Hi all,
I am about to buy a BYD Dolphin in Denmark, but I am worried about the availability of maintenance for these cars in the long term. I am particularly worried about the possibility of an economic or more traditional war against China (e.g., if the US wages a war using Taiwan as a proxy, Europe is sure to side with them). That would basically make maintenance impossible and make the car resell value drop to zero.
What are the chances for something like that to happen? Am I worrying too much, or is this something that I should indeed worry about?
do you want china or europe to prosper? every car or item bought from china contributes to a dictatorship and is at the same time a threat to workers in the european car industry, which is of huge importance to the european economy. thats what you should think about.
Yes, there could be a trade war or other issue that makes parts/replacements difficult to acquire. It’s not likely, but it could happen. Think of it the same as you would for very small production number cars - some parts can be difficult or impossible to acquire after just 7-9 years from final production.
With VW, Stellantis, etc… you know they’re going to be around for quite a while and if, somehow, they went out of business in a year there would be spare parts for quite a while as their cars are popular.
So… you can roll the dice. It’s a small risk but it will probably be ok. BYD, etc look like they are very eager to expand. Thus there should be the ability to get spares for the foreseeable future.
Comparing with ICE vehicles that need special parts every X thousand miles, EVs only need filters which are common parts. So a chinese EV will be easier to maintain than a chinese ICE or even a European ICE that has parts from china.
If there’s a war with Taiwan there will be sanctions and you can forget about maintenance.
Every EV is a repair risk. And regular cars too. Check out this 2017 Ioniq. The dealer quoted $50k CAD for a battery.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10103753/electric-car-shock-50000-battery/amp/
That is basically a fuck off quote. They legally have to make parts “available” for x years, but there is no law saying they have to be affordable. Hyundai has left the owners of these cars high and dry. However the owner should have found a wrecker battery instead.
But the real high and dry risk is a dealer repair only car because of locked software. Once the dealer drops support you are one repair away from a dead car. In 2026 we are getting a new open repair standard like OBD2 but for electric cars. I think I’ll wait til then.
Honestly if war breaks out (and it very well could), not getting maintenance or parts is probably the best case scenario.
All of these companies are tied to the state. You could wake up to it being bricked. Hell, they could decide to make every BYD car in Europe go into thermal runaway at the same time if they wanted to.
Nah Taiwan will just end up like Ukraine, the Kurds, the Afghanistani translators, or the South Vietnamese that Americans threw under the bus once shit hits the fan.
Who imports the cars in Denmark? In NL BYD is carried by Louwman which is a huge car importer for Toyota and lots of other brands. Since Louwman sold me the car they are responsible for upholding the service contract even if they stopped selling them at some point. Beyond the contract service guarantees I guess the only issue could be parts but I would be very surprised if you could not even get parts from China anymore…