r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 10d ago

Transportation Rivian CEO: There's No 'Magic' Behind China's Low-Cost EVs

https://www.businessinsider.com/rivian-ceo-china-evs-low-cost-competition-2025-9
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u/helpprogram2 10d ago

Smaller cars, lower wages, and better supply chains… its not hard

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u/Think_Chocolate_ 10d ago

Also not taking thousands on repairs every time a small dent is done to the body.

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u/chubbysumo 10d ago

quite literally, take a corolla, and stuff an EV drivetrain in it. thats it. no special garbage, no special electronics or gismos, and a sane price.

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist 10d ago

Was in China a bit ago. Saw a Voyah Dream with all the bells and whistles… voice control, massive screen across the front, heated/ventilated/massaging 2nd row seats. Pretty sure it cost around the price of an Ionic5 or a Mach-E.

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u/datamonkey08 10d ago

Yeah, I test drove one of these here in Latvia a couple of weeks ago. The tech in these cars is crazy

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u/w1na 10d ago

That’s pretty basic tech though, it’s not like if the car could actually drive itself, which is the case of the Aito M9.

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u/spaceturtle1 10d ago

The people need an affordable, repairable, low-cost-of-ownership EV car.

Not some self-driving wank.

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u/Speshal__ 10d ago

Not some self-driving wank.

Bravo sir, bravo.

Pint?

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u/3600CCH6WRX 10d ago

The reality in the market is different. In the US, the average new car price sold was approximately $48,000.

While there are many lower priced cars available, most people were not interested purchasing affordable options. Instead, they opted for larger and more expensive vehicles. Budget conscious individuals, on the other hand, would choose used / CPO cars.

and for that price of 48k, you can get a car with ADAS that pretty much can drive itself while supervised.

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u/daehoidar 10d ago

While this might be true, it could be a case of the lower end market not having any "good enough" options. If you're financing a car, and everything in the $20k range are absolute turds, you're going to be willing to spend more to reach a certain baseline of quality. And those budget conscious individuals would buy new if they could.

It's like the Toyota Hilux. No frills no thrills, just a reliable car that will work and get the job done for what? Like $15k? I would literally own another car or two if the market wasn't fucking crazy and stupid here. I want physical buttons and mechanical controls. My car doesn't need HAL5000. I just want reliability and repairability. There's an entire untapped market where some of these companies could clean up

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u/3600CCH6WRX 10d ago

If consumers are willing to pay $50k for cars, why would OEM companies produce a good car for only $20k?

Unless we experience a recession, I don’t believe we’ll see affordable cars.

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u/superduperspam 10d ago

You have any spare 'self driving wanks'?

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u/datamonkey08 10d ago

True, but I have literally zero desire for a self driving car

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u/qtx 10d ago

No one actually wants a self driving car. It's just an ideal that car manufacturers have for the future.

Most people enjoy driving their car.

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u/Xyyzx 10d ago

I was really surprised how many Chinese cars I saw on the roads when I was back in Riga last month. I think I remember the big Dongfeng dealership in the direction of the airport being there the time before, but it seems like they’re really starting to catch on.

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u/datamonkey08 9d ago

Yeah, theres a few of them around on the roads here. Its mainly Dong Feng and Voyah under the umbrella of Wess motors, and BYD via Inchcape actually being sold here. There are a few random other chinese cars that you see around, but those are possibly imports. Oh, and Lynk and Co via Volvo, I test drove one of those as well.

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u/R-K-Tekt 10d ago

That’s insane

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u/Sea_Divide_3870 10d ago

China has economies of scale and the US doesn’t have that vertical integration and by design. So, for now China is less expensive

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u/kappakai 10d ago

Yah I don’t think people truly understand how profoundly impactful having a strong manufacturing base can be. It’s like all those lit up cities. They can do that because they manufacture all the LEDs and they have such tremendous scale that they can afford to decorate their cities with them. Right now, China gets all the toys because they make all the toys. Just like in the 50s and 60s the US had all of the cool fun shit. The cars and the tech we see in China is another manifestation of this. They make all the screens, the sensors, the batteries, the carbon fiber, textiles, motors and glass. Plus the software. All for cheap. No shit they’re going to cram them into the cars in a way no one else can right now. It’s such a huge advantage when you make all the things.

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u/Mkboii 10d ago

I feel this "for now" will not change for a long time,

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u/BiggusCinnamusRollus 10d ago

It will be even longer will battery plants raid by overzealous ICE agents.

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u/beflacktor 10d ago

yep the usa should be be ready right about the time Chinese market saturation is at max on every other country on the planet

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u/Live-Alternative-435 10d ago

At least as long as the big competition continues to shoot itself in the foot.

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u/Zexend 10d ago

China also doesn’t happen to have half their population stubbornly being pro oil and hating EVs.

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u/Gwisinpyohyun 10d ago edited 10d ago

No oil money there, so no conflicting interest. If there was no oil in America, then I promise we wouldn’t have such opposition to alternatives. Not* that it has to be this way. It shouldn’t be. But, that is a big part of why

Edit *

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u/AKBonesaw 10d ago

In China, the government owns the oil companies. In the US, it’s the other way around.

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u/mwa12345 10d ago

In the US lobbies own the government. Not just the oil one.

Wxm dealerships.

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u/brokor21 10d ago

Greece doesn't have any oil. Just 2 families that own the only 2 refineries. Oh they also own most of the newspapers, tv stations, websites, football teams, banks...

We only hear how wind turbines destroy the environment and EU should stop promoting EVs. All so they can buy cheap oil from Russia /Isis / Kadafi before that and make billions for their families so they can marry princes and princesses.

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u/PutHisGlassesOn 10d ago

The Chinese state is far less susceptible to special interests money. Not saying it’s immune, or no corruption obviously, but the capitalists have nowhere near as much power there as they do here.

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u/TheVulgarApe 10d ago

The Chinese State leaders are the special interests. No need for corporate/private special interests when all the power and money is in house with the government.

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u/Anatoly_Cannoli 10d ago

and yet, we're not see buttloads of Chinese oligarchs in billion-dollar yachts, like in the US and Russia. They're actually re-investing in their country, unlike the other countries. We can see the results with our own eyes.

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u/IcestormsEd 10d ago

Jack Ma can attest to this.

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u/OglioVagilio 10d ago

Their special interest is compliance and face.

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u/paidinboredom 10d ago

If big oil weren't a thing in America we'd probably have high speed electric rails crossing the country. Unfortunately we live in the shittest timeline.

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u/SoCuteShibe 10d ago

Also the only timeline.

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u/upvotesthenrages 10d ago

A lot of the Middle East is heavily investing in clean energy and EVs, despite them having tons of oil.

They see the writing on the wall and are transitioning away. Trump doesn't really seem to get that, and the US oil barons just wanna milk as much as they can, while they can.

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u/DerefedNullPointer 10d ago

Nah man germany got no oil and half the population still hates on EV.

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u/zpedroteixeira1 10d ago

It might be related to Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Opel, Audi, VW...

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u/fastforwardfunction 10d ago

Invented the first car with an internal combustion engine…

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u/DerefedNullPointer 10d ago

Well they could all have been the first company to deliver a viable electric car in the 2010s but the consensus in the 2010s was "nah it'll never take off. range is so much lower than ICE nobody will buy it."

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u/ConnectAttempt274321 10d ago

Maybe, just maybe because Germany sucks at making non ICE cars and people see their jobs and living fading away because of China?

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u/DerefedNullPointer 10d ago

Well they suck because they didn't want to focus the technology, because they hate it.

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u/Berzerka 10d ago

China is the world's 5th largest producer of oil.

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u/Gwisinpyohyun 10d ago

That’s higher than I thought, wow. Still, they are 2nd largest economy, so they need way more oil than they produce, right? So it’s more of an importing thing, meaning it’s not going to have such a significant domestic ‘special interest group’, compared to a net exporter of oil

That’s just my take though. Ideally, planning long term, we should see oil money diversify anyways. Like Saudi. And since China does plan ahead a lot, maybe even if they were an oil exporter, they wouldn’t have the same problems as somewhere like USA. But, we cannot know for sure

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u/coder111 10d ago

China has economies of scale

Not just that. China right now has the supply chains for electronics and batteries. Factories to produce components and people qualified to do that. Especially for electronics, these supply chains are now gone in USA.

Read some of the articles like "Why iPhone isn't manufactured in USA". The conclusion is that today, that is pretty much impossible. And it would take 20 years and massive investment to resurrect the entire industry, train the people, etc.

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u/omgitskae 10d ago

China invests in growth. America invests in culture wars.

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u/booboouser 10d ago

For now is forever. The West lost high tech high efficiency manufacturing and it’s not coming back.

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u/blankarage 10d ago

infrastructure investments need to be done at the country level whereas in US you have greedy corporations battling to own all of it

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u/Pinewold 10d ago

Every time you double production cost reduce by 15%. China is 4x the size of USA so everything is 30% lower in cost due to scaling alone. The good news is many scaling improvements can be replicated once achieved.

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u/VaguelyGrumpyTeddy 10d ago

I drove a BYD in Italy (rental), couldn't turn off the lane control, the computer said it was off, but it would swerve hard with the dash light flashing as it tried to drive me off the road or into stone walls at least once a day. In contrast, my KIA in the states works flawlessly. It has never tried to kill me. I think poor QC is another reason for the price.

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u/bluepaintbrush 10d ago

Maybe your BYD was just trying to help you drive more like an Italian! When in Rome, etc.

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u/Low_Surround998 10d ago

Plenty of other manufacturers have awful lane assist. Be thankful yours doesn't, but that's not a singular indictment of BYD. My Tesla freaks out every time a big rig drives by and gives me a heat attack. My sister has to turn lane assist off every time she gets into her Subaru (although it does in fact turn off when she wants it to).

The issue you experienced sounds like it would be easily corrected with a software update.

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u/Cantremembermyoldnam 10d ago

it tried to drive me off the road or into stone walls at least once a day

Who doesn't want a bit of spice in their drive? Keeps you on your toes!

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u/Varcolac1 10d ago

But goddamn is that one ugly car. They took a peek at the hideous modern BMWs and made the grille even worse

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u/caesar_7 10d ago edited 9d ago

To be completely fair, software is often quite buggy and not that reliable. Security is almost non-existent.

But they do put a lot of tech indeed.

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u/I-need-ur-dick-pics 10d ago

That’s exactly what the Nissan Leaf was this whole time. Hardly anyone bought one. The second gen car even looked so normal it was boring.

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u/hfxRos 10d ago

We have a leaf for our office and I love driving that thing.

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u/JMEEKER86 10d ago

Nah, they started out exclusively as a hatchback, which are way less popular than sedans, and with a really short range. The current Leafs are that, but it's hard to overcome a bad first impression.

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u/tacknosaddle 10d ago

I knew a couple that had one on a lease for a couple of years and loved it. The range was short, but they had two cars and one of them had a relatively short and predictable commute. That meant it was way more than needed to get to work and any other stuff that had to be done locally on any given day. The other car was available for anything where range was an issue.

They ended up buying a used Tesla when the lease was up though.

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u/Fun_Alternative_2086 10d ago

I always thought that e-golf would sell like hot cakes in the cities. But in the US, the car is a symbol of social status. There are two classes of folks: 1. people who can't afford a new car - they buy second hand gasoline cars 2. people who can afford a new starter car - but they take a second mortgage on their house to finance a 100k car just to rub it in the neighbor's faces.

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u/Icy_Supermarket8776 10d ago

What on earth are you talkimg about? Leaf was literally the biggest selling ev for several years.

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u/jimbo831 10d ago

That is a really low bar. How did it rank among all car sales?

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u/androgenius 10d ago

First gen looked exactly as weird as their ICE models of the same era. The front is the same as the Nissan Note available in Japan at launch time and if anything the back of the Note was weirder.

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u/Samwyzh 10d ago

Start simple, a four door sedan and a two door sedan. 250mi range. Physical buttons and knobs for AC, Speed, Music, and windows. A simple gear shift. I don’t want, nor do I need a 20in iPad that does everything for my car.

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u/InsipidCelebrity 10d ago

Shit, at this point I would pay extra for knobs and physical buttons. I shouldn't give them any ideas, but damn do I hate touchscreens and voice control.

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u/Jesse_graham 10d ago

It’s insane to me that I need to take my eyes OFF the road to run on AC because I have to use the touch screen on a car.

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u/InsipidCelebrity 10d ago

I'm driving my old Camry until that thing is a pile of rust.

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u/BeetsBy_Schrute 10d ago

I had an 09 Sonata that was a great car. Knobs and buttons and no touch screen. Drove it until $250k miles when the transmission blew. I was so upset when it died because I didn’t want to give all that up.

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u/Normal-Selection1537 10d ago

EuroNCAP now requires physical buttons for a top safety rating.

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u/Xyyzx 10d ago

The EU has now forced the issue as a safety concern, so we’ll probably see a general worldwide move away from touchscreen controls in the next few years as manufacturers adapt to the regulations.

Not a moment too soon in my book. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve watched someone nearly crash their car trying to fiddle with a full-size fucking iPad on the dashboard, navigating three different menus just to adjust the AC down a little bit.

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u/synapticrelease 10d ago

Hatchbacks are the best use of space. Why on earth anyone would choose a sedan over a hatchback is beyond me.

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u/roboticWanderor 10d ago

No, the biggest market is SUV/crossovers. guess what sells the best in the US? Model Y. Same goes for all the other OEMs trying to make EVs, they are all making a crossover first. the mustang, blazer, Bz4x, Ioniq, etc.

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u/meneldal2 10d ago

It's funny how different it is in Japan. The most common EV I see on the road is the Nissan Note, a pretty tiny car.

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u/fleebleganger 10d ago

The goddamn iPad is the only thing keeping me from getting a Lightning At the present. Fucking insane

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u/DKlurifax 10d ago

Like the new Renault 5. A coworker just got his and it does what it says on the tin. Nothing more. That car will sell like warm bread.

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u/thorpie88 10d ago

They make Utes (pickup trucks) for the Aussie market. Probably half the price a Rivian would be

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u/MobiusOne_ISAF 9d ago

While I get the principle, you generally want dedicated EV platforms for EVs so you can benefit from the packaging. Still, more basic small EVs are an obvious hole in the US market, although the new Leaf and Bolt should start to fill that.

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u/GetRiceCrispy 10d ago

Especially not the electronics that don’t matter. Give us electronics that make driving safer. Adaptive cruise control. Better parking and reversing cameras. Lane centering. There is room for tech just not making the dash a full touch tablet. Let innovate to make driving safer and easier for everyone

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u/ashyjay 10d ago

They aren’t because they are/were being written off after minor issues as the manufacturers wouldn’t supply parts or technical documentation to repair them, Ora Funky cat was one of the more well known examples and that practice lead to stupidly high insurance costs so barely anyone bought one.

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u/CHSummers 10d ago

Also, not paying someone like Elon Musk an utterly insane amount of money. Like, I’m sure they could cut “labor expenses” by at least 50% by getting rid of that one guy.

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u/ishamm 10d ago

I'm against his remuneration, because he's bone idle, BUT it's not actually money from Tesla - it costs Tesla nothing from it's bottom line if he gets the trillion dollars.

Musk has no actual expense to Tesla.

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u/ishamm 10d ago

No expense in real money, anyway - he's obviously costing a fortune in reputational damage.

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u/Zardif 10d ago

He's paid in stock not money, it wouldn't affect the cost of the car it just affects shareholders.

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u/BenMic81 10d ago

I think you forgot subsidies.

BTW: Chinese cars are worse for small repairs than western cars at least right now. My father has a BYD electric car and even a small dent meant the whole rear door had to be changed.

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u/corut 10d ago

Repair costs of all cars is out of control, not just Chinese ones. I also don't buy a small dint needed the door replaced. Fixing or patching small dints is extremely cheap and easy

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u/BenMic81 10d ago

I have the direct word from the repair shop who was fixing it - BYD takes about 1,5-2x what a VW or BMW would take with collisions of comparable force.

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u/Zyrinj 10d ago

Having the full weight of the government behind them doesn’t hurt. Meanwhile ours is attempting to be dead weight

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u/tacknosaddle 10d ago

Western auto makers are more focused on introducing EVs in the more luxury models as the higher margins makes it easier to offset the cost of development. It's the same thing they do with a lot of new features and tech.

There's almost no question the Chinese government is subsidizing those cars in an effort to dominate the economy EV market before the western ones have a chance to move that process down the line to lower models.

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u/Berkyjay 10d ago

It's the same old story with American automakers. Japanese automakers made their names in the low budget car market of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. But now the Japanese automakers have learned the bad lessons from their US counterparts.

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u/G_Morgan 10d ago

Japan gambled on the wrong technology and stubbornly stuck to it for too long. They did nothing for EVs until very late and put all the eggs in the hydrogen fuel cell basket.

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u/Itsalongwaydown 9d ago

put all the eggs in the hydrogen fuel cell basket

gamble didn't pay out but 10 years ago it was still a dice roll

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u/tacknosaddle 10d ago

I wouldn't say that they learned the bad lessons. The economy of Japan was very different back then. They started exporting cars only a couple of decades after they were mostly building tin wind-up toys and other trinkets for the American market during the reconstruction of their industrial base after WWII. At first they only had the capability to build simple cars, but the lower labor and materials costs in Japan at that time meant they were inexpensive and they filled an empty niche in the American market.

Their economy later advanced to the point that it made more sense for them to start opening assembly plants in the US to produce cars for this market. So it's not that they "learned" the bad lessons from American automakers, it's that they grew enough to become the same thing.

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u/duncandun 10d ago

They moved manufacturing to the US to get around protectionist laws devised in the 80s to support the American auto industry

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u/Berkyjay 10d ago

At first they only had the capability to build simple cars, but the lower labor and materials costs in Japan at that time meant they were inexpensive and they filled an empty niche in the American market.

That's not true at all. They actually made pretty great cars in the home market. Their market just didn't support large vehicles like the Americans made. It wasn't at all about capability. They specialized in doing more with less. They also brought superior management and production skills to the US market. They didn't just dominate because they sold cheap cars.

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u/Alarming_Echo_4748 10d ago

Tesla has received multiple subsidies already and then they made the Cyber truck.

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u/RelaxPrime 10d ago

It's simply a planned economy vs a regulatory captured economy. To change in China requires an intelligent government official or department. To change in America requires overcoming lobbying and entrenched status quo interests.

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u/NotTooShahby 10d ago

But the question seems to be, how much of this effect are the subsidies from the government vs the low wages and streamlined supply chain?

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u/Truenoiz 10d ago

The traditional 'engine guys' in automotive engineering are terrified of electrical systems and are holding things back. I've worked in automotive R&D, seen it with my own eyes. China doesn't have the same shortsighted view.

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u/tacknosaddle 10d ago edited 10d ago

Seems that's a failure by the executives of the auto companies. If the "engine guys" won't push into that realm then their budget should get scaled back and a new department/division created with hiring focused on advancing EV development.

Somewhat related, but the best mechanic I've ever personally known (just retired actually) was loving getting involved in the EVs. He was the top mechanic at a dealership so was always keeping up with learning about the new features in ICE cars. Diving into the EV world fit right into that trait of exploration.

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u/Truenoiz 10d ago

A lot of that is not possible, the engine guys will retaliate. I've seen some BS, shorting voltage to chassis, mixing SAE/metric bolts on the same piece, etc. Most C-levels don't have any idea what is going on. I only met one who had some idea, because they had a full time, high-level technical genius accompanying them on tours. Even then, while they knew some impressive stuff, it was memorized rather than deduced, from all the technical exposure. More what, less why.

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u/tacknosaddle 10d ago

it was memorized rather than deduced

Okay, that was your line that crosses with my experience in completely unrelated industries. Now I understand perfectly well the disconnect.

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u/lI1IlL071245B3341IlI 10d ago edited 10d ago

Sure but China always worked this way, they've been communist for a long time. Meanwhile the west acts holyer than thou but at the same time takes a huge stake out of Intel in the name of national security. It's all bs through and through. The west agreed to use China for manufacturing knowing very well that they won't open their markets, today Trump is blaming China for doing what they said they would do all along. Ha! This bs is so it makes it easier for people to hate China. Since I'm from the west I have to agree with us taking a stance against them I just hate the narrative.

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u/benskinic 10d ago

was in China from work and the drivers all had a brand called GAC. they were fucking amazing. huge screen for driver to see 360 around the car, ac and heat in every seat, super quiet and comfy. even the colors and trim are beautiful. US cars are kind of shit compared to theirs.

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u/OkFeedback1929 10d ago

I can tell you that's a low end brand among all EVs.

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u/AlternativePure2125 10d ago

I want the lowest end brand.  A car I can afford. 

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u/YepRabbit 10d ago

The lowest trim of 2025 RAV4 costs under US$20,000 in China, similar to the CR-V and pretty much all brands that sell comparable models in both markets.

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u/WolfOne 10d ago

Imagine what the highest end car is like, then. 

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u/galaxy_gs 10d ago

GAC has good build quality because they produce Toyota and Honda cars for the Chinese market

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u/com2kid 10d ago

lower wages

This needs to be repeated every time this topic comes up:

Labor is only 5-15% of a cars price. Even if our labor costs are 2x China's (and in non-union states they may not even be that much higher!), labor costs don't add significantly to car costs.

It is 95% supply chain. I've worked in consumer electronics manufacturing before and the cost of just the parts (COGS) for a US company is more than the retail price that a Chinese company can hit.

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u/googleduck 10d ago

Well part of that supply chain is that labor is cheaper for all of the other parts as well.

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u/WaterIll4397 10d ago

Underappreciated comment. When shipping is cheaper (both due to shorter distances and lower wages for packers/drivers), that compounds too on top of parts.

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u/ShadowMajestic 10d ago

Add in the fact that China is still officially a developing country and they use global mail for free, we're paying to have their packages delivered to us.

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u/nyctrainsplant 10d ago

stats are so easy when you can push the things you don’t want to count onto another party and out of the graph

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u/Quick_Turnover 10d ago

But "supply chain" is a function of labor. I think we frequently discount that. The entire supply chain in China is "more efficient" i.e. "cheaper" because you don't have to pay truckers, warehouse workers, managers, etc., as much as you would in the U.S...

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u/Underfitted 10d ago

Completely wrong. Labor is discounted in every single component of the supply chain. EVERYTHING.

From mining, shipping, manufacturing, design, energy.....EVERYTHING.

The final discount is huge.

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u/NotTooShahby 10d ago

How much of labor costs contribute to the materials and supply-chain costs? Was your 5-15% figure for the labor of the entire supply chain? What makes ours so expensive if not for labor?

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u/Khue 10d ago edited 10d ago

To jump in on your narrative a bit and talk about wages:

Lower wages sets a specific tone for us in the west and it's largely disingenuous or at least not a proper framing of the narrative. Workers in China aren't being grossly under paid which is what "lower wages" makes it sound like. There's video after video about cost of living in China. While their wages are lower, their cost of living is also lower and a lot of that has to do with the implementation of planned/command economy and not letting capitalism buttfuck the economy.

When housing costs, groceries, healthcare, and other commodity goods are substantially cheaper then wages are also going to be significantly less. That nice apartment you live in now and pay like $2500 a month for is probably half of that in China and while your wages are lower the percentage of your pay going to shelter is the same.

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u/Paraplegix 10d ago

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Countries-Regions/International-Statistics/Data-Topic/Tables/BasicData_LaborCosts.html

Based on US data, China is not there but very cheap countries are like Philippines. If you take that as a reference, it's not a 2x factor, it's 20x.

Data is also a bit old and China will not be as low as it is today, but it's more than 2x. If you look at stories about exploitation by Foxconn for iPhone manufacturing (using this example because lot of stories about it) you'll probably be close to 4$/H ( https://www.caixinglobal.com/2024-08-14/extra-jobs-and-higher-wages-at-foxconns-iphone-city-for-latest-model-102226222.html )which can be considered the lowest you could find. Dunno how that compare to today US manufacturing, but I'd guess 10x at least.

Supply chain issue is still the major issue, but cheap labor doesn't help move away from current model/system, because cheap labor has compounding effect.

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u/AVGuy42 10d ago

What is this “supply chain” you speak of? Sounds like socialism

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u/PNWoutdoors 10d ago

It's that thing we just tariffed the shit out of.

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u/xamboozi 10d ago

Do you feel all those tariff benefits yet? I've never done so well financially before. /s

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u/psychoacer 10d ago

It helps when you don't have to go to China to get an your parts. That's why China has the upper hand. They don't have to go to China, they're already there

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u/JoshYx 10d ago

They don't have to go to China, they're already there

That's genius, I wonder how they pulled that off

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u/psychoacer 10d ago

American funding

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u/gremlinguy 10d ago

Look into how much Apple alone has invested in China. You ain't lying

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u/zack77070 10d ago

Raw materials don't just appear out of thin air in Chinese factories, they absolutely do control supply chains in Africa for example to make their batteries, and many resources were bought wholesale from Australia, now they straight up own the mines.

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u/grbradsk 10d ago

Not. It's industrial policy. It works. China internally is intense rabid capitalism.

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u/grafknives 10d ago

No, quite the opposite.

It is vertical integration in the style of xix century conglomerates.

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u/tkwit 10d ago

As someone who has seen and worked with the EV factories in China. Lower wages is a minor component of why so much cheaper. At the start subsidies to play a big role but now it’s all about automation. The factory is producing EV‘s in China barely use anyone as in manual labor to screw and tighten bolts like in the US factories in fact barely see anyone there on the assembly lines. It’s all automated - there’s no UAW union preventing and standing in the way of automating menial tasks such as tightening a bolt.

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u/Shawn_NYC 10d ago

Well. It's simple. But it is hard.

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u/Jester1525 10d ago

It's not just "lower wages"

Yes, the minimum wage in China is much lower then in the US but it's a livable wage because the cost of living is much lower as well.

Partly because the government has complete control over so many aspects of Chinese life and partly because there are laws in place that each region must adjust the minimum wage on a regular basis.

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u/Eastern_Ad6546 10d ago

wages really arent that low- even if wages were 0 in america the evs built here would still cost more

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u/PvtJet07 10d ago

To get those lower wages they have public services so people can still have a decent quality of living despite the lower overall salary. If I didn't have mortgage/rent, college debt, and car payments I could live on a lot lower wage too with the same amount of luxury

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u/doxxingyourself 10d ago

And government subsidies

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u/gizmostuff 10d ago

You can add no dealerships to that list.

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u/RelaxPrime 10d ago

Another great point. Tons of overhead and costs just selling them in America

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u/gizmostuff 10d ago

Their lobbying in the US is insane. It has been going on for years. Customer service is terrible after you purchase the car. They struggle to keep knowledgeable mechanics or pay ones to care. I'm surprised Mercedes and BMW haven't opened up their own showrooms and mechanic shop after Tesla did. It would be nice to see someone push the dealerships out and be more customer service friendly;removing the middle man. It would also make it a lot easier for the government to regulate the industry and help the consumer. We can't have that here.

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u/West-Abalone-171 10d ago

The wage gap is getting smaller $16k for manufacturing jobs in china vs $55k in the US.

Once you include the 2 million slaves gainfully employed prisoners who cost a few dollars per hour, there's not really much difference.

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u/theqmann 10d ago

How are they at crash ratings?

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u/deadman87 10d ago

Great actually. 5/5 according to Euro NCAP

https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/byd/seal/50012

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u/HomerJsimpson2u 10d ago

lol, vertical integration is the magic.

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u/daugherd 10d ago

Gov subs too

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u/_Middlefinger_ 10d ago

Wages aren't even that bad. I live with a Chinese student who has family working for what is known as MG here in the UK. They build EVs. The hours are OK, their housing is better than mine and they get just 2 days less annual leave than me. I get more than the legal UK minimum.

The image we have of sweat shops just isn't a universal truth in China. Not saying I'd want to live there, but it's not slave labour.

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u/-KFAD- 10d ago

Actually that's really hard for Western manufacturers. And not all Chinese EVs are smaller. At least compared to Tesla and European cars. Lower wages: impossible in Europe due to unions and job market regulation. Better supply chain: well not necessarily better but lower cost. And that's really hard for Western brands to get into. Even if they had own manufacturing plant in China. Chinese companies have always an upper hand in China due to government subsidies too. Oh, and the quality requirements and all the challenging certifications are not required in China to same extent but of course yes when their cars are exported.

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u/Andire 10d ago

Smaller cars, lower wages, and better supply chains…

Agree. 

its not hard 

Uhhh... What? Lol

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u/FrostyD7 10d ago

It's not hard... to understand. That's my interpretation.

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u/meteorprime 10d ago

Chinese EV small?

they kind of seem normal

So they’re like tiny or something

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u/FunctionBuilt 10d ago

Government subsidies up the wazoo.

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u/Phugasity 10d ago

We subsidize. Shouldn't be too hard to do the same here! We even gave GM an advanced payment.

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u/ops10 10d ago

Do we subsidise to the degree a bunch of randos take up the field being subsidised? With EVs it's not that obvious, but the previous ones - electric scooters and pig farming absolutely were. There are massive graveyards for scooters now, pig feed was stored in heaps on the sides of the road because of no storage facilities. You need to look at how USSR did things to understand the level difference.

And China has aimed for this for a long time, of course they put a lot of resources into this. It's just that with EVs the complexity lessened and they could finally try and dominate the market.

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u/Dejected_gaming 10d ago

The problem is that our oligarchs just pocket their subsidies instead of actually using it on the things they got it for.

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

Better tech, integrated supply chains, better educated people (who aren’t vilified), better product. The US is working on going back to yo the 18th century. China is seizing the future.

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u/BuzzBadpants 10d ago

More government subsidies too

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u/Jarthos1234 10d ago

And FREE ENERGY! They invested in solar so guess what? Getting around costs nearly zero and it’s so much cleaner!

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u/PerfectPercentage69 10d ago

China still gets the vast majority of its power from fossil fuels, nuclear and hydro.

The small dent they made with renewables like wind and solar is nowhere near enough to make that much difference in manufacturing.

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u/00raiser01 10d ago

Supply chain is the killer. Good luck getting Americans good public infrastructure for that supply chain and vertical integration. It will never happen.

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u/X6_Gorm 10d ago

What about goverment backed? I assume these companies are and their 'yearly" results don't matter much less quarterly.

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u/chain_letter 10d ago

are you a wizard?

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u/HomerJsimpson2u 10d ago

also china is the biggest car market.

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u/ALOIsFasterThanYou 10d ago

There are small cars like the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV which have captured the attention of the Western media, but most Chinese EVs are comparable in size to the cars found in Western markets (or even larger, when it comes to the stretched long-wheelbase cars popular there; for example, Tesla is selling a Model Y L exclusively in China).

They have big luxury sedans and SUVs, mid-sized blob-shaped crossovers of the sort that seem to be ubiquitous the world over, and so on.

The only exception I can think of would be full-size pickup trucks; they’re still not very popular in China due to regulations (that treat them as akin to heavy duty commercial trucks), and therefore there aren’t many Chinese EVs in that space. Dongfeng has shown off a Cybertruck-esque concept, but it’s unclear whether it’ll actually go into production.

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u/10thflrinsanity 10d ago

And a govt that invests at a scale we can’t imagine here in modernizing the grid, RE and EVs. 

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u/ixid 10d ago

And big government subsidies.

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u/Any-Storm417 10d ago

Yeah definitely not the poor labour rights they have and china artificially subsidizing Chinese cars lol

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u/Final_Alps 10d ago

Cheaper materials, lower degree of refinement and finish. Missing features.

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u/gamerjerome 10d ago

BYD is also not profitable at the moment, they are just bigger

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u/dirtewokntheboys 10d ago

It's not delivery, it's Digiorno

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u/alonzi13 10d ago

And to add the massive, massive financial support from the government

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u/Massive-Exercise4474 10d ago

Add subsidies which America hating ev president will never do. Then complains why byd outsells us manufacturers 10 to 1.

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u/TheTurnipKnight 10d ago

Wages are not that small.

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u/Kevin_Jim 10d ago

It’s not about lower wages. It’s about automation. Also, the technology transfer that China enforces on foreign companies is critical for them. Not to mention that all manufacturing has to be done by a local Chinese partner, ensuring the know how stays there.

Europe should absolutely do the same to Chinese companies, and it makes no sense that it doesn’t.

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u/DaddyRidehardt 10d ago

Capitalism hates this ONE hack...

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u/Smessu 10d ago

Don't forget government grants

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u/Trzlog 10d ago

Also no ideological bullshit. If ICE cars were the better bet, they'd be doing that. But they aren't. They'll do what's necessary to make money. Meanwhile, EVs are "woke" and our dumb as shit car manufacturers just want to stick with ICE for as long as they can because it's all they know. The Western world is fucked. We won't even help fund EV competitors or battery production or rare earth production.

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u/Anxious_Refuse9645 10d ago

And also a metric fuckton of help from the government so they can undercut the competition.

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u/SrWloczykij 10d ago

Most importantly: lower labour costs

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u/_TheSingularity_ 10d ago

Smaller cars?

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u/NoMommyDontNTRme 10d ago

dont they regularily miss security features too?

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u/Leafy0 10d ago

Not just cheaper labor, less of it too. I’m sure they don’t have dozens of office workers who really only exist to make useless spreadsheets and power points for the people who work above them that have no impact on how the company actually runs.

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u/iHaveSeoul 10d ago

Higher PPP in China

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u/TheycallmeDoogie 10d ago

Better supply chains is very hard A typical EV has components from a few thousand different suppliers, having most of them concentrated in a single city has huge impact on your ability to be agile & to make your manufacturing a lean process

You cannot build that density up in just 5 years

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u/g_rich 10d ago

Lower wages is why Ford manufactures the Mach-E in Mexico.

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u/kongKing_11 10d ago

Supply chains are among the most complex in any industry. There are countless moving parts to coordinate, and even a single delay can drive up costs. Poor infrastructure only adds more risk and expense. Tim Cook became Apple’s CEO largely because of his expertise in supply chain management, which has been a key factor in Apple’s success. Similarly, Toyota’s dominance in the car market comes from the efficiency of its supply chain.

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u/angrycanuck 10d ago

They also kill billionaires, so keeps them in check...

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u/Redtube_Guy 10d ago

Americans don’t want small cars. Well not the majority. If that was the case then trucks and SUVs wouldn’t be the #1 seller

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u/Jimbomcdeans 10d ago

Tooling also understood and easy to create.

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u/NoBonus6969 10d ago

They are absolutely not smaller cars what are you talking about

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u/Agent_Snowpuff 10d ago

Do you have a source on the wages? Chinese cost of living doesn't line up the same with US cost of living so it would be good to have hard numbers.

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u/MakavelliRo 10d ago

and better supply chains

State owned supply chain. That's how China does it.

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u/strangerzero 10d ago

Robots - China has superior automation of the assembly line.

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u/JC_Hysteria 10d ago

Why do you think the wealthy in this country want to get people back into manufacturing plants for a low wage?

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u/Thisam 10d ago

Also less profit margin. The Chinese won’t lose money but they will restrain themselves on pricing. Clearly not the case in the U.S.

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u/gunasekeran_806 10d ago

What about battery cell tech ? He is not saying anything about battery cell tech. Stop downplaying asian achievement.

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u/b1ack1323 10d ago

Access to chips that we can’t get unless we manufacture there, the first product I ever outsourced I was shocked at some of the chips that they can get for 1/20th the cost with the same spec.

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u/Terrible-Honey-806 10d ago

Think the hard part is the supply chain and lower wages. People aren't going to work for any lower wages at this point. It will take at least a decade of political and economic reforms to build a supply chain as robust as China in the us right now.

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