Interesting interview with Elliot from the Fully Charged Show, who lives in China. To summarize some points he makes:
-BYD makes something like 200,000 cars a month and there's still a 6 month waiting list because of massive demand
-From his observations, there are tons of Teslas and NIO cars in Shanghai, but outside of Shanghai, BYD utterly dominates and pretty much everybody is driving one
-In contrast to what anti-EV people claim about "the power grid can't handle a massive switch to EVs", China's power grid has had no problems whatsoever handling a massive switch to EVs
-China has utterly dominated the whole supply chain for battery production
-BYD has always been known for its science and engineering prowess, but they fell short when it came to design and aesthetics. He thinks starting with the Seal (which he drove), BYD have finally put together the whole package and it's essentially a flawless car; calls it "like a miniature Porsche Taycan"
-Big drop in demand for Tesla in China. Rumours that Tesla is going to slash prices in China so severely that they're going to sell Model 3s for an astounding $23,000 USD, which shows how much Tesla was able to mark up their cars and they might not enjoy this advantage anymore
-In 2020, the number of solar panels in the world doubled and almost 100% of that was from China
-China's quick ascent in the automotive industry is comparable to what Japan and Korea did before them, except it's going to be on a much bigger scale due to China's greater population. Doesn't know how Western automakers will be able to compete. BYD is quietly expanding to almost every country around the world and is going to replace Toyota as the world's foremost automaker
Here is a sign that BYD listen to consumer demand unlike Tesla where it force their product and culture into you and expect you to be grateful.
