars and motorcycles were derided for being cheap copies of European and US designs initially too.

[Grombobulous]

The Jaecoo 7 is the #3 top selling car in the UK right now and it has an ICE powertrain.

Low reliability and safety issues kills car brands. Consumers really don’t like it.

Sure, jet engines are on a very different level of reliability standards, but it seems to me that the concepts are all the same: highly regulated market of low-margin complex heavy machinery where it’s difficult to be a new entrant in the market.

[leonidasrup]

China pushed EVs for multiple reasons:

1. Geopolitical risk of oil dependence. Domestic Chinese EVs are not dependent on imported oil. Oil imports would be at risk in case of a Taiwan conflict.

2. China already had established battery manufacturing. EVs are essentially batteries on wheels. For example the BYD Company (formerly named Shenzhen BYD Battery Company Limited) manufactured batteries long before manufacturing cars.

[roysting]

I agree. They built the J-20, including the engines with several variants. When you look at the whole landscape, it is clearly deliberate and strategic prioritization and sequencing that was the limiting factor.

It doesn’t even take a lot to understand that. It’s the same tried method they’ve been applying for decades now; information gathering, rapid prototyping cycles, quality threshold goals, led by overcapacity dominance. It’s really not much different than agile and “hyperscaling”, accepting massive losses for a long period because the objective is shifting core dynamics.

Ironically, in the US it was used to crush competition and innovation and parasitize the society while on the global scale, China is increasing competition and/or breaking up the monopoly of the parasitic cabal that controls the West and long the world.

[mc32]

High speed rail technology is not a secret. We in the US just don’t have the will. Auto technology in China was acquired via tech transfers. In order to open mfg in China foreign concerns were forced into partnerships with local companies; moreover there was an effort to obtain foreign trade secrets. Metallurgy for jet fans isn’t one of the technologies the west has tried to partner with China. At this time the UK, the US and Russia hold the lead in that technology -maybe France has some too.

[margalabargala]

Tech transfers caught China up, but they then innovated on top of that. They are certainly capable of doing so, they just don't see the need when they can simply use someone else's tech.

[queenkjuul]

Year the article very much ignores that Geely actually can produce a competent modern combustion engine. Their latest model for use in hybrid drivetrains broke the record for thermal efficiency in a consumer combustion engine.

It also treats EV motors as "commodity brushless motors" completely glossing over the actual engineering behind modern EV motors.

Twenty five years ago a Chinese supercomputer was laughable. Today they build them. Ten years ago Chinese cars were laughable, now they're sold worldwide. Ten years ago people laughed at the "metro to nowhere," now it's the core of a new central business district.

The fact that domestic Chinese engines have entered military service, to me, is a pretty strong indicator that given another decade or two, they'll be building some of the most competitive jet engines on earth.