US, Japan, Germany, S Korea are traditionally internal combustion engine power houses with world established brands. It is in their interest to maintain the world complete reliance on ICE cars, thus have little incentive in promoting EV. Tesla and Chinese companies are relatively new comers and EV is the only practical way to compete with them. The EV revolution caught the traditional auto manufacturers off guard as they had completely underestimated the Chinese.
New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China
- Thread starter supercat
- Start date
If I were wearing an American historian hat, the story would be that the EV revolution started from a top-down Chinese government automobile strategy and Wan Gang was the initiator. If this were happening in the US, Wan Gang would have written 5 books about EV revolution already, and the government would be labeled as global leader of {"you can fill the blank here"}. But that actually happed in China by the CCP-led government, so ......
It is not that the old ICE power houses did not want or try. Japan bet its house on hydrogen and gobbled the most patents in that domain. But none of the other auto power houses bought into that path. China was the first one betting its farm on EV when others ridiculed the Chinese EV industrial plan for many years.
So the moral of this EV story is that, industrial policy works, but only in an environment like China in the past 20 years or so. This EV story goes down to the history as one of the success stories of "弯道超车", which is very rare in human history. And this is the very reason I want to write about the EV story.
I looked into Wan Gang's bio and it seems he wanted to make fuel cell vehicles.
I think the reality is way more simple really. China got huge cheap lithium battery technology because of the consumer electronics market, they leveraged that into e-bikes, and now they are leveraging that into cars really. The power electronics were also there because of Chinese inverter production for the solar cell market. Other countries also have electric car companies but China is the only one with the proper ecosystem and car demand to make this work properly I think.
I think the reality is way more simple really. China got huge cheap lithium battery technology because of the consumer electronics market, they leveraged that into e-bikes, and now they are leveraging that into cars really. The power electronics were also there because of Chinese inverter production for the solar cell market. Other countries also have electric car companies but China is the only one with the proper ecosystem and car demand to make this work properly I think.
Many on chinese socmed view ~60-70k as the threshold they would buy a small hatchback EV, since at that price they can "upgrade" to a normal ICE car.
Dongfeng EX1 is quite popular now since it costs 50k for the base model and is a decent looking CUV with 300km range NEDC. There is little reason to spend double for dolphin with the same range
He was pushing NEVs for over 20 years, but he is an engineer after all and recognises technological and cost considerations.
I know it's more like a personal thing, but aesthetically both Nio and Xpeng are much better looking than Byd. BYD of course is an amazing company too but they need to work on the design of their cars. Even if they had world's best EV, I wouldn't buy dolphin/seal. A bit ok-ish with Han though. Do they still write "Build your dreams" on the new models?
On my thoughts, xpeng is the chinese tesla, sporty, high-tech and correctly priced for the car given, normal margins. Nio is the chinese mercedes, premium with large margins. Byd is the chinese Ford/GM, cheaper cars, mass produced, small margins crushing also the truck/bus area. I can see a great future for all of them frankly. I can also see Saic expanding overseas and transforming quite nicely away from ice cars. Geely/polestar is also a player emerging internationally, exciting times really.
On my thoughts, xpeng is the chinese tesla, sporty, high-tech and correctly priced for the car given, normal margins. Nio is the chinese mercedes, premium with large margins. Byd is the chinese Ford/GM, cheaper cars, mass produced, small margins crushing also the truck/bus area. I can see a great future for all of them frankly. I can also see Saic expanding overseas and transforming quite nicely away from ice cars. Geely/polestar is also a player emerging internationally, exciting times really.
BYD Dolphin is a lot better.
It has 0 to 50 km/h time of 3.9 s and top speed of 150 km/h. It has 300 to 400 km NEDC range depending on the version you get.
It also can handle fast charging (800v) to charge 150 km range in 5 minutes.
EX1 270 km NEDC range with just top speed of 105 km/h.
So you can drive on the highway with Dolphin. It's not just a cheap city EV. You can't do the same with EX1. The dolphin is just larger than EX1. It's a lot more like a normal car you'd drive. BYD is not going for the lowest end of the market.
I see a better comparison with Volkswagen group with its semi-autonomous subsidiaries and brands.
That assumes closer integration between BYD, Nio and XPeng - which should be in their interests as they target different segments and are stronger overall by working with each other at the expense of their competitors.
BYD = VW
Nio = Audi
XPeng = Porsche
I think Elon Musk has proven that it is more about having the vision to see the technological shift to electric cars, but with the economics at the foundation of the vision.
Namely that cars powered by electricity would become significantly cheaper than ICE cars over an operating lifetime.
I just sat through a very interesting panel discussion titled "How worried should European carmakers be about China?
And afterwards, I also filled in a few gaps in the story of what happened during the Nickel short squeeze 2 months ago.
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