Seriously Western EVs are not bad. They are just too expensive.
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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I wonder if we tariff Chinese EVs on the difference between labor rates, what would that look like? And how much of the difference is something like socialized medicine? Most foreign labor doesn't have to spend a significant portion of their paycheck for health insurance.
I'm surprised "make our pickups and SUVs even bigger" wasn't suggested.
This child-murder truck is not child-murdery enough!
If you can't fuck em kill em right? /s
The company that can make an EV that gets you 100 miles range for $10,000 and can fit at least three people will become one of the dominant players.
Here in the UK you can pick up a secondhand Tesla with 60% depleted battery with a guranteed 100 miles range for £8,000. Less than 10 years old and with less than 40k miles.
Obviously everyone will call you a cunt but it's possible.
My cargo e-bike could do that, assuming you can carry an extra battery and the passengers are kids. And for a lot less than $10K, too.
It's annoying how the world, especially North America, is designed around vehicles that "can fit at lest three people" but are most frequently driven by a single person.
I love my ebike, and don't own a car, but even for short trips things would be more convenient with a car. The roads are designed for cars. Parking is designed for cars. Laws protect cars far more than bikes.
Maybe that will change. What happened in the Netherlands since the 1970s gives me hope. But, right now it's sad how the switch away from the gas-powered car seems to be toward electric cars rather than bikes, ebikes and mass transit.
100 miles when it is -25 or colder. Otherwise there are too many variables. Most days 100 miles is more than most people drive however most people I know often have a day where they do that much.
The actual thing they need to do in order to compete is in-source parts manufacturing in order to take advantage of economies of scale... Like the Chinese EV manufacturers do.
Basically, toss out the Chicago school of economics thinking and go back to their roots as an all-things manufacturer. Ideally, they'd innovate as part of that by adopting new technologies like 3D printing to bring costs down and accelerate improvements.
I don't mean "3D printing for prototyping." They already do that. I mean, 3D print the final part. If it works for fucking rockets going into space, it can work for cars too. Especially electric vehicles which are much simpler to make.
If you think 3D printing is advantageous for economies of scale, I have a bridge to sell you.
Rockets are the complete opposite of mass manufacturing.
Yeah, 3d printing only makes economic sense if you're not doing mass production. It involves a lot of compromises.
Also, OP argues that it's better to be an "all-things manufacturer". Most of the time that isn't the most efficient way unless you have government assistance in some form. That might just be having patents or copyrights. BYD started as a battery company and has battery-related IP. Now they're China's leading company in patent filings, with over 13,000 of them.
Most of the time it's more efficient to specialize in something and buy parts from other specialists.
idk shit about manufacturing, but can you do that at scale? I know my 3d printer is slow as fuck if I want it to make a good print.
Also when you pay pennies on the dollar for labor it cuts costs for EVs.
I'd settle for cheaper.
If they stopped adding features nobody asked for it would be a lot cheaper. Look at how Slate is doing.
They haven't delivered anything yet. They have pre-orders for now that will fill a year of production, but how much of that is people who buy anything new but won't buy again, vs sustainable people like this and so customers will keep coming.
Only time will tell.
Sure, they have simply demonstrated that there is demand.
Just like all the deposits on the cybertruck……oh wait.
There was lots of demand for Cybertruck… mostly from fanboys and bootlickers though.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable that an established EV maker got 10x the reservations than a brand new manufacturer did, even on a product clearly designed for edgelords.