[Overtonwindow]

Affordable - made cheaply - is equated in this article heavily as “better” but that is not always the case. I would still hesitate to buy a Chinese vehicle over safety and quality.

[gambiting]

Nah - I own a Volvo XC60 that was built in China and it's about 10x better in terms of build quality than my last Mercedes that was entirely built in Germany and creaked like an old horse cart, I was in the dealership probably once a month fixing various issues with the interior. I've owned the Volvo for 4 years now and it has had zero issues, no creaks, fit and finish is great. So no, I wouldn't be concerned about owning a Chinese made vehicle, not in the slightest.

[applied_heat]

Was your Volvo in China? I didn’t think any Volvos manufactured by geely were being exported, and production volume was still very low

[whizzter]

Geely made an incredibly smart move buying Volvo.

Ford had run down their reputation by forcing penny pinching cheap designs, but there was still a lot of engineering prowess in-house that had gone underutilized and made them a tech-team to catch up the Chineese tech, design and manufacturing to concurrent standards.

The only lingering worry is if they're gonna find themselves content with the amount of technology transfer and move on (because Volvo standards requires a high price point and non neglible market share).

[neilalexander]

Even within Volvo's own lineup, my C40, built in China, has had far fewer quality issues than my previous S60 had, which was built in the USA.

[GenerWork]

Motor Trend just gave the Lincoln Nautilus - a SUV made in China - their award for SUV of the year[0] and noted its build quality. While "Made In China" still carries a bad rap, I think that's going to change pretty quickly for more luxury goods like cars.

[0] https://www.motortrend.com/news/lincoln-nautilus-2025-suv-of...

[tim333]

I think there's a big difference between made in China for an off brand Chinese company which tends to be bad, and made in China for Apple/Volvo/Some western brand with quality control, which tends to be very good.

[kube-system]

What does "[insert nationality] vehicle" even mean? Most cars are made up of designs and parts that come from all around the world.

Any discussion of the topic of product origin and quality is always heavily oversimplified.

There are many variables at play here: target marketing, design, manufacture, regulatory environment, etc.

[bryanlarsen]

It's generally acknowledged that the Chinese made Tesla's are higher quality than the American ones.

[tln]

You can and should check euroNCAP or IIHS for independent safety ratings if you care.

BYD's 4 model entered in euroNCAP have 5 stars.

[SoftTalker]

All cars today are being made to squeeze maximum profit. The plastics will last maybe 10 years and the electronics will be NLA soon after the warranty expires. If your main computer dies the car is scrap. There is no serious effort to make new cars repariable or maintainable other than for very routine things like brakes. Cars are becoming more and more disposable items, by design.

[shiroiushi]

I guess you're not old enough to remember how horrible the interiors (both plastics and upholstery) in 1970s and 1980s cars were, nor how often they broke down.

[hooverd]

Heh, that used to be German and then Japanese cars.

[ASalazarMX]

European NCAP has given great marks to BYD vehicles in crash tests. Just google "BYD crash test", most of the results come from them.

Compared to them, my Wrangler is a square death machine, although almost anything is safer than a Wrangler.

[seabass-labrax]

Well-designed off-roaders protect their occupants against the kinds of accident that might occur at relatively low speeds on rough terrain, with very rigid frames to prevent the occupants being crushed when rolling over. That is the very opposite design philosophy to most road vehicles, which are protected chiefly against high-speed collisions with other vehicles. The NCAP tests only cover the second kind of accidents.

I don't know whether the off-roading safety philosophy applies to your car though, as many SUVs and crossover cars are only designed to look the part, and are in fact more similar to ordinary road cars in safety design.

[lll-o-lll]

Clever design with reusable (between models) components. That’s “efficiency”. Efficient design often means better quality.

All countries that get into car manufacture seem to follow a similar path. 10-15 years of crap cars while building scale and expertise, then maturity with much higher quality. I think we are seeing the mature Chinese car industry now and it’s frankly impressive.