American cars have sucked compared to Asian cars since the 1970s. I don't understand why people are acting all surprised that this is true in respect to BYD. Sure in the past products designed in China were stereotyped as poor quality knock offs of western designed goods, but in the past decade Chinese engineers have increasingly proven themselves as perfectly capable of making solid, innovative designs that improve upon those of their competitors. I think it's kind of fucked up that everyone is so suddenly upset about China's role in the world economy since everyone was completely fine using them for cheap labor over the past several decades and are just mad that Chinese companies are beating them at high skill labor and technology. Chinese companies do have an "unfair advantage" given how much they are backed by the Chinese government but American companies receive all sorts of money from the government for all sorts of things as well.

Remember when China gave its biggest auto manufacturers $85 billion to keep them from going out of business when they made a bunch of bad financial decisions? Oh wait that was the US.

This is definitely worth mentioning but it's also good to note that it was a loan not a bailout and Ford has repaid it.

Documents filed by Ford show the company owed payments of $591 million in 2020, $591 million in 2021, and $289 million in 2022. As of this year, the loan has been completely repaid. But the compact cars it built with the original loan have since been discontinued.

Ford also received a $9.2B loan for EV battery factory projects from the government.

GM, maker of horribly shitty cars, and yeah, the Corvette, we know. We've seen it, GM.

"do you want to see the C9?"

....of course I would.

But the business model has to change in order to survive. The company cannot undercut forever, it actually needs to change in order to survive.
The business model of today is not sustainable. They may have a large warchest, they may be able to crush GM, but once they do, or the warchest runs out, the business model must change.

If you want to make the argument that their overall plan with the later change is sustainable, thats fine, but this current phase is not sustainable.

Americans have come to think of Chinese products as bad quality because of the American companies who engage them for cheaper labor. Walmart was known to order products made to a certain spec one year, then the next year demand the company increase production, but for the same amount paid as the previous year. The Chinese company, not wanting to lose the contract, obliges, but corners have to be cut. It should be called Americanesium, not Chineseum.

Derek Guy (Die, Workwear!) posted a thread a while back (I think about 6 months ago) about how the Chinese can and do make great quality products, pointing out high quality fabrics. Give them money to buy good raw materials, give them a decent wage, and they'll put out a good product. Honestly, they probably have a more fair work ethic than some American companies that just feed their CEOs massive salaries or are owned by private equity.

Whatever can be destroyed by the truth should be destroyed by the truth. (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/03/13/destroy/)

My only point of confusion is that a 20k loss on every car is insane. I'm guessing its a bit of BYD is subsidised somewhat, and everyone else is price gouging somewhat. No idea the ratio.

Also odd that other Chinese brands (really only tried MG) dont seem to have the same high quality, high pricing that suggests the same level of crazy subsidies.

Honestly, there is just so much fuckery going I just have no idea what is what.

Anytime we bail out a company, I think we should nationalize it. We should just buy it from them.

Nah man, that's not the purpose of unrestrained capitalism. The point is to get big enough that you can buy out all the competition, then make your product cheaper and cheaper once there's no one to compete against. It's a bit like an economical algae bloom.

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.

I'd drive one

So we should then let American oligarchs drive American workers to the same but slower? because that is what has happened so far

Well yes, but actually no. BYD has quite of an advantage (also because China subsidies it), but american (and also European) companies have no incentive to actually design good quality products if BYD gets left out. At the same time CEO will try (and currently do it) to force us into working more and more for less money with less benefits while swimming in billions of dollars.

you accidentally forget to pay ur credit card minimum for one month and you're docked so many credit score points that you're ineligible for being given a loan.

but we bail out these megacorps time and again and just keep letting them operate like nothing's amiss

shit's borked (intentionally, to favor those with means)

Honestly, there's a wide range of quality of stuff produced in China, but the expensive stuff isn't getting brought over. The better stuff is either being used domestically or exported to India/SEA. From my limited experience importing stuff, the biggest common factor is the lack of final quality control. I ordered some small diesel engines because no else makes those but Yanmar and Yanmar prices themselves way out of my range. Even Yanmar doesn't sell a 5hp engine. The 196cc Chinese diesel was well designed, the parts well built, but final assembly lacks consistence on the bolt torque spec and there was metal shaving left in the crank case. The bigger, more expensive diesel made by a different company had much better quality control, although it's still necessary to flush the crank case. No one over there seems to do that.

That is certainly their wet dream, now that they can't easily just move their manufacturing to China and reap all of the benefits like they could 70s - 90s.

I’m not sure I see a connection between the working conditions, and the quality of the car. I don’t think anyone is advocating for adopting those bad conditions, but they also seem unrelated to the quality of design, and parts that go into it. That purely seems like a question of paying for good high-quality parts, and not skimping out on the design phase.

They went through a period in the 90s where they had a huge leap in quality and almost matched Japanese imports of the time. I'd say GM is the only one who's drivetrain quality is still on any comparable level with Asian imports. Ford gets some parts really right but then their beancounters make really dumb cuts to critical components that make many of their vehicles near lemons. I can't think of a worse car manufacturer in the world right now than Stellantis, and they aren't an American company anyway.

P.S. Actually the average american would be benefited from that

Ford has been busy corporate decisioning itself into irrelevance for decades now. The only reason Ford is even still around is the F series.