When China’s BYD recently overtook Elon Musk’s Tesla as the global leader in sales of electric vehicles, casual observers of the auto industry might have been surprised.

But what’s caught other carmakers around the world off-guard is something else about BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway: its low prices.

“No one can match BYD on price. Period,” Michael Dunne, CEO of Asia-focused car consultancy Dunne Insights, told the Financial Times. “Boardrooms in America, Europe, Korea and Japan are in a state of shock.”

BYD can keeps its costs low in part because it owns the entire supply chain of its EV batteries, from the raw materials to the finished battery packs. That matters because a battery accounts for about 40% of a new electric vehicle’s price.

    • @Anyolduser
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      86 months ago

      But America bad! If America has airbags then airbags bad, too.

    • @[email protected]
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      -236 months ago

      No not the airbags, the safety standards being “obscene”, cost prohibitive and not yield good results.

      So if American standards are preventing additional competition it should be because they have a very high standard which should bare out in terms of road and pedestrian deaths and injuries. It does not. Therefore the “obscene” standards are another example of poor results to cost.

      • @[email protected]
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        96 months ago

        What a silly thing to say. On what basis have you decided they don’t yield good results?

          • @[email protected]
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            56 months ago

            Not really conclusive as there have been increases in speeding and drunk driving that cause total accident numbers to go up. A more relevant stat would be fatality or injury rates per accident.

            • @[email protected]
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              06 months ago

              You’ve changed your tune from it being silly to needing more granular data.

              Pedestrian deaths are on the rise and decent safety regulations could impact speeding and drunk driving.

              • @[email protected]
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                46 months ago

                I said you were silly because it was more polite than calling you stupid, and in neither case is it referring to the issue of traffic deaths.

                And now you’ve changed your tune talking about pedestrians which has nothing to do with the topic.

                • @[email protected]
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                  26 months ago

                  Car safety regs have nothing to do with pedestrian deaths? So cars with poor visibility due to design choices are in no way related to car safety or pedestrian deaths?

                  Cars having impact ready bumpers and lowered engine blocks that have a direct correlation with lower chances of death or serious injury in the event of a collision with a pedestrian or cyclist are completely unrelated to safety regulations?

          • @[email protected]
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            36 months ago

            Per capita probably isn’t a good way to measure this.

            Car deaths should probably be by miles driven.

      • @[email protected]
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        66 months ago

        Sounds like what the Oceangate CEO said about industry safety requirements for submersibles.

        • @[email protected]
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          -26 months ago

          I’m saying they’re not fit for purpose, America has a shit ton of road and pedestrian deaths. The safety regulations don’t do enough.

          • @[email protected]
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            26 months ago

            Hey since you seem to be ignorant of old car safety hazards ive got a '78 Ford pinto to sell you.

            But seriously modern American cars (or atleast the post 80s ones) are a shitton safer than their old counterparts. And this is coming from someone who loves old piece of shit cars (Id drive the Homer).

            Modern American safety features to a point were paid in blood. Tuna canning in small cars is isnt nearly as common as it once was, and the pealing the smashed in head of the drive off of the stearing wheel isnt all that common anymore.

            There are certainly some so called safety features that are laregly pointless IMO but my hatred of back up cams aside, survivability of car crashes have skyrocketed.