BYD launches $15,000 EV

[lethologica]

Corolla killer is jumping the gun a bit. Will these cars still be operational in 30+ years? What will their condition be like after 500,000km on the clock?

Once they reach these milestones then maybe they can call themselves a Corolla killer.

[toomuchtodo]

At that price, does it matter? You know what a Toyota costs today new? How many people drive their car to 500k km?

[richardw]

In 10 years both of them will be utterly outdated, but it might be easier to replace the battery with a cheaper lighter 2034 model. Resale price of both will be governed by the price of new equivalent electric cars in 2034. If you’re allowed to drive the Toyota near a city. It’ll be like smoking laws in 20 years.

(We currently drive an old ICE Toyota because post-Covid prices were nuts and I’m not overcapitalising given the above.)

[geoffmunn]

We have an MG ZS ev, and we've done 110,000km in 3 years. Battery capacity is at 93% which I think is pretty good, but I don't intend to be driving this for 30 years.

[davidbanham]

The article isn’t suggesting this is a better vehicle than the Corolla. It’s saying it’ll eat the Corolla’s market share.

[emmelaich]

Easily, assuming decent quality. Electric motors last a lot longer than IC engines. Batteries can be replaced. Bearings etc about the same.

[fallingknife]

Probably the EV will last even longer given the comparative simplicity of an electric motor vs internal combustion engine.

[londons_explore]

If enough of these are sold, it doesn't matter if they're reliable, since repairing any issues will become cheap.

Garages all round the country will be able to disassemble and reassemble to swap any part in minutes, and there will be a super cheap non-oem clone of every part that fails.

[thebruce87m]

EV driving costs me 3p/mile vs 12p/mile for my old diesel. That would be a £27k saving on fuel over that distance.

[bmitc]

Is a 30-year-old Corolla that safe?

[mbfg]

who cares. you can buy 3 of them

[zzz999]

I never seen a Corolla go to 500,000km... Are they common

[no_wizard]

In China. No word on if this will ever make it outside that market.

Never the less it’s a good achievement. Auto industry is continuing to grow there and going as close to majority EV as possible out the gate is a net win

[freetime2]

China is the second largest market for the Corolla after North America (as of 2016 at least) [1]. So even if it only kills the Corolla in China, that’s a pretty big deal.

[1] https://global.toyota/en/corolla50th/history/by_the_numbers/

[DanielVZ]

At least in my LATAM country, BYD already has a hefty chunk of the electric car market. Most of our capital’s public transport buses are BYD as well. Maybe they target emerging economies

[seanmcdirmid]

It could make it to lots of developing world markets, where BYD already has market share. So it won't just be china, but lots of markets that just aren't the USA and perhaps Western Europe or Japan.

[mappu]

The BYD Seagull (cost about 17k AUD / 12k USD) didn't make it to Australia. There was some mention about safety standards. Hopefully this new model makes it further around the world,

[newsclues]

They are going to Mexico to test NA market.

[xbmcuser]

I have been saying this for a few months now that chinese ev car manufacturers are coming and they will do to japanese car manufacturers what the Japanese car manufacturers did to american and European car manufacturers. Japanese car manufacturers also started of being considered cheap but unreliable. But they kept improving over time to gain reputation of reliability. I expect Chinese car OEM to do the same add the fact that with solar, wind and battery electricity costs are falling 10% a year. Ice cars will be priced out rapidly in the next few years even used ice cars.

[ilamont]

Anyone else remember the Yugo? Lots of enthusiasm for that car when it launched for $4999 or whatever. I knew someone who owned two of them … one for parts, the other to drive.

Low prices can get you only so far in the US market. Once there are doubts about quality or safety, you’re toast.

Details: https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/a-quick-history...

[classichasclass]

Nah, let's let Dan Neil defenestrate it in grand form. "Yugo. Or not."

https://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,...

[arthurfm]

There was a car dealer in the UK that had a buy one, get one free offer on the Dodge Avenger SXT in 2008. [0] Apparently there are only 107 left of that particular model on UK roads, with a further 36 cars classed as 'SORN' [1][2]. I reckon the latter are being used for parts.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/nov/08/automotive-...

[1] https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/dodge_avenger_sxt

[2] https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/dodge_avenger_sxt_a

[acdha]

> Once there are doubts about quality or safety, you’re toast.

If they did only as well as Tesla, that’d be a big success.

[SkyPuncher]

Reliability was likely the most damning problem. People drive dangerously unsafe cars, but people cannot stand unreliable cars.

Nearly all of the problems listed for the Yugo came from a terrible internal combustion power train.

[twoWhlsGud]

I was fond of that car largely because it enabled me to make the following bad pun: Hyundai and Yugo we're going to merge, but decided not to when they realized the most logical name for the merged company would be:

Yodai

[Mistletoe]

“It’s built for efficiency, not speed!” Samuel Jackson’s character about the Yugo in Die Hard with a Vemgeance

[ein0p]

Except in this case there are very few things in this car that even could break, or need any maintenance. I was wondering when such a car would appear. There’s no rational reason why a basic EV should cost 40-50k.

[jackvalentine]

I am _amazed_ at how fast I've talked myself in to considering a Chinese car. The BYD Dolphin[1] fits my families needs very well and it's only some sense of latent 'eww newcomers to the market' that pushes back.

Legacy automakers don't make electric cars that fit my needs!

30 years ago we were leery about Hyundai, 30 years before that Honda. I'm just amazed to observe this shift again.

[1] https://bydautomotive.com.au/dolphin

[apexalpha]

Can this charge my house yet?

Still waiting for a decent car that can be a battery for my house. A cheap BYD with an LFP battery would be a perfect candidate.

[parl_match]

Someone please explain to me how the math works here. $15k usd is insanely low, do they really have that economy of scale or is this a subsidized attack on major car manufacturers, or is it both? Or is it something else?

[teleforce]

On a similar note, a GWM Tank 300 that cost 1/5 or 1/10 of Mercedes G-Wagon price (depending on the countries) is as good if not better in term of interior luxury, moving from A to B and off-road capability [1]. It now has reached its 300K milestone production recently and has 5-star NCAP safety rating. It has taken 4WD scene in China by storm and fast becoming Corolla of 4WD world.

[1]Cybertank 300 Is A Batshit Crazy $47K Chinese SUV With 227 HP:

https://carnewschina.com/2021/08/17/cybertank-300-crazy-47-0...

[Aurornis]

Cool vehicle, but comparing it to a Mercedes G-Class platform that has been refined and optimized over 45 years and entrusted by militaries around the world is one hell of a stretch.

This looks more like a cheap Jeep alternative with an attempt at a luxury interior (that looks ultra tacky and cheap to me, but to each their own).

I’m always surprised at how HN will rant about cheap Chinese products on Amazon all day, but the moment a press release for a Chinese G-Class knockoff comes out we’re supposed to believe it’s the superior vehicle.

[alphabettsy]

I doubt anyone who’s actually been in both would say they’re comparable at all.

Even in photos it looks like a tacky knock off.

[KennyBlanken]

"Good not if better in terms of interior luxury"?

You're wildly delusional or have never actually been in a Mercedes, Audi, or BMW. Maybe the pre-reworked G-wagons - those were basically tarted up army trucks - but definitely not the new ones.

https://youtu.be/ML_zUFp0igY?t=278

Listen to the noises the interior components make when opened/closed and how they look. It's all super cheap, hard, undampened plastic.

Another video - listen to the noise the door makes when it closes. There isn't a lick of sound deadening material in there and the door is probably made of thin-as-paper metal. https://youtu.be/t0vM3B9oJqs?t=74

Keep watching and you'll see how bad the stitching is on the back of the front passenger seat.

Here you can see the dome light plastic is painted silver and it's already been scratched up badly, and you can hear the lack of dampening and sound deadening when he actuates the switches (and note there's no soft on/off): https://youtu.be/t0vM3B9oJqs?t=86

...then you can hear the entire back seat rattle as he squeezes the headrest.

Here he slaps the rear passenger seat and it sounds like the sort of noise I'd expect out of a 1990's Chevy: https://youtu.be/t0vM3B9oJqs?t=92

Guaranteed that when driving that thing on any sort of road that isn't perfectly smooth, it'll be a veritable din of rattling.

[tamimio]

It won’t be a corolla killer unless it has the same after market parts and maintenance, buying a 15k car to replace the battery later for half that price won’t do it.

[blululu]

If 200000 miles on some very bumpy roads haven’t killed my Corolla then I would not expect some ev to kill it. Jokes aside, the Corolla is loved by its owners for its high reliability at the low price point. Fixating on the price only looks at half the picture. This is maybe a Hyundai killer, but it will take 15 years for people to prove that any car has vested the Corolla for reliability.

[handonam]

We only have the perspective as observers outside of China, so I would caution how we interpret this article.

However, it may be possible that this COULD be the Corolla for the Chinese market. They do have a lot of EV manufacturers (300+ I believe?).

State-side (or even worldwide)? It takes some more convincing. And the article doesn't explicitly say it would be the next Corolla killer for the US market..

[nojvek]

Time will tell.

Toyota has taken decades to build their reputation on being reliable and cheap to run/maintain.

[elithp]

There's literally zero percent chance this is the "Corolla Killer". Toyota has built an amazing reputation for decades, this is just a cheaper EV sedan lol.

[nharada]

Not bad for how cheap it is. The range for the 15k car is 420km of CLTC, which probably translates to around 190-200 miles of real world range.

[vsskanth]

So what's stopping Chinese EV manufacturers from selling in the US? Are the safety regulations so much different from China?

[BirAdam]

Tariffs. Also, in the USA, there are some rather restrictive laws that require auto makers to use dealerships, so BYD would need to establish relationships with dealerships first. This would raise costs, and knowing how US dealerships are there’d be a 10k markup over MSRP.

[gizmo]

Nothing. It's just a matter of scaling up production. Chinese car exports are growing very rapidly. Sure, the US and Europe will try to protect their own industry with tariffs, but China will just respond with tariffs in kind. Ultimately, the manufactures that make the best value cars will win.

Chinese exports to Europe have grown 4x in 3 years. https://twitter.com/DivaJain2/status/1700740578873319883/

[davidw]

No mention of Taiwan in this thread.

I don't know how that factors in exactly or how much, but it is a risk.

[henriquez]

This is a joke. All of these vehicles “launch” at unbelievably low prices, get delayed and end up costing twice as much or more years later when they finally release… a cheap Chinese Toyota knockoff has a LOT to prove.

[rubatuga]

Hopefully there's no battery fires.

[mbfg]

don't like ev? ok. even cheaper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O5Wr2qTLLw&pp=ygUVdG95b3RhI...