Well here I am currently watching the 2023 Guangzhou Autoshow on youtube and I am amazed at the quality of the evs at the show. I am also in awe how fast China is electrifying their auto fleet.
BYD surpassed Ford in total sales earlier this year and they only sold 500,000 car in 2019. BYD also said this: demolish the old legends
BYD, Xpeng, Nio, MG, Geely, GAC are all expanding rapidly into South America, Europe and South East Asia.
These companies are topping the sales charts in the South East Asian markets.
Kia Australia boss says Chinese car brands will be in top five shortly.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/chinese-car-brands-top-five-within-three-years/
I’m kind of concerned for our current auto brands dragging their feet.
No. They have zero infra and zero brand recognition in the U.S.
You put a compelling product on the market and people will flock to it. Having the right product for the right price tends to override any prejudices real quick.
In Australia and NZ - nobody knew who the hell BYD were until about 2 years ago. Now, their compact crossover, the Atto 3, is the 2nd best selling EV behind the Model Y. For 2023 in NZ, the Atto 3 is the 7th best selling new vehicle overall (Model Y is #3). In Australia - the Model Y is also #3, with the Atto 3 at #22.
Not too culturally different from the US. I’m not suggesting they will overshadow the big 3 in their first few years on the US market – but I can see them rising up to Hyundai/Kia sales numbers pretty quick – probably stealing a lot of their sales from the Koreans.
The much higher tariffs (5.0% in Australia vs 26% in the US) and the way EV tax credit works makes Chinese cars way less competitive though which is probably much important than anything else.
I said the same thing about them in Australia when they first started making inroads about 5 years ago.
Now they’ve completely dominated the ‘cheap disposable shitbox’ role that Hyundai, Mitsubishi and Nissan used to be kings of.
That didnt stop Tesla from succeeding.