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Former GM Executive: BYD cars are good in terms of design, features, price, quality. If we let BYD into the U.S. market, it could end up destroying american manufacturers

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  • I think that's kind of the point. What the current case industry is doing is getting them smoked. They need to let go of the past the "institutional knowledge" that's exactly why Ford and Chevy won't compete with Chinese EV. Those are built from the ground up for the modern era with modern leadership modern supply chains building institutional knowledge that matters today and into the future. I would love nothing more than to drive a Ford EV. I am considering the f150 lightning but in comparison to things I see online it's really far behind.

    The problem is the world is transitioning to EVs, and burying your head in the sand won’t change that. Legacy manufacturers could be trying to find their place in the new world while they can, or they can stick with technology of the past, let someone else come to dominate the new technologies, and be left with a ever shrinking market until they disappear

  • The same thing happened in the 80s with Japan. The Japanese were no longer making crappy cars but small and very reliable, affordable cars. Detroit was still making rust buckets, obsessing over powerful engines with bodies that rotted out and defects galore. Detroit got beaten up badly (Chrysler had to get a gov bailout) until they cleaned up their act and improved their products. Protecting Detroit from competition would've just saddled US consumers with decades more of crappy, overpriced, low quality, cars.

    We still don't let in the small pickups the rest of the world enjoys.

    I would kill for a small electric truck... Telo is calling my name, but they don't have a functioning product yet.

  • So build them here, like every other foreign auto maker.

    They accomplish two completely different effects by two completely different mechanisms. The former being available to every manufacturer.

    So it's not free market after all because the big 3 can make vehicles at home and sell abroad while the others have to make them in the US for the US market. In what way is it not a form of favoring the domestic auto companies?

  • Is it a level playing field? In China workers rights are pretty non-existent and there’s no OSHA equivalent, at least not to the degree we have in the US. Then add in government subsidies, lower worker pay, reduced R&D costs because they pilfered the engineering from a US company, and you end up with a very lopsided market.

    To be clear, I am in no way defending the US auto industry. They have little customer loyalty for a reason – low quality, overpriced, subscription dependent vehicles with terrible warranties, expensive service requirements, and invasive telemetry. They need more competition to force them to make more consumer-friendly decisions, but China is hardly a fair competitor.

    In China workers rights are pretty non-existent and there’s no OSHA equivalent, at least not to the degree we have in the US

    How much maternity leave d'you get in the US? Cause in China it's a minimum of 90 days up to 180. And an extra 15~30 days of pat leave. Mandatory paid holiday? US: 0 China: 11. Sick leave? US: 0 China: months (at reduced rate). Vacation? US: 0, China: 1 to 3 weeks.

    An employer that fails to allow an employee to take annual leave must pay that employee 300% of the employee’s daily wages for each unused vacation day

    The work sfatey certainly remains an issue, like any developing country, but things are rapidly improving.

    Efforts at work safety shall be oriented around people and reflect the principle of people first and life first, with top priority given to people's life safety. The philosophy of safe development shall be adhered to and the principles of safety first, prevention as the main target as well as comprehensive administration shall be followed to forestall and resolve major safety risks at the source.

    Things aren't all roses in China, but y'all have to get off of your high horse when you know fuck all other than bland ass propaganda.

  • I'd think enrollment rates would be a severe lagging indicator of education quality. Institutions could likely coast on reputation for quite some time after education quality tanks. Inertia is powerful, and some could even knowingly decide to go to poor educational institutions just for the status it still gives among peers and in their community.

    That said, I have no first hand experience with US higher education, and wouldn't know what the quality really is, just saying that enrollment rates probably aren't a great indicator of it.

    True, I would argue though that after a certain amount of time, nobody even cares about the quality, it's the university name on the degree that is truly important.

    You can go anywhere on the planet even decades from now and say you're from Harvard (take your pick) and you'll be regarded as a knowledge god even if you were the last in the class to graduate.

    Educational quality isn't everything for getting into a good career, it's the reputation, and that is what schools in the US (and a few abroad) have in spades.

  • Okay, I'll concede that point to you. U.S. carmakers suck at software. And, even on the hardware, they're resistant to change and slow to innovate.

    Software is the answer to many of the mechanical issues too though. Granted, the physical engineering is definitely over engineered, but would they really need to have 6 different taillight frames when LEDs can be multicolor and just tuned with software for each market? I also see zero reason why manufacturers can’t start from a base and tweak for different market configurations. You also see car companies complain about complex regulation, but then in this day and age when east Asia can make you anything, that’s not an excuse I’m willing to be fed. I fucking hate Elmo like everyone else here, but why the hell is the Model Y the most popular car in the world. None of the other companies want to copy Tesla? They don’t want to compete? We’ve gotten to the point where it’s ludicrous that they’re not competing.

  • Dam maybe some of the American automakers who took billions in subsidies should have built cheaper cars instead of the largest trucks possible to skirt regulations.

    I literally can't afford an American car, i can afford a BYD tho.

    I can afford neither, but if I had to save up for one it would be the BYD.

    American cars are just large, stupid and inefficient. Also the parts are very expensive here in New Zealand

  • American manufacturing seems very incapable of change. If things worked this way for decades, why change it? Meanwhile the world moved on and they ask themselves why doesn't anyone wanna buy american...?

  • I don't disagree with the criticisms of American cars -- overpriced, uninspired, unreliable, over-engineered, etc. -- but to everyone saying "we should just compete", do you realize the realities that Chinese workers experience? Have you heard of 996? It's shorthand for a common work schedule in China: 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Benefits that are common in the U.S., even in non-union shops, like retirement plans, PTO, worker's comp, and overtime pay are rare. So, yeah, things can be made much cheaper if you are willing to feed your workforce into the grinder.

    Have you heard of 996? It’s shorthand for a common work schedule in China: 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week

    So a typical American teacher’s schedule?

  • Very few children work in china right now, Chinese workers even have 5 days of vacation a year by law.

    That's 5 more than the US....

    There were probably more children working on farms in the US than in china, and I remember something about Florida wanting to reinstate child labour again?

    Yes, there may not be child labor. But in places we cannot see, there are still black industry chains. A brick factory was exposed some time ago. They let some people with low IQ or disabilities work. They were not given masks, and the air was full of dust. They may work more than ten hours a day or even more. What is the difference between this and slavery? I just want to give this example to illustrate that there are still many black-hearted factories in society, and there is also the possibility of employing child labor. In China, young people who have not studied will choose to work in factories, but they must be at least 16 years old. If they are younger, they will not be hired. Back to the issue of BYD, although we are proud that it can be recognized by the world as a Chinese brand, and many people in China also buy it. But recently there have been some news that they blindly work overtime within the company, and have meetings after get off work, etc. Someone exposed the chat records within the company. We are all ordinary people. We just want to fight for our rights. Even if it is a big company, as long as it exploits people, we must oppose it.

  • American manufacturing seems very incapable of change. If things worked this way for decades, why change it? Meanwhile the world moved on and they ask themselves why doesn't anyone wanna buy american...?

    Even if they changed how would they win?

    They're just too expensive to manufacture as compared to chinese ones.

  • Ford stopped making cars because they can't compete with the current crop of cars coming from Japan/Korea and Europe regardless of how much money they throw at the problem. They have their niche with trucks and SUVs and are happy to stay there. China builds cars using massive government subsidies, slave labor, and local resources that aren't available to anyone else in the world which is why I think it's right to fight against them because it's impossible to compete against them just like a small local grocery store can't compete against Walmart.

    China builds cars using massive government subsidies, slave labor, and local resources that aren't available to anyone else in the world

    Why are Japanese and Korean cars also better/cheaper than American cars then?

    Slave labor

    Citation needed

    Massive government subsidies

    The US doesn't massively subsidise auto-makers?

    But yeah china bad

  • Even if they changed how would they win?

    They're just too expensive to manufacture as compared to chinese ones.

    They could try going for quality or features.

    But instead they are only going for size, what 94% of the world does not care for or want. (this includes the 5% of Americans)

  • Because it's available to anyone. Not just Chinese owned companies and every other auto maker has similar taxes.

  • Which sucks because I did use to think that “Made in the USA” meant better quality.

    Were you born in 1960 or something? That hasn't been true for 50+ years

  • No the rest of the world has been sleeping when China silently bought all the mines and harbors in the past decades.

    China is performing a new colonialism. Exploiting poor countries for their cheap resources.

    While the rest of the world is trying to steer away from it because it is so horrible. So please, don't praise China for it.

  • They could try going for quality or features.

    But instead they are only going for size, what 94% of the world does not care for or want. (this includes the 5% of Americans)

    Dunno, seems like a global problem. European car companies are scared too. And they don't make those big cars.

    The only issue I see is that china is very hostile with how it deals with other countries, otherwise this is just the trend of how things work out. In the 80s, it was the japanese car industry.

  • Sure, but the US has a lot of well-educated people (e.g. see the Education Index), as well as a lot of opportunities for well-educated people to get in-demand jobs that pay well.

    There are more Indian Engineers in the USA than American ones... and Trump is destroying all of it

    The way things are going for you, nobody with a half a choice would decide to migrate to the USA for work

    I mean, what is the reason those Indian engineers chose the US over India?

  • Ford stopped making cars because they can't compete with the current crop of cars coming from Japan/Korea and Europe regardless of how much money they throw at the problem. They have their niche with trucks and SUVs and are happy to stay there. China builds cars using massive government subsidies, slave labor, and local resources that aren't available to anyone else in the world which is why I think it's right to fight against them because it's impossible to compete against them just like a small local grocery store can't compete against Walmart.

    China builds cars using massive government subsidies

    The federal government ended the the EV subsidy a few years ago.

    slave labor

    lmao. We know what slavery looks like, you can see it in the cotton fields outside Angola Prison, rows of enslaved people, and overseer on a horse, all behind barbed wire. In Xinjiang I saw farmers driving combine harvesters in roadside fields.

    local resources that arent available

    You're getting closer. Through 1 and 5 year plans, the CPC uses SoEs (and sometimes just asks private companies "nicely") to ensure the foundational inputs, steel, rubber, chips, college graduates, etc are all available to industry at the specific price point and volume that competing private firms need to produce say, 100m EVs or a million more apartments.

    Any country can do a little central planning to make sure private industry has what it needs, but this only works if you're able to take action against companies that exploit the system.

  • Six months ago I moved from the US to a country where BYD and other Chinese brands are available. In the past I owned GM cars. The former GM executive is correct. After trying Chinese cars I find it extremely difficult to justify paying 40-60% more for a car made by GM or anyone else. GM’s best selling cars here are made by its Chinese joint ventures and aren’t available for sale in the US, and they are the only GM cars I would buy.

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    That’s a very emphatic restatement of your initial claim. I can’t help but notice that, for all the fancy formatting, that wall of text doesn’t contain a single line which actually defines the difference between “learning” and “statistical optimization”. It just repeats the claim that they are different without supporting that claim in any way. Nothing in there, precludes the alternative hypothesis; that human learning is entirely (or almost entirely) an emergent property of “statistical optimization”. Without some definition of what the difference would be we can’t even theorize a test
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    Back in the day there was a pic floating about where someone had put a micro atx board and psu into a standard PSU chassis into a standard PC case for a spectacular "empty case" mod
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    TD Cowen (which is basically the US arm of one of the largest Canadian investment banks) did an extensive report on the state of AI investment. What they found was that despite all their big claims about the future of AI, Microsoft were quietly allowing letters of intent for billions of dollars worth of new compute capacity to expire. Basically, scrapping future plans for expansion, but in a way that's not showy and doesn't require any kind of big announcement. The equivalent of promising to be at the party and then just not showing up. Not long after this reporting came out, it got confirmed by Microsoft, and not long after it came out that Amazon was doing the same thing. Ed Zitron has a really good write up on it; https://www.wheresyoured.at/power-cut/ Amazon isn't the big surprise, they've always been the most cautious of the big players on the whole AI thing. Microsoft on the other hand are very much trying to play things both ways. They know AI is fucked, which is why they're scaling back, but they've also invested a lot of money into their OpenAI partnership so now they have to justify that expenditure which means convincing investors that consumers absolutely love their AI products and are desparate for more. As always, follow the money. Stuff like the three mile island thing is mostly just applying for permits and so on at this point. Relatively small investments. As soon as it comes to big money hitting the table, they're pulling back. That's how you know how they really feel.
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    Ah yeah, that doesn't look like my cup of tea.