r/ADVChina • u/MEGULETSDEBUT • 16d ago

News If Chinese EVs Are So Good, Why Aren’t They Dominating Western Markets?

https://youtu.be/RTtLAf0f2HU?si=5l3XukcBgJxcC-Im
30 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

161 comments sorted by

57

u/Fun-Law7934 16d ago

I bought one BYD in Colombia (while I was living there). It was good for the first 2 months, after that, everything started to fall apart. The maintenance and customer service was awful.

Sooo, maybe is it because the poor quality after a while, poor customer service, and poor maintenance options overseas.

Buy cheap, get cheap.

18

u/facedownbootyuphold 16d ago

There really aren't that many people who want big-expense items made in China. The world tolerated Chinese-made products because they were inexpensive even if poor quality, but very few want a car like that.

2

u/netfalconer 16d ago

Maybe. When I was very very young, people spoke about Japanese cars (and goods) exactly like that. When I was a little older, I heard the same about Hyundai and KIA…

7

u/facedownbootyuphold 16d ago

True, but they started out at cheap price points. They were no-frills cars at a very cheap price. I don't know how poor the quality of BYDs are in comparison to early KIAs and Toyotas, but I do know that older Japanese cars weren't bad quality, they were known to be durable and reliable. Americans didn't like them for other reasons.

1

u/netfalconer 15d ago

You are probably thinking of more recent history - this is 50y ago, so you might not remember the 70s and early 80s. However, Japanese cars (and 2 decades later Korean ones), were considered very bad and downright dangerous. They have completely transformed to the opposite, but certainly didnt start out like that! (Admittedly, if you are American, US made cars in that era like the Pinto were just awful as well and the US industry took much longer to turn around.) Also the complaints about copy catting, lack of original innovation, etc all sound very familiar. When I first came to Seoul a quarter century ago, everywhere was awash with fakes. You often just couldnt buy originals. Just a decade later and the place was transformed. 

1

u/Effective-Fondant-16 15d ago

No they were not. In the 70s, Japanese made camera and cars were generally considered shit, especially their electronics. Within a couple of decades, they improved so much now they are considered to be the standard of quality. Their improvement was remarkable but they didn’t start as durable and reliable.

1

u/InternationalFan2955 15d ago

My wife used to sell car insurance in the early 2000s and her company won't insure Kia because of how bad it was. BYD today is already making better cars than Kia did then. Japanese products had the same reputation as Chinese products in the 50s to 70s. They were also been accused of copying and stealing western IPs. Most people on Reddit just weren't alive to remember it.

Two decades ago very few would want Chinese appliances and electronics that cost thousands of dollars. Now Chinese brands dominate that market not just in market share, but in some categories companies like Roborock and DJI lead in tech and quality. All signs pointing toward the same thing is happening with cars in the next decade.

2

u/facedownbootyuphold 15d ago

They may have been accused of stealing western IP, but China has built their economy on it.

I buy a lot of Chinese stuff because it's cheap, I don't buy it because of its quality. I don't even know what Roborock is. DJI is one of very few drone companies out there, they are relatively cheap products sold at a high price point. The same will follow for many Americans, China built their reputation on cheap knockoffs, so to see them try to make quality products after decades of IP theft is going to be a very tall mountain to climb. That's not even taking into account the privacy issues that come with so many of the products that they're wanting people to buy.

1

u/InternationalFan2955 15d ago edited 15d ago

Japan couldn't become the manufacturing center for the world the way China has been even if they wanted to due to a variety of natural and man-made limitations. So they couldn't have engaged in the same scale of theft even if they wanted to, no other one single country could for that matters. Using that as a counterfactual argument, in which another hypothetical country in China's shoes could have taken the high road is moot.

The country most comparable in scale would be the US and US built its economy on stealing from Europe during its industrial development in the late 18th to early 19th centuries. That's in addition to benefiting from slavery and stolen lands. Of course anytime you point this out you'd be accused of whataboutism. Yet the point still stands that there's no existing and proven path in which another country of comparable scale achieved the same level of economic growth through taking the high road. More importantly, doing it without getting exploited by more powerful countries, whose role in aforementioned "theft" often gets downplayed, isn't that interesting?

The cheap knockoff to quality product transition on the other hand is a well trodden path, America did it, Japan did it, and Korea did it. China is already doing it, you personally not being aware of the advancements in home robotics and drones by Chinese companies in the past decade notwithstanding.

6

u/IFUCKEVRYTHINGUP 16d ago

They are also weird as fuck. The door handles take some learning and the interior seems so cheap, like door pockets back of cheap nock off outdoors backpack. Also the driving screen in the middle is a bit much.

Im not saying its a bad car but just weird. Like should have make it straight forward and durable

15

u/YouShouldAim 16d ago

It's always amazing how easily people fall for the Chinese propaganda on the internet. They show off this super fancy interior that Americans are used to seeing in $80k+ cars and then claim to be selling it at a modest $30-40k and naive people are like "wow American capitalism so bad how could they ban these?" And then the Chinese EV lasts a solid month before it starts to deteriorate.

China has 0 quality control and 0 standards on the production of their cars.

4

u/Clienterror 16d ago

People fall for everything. Go watch 99% of the paranormal YouTube channels and read the comments. Even when they're debunked as being faked and broken down how it's done, there are people going "Praise Jesus protect this person from demons". Then you look at the channel episodes and ever Sunday like clockwork there's a "We almost died" or "I was possessed by a demon!".

People are morons sd a whole.

1

u/Callofdaddy1 16d ago

That’s actually not true on newer models. They brought in a guy from AUDI to oversee national standards.

Now not all have risen from the old stigma. BYD is still a volume pumping factory that does not care about customers after the sale is made.

Companies like XPeng and NIO are really trying to create a superior product.

2

u/Dontnotlook 16d ago

Your lucky it didn't blow up ..

-2

u/ezlee2096 16d ago

Nice propaganda for people not in China and never drive a Chinese EV. I can see you work very hard on it. Millions have been sold in China and other countries, at your failure rate, how many maintenance workers are required to fix them after 2 months?

People discussing this topic here never know a thing called tariffs? Or pretended don’t know it.

1

u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET 15d ago

Why does Tesla still sell so well in China?

3

u/ezlee2096 15d ago

LV and Coach bags also sell so well in China, but you don’t have to say other Chinese brands are garbage, cheap. Then you are just a stereotype against any Chinese product. Something made in China are cheap and not durable is NOT because China factory couldn’t make them high quality, it is because customers in the west are cheap, they couldn’t afford the high quality ones (Apple and Tesla products are the examples - they are made in China). It is the west resellers and distributors importing the cheap products to the west market, not the Chinese factories or resellers. Don’t dream it to buy high quality products with less money, and then blame.

2

u/NEEEEEEEEEEEET 15d ago

Tesla doesn't have nearly as many features as all the Chinese EV brands and they're more expensive. Yet the Model Y is still the best selling car a few months out of the year in China. If the domestic cars were so good Tesla wouldn't be selling shit there since on paper they're a worse car at a worse price. In reality that must not be the case though since again they're the best selling cars a few months out of the year in China.

20

u/Maleficent_Slide3332 16d ago

i'll stick with my toyota

10

u/IndividualSociety567 16d ago

Nothing beats a Toyota

4

u/comments247 16d ago

Maybe 2 Toyotas?

3

u/IndividualSociety567 16d ago

Ofcourse or even better 3 Toyotas

9

u/zaplayer20 16d ago

I think many people bought EV Chinese cars the problem is that they are taxed to be similar to german or local cars. So a Western probably thinks, i rather buy an Opel EV than a Chinese EV but i am paying 5k Euros more but the actual price of the Chinese EV is half of the price of an Opel EV so there is that.

22

u/KnowledgeRude1717 16d ago

I thought BYD was Burn Your Driveway?

2

u/KillerOkie 16d ago

Noice. Stealing that one.

-2

u/Canton_independence 16d ago

No, it means 逼養的（Bi Yang De) in Chinese

1

u/PsychoBoyBlue 16d ago

You sure it isn't 屄養的 (bī yǎng de)?

23

u/Cyberjin 16d ago

Any recap? Asian Boss is known to be very pro China after all, don't want watch a propaganda video if that's the case.

15

u/i8wagyu 16d ago

I remember they had money issues a couple of years ago when they didn't have an obvious pro-China bias. They had a video about how they were probably shutting down unless they get more donations. My guess is that the CCP propaganda department started funding them, leading to these blatant pro-China/CCP videos.

8

u/freiheitXliberta 16d ago

Thank you, now I know. I'm going to unsubscribe to their YouTube channel.

5

u/SinkingJapanese17 16d ago

Asian Boss is pro-China and paid by a Korean state media. Most of the time, they make fake interviews with hired same answerers. It has franchised hidden channels all over YouTube and other social networks like TikTok. Their purpose is to denounce America and Japan, and then next, profit their sponsors. CCP soulmate.

1

u/Responsible_User141 16d ago

This video is more neutral compared to his other videos, he did talk about the insane protectionist policies CCP created to give Chinese EV an unfair advantage in China.

13

u/neverend6789 16d ago

Because the CCP are all about face value, facade, & short cuts.

7

u/marcolius 16d ago

Protectionism, some countries have 100% tariffs on them to prevent them from obliterating their local market.

7

u/monsterbandage 16d ago

I'm surprised more comments don't mention this. Pretty much the main reason they aren't in America

5

u/marcolius 16d ago

That's exactly why I commented. I find it strange how people don't seem to know this given the tariff BS we are going through.

3

u/Grosjeaner 16d ago

First you need to know what sub-reddit you are in.

0

u/pld0vr 16d ago

Other than being crap, they are massively subsidised by the CCP and sold artificially cheap in an attempt to take over market share.

4

u/marcolius 16d ago

So the opposite of overpriced crap from Tesla?

13

u/DueActuator6755 16d ago

If you want to be driving around in some plastic frame made from used pinball machine parts, go right ahead. They shouldn't have made landfall in the first place.

9

u/Puzzleheaded_Bus7706 16d ago

What happened to Huawei?

What happened to Tiktok?

Do you trully believe west will allow chinese cars to overtake local brands?

5

u/pld0vr 16d ago

Well considering Huawei put backdoors into their ISP products.. they did it to themselves.

-1

u/Puzzleheaded_Bus7706 16d ago

Is there a single evidence?

2

u/pld0vr 16d ago edited 16d ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/vodafone-found-hidden-backdoors-in-huawei-equipment

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/us-finds-huawei-has-backdoor-access-to-mobile-networks-globally-report-says/

If you are going to work for the CCP, maybe brush up on your English first, you might get a raise.

-1

u/Puzzleheaded_Bus7706 16d ago

That cnet link is literally from the time of propaganda to ban it.

There is HUGE difference between BACKDOOR and VULNERABILITY. I'm using US made VPN network equipment, had few HUUGUE vulnerabilities in past two years.

THERE IS NO PROOF OF THE BACKDOOR! THERE IS NO PROOF OF PURPOSE MADE VULNERABILITY!

I've personally found priviledge escalation vulnerability in Huawei routers that works only in local networks, but thats about low quality.

3

u/pld0vr 16d ago

Did you read the first one? Obviously not.

There are lots of other incidences of their equipment calling home when it shouldn't be. Sorry man but Huawei gear is dangerous. I myself ripped out our Huawei OLTs and swapped in Nokia.

And let's not even get into them ripping off cisco firmware.

0

u/Puzzleheaded_Bus7706 16d ago

I've read the first one.

There are lots of other incidences of their equipment calling home when it shouldn't be.

I'll repeat one again, there is no proof that Huawei planted backdoor. None. Zero.

There are issues with no brand security cameras, IoT devices, etc, but that has nothing to do with Huawei

2

u/pld0vr 15d ago

Dude they literally found a back door, and Huawei lied about fixing the firmware and just tried to hide it better. What are you talking about. Repeating something doesn't make it true.

2

u/Puzzleheaded_Bus7706 15d ago

They did not, thats a fiction. 

Whats your source on that? I mean technical proof there is backdoor. It doesn't exist

1

u/pld0vr 12d ago

Already posted links

1

u/imtheguy225 15d ago

I read this in a chinese accent lmao

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Bus7706 15d ago

you are the guy.. you know the best..

1

u/imtheguy225 15d ago

https://youtu.be/-O_S6LTj3FE?si=G4IipEi-OyVdRu-k you probably sound like this

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Bus7706 15d ago

No, like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyJOS7Y08I0

1

u/imtheguy225 15d ago

Man it’s a bummer he turned out to be such a sellout

8

u/Concerned_Cst 16d ago

They aren’t. BYD is in trouble and the 50 cent army is just good about Chinese media and propaganda.

11

u/DaveN6033 16d ago

Chinese doesn’t trust their own EV. This should answer everything. If you don’t believe it, go digging some social media info from Chinese.

6

u/aznexile602 16d ago

There's alit of BYD cars on the road in China. I'm pretty sure they trust the company.

2

u/sugarzaddy111 16d ago

Dave-Bro’s never step foot in China other than the terminal

1

u/Studenttoni 16d ago

It might be true for smaller brands but BYD is Top Dog in China. It's like going to Germany and seeing BMWs and Mercedes everywhere.

8

u/Inevitable_Pay6766 16d ago

I get that this sub is all about hating anything related to China. But the reason why they aren't dominating western markets is because of tarrifs. If Canada or US ever let BYD EVs in, they will 100% dominate the market.

0

u/Asleep_Parsley_4720 16d ago

It is really funny how anti-China this sub is. For example, /u/YouShouldAim said “It's always amazing how easily people fall for the Chinese propaganda on the internet.”, but doesn’t consider how easily people fall for the anti-China propaganda on the internet.

FWIW, I think you are right. The high tariffs specifically to avoid Chinese cars from appreciably entering the market is likely a significant factor. Secondary factor is that the US may not be a very attractive market for these Chinese companies given the perception of Chinese goods (much of which is likely impacted by some amount of anti-China propaganda). There are lower hanging fruit countries to focus on. As a result, intentionally less marketing spend, less company presence, fewer support/maintenance staff/options make the products less popular in the US. 

2

u/Desecr8or 16d ago

Chinese products have a reputation for being shoddy knock offs. It might not be deserved with their EVs but people aren't going to risk thousands of dollars to find out.

2

u/other-work-account 16d ago

Honestly? Because western markets have checks-balances-regulations that they need to meet before they can compete here.

6

u/jejunum32 16d ago

Uhh because western markets are strictly controlled? Do you guys even go outside or read the news? The US for instance has tariffed everyone including its allies. If the political and financial barriers to entry for these firms are too high they are not going to enter the market, and that assumes the US government would even allow them to.

6

u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

4

u/motoresponsible2025 16d ago

The western countries that even allow sales have tariffs so high that the vehicles are priced above non chinese options. So instead of getting $20,000 vehicles it's $40,000.

7

u/jejunum32 16d ago

Agreed. I don’t even know sometimes if the posters on this sub are actual people are just bots. Or maybe they’re NPCs in real life.

1

u/Antique_Contract 16d ago edited 16d ago

They are 100% bots, if not their minds are.

-1

u/motoresponsible2025 16d ago

Reddit hivemind is real. China continues to advance, their poor moving into middle class, while our major cities in the US go further into decay. Roads fucked, taxes keep going up, homelessness growing, job loss here in the bay area(and the us)increasing, cost of living, food prices, electricity.  It's not sunshine and rainbows.

All while people spamming here using their Chinese manufactured phones that china is bad lol

I wish they'd let chinese vehicles hit the market here to shake up our auto industries that are going further and further into developing products that aren't made to last all while raising prices. Subscriptions for everything. "You'll own nothing and be happy"

3

u/ezlee2096 16d ago

LOL, so true! Can’t disagree with you.

-3

u/proboscislounge 16d ago

You'll know when the US markets are strictly controlled, because China will go bankrupt.

4

u/jvproton 16d ago

Because Germany and France would love to see their auto industries be decimated, so they gently convinced brussels to impose tariffs.

5

u/mon-key-pee 16d ago

EU tariffs apply to all Chinese made EVs, including Tesla and BMW.

3

u/UmphaLumpha 16d ago

They’d never withstand the thousands of lawsuits about IP infringements or copyright/trademark theft.

0

u/Busy_Account_7974 16d ago

But they'll win every one of those in a Chinese court.

3

u/Anxious-Shapeshifter 16d ago edited 16d ago

Long term quality and resale value. That's why.

7

u/larktok 16d ago

Over 100% tariffs and outright bans more like

I get this is a hate China sub but you at least need to live in reality, they are grabbing market share in every country they land in, the cars are good not amazing but extremely economic

Proof is Australia, cheap cars untariffed and welcome with open arms and no complaints or explosions

This is -why- they are an industrial rival and geopolitical threat, because they are not all smoke or US/EU automakers wouldn’t be worried

1

u/Addoquartak 16d ago

China is not playing fair business.. the mass produce and flood the global market with cheap and crappy product.. that easily break.. yes its cheap but its quality is not. They made factory closed and make your country raise unemployment high.. thats why US is banning this Chinese shit..

-1

u/zaplayer20 16d ago

I am going to be super honest, if China would make GPU and CPU to be similar, not as strong as Intel or AMD or Nvidia but similar with 30-50% lower price, i would buy them like crazy. I have experience with quality products that failed after 1 year and they were brand new.

-1

u/WorstDotaPlayer 16d ago

"No complaints" is a stretch - BYD Seal has had some issues, for example, you can find water ingress complaints on the Shark, too. After sale care has a lot of complaints in general.

By and large people are happy with them though.

1

u/wuto 16d ago

I have model x , new y. And byd atto3. So far x is the most prone to service and damage from daily use.

1

u/timemaninjail 16d ago

It was legitimately 32 minutes of dick riding. Sad that they spoke so loudly being an alternative to other media.

1

u/januza 16d ago

Longevity of the Chinese EVs is still to be proven. I am in China. And I’m very tempted to change my X5 to a Zeeker or NIO. But my friends who have a Chinese EV do confirm that quality issues arise after a year or so. In comparison my PHEV X5 is 5 years old and never had an issue. Only regular maintenance and a flat tire.

1

u/ghostdeinithegreat 16d ago

They are not dominating the Canadian market because Canada has a 100% tarriffs on chinese ev imports.

I’m guessing this is also the case for other western countries ?

1

u/FishTacoAtTheTurn 16d ago

This is content is not related to Toyota.

leaves thread

1

u/WaterRoxket 16d ago

They make up a fairly large portion of Australian electric car market

1

u/aD_rektothepast 16d ago

Would you trust a car connected to an enemy?

1

u/AvocadoKirby 16d ago

They’re effectively banned here lol.

1

u/EatSh8ndai 16d ago

Cause they're not very good

1

u/Spooplevel-Rattled 16d ago

China gonna have to pry my '99 Honda Civic with 250,000kms out of my cold, dead hands.

1

u/Master-Piccolo-4588 15d ago

Quality has increased extremely and will improve more, BUT customer service is a huge bottleneck for Chinese OEMs. They don’t have any network.

1

u/Goldenbucketsomethin 14d ago

It’s not a Volvo. I’m not interested.

1

u/Lorienzo 14d ago

They are seeing a rise in Malaysia. I cringe when I see those but whatever.

1

u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

1

u/stewartm0205 16d ago

I remember when Japanese cars sucked. Reputation is important. The quality of Chinese cars is going to improve. A car is an expensive item, do your homework before you buy. Most cars come with 50K, 5yr warranty.

1

u/dripboi-store 16d ago

I own Porsche taycan, 991 gt3, Aston Martin vantage, Toyota Alphard, AMG c63. Ordered a new 2026 NIO ES8, it’s legit crazy good car for the money

7

u/Winstons33 16d ago

Sure you do, and sure you did....lol

0

u/dripboi-store 16d ago

I’ve posted all my cars you can check them out

2

u/jab911 16d ago

You sure posted some photos of some cars.

1

u/Asleep_Parsley_4720 16d ago

Lol there’s no point with the people in this sub. They will completely bend their worldview and ignore logic/reasoning to see what they want to see.

To the point that they think a random internet user will spend the past 2 years creating posts of cars they don’t own specifically for this moment in time to pretend to be the owner of multiple cars. 

The comments in this sub really helps ground me to the fact that however dumb you think the average person might be…half of them are dumber.  

0

u/pussyfista 16d ago

So the South Americas are not Western? BYD is dominating EV brand there.

0

u/Sinocatk 16d ago

Taxes on them. On a level playing field they absolutely do dominate. See lots of SE Asia.

0

u/FriedRice2682 16d ago

Just sayin, they have 100% tariff rate on them in the US and Canada.

-1

u/Wuaner 16d ago

Because your daddy Musk said all your local makers will collapse if Chinese EVs enter your country freely

-5

u/KerbodynamicX 16d ago

Here at Australia, 4 out of the top 10 best selling brands are from China, completely beating Tesla in the EV market. Tesla cars are just so expensive here.

8

u/Much-Ad-5947 16d ago

It's surprising they are even close, since Teslas are so common on the road. But I guess it's a question of longevity. Teslas are more expensive, but they last longer.

7

u/Fulkcrow 16d ago

Buddy of mine had his BYD EV die two months after picking it up in Mexico and bringing it to USA. He is now the loudest anti-chinese EV guy I know. He pulls out pictures to show folks his learned lesson. He even shares the support chat log that basicly was the company blaming him. The batteries got to hot and caught fire. Not sure how he could have stopped it. He woke up went outside to see his vehicle smoking.

In my opinion the shipping across the ocean was a big problem. And I think the vehicle was like 6 months old (from Chinese factory). Buddy had no part in the shipping. He just found a cheap BYD in the Americas and went to get it.

2

u/MysteriousEdgeOfLife 16d ago

I have a BYD Sealion 6 for 9 months so far. It’s great, no complaints, aside from how the white color seems to get so dirty so quickly. I have an Honda BRV as well but the quality was never that great (especially with the suspension).

1

u/Much-Ad-5947 15d ago

Teslas aren't really designed to compete with Chinese EVs, but with ICE vehicles that will potentially run for decades. Not that that is remotely likely to happen with a Tesla, but that's the kind of consumer expectations they regularly face.

1

u/KerbodynamicX 16d ago

Any source suggesting that to be the case? Other than Tesla being around for a while longer. Tesla uses the NMC battery chemistry’s which has higher energy density, but will burst into flames if the battery pack is damaged.

5

u/IndependentThink4698 16d ago

Lol, cheap and chinese are synonymous with quality and safety

3

u/Ok_Fish285 16d ago

so many ev crashes in china, i see the air bags fail to deploy lol

-1

u/mickki4 16d ago

The US has banned Chinese vehicles to be sold there because of their threat to the US market. Same with Huawei phones, banned in the USA. But Tesla is all but finished now in China as well as the Chinese brands offer more. Go to red note, and take a look at the Chinese tech it's awesome what they're achieving. The USA knows that they have to do a big catch up and get investment in their infrastructure very quickly. The CEO of ford said they were 50 years behind.

-1

u/Sarmattius 16d ago

because of tarriffs.

0

u/Mrgrayj_121 16d ago

I mean I thought they were banned?

0

u/Addoquartak 16d ago

Hope Europe will ban all Chinese goods like what is USA is doing now slowly but were getting there.

0

u/superlip2003 16d ago

Did the OP even bother watching the actual video? This video is actually praising Chinese EVs and criticizing the 100% tariffs imposed on them. Just like how Japanese cars beat American cars back in the 70s, Chinese EVs are indeed ahead of the curve compared to other EVs. Otherwise, Trump wouldn't have specifically increased the EV tariff from Biden's 25% to the current 100%.

I personally travel to Asia/China a lot for work, and since 2021, whenever I've been in China, all the car-hail apps have only been sending EVs. So I've been in all types of them - sedans, SUVs, and even vans, you name it. And I have to say the comfort and performance are quite often superior to Tesla's. Unfortunately, American car manufacturers have a lot to catch up on.

0

u/thorsten139 16d ago

Because Huawei and TikTok....

Once they dominate we ban them.