It looks as if Chinese vehicle manufacturers are leading the way in affordable transport. Bloomberg reports:
BYD Co. unveiled a new hybrid powertrain capable of traveling more than 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) without recharging or refueling, intensifying the EV transition competition with the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. and Volkswagen AG.
The upgraded tech, which aims to put more distance between BYD and its rivals, will be launched in two sedans immediately that cost under 100,000 yuan ($13,800), the automaker said at an event live-streamed Tuesday evening from China.
The longer range means some of BYD’s dual-mode plug-in electric hybrid cars can cover the equivalent of Singapore to Bangkok, New York to Miami, or Munich to Madrid on each charge and full tank of gas.
There's more at the link.
I've said for a long time that unless a vehicle can run 500 miles fully loaded, with air conditioner or heater running, through the most extreme weather, without needing time-consuming recharging, I'm not interested: therefore, electric vehicles have been a no-no as far as I'm concerned. Hybrids do better, but again, they're not built to carry heavy loads for long distances (something I do fairly often), so I haven't bought one. BYD's approach marks the first time I've been seriously interested in a hybrid vehicle; and at that price, it's very affordable. (Ten will get you one that it won't be that low-cost if it ever reaches the USA. Our bureaucrats and the Big Three will throw every obstacle in its path that they can to prevent that.)
Frankly, if BYD is that far ahead of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler Stellantis, it deserves to eat their lunch.
Peter
24 comments:
The US's CAFE standards have a significant impact on the cost of building a vehicle.
Wasn't there a similar discussion on the reason that Toyota Hilux pickups can't be sold here in the US?
I know that any of the family cars I grew up with in the 60's couldn't possibly be sold here today
used to work with a guy who bought Toyota hybrid highlander
got tired of him bragging how little he spent on gas per month. then he had to replace 2 of the 6 batteries.
set him back 4 grand or more. and they told him the other 4 will need replacing by the end of the year. he sold it a month later and bought a gas only ride.
First, I do not believe any performance statistics from China. The Chinese lie frequently about anything and everything.
Second, these vehicles do not meet USA specifications for rollover protection, computer control, side impact protection, front impact protection, etc, etc, etc. Those specifications up the weight of USA vehicles by 300 to 500 lbs of dead weight. Maybe more.
Third, do these vehicles meet USA emissions specifications ? USA emissions specifications are the toughest in the world and have both immediate and long term (100,000+ mile) requirements.
That's a big press X to doubt. Well... maybe if you eliminated the trunk space and split it between battery and fuel capacity.
They are sold at a loss within communist China. Also I would take the press release with a healthy dose of skepticism.
As the car company is controlled by the ccp they don’t need to make a profit domestically.
First off, do you really trust anything reported out of China? "Capable of" is only a claim and a pretty wild one for a sub-$14k car. Show me the car after actually making the run and I might be more interested.
Second, I will bet the cars in question are built like Yugos with absolutely no safety features and only seat one or two. It is telling there are no screenshots or links to the livestream in the Bloomberg report.
They aren't cheap, but my old Explorer Hybrid and new F150 Hybrid carry a significant load and still get pretty good range. We see ~600 miles even with the F150 loaded up as long as we keep the load tarped up and out of the wind stream.
a. China Lies Lies Lies.
2. No EPA in china. Ditto no Osha NTSB, or UAW. Ergo, affordable.
Thirdly, Whaddaya bet they burst into flames at the drop of a hat?
Peter - it is vastly more important to ensure these cars are NOT connected to the internet or reporting back to some external server via other means. I simply do not trust our authorities not to meddle with them.
Call me when Car & Driver or Consumer Reports gets one, and it gets the advertised 1250 miles in one go. And it isn't a piece of cobbled-together chinesium.
Until then, it's just CCP propaganda.
If you go to several China Bloggers and Vloggers' sites, you can see how unreliable BYD, Li Motors, Xiaomi autos are. They are prone to spontaneously combust, leak electrical charges and are poorly built (tacked weld on frames instead of completely fused welds, thin suspension arms and poorly insulated battery boxes.). Then throw in faulty programming and questionable designs. What you have are poorly built, structurally unsound vehicles that will not pass US safety standards...
Even if they imported it, they couldn't sell it here because it doesn't meet the safety standards. Some of these cars are so poorly made that "Safety By Gillette" comes to mind....
Lots of Boomer Murrican Copeium Dreams in the comments above.
The one thing more pathetic than defeat is self-delusion.
China has overtaken you in many areas. Despite all your Barcalounger sputtering about 'copying', they've passed that and are well and truly into the innovation stage in most fields. And moving ahead. BTW, how TF do you geniuses think that Yankee Ingenuity got ahead in the last decades of C19? Guess wot? Massive, pervasive intellectual property theft which jump-started what then became *your* (now utterly moribund) creative and original phase of development.
History moves in cycles. Grow up and deal with it.
I live in Hong Kong. Part of the PRC. I have better internet than you do. Better health care. Better diet. Better cellphone coverage. Fewer troons. Less Pedophilia. There is literally only one area which is censored. In daily life I have more freedom than you have. For all your guns and pickups, you're far more likely to run afoul of a sociopathic DA or SWAT stack than I am.
Big deal. There's still plenty to be said for being American. At least you might get to enjoy fighting for something you all enjoy blathering about (these supposed 'freedoms') soon. But for the rest, China has high speed trains, lots of lovely high-tech stuff much of which is years ahead of the cheap rubbish you buy in your shitty Walmarts because that's all you can really afford these days. Don't waste time bad-mouthing the Chinks. Spend what time you have left ruminating on how you all allowed yourselves to sink so low in so short a space of years. Then do something about it. Like pull yourselves up by your bootstraps or something. Isn't that what Boomers like to tell everyone else to do? :P
BYD Factory here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd_bx6a4hgE
Just look at all the downtrodden slave labourers. Millions upon millions of chained together Uighurs or something like that. And if they don't meet quota they run over them with tanks. Some loser ex South African who never rose above teaching English in China before with a YouTube channels says so so it must be true.
Next up some idiot will say that they copied a Tesla factory. Hate to break it to you but BYD was doing it long before Tesla was even a thing.
Get a clue, you people. You're as dumb as the folks who said that the Japanese infantry could never achieve anything against Whitey because they were short-sighted midgets.
Reality is that thing which won't go away even when you refuse to believe in it.
I get it. Injured pride really sucks. But eventually after anger, denial, blah, blah... you need to reach the Acceptance stage in order to grow.
BTW, my 2019 F-150 4x4 has a 600 mile range with my 375 hp 3.5L twin turbo V6. I got the Max Tow package which includes a 36 gallon fuel tank. 17 mpg in the city, 22 mpg on the highway at 60 mph, 20 mpg on the highway at 75 mph.
Capability and reality are two different things... And lots of what the US requires is probably NOT on either of those vehicles.
nobody will hip them after five freighters burned due to chinese ev's catching fire in the damp conditions.
The Aptera started as a very high mileage internal combustion then they changed midstream into electric. That was a long time ago and now seems Aptera is sokn, again, to be available with 1000 miles per charge.
The Elio was to be an inexpensive commuter for the masses with 80MPG. But, they decided to build their own engine, did not follow advice to the door on the right side (minor issue), and other bad decisions and the Elio is no more. Again, that was many years ago and it looks like Elio is into another "available soon" with an EV version. I put money down to reserve an IC version many years ago but got my money back - too many delays. I have been tele-commuting 100% of the time and I do not need it.
JaimeInTexas
Count me in the skeptical camp. Very skeptical regarding the 2000km claim. But it probably does have decent range for a sedan in real world conditions, just not over 1250 miles/tank of gas
And yep. The range is definitely iffy - https://www.carsauce.com/car-news/byd-introduces-new-hybrids-with-over-2000km-range
"The stated ranges are based on the CLTC and NEDC test cycles, which are used primarily in China and are less rigorous than the WLTP standard adopted in Australia and Europe.
BYD claims that its plug-in hybrid system can achieve a fuel consumption rate of 2.9L/100km under the NEDC test cycle, even when the battery is low. "
Now 2.9L/100km is roughly 50% more than the current Prius (4.5L/100km ish) but the Prius gets that on the much much tougher (and more realistic) EPA testing. I can believe the BYD would be similar to the Prius in EPA tests which would give it about 60% of the stated range (~750 miles)
That's actually pretty impressive even so and it seems to do it off a 30L gas tank as opposed to the Prius' 40L one. But its not that far off the Prius which I suspect is a generally larger vehicle and has a range of ~500 miles
Ah, so you're that type of expat.
(Yawn) Come back when you have something interesting to say.
the China range estimates are even worse than the US range estimates, so discount them by about 50% (and don't forget to convert from Km of range to miles of range)
Also, a lot of gas cars only get around 400 miles of range (old and new), so setting 500 miles as a minimum rules out a lot more than the electric ones.
BYD is selling cars in Europe, but not many. The cars end up costing about the same as comparable cars from other manufacturers, and do not have a good reputation for quality or reliability.
(I think it's worth noting that the best selling EV in China is a Tesla, even though it's the equivalent of a few thousand dollars more expensive, buyers apparently prefer it)
David Lang
I"m with the semi-sceptics on this one. The little cars sound great, but 1) do they really perform that well at US highway speeds and conditions? 2)How durable are they? What are the results of basic 30 mph crash tests? 3)Are the computer controls self-contained, or do they have to be in contact contact with a "mother house"? We've seen what happens sometimes when Teslas decide to update or reboot.
TXRed
Let's see how it does in a crash test...an honest one. And let's see what shape it's in after 100K miles. Then we can talk.
Reliability, and load capacity remain to be seen, Peter. Just wait and see if they even get here...
Peter,
In the early 80's, I saw a cute vehicle parked at the bank. Had Guam plates. Owner told me that it cost about $4.5k. Looked like a 3/4 scale jeep. Four or five years later this model turned up for sale here in the US, at about $22k, IIRC. Suzuki, I think. So, figure about 4x to 5x price increase when vehicles get imported into the US from Japan.
Knew a guy who became a Mercedes dealer rep about the same time, and he said that the markup was about 3x over the European prices.
There can be shipping costs, compliance costs, Importer costs, dealer costs, import taxes, and others I've overlooked.
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