Small, well-built Chinese EV called the Seagull poses a big threat to the US auto industry https://t.co/yjBpZNoVWB
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 13, 2024
Back in 1961/62, my dad bought one of the first Volkswagens in NYC. (It was a sedate shade of blue, but he called it Pfeffernusse, after the German sugar-dusted ginger cookie.) It did attract attention… some of it even admiring…
LIVONIA, Mich. (AP) — A tiny, low-priced electric car called the Seagull has American automakers and politicians trembling.
The car, launched last year by Chinese automaker BYD, sells for around $12,000 in China, but drives well and is put together with craftsmanship that rivals U.S.-made electric vehicles that cost three times as much. A shorter-range version costs under $10,000.
Tariffs on imported Chinese vehicles probably will keep the Seagull away from America’s shores for now, and it likely would sell for more than 12 grand if imported.
But the rapid emergence of low-priced EVs from China could shake up the global auto industry in ways not seen since Japanese makers exploded on the scene during the oil crises of the 1970s. BYD, which stands for “Build Your Dreams,” could be a nightmare for the U.S. auto industry…
U.S. politicians and manufacturers already see Chinese EVs as a serious threat. The Biden administration on Tuesday is expected to announce 100% tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China, saying they pose a threat to U.S. jobs and national security…
Outside of China, EVs are often pricey, aimed at a higher-income niche market. But Chinese brands that are not yet global household names are offering affordable options that will appeal to the masses — just as the U.S., European and many other governments are encouraging a shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles to fight climate change.
“The Western markets did not democratize EVs. They gentrified EVs,” said Bill Russo, the founder of the Automobility Ltd. consultancy in Shanghai. “And when you gentrify, you limit the size of the market. China is all about democratizing EVs, and that’s what will ultimately lead Chinese companies to be successful as they go global.” …
Ford CEO Jim Farley has seen Caresoft’s work on the Seagull and observed BYD’s rapid growth across the globe, especially in Europe, where he used to run Ford’s operations. He’s moving to change his company. A small “skunkworks” team is designing a new, small EV from the ground up to keep costs down and quality high, he told analysts earlier this year.
Chinese makers, Farley said, sold almost no EVs in Europe two years ago, but now they have 10% of the electric vehicle market. It’s likely they’ll export around the globe and possibly sell in the U.S.
Ford is preparing to counter that. “Don’t take anything for granted,” Farley said. “This CEO doesn’t.”
ETA: No price point mentioned, but…
2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz comes to America with a 91 kWh battery and up to 335 HP. https://t.co/Kgzy8onneJ via @InsideEVs
— InsideEVs (@InsideEVs) May 13, 2024
Dangerman
Would 6’7″ need a shoehorn? Lather up in Crisco (sounds kinda kinky, actually)? I drive very few miles generally. I could rent when I make a longer distance run.
I’d buy. Just to piss off the right people.
Jay
@Dangerman:
It meets the EU A Class standard, so if you fit in a Mini, or a Fiat 500, you will fit in a Seagull, but the passenger behind you might not have much leg room.
Baud
Competition works.
frog
I have 3 questions …
1} does it become a crematorium if the battery catches fire while you are inside?
2) how much does a replacement battery cost?
3) are alternate sourced batteries accepted by the car’s electronics? {Some hoverboards will brick if you simply remove and restore the same battery}
caphilldcne
One issue is what are the labor standards that are allowing these prices to be set so low. We already know that the working conditions manufacturing phones are really grim. China needs unions.
Chris T.
@Dangerman: That particular BYD model doesn’t meet US standards, so you’d have to do a grey-market import. (Some of the standards it doesn’t meet are pointless for an EV, such as the ones for the hoses that won’t dissolve in engine oil. Since it has no engine oil to spill onto the remaining hoses, there’s no need for that, but the regulations here have not caught up.)
Chris T.
@frog: 1: LiFePO4 batteries tend not to catch fire as easily, and the solid state stuff is also safer, so you should be pretty good. 2: Probably lots especially since you’d have to grey-market import them. 3: No idea.
Old School
100% tariffs? Because the U.S. makers are making larger cars? Or are the Chinese makers selling under costs?
Darkrose
He’s not wrong. I love my ID.4, but we paid a ridiculous amount of money for it, money we only had because of an unexpected gift. Even more than issues like range anxiety, the base cost of EVs is way too high, especially if the goal is to promote widespread adoption.
Baud
@Old School:
Both?
MagdaInBlack
@Old School: B.
Jay
@caphilldcne:
The BYD labour standards are better than in Tesla’s Chinese factories.
frog
@Chris T.:
Boeing 777s use Lithium batteries, so there must be a Right Way to make and use them.
One of the YouTube channels that rags on everything CCP showed a clip of a luxury E-car that crashed into the back of a box truck and caught fire. The driver was killed immediately. Passers by tried to save two in the back seat, bashed out the windows but still failed.
Maybe this BYD model is safe, but I’m not brave enough to be first in line to get one.
Harrison Wesley
I read an article about this by Dean Baker earlier today,but I don’t remember where. I was surprised because he suggested following Ronald Reagan’s plan to help the U.S. auto industry.
Another Scott
VW has been teasing a new Microbus for about 25 years now. It looks like they’re finally, really, actually going to sell it here again, but it will be spendy (especially since it won’t be eligible for the $7500 EV credit (not being made in the USA)).
It’s going to be a small niche unless they get the pricing right. And since it has taken them so long, I wouldn’t expect them to be able to do so. And maybe they’re Ok with that – we’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@Old School:
@MagdaInBlack:
It’s actually A.
In markets outside China, where wages and income is higher, the Swallow sells for $4000 USD (Latin America) to $10,000 USD (Asia, Europe) above that $12,000 USD base price.
The small EV market in China is highly competitive with many of the entry level EV’s being equivalent to post war Micro Cars.
Another Scott
@Harrison Wesley: https://cepr.net/the-problem-with-electric-vehicles/
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
Harrison Wesley
@Another Scott: Thanks!
Baud
America’s embedded large car and gas/oil culture, plus job displacement, will make the transition here harder than it should be.
trollhattan
It’s not a pickup, so not a threat to the US “auto” industry.
Interested whether it meets DOT safety and crash standards (or are they now letting makers self-test, like, oh, Boeing)?
Jay
@Another Scott:
And as a result, we got the Vega, Pinto, Pacer. All crap cars compared to a Toyota Corolla or a Datsun 510.
mary s
@Harrison Wesley: Yes, he did a post about it on his “Beat the Press” blog. His larger point is that it should be seen as a good thing that somebody is doing something to make EVs cheaper, and that the US should be trying to find ways to work/negotiate with China to meet a mutual goal of addressing climate change.
Jay
@trollhattan:
It meets EU Safety Standards.
It does not meet US Safety Standards, because it has not been tested in the US.
Harrison Wesley
@mary s: Thanks – looks like he posted in a couple of places.
Baud
The other problem is that US auto execs all have a right wing mindset, which means not preparing for the future.
Chris T.
@trollhattan:
It’s not for sale here (yet) so they don’t have to test it (yet).
The testing standards are kind of complicated and one of the factors is how many they intend to sell. Only sufficiently-mass-market-ed cars go through the theoretically-better tests, in general.
Jay C
@Jay:
Not at first: we
old geezersveteran drivers can remember that back in, say, the ’60s, Japanese cars (which were just starting to penetrate the US market) were generally considered cheapola transport – they were typically derogated as “rice-burners” – and while the smaller US models were generally ALWAYS crap, the Japanese makers decided that improving the build quality (reliability/service life) was the way to improve market share. A policy which worked splendidly. Nowadays, you have to be REALLY old to recall when “Made in Japan” was considered a put-down.Chris T.
@Jay C: Yep, I remember the rusted-out Honda CVCC a friend had, and how the 1980s models were so much better built. The CVCC still ran really well but its quality (or lack thereof) showed.
Jay
@Chris T.:
plus, it involves destructive testing, so the MFGR needs to be willing to pay upfront for the testing, and “donate” a certain number of cars that will wind up as scrap. They also need to send a team of Engineers and Lawyers to observe the testing.
BruceJ
@Old School: Because the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing the industry with the aim of capturing a lot of export market.
how-china-is-incentivising-production-of-electric-vehicles
Unfortunately, the United States’ deeply reactionary automobile industry still sees EV’s as toys for rich people to play with, so we get bullshit like the Cybertruck, and Chevy inexplicably killing the only affordable EV they made, the Bolt, instead of the kinds of Cars BYD sells.
Baud
Of course the car companies are all in court right now fighting gas mileage regs.
Jay
@Chris T.:
Vega’s were delivered from the Factory with rust.
It took a while for Japanese Manufactures to adopt better steels and coatings to deal with North American road conditions and road treatments.
Betty Cracker
The VW e-bus is cuuuuute!
Baud
@BruceJ:
It’s supposed to be coming back next year.
ETA
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2024/03/next-gen-chevy-bolt-ev-to-arrive-for-2026-model-year/
trollhattan
Speaking of beloved EVs, Friday we saw a transporter loaded with five Cybertrucks. Could not decide if I was looking at cuttingroom floor footage from a clunky sci-fi flick, or the Chesapeake Bay horseshoe crab mating frenzy.
Jay
@BruceJ:
so, basically everything the US does at the Federal, State and Muni level,
AKA Foxxconed, Football, Oil and Gas, etc.
different-church-lady
The success of these vehicles depends entirely on whether the established brands have completed their brainwashing of American consumers into believing they must buy gargantuan vehicles whether they can afford to or not.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I won’t be satisfied until the grill is above the windshield.
different-church-lady
@BruceJ: They want to ensure that one unit of personal transportation remains as expensive as possible. They accomplish this by simply removing smaller, more affordable models from the mix. And they have the utmost cooperation from the gluttonous American consumer lizard brain.
different-church-lady
@Baud: “Forget the “aggressive” front end, we’re going for psychopathic front end!”
dm
I expect most EVs have two wheels, actually.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I’m reminded of that missile the US has that uses swords instead of explosives to kill without causing collateral damage
That’s what big cars need.
Freemark
There are so many cars I would like to see in the U.S. But many wouldn’t sell here. Some that would are
pick-up trucks made for Korean and Japanese markets. They are only a little larger than car size and have a low lift-over height. Available in 4-door and all-wheel drive. But margin is car-like so no interest by car makers to make them here or import them. These already have a market in the U.S. but aren’t certified for U.S. so can’t be used on the road. Seems there are a lot of agricultural sales of older imported models here in the U.S.
The problem is the gross profit of a F-150 is $10,000 to $15,000 while a Hyundai Porter is probably $500-$900.
cain
@frog: We are talking about Boeing here – not a brand I would trust for safety. Especially if you are a whistle blower.
dexwood
@different-church-lady: Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth. With rack-mounted weapons of war.
different-church-lady
@Darkrose: I can tell you that in 2018 I didn’t even consider electric because I knew I couldn’t afford it.
dr. bloor
@frog:
Interestingly, very few consumers could answer any of these questions about domestic/favored foreign brands, and American manufacturers are about as likely as the CCP to disclose any relevant info.
Mart
My dad bought a VW Beetle in the mid 60’s. It split in two!
Baud
@Mart:
Herbie?
cain
@Jay:
Automaker’s biggest problem is likely going to be competing with chinese automakers worldwide – sure they get the tariffs but eventually demands are going to create a lot of pressure for them.
We can solve this problem by increasing worker wages so they can afford the more expensive cars instead of relying artificial lower wages in China – whose demographics looks like there will e a collapse.
cain
@Baud: big everything really – with high prices, already though ‘big’ is no longer big. Packaging have become smaller.
different-church-lady
@Mart: Your father was Dean Jones?
RaflW
To some extent, I understand defending the US manufacturing base and wanting to fend off subsidized crap that would be a short-term boon for consumers but cause longer term negatives (landfills topped up with short-lived junk, factories shuttered and workers laid off).
But a 100% tariff because US (and other rich nation) car companies have catered almost exclusively to the Massive SUV/6500 lb Pickups/7 passenger Mom-Crossovers (for a family of 3-4), well I find that pretty disappointing.
Does definitely ring bells of the late 70s when ‘cheap’ Japanese cars displaced very lackluster Buicks and Chrysler gas-guzzlers. $3.59 gas these days doesn’t seem to dissuade Ram 3500 truck buyers, though.
(Eta, a f*cking Ram 350 p’up weighs up to 7,339 lbs. I’d bet that only 1 in 10 of the dudes who drive ’em really need the haulage offered. The other 9 would do all their suburban tasks fine in a 1500 with the tender, slightly less Prius-crushing curb weight of 5,000lbs)
emjayay
@Jay: If they make one to meet EU standards it’s gotta be close to US standards. One difference is airbags/seat belts (unless one or the other changed). In the EU it is assumed that everyone will have a seatbelt on but not in the US
And in most places in the EU there are many reasons besides fuel economy for small cars like parking and little Medieval streets. And less demand for long range electric cars because of typical distances driven. All carmakers tried but all the smaller cars that are successful in Europe have been killed off in the US due to lack of demand.
NobodySpecial
Until there’s a glut of pre-owned EV vehicles, such that the price point goes under 5 digits, you won’t get any appreciable move to EV. $12K plus financing for a lot of America might as well be $12M.
dr. bloor
@Freemark: The other problem is that size counts when you’re shopping for an emotional support vehicle. The boys aren’t interested in the 6″ model if there’s an 8″ out there they can afford if they finance it over 72 months.
kissel
With the situation the world is in, we (Biden/US) need to allow these EV’s to come into the country without tariffs. If nothing else, it would force competitors to come up with cheaper and well built EVs. Right now what is really holding EVs back more than anything (including negative propaganda) is the price.
emjayay
@Mart: Wow. Lots of people rolled VWs back then – the swing axle rear suspension (until 1967) plus rear heavy weight distribution was good at that. But the round shape and strength meant that they usually did well. Wouldn’t want to have a frontal crash at any speed in one though.
West of the Rockies
@trollhattan:
They are butt-ugly vehicles, and not in a so ugly it’s cute way.
Jay
@emjayay:
They have seatbelts and airbags. 4 seatbelts and 6 air bags, 4 in the front, (dash and door) 2 in the back, door.
It’s generally the cost of testing vs market sales.
There are a bunch of “US” manufacturer cars that havn’t been tested, because while there is a Global market for the cars, the Manufacturers don’t believe there is a domestic market.
Bill Hicks
Oh god, I want one so much especially if it it is yellow (i’m very color blind and love crazy bright colors).
Freemark
@dr. bloor: Try 84-months. That is becoming the popular term length.
Jay
@emjayay:
Funny thing is, the Asian’s have done well and are still doing well, along with some European cars.
the real reason, like the reason for shrinkflation and inflation, is that there is less profit in an affordable small car, than a Ford F450.
Just like one of the reasons, (other than lack of affordable EV cars), that EV sales arn’t huge, is Dealers don’t want to sell them. They make a small fortune off of every ICE sold in service and repairs, which don’t exist for most EV’s.
emjayay
@Chris T.: I guess you mean Civic. Anyway, Audi was the first to galvanize car bodies, followed by other European brands and later US cars. Japanese cars were the last to do it. Before that cars in salted northern climes would start to turn into Swiss cheese in as little as three or four years.
FastEdD
I drive a Ford Mach E and I absolutely love it. I have had it for 2 years and put about 20K miles on it. Zero defects. It replaces my Jeep Grand Cherokee and holds the same amount of crap, has AWD and 100 more hp, and it is actually shorter and a few hundred pounds lighter. After incentives and selling the Jeep, it cost about the same (38K). Never going back to gas again. Better than a Tesla because it has actual physical knobs and switches you can find without taking your eyes off the road and looking at a screen. Jim Farley knows what he’s doing. What are his poltics? Who knows? He’s smart enough to shut up about it and that’s fine with me!
FastEdD
@Jay: As a consumer I sure as hell don’t want to pay enormous repair bills. My Ford dealer is happy to sell EVs but they don’t make much money off them. No oil changes or smog checks.
trollhattan
@Jay: EVs are around a quarter of CA new car sales.
https://www.veloz.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Q1-2024_EV-Market-Share-in-CA.png
Up from less than 10% in 2020.
Hoodie
@Jay: Margin retreat. It’s the disease of American corporations, probably due to the need to meet quarterly earnings targets.
trollhattan
We just spent 1.4 kilobucks on a plumbing fix. Whee!
Pro tip: if you have ABS drain lines installed in the ’90s, there’s at least one brand that’s not stable and becomes brittle. So now we know.
Jay
@emjayay:
1975 and later Honda Models all used the CVCC engine which was a major improvement in fuel economy, performance and emissions.
He may be thinking of the 3rd Gen CR-X.
MomSense
I can’t afford to buy a car now and fingers crossed my subie will last a good while longer. I’m hoping that when I’m ready to buy a car the cost of EVs and the infrastructure that supports them will be accessible for me.
Gin & Tonic
@Freemark:
My kids love those mini-trucks (Daihatsu for one) but they can only be imported as antiques when they’re over 25 years old, and having them street-legal is difficult to impossible, depending on state. My state, for instance, moved to revoke the registration of the handful that are here and have plates, but a legislator got involved and they *may* be grandfathered, although no new registrations will be allowed. When I was in Park City in March, I saw one that seemed to be street-legal in a supermarket parking lot, but I don’t know what the regs there are.
Another Scott
@Jay C: +1
All US cars and trucks were crap death traps in the 1960s. It wasn’t just Corvairs.
(But they were fun!)
And people were Ok with it because they knew they could replace it in 4-6 years (after the engine threw a rod or the floor pan rusted out) with something much more stylish and “better” for not a lot of money.
There was a lot of decent innovation out of GM in the 1960s, attempting to fight off VW and other imports. Pontiac had a SOHC straight 6. Chevy had the flat 6 in the Corvair. Buick had their aluminum V-8. By the early 70s, they had the bugs worked out and they were pretty reliable engines and the Corvair was a good car. But Americans wanted bigger and bigger and more powerful cars, so they went away.
And then the oil embargo hit, and inflation went nuts, and all the rest, and the rest is history.
Cheers,
Scott.
emjayay
Ford dropped the Fiesta, their smallest car sold in the US (and then the rest of their non-SUV type cars) in the US even though it continued to sell in Europe. Honda dropped the Fit and Toyota dropped the Yaris in the US. Same thing. GM dropped the Chevy Spark.
Most Americans live in places designed around having cars, including parking everywhere. We tend to drive long distances, and even if not taking the family and luggage a larger vehicle will just be generally quieter and ride much better. It’s hard to compensate for wheelbase and weight.
I don’t see a big market for a really small car in the US today. But the rest of their cars, sure.
Martin
The US auto market will insist on making unsustainable decisions until we’re forced to bail it out yet again.
rekoob
There was a reference to the Caresoft teardown of the BYD Seagull. Autoline does a thorough job of covering the automotive industry in general and has done a lot with electric vehicles:
BYD Seagull
The VW ID. Buzz is expected to be priced at a slight premium to the existing line-up. An ID.4 is about $40K, so call it $45-50K to start.
The Chevrolet Bolt will be re-launched early next year with an updated battery pack (GM Ultium), and while larger than the BYD Seagull, will still be fairly compact.
Also, keep an eye out for Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs), which may see their offerings grow for low-speed, low-priced options.
Baud
@Martin:
OTOH, I’m looking forward to buying the Ford Hoocoodanode.
Martin
@Hoodie: US investors have gotten VERY greedy in the last few years. Not just automakers suffering from this.
Hoodie
@Gin & Tonic: I saw several of them during a recent trip to Hawaii.
Jay
@trollhattan:
In 2023, 15.5 million “light” new vehicles were sold in the US. 1.2 million were EV’s, so 7.8%. F-350 and up type platforms are not considered “light” vehicles.
California is not a “snapshot” of the US Market.
But over all, EV sales have continued to trend upwards.
We will see if version.2.024 Melon Husk shitcans that whole trend.
Freemark
@Gin & Tonic: Seems that most sales of those imports go to farms for off-road use. They have to be 25 years old or older for on-road registration.
The Kia / Hyundai models are becoming more popular since they are left-hand drive like U.S. cars even though the popularity started with Japanese mini-trucks,
JaneE
Even with 100% tariff, that would make a $20-$25 thousand car. Depends on the range, but something like that would be great for someone who lives close to a metro center. Even when we go to to big city down south, I can stay off the freeway almost entirely, where that little car would be just fine.
ron
Isn’t the Chinese government heavily subsidizing their entire EV industry along with paying workers pennies and that accounts for the low prices? And they are doing the same with solar panels.
Poe Larity
You can fight climate change or you can subsidize western manufacturers building EV Canyoneros that nobody can afford. Even VW doesn’t get it. That Buzz is going to cost north of $50K.
Hoodie
@Martin: Margin retreat can be slow suicide for the companies and/or the country. Eventually the companies pull out of so many lines of businesses that don’t have the requisite margins that you leave the field completely open to foreign competitors who don’t operate under the same constraints. You fail to develop expertise in the tech that produces products like this. I would imagine these smaller EVs can be built with a relatively high degree of automation given that they’re not particularly complicated.
Slightly_peeved
The Seagull isn’t being offered in Australia, but their slightly bigger Dolphin, the MG 4 and GWM Ora Cat are being sold for around AUD $35000-40000 which is USD $23000-26000. They have 5 star crash ratings.
I’ve driven the BYD Atto for a few days. Decently put together small SUV. Had about 200 miles range if I remember correctly. I liked that it had normal mechanical car door handles that opened and closed the doors, rather than Bluetooth-enabled pop-out ones. Saved a few hundred there, probably.
Australia doesn’t put particularly big tariffs on them because our car industry pretty much collapsed over the last couple of decades. Our government stopped paying subsidies to GM and Ford, in the name of a level playing field, and they buggered off. Whether you take this as a justification or condemnation of massive subsidies to car companies is up to you.
karen marie
@NobodySpecial: Also, you have to live in a single-family home or a very expensive apartment complex to have anywhere to plug in an electric car.
I suppose I could drop an extension cord off my balcony but I’m not sure that the wiring in the building is up to it. That presupposes the space immediately in front of my building is available for me to use.
ron
@emjayay: If you go to Japan or parts of Europe there are so many nice small cars made by Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Mercedes, Audi and others. I want to buy them! Instead I will either buy a used Fit, Impreza, or Mazda 3.
Hoodie
@ron: They may not be subsidizing it any more than the raft of hidden subsidies that support US businesses. For example, the big 3 can sell high margin pickups and SUVs in part because gas prices are artificially low. If gas were 10 bucks a gallon, a lot of people would realize they don’t really need them and stop buying them.
different-church-lady
@emjayay:
Hoodie
@JaneE: At those prices I’d buy one for our second car for commuting, running errands, going out to eat, etc., augmenting our larger gas-powered car that we use for traveling. We did that with a 2012 Honda Fit that we bought for 16k. It was a great car, used by both of our sons in high school and college. We sold it to a friend of our younger son when he graduated in ’21.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
90% of the market for Toyota (Hilux’s) and the Small Tacoma here, is US buyers, which upsets the Offroad Crowd here as the locals are “priced out”.
I bought a ’96 4Runner in 2009 with 200,000 km on it, 125,000 miles, for $6,000 CDN, in Arizona and drove it up. It was pristine and loaded, but had been listed for sale for 6 months with no offers and 2 tire kickers. It was a steal.
I sold it to a California buyer in 2019, with 300,000 km on the clock, a bit of rust in the back bumper for $16,000 USD as a base truck for a Rock Crawler.
Ian, a coworker at the time, 2023, was given his Dad’s Gen1 4Runner, the first year, only one with the solid front axel, 2 door, removable canopy, 4 banger, 128K km, a little rust in the drivers side front fender. He was going to list it for $1500. I should have bought it, but, I am a nice guy. I told him it was worth way more than that. He sold it to a Dealership on the Island for $14,500. They had a Customer in Oregon who was going to pay for the minor body work, the shipping, and enough profit to make it worth their time.
Sure Lurkalot
@Freemark:
Hard to take someone complaining about the cost of groceries seriously when they willingly sign the bottom line for $1,000 per month payment for 7 years on a precarious “investment” like an automobile.
different-church-lady
@Sure Lurkalot: Unfortunately we have to take their votes deadly seriously.
scav
@different-church-lady: Really amusing thing is how much more fun so many of those smaller European cars are to drive. Parents would rent the basic VW or Renault or Peugeot for their month in France and all their guests (that could) would absolutely volunteer to do the driving.
Another Scott
@ron: Japan’s annual road taxes are based on engine displacement. The micro cars (and trucks) have low taxes, and so there’s an incentive for companies to make them for people who don’t want to (or can’t) afford to pay more every year.
The US does pathological things like let businesses write off 100% of the cost of a 6000+ pound pickup. And impose a 25% tariff on imported pickups. We could actually use the tax code to make it much more appealing to own smaller vehicles. Like many, many other countries do. But change is hard, too many are dependent on giant profits on giant vehicles, etc., etc., so we have to be bludgeoned with yet another crisis to change.
Grr…,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
Lots of misconceptions here.
LFP batteries used in low to mid-range Chinese EVs are more stable chemically than LiNCM batteries commonly used in EVs in the U.S. (& premium Chinese EVs): lower risk of runaway thermal reaction when punctured, can be charged for more cycles, can be completely discharged or charged to full w/o degrading the battery, & cheaper, at the cost of lower energy density, & worse low temp performance. BYD Blade version of LFP battery is the safest of them all, no runaway thermal reaction when punctured. That is why Tesla is using them for some of its models. Advances in LFP tech is closing the gap w/ LiNCM.
As EV and PHEV adoption soared in the PRC in 2022 & 2023, legacy ICE makers (mostly state owned or Java w/ foreign legacy makers) tried to scare customers away by posting videos of battery fires on Chinese social media, which then percolated to ROW social media & get highlighted by Falun Gong & other anti-CPC accounts. It is PHEVs that have the highest propensity (relatively speaking) for fires, but the benefit is no range anxiety.
Chinese EV factories are now almost fully automated, some of the most automated in the world, which explains quite a bit of the quality & cost advantage. Manufacturing labor cost is negligible as a factor here. Where labor cost comes in is lower overhead: R&D, engineering, management & support functions. Labor cost in the PRC has not been a competitive advantage for at least a decade, at least compared to other developing economies.
The Seagull is already on sale in a number of L. American markets, for ~ US$ 22K. Far from dumping, BYD & other Chinese EV makers are making much better margins selling overseas, because of the brutal competition & price war w/in the PRC.
At one level, the Biden 100% Chinese EV tariff is election year posturing. Chinese EV makers are already deterred from entering the U.S. market due to the existing 27.5% tariff wall, the challenges of working w/ dealer networks, & U.S. paranoia about anything Chinese. OTOH, the tariff walls against Chinese EVs, batteries & upstream suppliers will make the electrification of passenger vehicles much longer & much more expensive.
Protection behind a tariff wall is a necessary but far from sufficient condition for developing domestic supply chains for EVs & green tech. Shutting out Chinese suppliers, which are currently (& for the foreseeable future) the leaders in tech, scale & cost, from investment & JVs in the U.S. will in fact stunt the US attempt at catch up.
The better industrial policy strategy for the U.S. is to borrow from the Chinese experience: put up tariff & regulatory barriers, but invite the market leaders to invest, form JV w/ tech transfer requirements, put in place domestic content requirements that increase over time & paired w/ tariff/regulatory barriers that fall over time, & then let brutal market competition take its course w/o trying to favor the established incumbents.
Tariffs, once gone up, tends to be very sticky. The tariffs on pickups & full size SUVs in response to European “Chicken Tax” are still in place, distorting the U.S. automotive market & the Detroit Big Three for decades. Given the current tenor of Sino-U.S. relations, there is only one direction the tariff on Chinese made EVs will go.
Chinese manufacturing underwent a dramatic shift during the pandemic years. > 50% of industrial robots are installed in the ORC for the past 3 years. & most people in the world have not updated their priors wrt Chinese manufacturing for nearly 2 decades.
eclare
@Mart:
I learned to drive on a 1970’s VW Bug. It was a manual, and getting that thing into reverse was a PITA.
different-church-lady
@scav: Driving? Fuck that, we act like we don’t want to be bothered with paying any attention at all to that part.
H.E.Wolf
My dad’s 1966 Beetle wasn’t nearly so exciting.
It did have a temporary problem with its ignition in the mid-1970s. For a while, my task in the morning was to push the Beetle – with my dad in the driver’s seat – a little way along the downhill driveway while he kept the car in neutral, until the momentum of the downward slope allowed the engine to start*… whereupon Dad would putt-putt-putt off to work.
* Note: this was my non-car-oriented-teenager’s understanding of what was going on.
A fond memory, actually! I miss my dad.
hofeizai
I live in China and BYD cars are everywhere, along with a few other EV brands. They are everywhere here, and they see about as remarkable as a Chrysler
Gvg
@Jay C: I am not that old, but I do recall that. I also recall that it changed rather suddenly. I also recall when the Kia was a bad car, and decided to fix it. In order to overcome the prior earned bad rep, they offered 10 year warranties. I was really hoping other companies would be forced to copy that. Management can make smart long term plans or short term gains that end up killing the company.
zhena gogolia
God, I have no interest in cars. I have to buy a new one and I cannot make myself think about it. Mine is 25 years old.
Jay
@karen marie:
Many EV’s will charge slowly off of a 15amp circuit. If your commute is not long, and you arn’t working 16 hour days, your EV will fully charge if you plug it in when you get home.
In our underground garages, there are 8 plugs per floor with 15amp service. 2 of the parking spots can be leased, 2 are for cleaning out your car.
In front of the building are 4 Fast Chargers, installed by BC Hydro, All you need is a credit card or debit card and you pay Hydro Rates. They will fully recharge you EV in 2 hours or less for roughly $0.08 a kwh. $5.17 vs $35 in gas.
About 4km away, is a Mall, with 16 Fast Chargers.
They have fast chargers even at the top of the Coq. You can now drive all across Canada in an EV, as long as you are willing to take long lunches in beautiful scenery.
frosty
@Chris T.: Ms F’s ’77 Honda Civic rusted out pretty badly. You don’t see any Datsun 510s on the road for the same reason. They were spiffy little cars, 1600cc OHC; sort of a Japanese BMW.
Harrison Wesley
This is an interesting discussion, but it’s all theoretical to me. I haven’t driven a car in 52 years.
scav
@different-church-lady: The boredom with the activity could also just reflect how non-zippy the response is. They’re not automating sports cars.
But yes, I don’t understand Americans at all. They seem so fixated on the silly wheeled things (sexual status symbols!) and mythologize the open road etc and then insist on getting behind the controls of bloated sluggish vanilla-mobiles and not pay attention to the process.
Gvg
@emjayay: Yes, and there were Northerners who came down and bought our used cars, to resell up north.
Also my dad told me to not by a used coastal car, only inland, here in Florida. It was a noticeable difference.
Remember when dashboards used to crack from too much sun and you could by fitted mats to disguise that? Car makers solved that and suddenly cracked dashboards weren’t seen anymore.
Dan B
@frog: It’s far more likely you’ll due in a gasoline car fire than an EV vehicle fire. Don’t rely upon individual stories. Statistics are more important.
Sure Lurkalot
@zhena gogolia: Mine is half as old and while there are days I’d like something newer with a bell and whistle or two, I find most new models overly and not pleasingly large and ugly.
I’ve bought 5 cars over 40 years and used to (sort of) like checking them out and test driving but that sounds like torture to me nowadays.
YY_Sima Qian
If you want to see an American reporter covering the EV industry’s shell shocked experience at 1st mass exposure to Chinese EV at the Beijing Auto Show, see below:
The European & Japanese auto executives & media already had their shell shock experience last year from the Shanghai Auto Show, but not many Americans media & relatively few American executives showed up.
zhena gogolia
@Sure Lurkalot: Chevy had this one called the Cruze that I planned to get, but I guess they got rid of it because it was too small and sensible.
Jay
@frosty:
I see lots of Datsun 510’s here,
In the summer,
On perfectly dry days.
Here they are in the same class as 70’s BMW’s, Alpha’s, Cortina’s, Celica’s, Porsche’s.
They are a Collector Car, and go for the same prices, so they spend 98% of their time in a climate controlled garage under a car cover.
Like many places in the US, we have a “Crush” program here. There is no such thing as a $500 beater, because the Province will give you up to $2600 for an older car, to haul it off and crush it, no matter the condition.
jame
Super high performance, innovative EV — as far as I know, the first built by a phone company: https://youtu.be/BEJp1FbadOc?feature=shared
And such a beautiful blue!
Darkrose
@Jay: After we bought our EV, I read many horror stories from people saying dealers were actively discouraging them from purchasing EVs. I guess we got lucky; we’d already decided on the ID.4 Chevy’d stopped making the Volt; Kia and Hyundai have security flaws that make them very easy to steal, and we were replacing another VW so we had a relationship with the dealer.
Our experience was great–we made an online appointment and were matched with the EV specialist, who is certified by our local electric utility (NOT PG&E). That definitely seems to be the exception, even in Norcal, which is definitely EV country. (So many Teslas OMG!)
Martin
@Hoodie: Yeah. It’s a part reduction of an order of magnitude. Assembly costs are wildly lower (which is why UAW doesn’t like them) but component costs are higher. They really throw off where the money comes from and goes which is challenging for businesses that have dialed one particular cost model in really effectively.
But the main problem is that the auto industry writ large needs to get ever more revenue, and the value proposition of EVs is VERY different than ICEs. You can’t really sell on performance, and things like that. And you can make a reliable and efficient vehicle for VERY little money, but people don’t need more cars – and so the inevitable trajectory of what BYD is offering is a MUCH lower revenue industry. Which for BYD is fine – they’re not an incumbent – they’re a new entrant and they’ll gladly take 25% of the US auto market at any retail price. And the incumbents simply cannot abide by that – it puts them literally out of business. They are carrying so much debt already on their factories that a decline in revenue makes it impossible to cover their own debt. So you get margin retreat.
The automaker are relying on them being such a big part of the US economy that they are untouchable, which to be fair, is pretty well proven – we’ve bailed them out twice before. But the risk is that they become so unaffordable to enough people that cities have to do a modality shift – they have to build transit, make biking/walking safer, etc or else they just have a a subset of the population that can’t get to jobs. And the increase in physical size of vehicles is steadily bankrupting cities on road maintenance and loss of tax revenue. So you’re getting that modality shift starting now. It’s small and hard to see, but if you look at your city’s development plans for 10-20 years out, it’s mostly bereft of cars because the city just can’t afford the infrastructure any longer. Automakers may get the feds to bail them out, but the municipalities are increasingly motivated to yank the infrastructure subsidies out from under the market. They are hurtling toward disaster, and I think a lot of consumers are being strung along here, being sold a lot of false hope.
Darkrose
@Harrison Wesley: Wish I could do that. Unfortunately, Sacramento’s public transit is just not that accessible, especially for two older women with mobility issues.
KrackenJack
@H.E.Wolf: I remember rolling starts! How did he get home?
YY_Sima Qian
@jame: The SU7 has sucked the oxygen from other marques (Chinese or otherwise) in the PRC, except BYD, for the past several weeks. Reviews have been generally positive. Pretty good for a 1st attempt.
However, the Xiaomi car is like Xiaomi phones, uses the best name brand components w/ the best specs in key areas, have some interesting features, priced cheaper than the competition at equivalent specs, cost cutting in less visible areas, & the user experience is somehow less than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, w/ the brutal price competitive, the SU7 is not priced lower than the competition, & most of the buzz is coming from Xiaomi’s loyal fans of its consumer electronic products.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: The biggest downside risk of the current US industrial policy on EVs/green tech (such as it is), is that it turns the US into a “Galapagos market” w/ high cost, less advanced tech, & slower adoption, behind the tariff/regulatory barriers.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: I think that’s desirable for cars. We have about double the car ownership per capita of the EU, and it’s simply not sustainable. There’s no painless way to get the US market into alignment, so I’m agnostic on how it gets there. I think the US should engineer that transition rather than leave it to outside or market forces, but I have no expectation that can happen. Culturally, we’re going to have to take the pain.
But on green tech I agree.
Darkrose
@karen marie: We live in an apartment complex that doesn’t have enough parking for everyone here, much less EV charging. Fortunately, I can charge on campus, and there are multiple charging stations near us. It does require some planning; it takes about 30 minutes to charge from 20-80%, so my wife and I typically go charge and listen to a podcast, then go get food. It’s kind of nice, actually.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: But what is the alternative in the US to car travel (& air travel, which is also carbon intensive)?
Harrison Wesley
@Darkrose: I was very pleasantly surprised when I moved from Philadelphia 8 years ago. No city in either Manatee or Sarasota Counties (where I spend my time) has anywhere near Philly’s population, but both of them have good public transit. Doesn’t run as frequently as I was used to, but that was to be expected and I’ve gotten used to it. Cheap, too – in fact, Manatee County Area Transit is free.
Another Scott
@jame: They obviously cribbed the shape from the Porsche Panamera.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dan B
@karen marie: Seattle and Los Angeles are installing curbside RV chargers in neighborhoods with lots of apartment buildings. They’re wired off telephone poles and are Level 2 chargers – 4 – 5 hours depending on battery size. We charge our 220 mile range Leaf with a standard household outlet (our single family home has a driveway and garage). My guess is that curbside charging will be ubiquitous in a decade except for big-oil states.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: Yeah, one of the 1st things noticed by Chinese social media, which Xiaomi caught a lot of flak for before launch. Apparently, it drives like a Porsche Panamera, too.
Harrison Wesley
@YY_Sima Qian: I saw some items online promoting high-speed rail a while back, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere. It would be hard to get the money to get it up and running.
RaflW
@ron: I know I’ve talked about this before, but European turbodiesel small and even mid-size cars/hatchbacks/wagons are super fun to drive (6 speed manual, please!) and very fuel efficient. Not as clean as an electric car charged off wind/hydro/solar, but for, say, a driving vacation with a lot of miles to cover, a good option.
In an ideal world here in the US, we’d have one t-d AWD wagony-thing, and one 4 door PHEV. In stead we have a ’15 Outback, and a one year old Crosstrek. Both great to drive, but at 29-33 mpg depending on mission and driver, not really good enough economy or for the environment.
Baud
I drive very little and have a place to charge up, so an EV is perfect for me. Still giddy about not pumping gas anymore.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: We’re going to have to build it. And it’s not just transit, but also infill housing, and all that. It’s going to be a lot.
But we can’t keep subsidizing more and more and more of the status quo. Increasingly the bill is coming due – not just in transportation costs, but housing and other costs. We had this post-war vision of largesse which was aspirational but carried operational costs that we never adequately accounted for. So every motorist has 5 parking spaces, at a cost of $10K each built for them. How does that get paid for? That’s a surcharge on goods and services – and $50K per motorist is a LOT of surcharges. The 20′ storefront can easily throw off enough tax revenue to pay for the 20′ frontage before it, with motorists covering their own parking costs, but a McDonalds has a much harder time producing enough tax revenue for the 200′ of frontage thanks to the parking lot it needs to carry.
There’s no way around this. EVs don’t change the calculus here – they make it marginally worse, actually. We built a country that is operationally expensive, and keep trying to hide the costs because it makes people mad. But you still gotta pay the costs – eventually. How much of our failing infrastructure was built in the 50s/60s/70s and never maintained? A lot. We’re just going to have realign our expectations, and you do that by increasingly internalizing those costs – taking the gas tax and putting it in your registration, having people pay for parking, tolls on roads, all that. It’s going to be hard.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady:
I also think that Americans, to an increasing extent, don’t fit comfortably in small cars.
The median American woman is 5’-3” and weighs almost 171 pounds. The median American man is a hair over 5′-9” and weighs 198 pounds. Average Europeans are more than 20 pounds less and average Asians are even lighter than that.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Some of those Nordic women are tall though.
YY_Sima Qian
@Harrison Wesley: There are the Brightlines from Miami to Orlando & from LA to Las Vegas, but neither are truly high speed because they are not grade separated from motor traffic. The Acela is certainly not high speed. The LA to SF line is now a perpetual money sink.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian: :-)
It’s a pleasing shape. They could have done worse.
But it’s a 15+ year old shape…
Cheers,
Scott.
sdhays
@Baud: I have a real bias against American car manufacturers because of this. It’s not even completely being “right wing” in the political sense. It’s about group-think, complacency, and a toxic fear of innovation. The only reason American cars aren’t total shit anymore is because of Japanese competition. Most of the time, American manufacturers’ CEOs think they can just spend a few million dollars buying politicians to make any unpleasant reality go away, at least until their successor comes along. Of course, they’re not alone in this mindset, but since they work together, they often get their way.
It’s really sad how awful Tesla is as a manufacturer because that industry deserves to be shaken up. I know there’s good stuff going on at these companies, but they have never been led in a way that’s positive for America, at least without the government kicking them in the butt.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: The problem is that the only available modes of long distance mass transportation are passenger vehicles, trains and airplanes. Population density in the US does not really support high speed rail, whereas in E. Asia & Europe it can.
Perhaps when autonomous driving is mature in the future, the passenger car will become a commoditized, “ubiquitized” & on demand service, so that not every family needs to have 1 – 3 vehicles that sit idle 95% of the time. Should also build more light rails & BRTs in the low density cities & suburbia of USA.
XeckyGilchrist
Almost makes one wish US automakers had concentrated on anything but how to make pickup trucks bigger for the last 10 years.
StringOnAStick
@trollhattan: The local subreddit for our town had a photo of a car transporter hauling 5 cybertrucks. The caption was “Hey Bend, your truckload of refrigerators arrived”. Ugly and stupid vehicle and the fact that it virtue signals libertoonian tech bros makes it a useful social winnowing mechanism.
Peke Daddy
YY_Sima Qian
@XeckyGilchrist: Why would they when the “Chicken Tax” tariffs gave them a sheltered playpen in the pickups & full size SUV segment? There are no regulatory restrains in the US, & relentless advertising made them desirable to suburbanites (even urbanites) against all logical reasoning. Little competition & strong demand = easy fat margins.
Another Scott
Wake Me Up Before You Go To Rehab (3:28)
Cheers,
Scott.
Chris T.
@emjayay:
No, “CVCC” (Controlled Vortex Combustion Chamber) is what they were called before they were eventually Americanized to “Civic”. Using this controlled vortex trick, the vehicles could pass the 1970s era smog controls without catalytic converters, unlike US makes.
RaflW
@Martin: “if you look at your city’s development plans for 10-20 years out, it’s mostly bereft of cars because the city just can’t afford the infrastructure any longer”
Cities like Minneapolis are jettisoning parking requirements for appt projects within reasonable walking distance of mass transit now.
Land is expensive, developers can get more rent from ground floor appts than they can renting stalls in ground floor (even indoor, heated) parking. A lot of younger — and some older — tenants are choosing to be car-free, or having the choice made by not affording a car.
I think (hope?!) for city lovers, we’ll see good growth in e-bikes. I have my eye on one that looks quite a bit like a 70s minibike. Right now it isn’t worth the investment as we’re not home in Minneapolis enough to get the use out of it. But I’d be fine with us at some point being a one (PHEV) family + one or two e-bikes (the Ponto linked above seats two, so we could pop out to dinner or a friend’s on it together!).
H.E.Wolf
I have no idea… but he made it home every evening, so maybe the ignition was only recalcitrant first thing in the morning?
Thank you for reminding me of what those were called! All I knew was I felt really athletic, pushing a whole car by myself. :)
(Some college friends and I lifted up the rear end of a car, swung it out to the side, and put it down again, so that we could get our own car out of a place in which we’d been parked-in; but that was a group of 4.)
YY_Sima Qian
A peek at how quickly the Global South countries can electrify personal transportation, skipping the ICE stage, taking advantage of the cheap made in China EVs. Much like much of the Global South skipped landlines and went straight to mobile.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the more successful EVs in Ethiopia are models that failed to pass muster w/ Chinese consumers – products of the Sino-foreign JVs. In mean time though, the bulk of Chinese passenger car exports (now the largest in the world in 2023) are still ICEs, especially from Chinese marques.
Marc
Brightline Florida runs on tracks shared with slower freight trains using diesel locomotives. It maxes out at 200 km/h on stretches that are grade separated. Brightline West (LA to Vegas) will use fully grade separated dedicated tracks and will use EMUs (electric multi-unit cars) typical of real high speed trains. It is supposed to run at upwards of 300 km/h when (and if) it reaches service.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
Even in the “Flyover” country, high speed rail makes more sense than flying or driving. The gating is that the rights of way arn’t Public, they are private. So you pretty much have to run elevated tracks along highways.
YY_Sima Qian
@Marc: Ah, thanks for the clarification on the LA to LV line! That will be the 1st true HSR in the US.
StringOnAStick
I want to eventually replace our 2007 Prius with a tiny EV and use that for all town and errand driving. We used to use it for summer trips to keep the miles off our Outback (our winter ski car), but the catalytic converter is too valuable to risk driving it anywhere that it will be outside overnight. We found that out the hard way at a hotel in Portland and had to drive 4 hours home wearing earplugs did to the noise and an extra hour due to the loss of power. It was $1,500 to replace the catalytic converter and our insurance paid for it, then went to higher than for the 2012 Outback.
The prius is fun to drive, which makes me realize all those “cool Proud said no one ever” bumper stickers are all about sticking with big cars and shaming people who don’t agree. I hauled 200 lbs of landscaping rocks home in my Prius today.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: Nah, it can work in the US. They’ve done cost analysis on HSR vs air and HSR is about 50% more expensive than air, when emissions aren’t considered, and they’re about even when they are. So, some of this just requires internalizing the cost of the pollution.
The biggest problem in the US, however, is that the country provides almost limitless veto opportunities for large capital intensive projects through a million layers of lawsuit opportunities. That’s much of CAHSRs costs and pace – because there’s tens of thousands of eminent domain claims all of which get their day in court, impacts on utilities, and so on. And the state lacks the kind of ‘fuck off’ ability that the federal government has on these matters (let alone a country like China).
One of the big lessons not learned by armchair analysts is that CA demonstrated 20 years ago that centralized utility power was a dead end for this very reason and decentralized utility (solar, wind, etc) was the only thing agile enough to get built, which is why dreams of nuclear are never going to happen.
Air travel is more decentralized than HSR. You only need to get the endpoints built and you can tell everyone in between to GFY. That would need to be overcome and turning it into an interstate highway type of project rather than what we’re doing now (Brightline, etc.) which is very hands off.
And of course I do need to leave another option in here – which is that we just don’t do it. We don’t hit net zero because we can’t give up the cars, we further leverage the class divide in the US by putting more of the costs of our cars on the poor, and we just don’t and we tell the rest of the world to suck it on climate change, and we retain our allegiance to our cars while the rest of the world steadily eat our lunch.
Ms Martin wanted to stop off at JoAnn Fabric this weekend and I went in with her and observed that these stores that I go into maybe every 3 years or so fall into increasing disrepair every time I see them, that one day we’re going to go in and there will be a sizable hole in the roof and pigeons everywhere, and everyone will go about as if it’s a perfectly normal thing because it’ll have snuck up on them. A lot of the US feels like this. We downrate bridges rather than fix them. The 30t max load becomes 26t then 22t then 18t then 15t as the engineers reassess the consequence of lack of maintenance, but nobody polices that load. It’s just a friendly reminder to truck drivers that they might wind up in the bottom of a ravine if they aren’t careful.
6,000 pounds wouldn’t have allowed a fair number of passenger vehicles in the US from crossing it. Every electric F-150 is heavier than that.
Gin & Tonic
@RaflW:
Gotta say, my Miata is hella fun to drive. ICE, yes, but 6-speed manual, 4-cylinder naturally aspirated, and (the key) under 2400 lbs. Highway driving if I’m being sensible (ha!) will get close to 40 mpg.
No, it’s not a practical car, but fuckit.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: Depends on how you evaluate it. There will be one relatively high speed section, but the average speed keeps getting downgraded. And there’s only 4 stops, so it’s really only serving the endpoints, with concerns that their ridership numbers are unrealistic given the CA endpoint isn’t exactly close to LA. We’ll see what actually gets delivered here. In the larger plan it’s designed to connect up with CAHSR in Palmdale which would increase demand quite a bit. But operating it in the median of I-15 raises a lot of concerns.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Thanks, I hadn’t been following the developments of the LA-LV line. A big part of ridership on HSR networks is the network effect. The wider the network, the higher the volume for every part of the network. A single line is very difficult to sustain to even justify, especially since the other end of the anchor is LV & not another metropolis. Unless you have the highly urbanized population density of the western coast of Taiwan. NE Corridor is another obvious candidate, but eminent domaine will be even more of a nightmare than CAHSR.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: Exactly, which is why CAHSR is so expensive. They’re completely reworking Caltrain from San Jose to SF (new electric trainsets starting in a few months!), and track upgrades over the next few years so they can increase to 110 MPH operating speeds. Money was redirected from HSR to LA Metro to speed up some expansions for the ’28 Olympics.
All told there’s the overhaul of CalTrain (which will share track with HSR) plus expansion to BART, MUNI, ACE, Amtrak, LA Metro, Metrolink, plus a possible new local rail system in the Central Valley. There’s quite a lot happening across the state, and not just here but elsewhere. There’s something like a 10 year backlog on getting new rolling stock because so many cities are buying new trains, So there’s some action. Not enough, but it’s going in the right direction.
Timill
@Suzanne: My middle stepson is probably around 400 lbs. He drives (or should that be wears?) a Smart.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@BruceJ: “Sixty to Zero” is a good book that covers the Big Three as entirely clueless from 1960 onwards. Dinosaurs, expecting they ruled the world, not noticing WV an the Japanese had some ideas.
Don’t get us going on electric cars in the Clinton years. the big three made gestures, Japan build hybrids.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Timill: Has he fit in a Ford, lately? to steal one of Letterman’s gibes.
Timill
@Boris Rasputin (the evil twin): :-)
I used to give him rides in my Fusion, which I would still have if some clown in a Tacoma hadn’t run over it.
NotMax
One more time, a short look at Chinese EVs sold in The Netherlands.
Making Fun of Chinese Cars .
“This isn’t a logo, this is a full sentence.” ;)
Martin
Boreal forests in Canada burning again. Last year just the fires emitted as much CO2 as all of Mexico did. The risk of climate change isn’t the steadily climbing curve, it’s the risk of triggering some feedback loop that accelerates that process what we don’t have the power to turn off.
Jay
@Martin:
Borealforests in Canada burning againIt’s all burning, grasslands, scrub, all the forests, even the rainforest.
Not just the boreal.
This year started in January
and it’s not just Canada,
https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2024
Martin
@Jay: Burning grassland isn’t so bad – it grows back quickly. Those northern latitude forests take ages to recover.
YY_Sima Qian
@NotMax: Well, BYD learned & all of their newer shipments to overseas markets now only say “BYD” on the rear. It’s still “Build Your Dream” in the Chinese market, though.
Jay
there are 3 villages in Alberta, 2 villages and one town in Sask, and 4 villages and one town in Manitoba that would disagree with that assessment, because they have had to evacuate on short notice this week.
Last year, the Chilcotin Prairie burned so hot it sterilized the soil despite moving at times at over 100 kmh.
11,000 hectares of bare dirt for the next 15 years.
Kayla Rudbek
@Baud: somebody should ask them whether they are in the transportation business or the burning oil business
Kayla Rudbek
@Betty Cracker: I know, and I wonder if it could fit a tandem bicycle, inflatable kayak, and the footlocker/trunk for a Celestron telescope all at one time, plus the rest of the luggage…
Martin
@Jay: you can replant grasslands without much trouble from the air – and grasslands start propagating in weeks . Trees you usually gotta do by hand, it takes years for them to propagate. I’ve done tree replanting – it’s backbreaking.
I had a friend who did ecological surveys after wildfires and noted that the native plants almost always come back faster than they expect.
Kayla Rudbek
@trollhattan: is it that awful gray stuff? My house probably should have all the plumbing replaced because the awful gray stuff fails from the inside out.
Kayla Rudbek
@RaflW: and all of the “she’s not pedaling” jokes would finally be true
Jay
@Martin:
when the soil is sterilized, nothing grows. It’s just basically minerals. The dirt is dead. No bacteria, no nematodes, no worms, etc, and of course no birds, mammals, reptiles or amphibians.
The Tsilhqot’in have been trucking in hay since the fire was put out in June, to feed the wild horses, did a survey of the burned area in late October and found one grass plant, despite 15 tons of native plant seeds being scattered. Adding to the issue, the September/October rains gullied the burned area washing the silt into the Chilcotin river just in time for the greatly depleted salmon* runs to start spawning.
*Massive rockslide 2 years ago making the Frasier impassible near Quesnel. So about 80% of the spawning grounds in BC’s largest river. They dip net the salmon, load them in airated containers and fly them past the landslide. They get about 192,500 out of 6-10 million past the rockslide every year.
Jay
@Kayla Rudbek:
That’s Pex. There was a massive recall on Gen 1 Pex in the 1980’s
Now it’s IPX in white, blue and red and is a much better product.
He’s talking about the black PVC drainage pipes from the sinks, showers and toilets to the main sewer lines.
Kayla Rudbek
@Jay: we had the main water line into our house fail as well and it flooded the basement. Fortunately we had homeowners insurance.
Jay
@Kayla Rudbek:
Copper, PEX or IPX?
Concrete eats copper, so the “best practice” these days is to overdrill the pass through hole by 1/2″ and insulate the copper from the concrete with epoxy or urethane caulk, injected to fill the gap.
There also was in the late 80’s and 90’s a flood of cheap copper from China with not enough zinc, which would rot out in 5 years.
PEX, even later generations, replace it.
IPX is okay.
SuperIPX is best.
cain
@hofeizai: thanks for weighing on. It’s good to get your perspective.
cain
@Darkrose:
Dealerships make a lot of money on repairs. EVs don’t have a ton of moving parts and so it isn’t as lucrative. You combine that with direct sales like Tesla and you are seeing the end of dealerships. A major part of the GOP party.
cain
@Martin:
What that ultimately means is that you need to pay people more.
cain
@Martin:
That’s how the GOP got power via Reagan when Carter tried to push using less energy. We didn’t want to do it.
Ksmiami
@YY_Sima Qian: good article. I say open up the markets and let consumers decide. I’m tired of subsidizing the domestic car business since the manufacturers refuse to truly innovate.
YY_Sima Qian
@Ksmiami: The US should not de-industrialize further, that has natsec implications (& generally I am extremely skeptical of such arguments). The US should implement industrial policy that sustains a competitive domestic automotive industry, encourages electrification (even if w/ PHEVs as a stepping stone), & has a sizable domestic supply chain including batteries. However, just keeping the Big Three (& the Koreans, Japanese & German plants in the US) coddled behind a protective wall will not get there or anywhere close. However, all of the domestic supply chain & manufacturing need not be wholly US owned. Even plants owned by Chinese companies can be quickly nationalized in the event of a Sino-US war. (Not to mention we will all have a lot more to worry about than the fate of Chinese owned EV/battery plants in the US in that scenario.)
Ksmiami
@YY_Sima Qian: I agree, but part of forcing innovation to come to Detroit is by accepting international competition and products.
YY_Sima Qian
@Ksmiami: Absolutely, that competition should be in the form of wholly owned Chinese (in addition to Korean/Japanese/European) EV/battery manufacturing in the US, and/or Sino-US JVs. It does not have to be imports. Let them all compete to their hearts’ content inside the protected US market, & let the American consumers benefit from the competition. The US market is large enough to support it. Alas, the current US domestic political environment is toxic to Chinese investment, JVs or tech even licensing deals.
TerryC
@different-church-lady: We bought a 2024 yellow-glo Chevy Trax 5,000 miles ago. Wonderful little car. Very nice. It is the least expensive Chevy model. Our price was about $28,000.
TerryC
@frosty: In 1981 my wife and I drove an ugly brown 1978 Honda Civic from Ann Arbor to Acapulco to San Francisco and back while I pretended to listen to bar exam review materials on cassette tape; 10,000 miles in 5 weeks!
Ironcity
@Jay: never had significant rust on my 1975 Vega. Doubt you find maany Datsuns anyplace with rain or road salt.