New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China

Once you drive an EV, you really can't get use to ICE cars anymore. It just doesn't work.

AndrewS said:

Current electric car batteries will easily last 1 million miles now. They will never need to be replaced for the lifetime of the car.
That applies to both LFP and NCA batteries from BYD, Tesla, CATL etc.

And when the car is scrapped, those batteries (with at least 80% of the original capacity) can easily be used as stationary battery storage for the grid.

Remember that over a 10 year period, the overall cost of an electric car will be lower than an ICE car.

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Actually, it's not that long. Tesla battery has 8 year / 100k miles warranty. BYD has a 160k km warranty for abroad and I think up to 1 million km for the domestic one, but blade battery also has the best battery chemistry out there. I doubt NCA battery would still give you 80% charge after 200k miles. And you have to be a lot more careful on how much you charge it to.

sndef888 said:

Yeah you're right, on second thought BYD for low-mid, Denza for high and this new brand for ultra-high is fine, since I think BYD is going to be a top carmaker like VW someday.

The other chinese automakers though should definitely be killing off their subbrands. Just look at FAW's Benteng Haima Sitech Junpai Senia Jiabao, which combined probably sell less cars than 1/10 of BYD. Same thing goes for BAIC. Hell, the two companies should just merge given their terrible sales

Meanwhile although Geely, SAIC, Chery subbrands do sell quite a number of cars they still have a lot of unneccesary overlap. Geely's Zeekr and Lynk are basically the same design. SAIC's Roewe and MG sell in the same segment etc

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Yeah, I posted this a while back. The Starry sky series will be their effort to cover the entire market like VW and GM. So you have,
Sea Gull
Dolphin
Seal/Han
Denza
Starry Sky

The goal of starry sky will also be to raise the brand recognition of the main BYD brand. Hard for them to sell at Tesla prices when they are considered lower end.

Although, I am a little annoyed that the marine series and dynasty series have so much overlap. Not really sure the point of having both Han and Seal/Frigate 05. Eventually, I think some of the dynasty series will just go away.

OppositeDay said:

BYD as a marque has terrible brand image in China. People joke BYD could immediately charge 10% more just by changing its brand. It's a long overdue move from BYD IMO.

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From what I can see, that's rapidly changing. You can't really deny BYD's product after seeing the latest Han and Seal.

Tesla production in Shanghai is still quite low. That's 26k in a month, which is a little less than half of their pre-lockdown production rate. They will need to ramp things up.

BYD has a cooperation with SWM to provide its motor technology for PHEV, HEV and EV product types.

For the new high end brand, sounds like they are partnering up with Huawei for the MDC platform and dual Lidar for autonomous driving. Would not be the first time BYD and Huawei have partnered up for autonomous driving.

Looks like they are going to build another car factory in Guangxi Nanning. We already know about the battery factory going up here. They signed in March/April this year for up to 55 GW of battery production capacity. The online speculation is that they are going for 8 million a year production by 2025 (6 million of which for China). So significant amount of export ahead planned by BYD.

tphuang said:

Once you drive an EV, you really can't get use to ICE cars anymore. It just doesn't work.


Actually, it's not that long. Tesla battery has 8 year / 100k miles warranty. BYD has a 160k km warranty for abroad and I think up to 1 million km for the domestic one, but blade battery also has the best battery chemistry out there. I doubt NCA battery would still give you 80% charge after 200k miles. And you have to be a lot more careful on how much you charge it to.

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Those are just the minimum miles that they guarantee for the batteries.
What it actually means is that average real-life battery longevity is a lot more, otherwise they would have to go around replacing the outlier batteries.

Look at how the same BYD battery has a 1 million km warranty in China and a 160k km warranty overseas.
And how the Model X (pre-2020) has an UNLIMITED mileage 8 year vattery warranty.

Also remember that battery technology has vastly improved in the past few years.

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"According to an Impact Report released by Tesla in 2019, Tesla Model S and X batteries retain over 80% of their range even after driving 200,000 miles."

AndrewS said:

Those are just the minimum miles that they guarantee for the batteries.
What it actually means is that average real-life battery longevity is a lot more, otherwise they would have to go around replacing the outlier batteries.

Look at how the same BYD battery has a 1 million km warranty in China and a 160k km warranty overseas.
And how the Model X (pre-2020) has an UNLIMITED mileage 8 year vattery warranty.

Also remember that battery technology has vastly improved in the past few years.

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"According to an Impact Report released by Tesla in 2019, Tesla Model S and X batteries retain over 80% of their range even after driving 200,000 miles."

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I will find out in a few years, I guess. Nca batteries lose all the advantage they have over lfp when you can't charge them to 100%. It also depends on how you use them. I don't dare to go use a super charger right now because it's bad for nca batteries. You have to be very careful about your nca battery usage of you want to keep 80% capacity after 200k miles.

Lfp batteries on the other hand, I would be completely fine with charging it to 100% and using fast charger.

tphuang said:

I will find out in a few years, I guess. Nca batteries lose all the advantage they have over lfp when you can't charge them to 100%. It also depends on how you use them. I don't dare to go use a super charger right now because it's bad for nca batteries. You have to be very careful about your nca battery usage of you want to keep 80% capacity after 200k miles.

Lfp batteries on the other hand, I would be completely fine with charging it to 100% and using fast charger.

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Yes. I see NCA batteries as a small niche in the medium-long term.

LFP batteries are already acceptable for 90% of road trips and can only get better and cheaper than the other existing battery chemistries like NCA or NMC.

And on a practical level, how many cars will ever reach 1 million miles?

Even BYD taxis in Shenzhen only reach 500,000km after 5 years of 24/7 use.

tphuang said:

From what I can see, that's rapidly changing. You can't really deny BYD's product after seeing the latest Han and Seal.

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Technology wise BYD is great, design wise they are still lacking a lot of sophistication. Hopefully that will catch up as well.

tphuang said:

Tesla production in Shanghai is still quite low. That's 26k in a month, which is a little less than half of their pre-lockdown production rate. They will need to ramp things up.

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Wasn't Tesla Shanghai at 80k vehicles per month previously?

tphuang said:

Online speculation is that they are going for 8 million a year production by 2025 (6 million of which for China). So significant amount of export ahead planned by BYD.

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That is interesting.

If anyone is capable of tramping up to 8 million electric vehicles per year by 2025, it would be BYD because they are the most vertically integrated electric car company.

Any more details?

Alright, BYD is certainly enjoying keeping itself in the auto news in China. Check this out. The new high end brand is targeting the 800k to 1.5 million RMB market! So, at least 4 times the price of Seal and double the price of Denza. I'm really curious what this is going to have.
Logo/Brand to be unveiled in Q3
off road to be unveiled in Q4
market launch in H1 2023.
Will have the most cutting edge technology.

So, this is what one prominent BYD follower on social media said.

Battery, motor and heat management were all areas where BYD led in the past and that allowed them to somehow reach #1 in China in sales.

Now with Seal, they have an industry leading CTB/WheelBase product. In the past, their wheelbase, interior design, external look and intelligence driving were all inferior to even Geely and Great Wall, that's why a lot of people looked down on BYD. But going forward, BYD will continue to improve.

Next year, it will come out with DM5.0 for PHEV market along with new engine and heat pump air conditioner system. It will also have other structural improvement in chasis (maybe like what we saw with Seal).

They will come out with 3rd generation electric motor system (ePlatform 4.0??), DiLink 5.0 intelligent system, dual Lidar and see significant improvement in autonomous driving.

It seems to me that BYD had many years where it muddled in Chinese market offering lower end ICE and NEV cars before blade battery, DM-i/P, ePlatform 3.0 came out that pushed them to #1 spot domestically over the space of about 18 months. And they are continuing these improvements in other areas where they were trailing in the past. CTB and ITAC are new technologies they developed. They are expecting to be a brand where people are willing to pay top dollars for.

I think a new DM generation is possible but not a new platform. Considering Dmi came out in 2020 but eplatform3.0 is only starting with the seal


Does anyone know what's the difference between Huawei ADS and MDC? Are they referring to the same thing?

tphuang said:

Next year, it will come out with DM5.0 for PHEV market along with new engine and heat pump air conditioner system. It will also have other structural improvement in chasis (maybe like what we saw with Seal).

They will come out with 3rd generation electric motor system (ePlatform 4.0??), DiLink 5.0 intelligent system, dual Lidar and see significant improvement in autonomous driving.

It seems to me that BYD had many years where it muddled in Chinese market offering lower end ICE and NEV cars before blade battery, DM-i/P, ePlatform 3.0 came out that pushed them to #1 spot domestically over the space of about 18 months. And they are continuing these improvements in other areas where they were trailing in the past. CTB and ITAC are new technologies they developed. They are expecting to be a brand where people are willing to pay top dollars for.

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The EV market in China for many years was dependent on subsidies and government policy, which meant sales could increase and decrease substantially depending on those subsidies and policies.

But it was only in the past 2 years that a number of factors had come together to make EV cars takeoff: due to battery pricing, battery technology, charging infrastructure and car licensing.

If I look at the characteristics of the ePlatform 3.0, I don't see any significant changes happening which will require a 4.0 version anytime soon. Most of the components and design are already leading class, and should be modular in nature allowing for upgrades to be incrementally applied.