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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

Technology
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  • How do you like it? It's on my short list for my next car.

    Overall, love it. We had a hybrid RAV 4 and wanted to move to a larger vehicle. When we discovered that Toyota was releasing a hybrid Sienna for 2021, we jumped at it. We get ~35mpg on average. And we've put just a bit over 55k miles on it since we got it. Maintenance has mostly been routine, though we did have an odd issue with one of the sliding doors filling up with water. According to the tech at the service center, there is a drain which was clogged and needed to be cleared. This was likely exacerbated by the fact that it's parked outside, in a wooded area. So, it sees a lot of leaf litter. And that is one down side, the back hatch can accumulate leaves and crap in the space between the top of the door and the body of the vehicle. Annoying, but you just have to clean it out on the regular. The adjustment rails for the rear seats are also hard to clean, if anything gets in them. So, that can be annoying.

    As for performance, it moves well enough. It's a mini-van, so you're not going to beat a small car off the line, but you do get up to speed at a good clip. The turning radius is surprisingly narrow for such a large vehicle. At speed, the vehicle feels stable and handles ok. I'll also say that the adaptive cruise control is insanely addictive. I've been driving in traffic this week and I can go a long time without touching the pedals. I'd also recommend getting to the trim level where you get the backup camera with the false overview of the vehicle, makes parking super simple.

    We mostly use it for routine tasks like getting groceries or taking the kids places. We also go camping regularly and we can pack all our stuff into the back and put the kayaks on top. Its not a vehicle I'd take off road on anything challenging, but it handles unpaved roads ok.

    So ya, we've been happy with it and I'd give it a recommendation.

  • Got a subaru as my first non-american car. The old CVT torque converter is wearing out after 120k miles, but she survived being lightly t-boned with just a door repair

    Manual swap time

  • Bill Gates has entered the chat.

    Bill Gates doesn’t sell cars

  • <Page Not Found> on your link. But yeah it would be great if competition were about improvements.

    Sorry, fixed

  • I'd argue that a critical piece of competition for all nations has always been stealing knowledge and technology.

    What technologies Germany, Poland, Singapore or Norway stole since the fall of USSR if that’s the case? I can name many technologies that China stole, that the US stole, but definitely don’t see it as a critical piece for all nations. Most countries don’t even have hackers nor network of spies capable of stealing other countries’ valuable trade secrets

  • How do you like it? It's on my short list for my next car.

    I have a 20+ year old 2004 rx330 its basically a sienna with a smaller shell (sienna highlander and the v6 camry all share the same subframe and engine/ powertrain components with some exceptions its the same platform) its great, i have 223,000 miles on it and it needs some work but I’m poor so i do it all myself

  • What technologies Germany, Poland, Singapore or Norway stole since the fall of USSR if that’s the case? I can name many technologies that China stole, that the US stole, but definitely don’t see it as a critical piece for all nations. Most countries don’t even have hackers nor network of spies capable of stealing other countries’ valuable trade secrets

  • Yep, the vast majority of the teams mentioned are used exclusively for private companies and public institutions to report cyberattacks, taking down phishing sites and issuing guidance on things like the minimum password length. Or protecting military against cyber threats - would suck if you had, let’s say, drones, that during the wartime turn out to be compromised by the enemy army and sabotage your operations. That’s perfectly understandable and different than stealing trade secrets via cyberattacks. Therefore I’ve asked for actual reports of actual hacks conducted by any of the countries I’ve mentioned

  • I have a 20+ year old 2004 rx330 its basically a sienna with a smaller shell (sienna highlander and the v6 camry all share the same subframe and engine/ powertrain components with some exceptions its the same platform) its great, i have 223,000 miles on it and it needs some work but I’m poor so i do it all myself

    Oh, that's really handy to know. Thanks!

  • Overall, love it. We had a hybrid RAV 4 and wanted to move to a larger vehicle. When we discovered that Toyota was releasing a hybrid Sienna for 2021, we jumped at it. We get ~35mpg on average. And we've put just a bit over 55k miles on it since we got it. Maintenance has mostly been routine, though we did have an odd issue with one of the sliding doors filling up with water. According to the tech at the service center, there is a drain which was clogged and needed to be cleared. This was likely exacerbated by the fact that it's parked outside, in a wooded area. So, it sees a lot of leaf litter. And that is one down side, the back hatch can accumulate leaves and crap in the space between the top of the door and the body of the vehicle. Annoying, but you just have to clean it out on the regular. The adjustment rails for the rear seats are also hard to clean, if anything gets in them. So, that can be annoying.

    As for performance, it moves well enough. It's a mini-van, so you're not going to beat a small car off the line, but you do get up to speed at a good clip. The turning radius is surprisingly narrow for such a large vehicle. At speed, the vehicle feels stable and handles ok. I'll also say that the adaptive cruise control is insanely addictive. I've been driving in traffic this week and I can go a long time without touching the pedals. I'd also recommend getting to the trim level where you get the backup camera with the false overview of the vehicle, makes parking super simple.

    We mostly use it for routine tasks like getting groceries or taking the kids places. We also go camping regularly and we can pack all our stuff into the back and put the kayaks on top. Its not a vehicle I'd take off road on anything challenging, but it handles unpaved roads ok.

    So ya, we've been happy with it and I'd give it a recommendation.

    Thanks for the review; I'm glad it's working out well for you. Time for me to meander out for a test drive.

  • Sienna's are great! I've owned 4 of them (because I tend to total cars), and been happy with all of them. Gets decent mileage for a van, and they hold value better than just about any other mini van. Never felt safer when ramming into the back of a semi while going 70mph! The van was totaled, but me and the kids were perfectly fine.

    That is a surprisingly strong recommendation. I'm glad everyone was safe, keep it shiny side up.

  • Sucks to suck, our car companies suck and they absolutely should loose and be forced to fire people if they can't compete. Give me my cheap and decent Chinese cars please. I live in a capitalist country so lets act like it instead of being fucking pussys

    It the country wasn't so hostile, also pretty racist when talking about Chinese (99% of the time people say Chinese not CCP as an insult to anything about creativity, invention, culture, whatever), to Chinese consumer big ticket goods, I'd imagine BYD and other would build manufacturing plants in the US. If things weren't so hostile, the Chinese battery companies like CATL may be willing to build batteries in the US without major concern of a hostile nation stealing their battery tech

    It isn't even a truly political idealism conflict that causes the split. Americans were fine with South Korean and Taiwanese products when those countries were military dictatorships. Vietnam has the company VinFast selling cars in the US and it's political structure is a lot closer to China than the US. Americans have never shown appetite for reigning in how American companies treat labor in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Really not even domestically like in makeshift housing that American farmers pack migrant workers into or meatpacking plants. So it's really just rich/powerful people not liking to see non-European descendants take the leading role in global trade of high margin goods and services that are often cutting edge technology

    If China was still primarily a labor country, damn near no one would care about Chinese domestic issues like famines. In my mind the inevitability will be another wave of xenophobia that will eventually target India and the Indian diaspora as their military and domestic military and technology companies develop