A fun trip to China

[Uknown]

Took a trip to China and Japan with my kids to celebrate a HS graduation and start of college. Stumbled onto some EV fun.

NIO is totally cool, I may have cried a little when I watched a normal car owner swap a battery in less than 4 minutes… and it didn’t cost them $50k!! It was less exciting than a car wash, and that I think is an amazing thing engineering wise.

Inside finish of NIO suv was very nice on par with premium interiors, more gimmicks but all standard. Sounds systems are massively better.

Every new car I saw was fitted by default to be a robo taxi without a retrofitted hat.


Also happened to walk by a Xiaomi storefront

Took a few pictures. Sat in the Su7.

Fit and finish feels like a significant step down from the Taycan. Amazing for price point, but I don’t think it will hold up to daily driver mode well. Door feel wasn’t as nice, but at the price point it delivers i expect. And it is very nice looking car too.

The other highlights:
- Physical buttons are nice, infotainment software felt overwhelming to me but as expected light years ahead of Porsche. The mix of physical and digital felt right in the Su7
- interior cabin feel was more functional overall / roomier feeling.

It is like walking into a Porsche + Best Buy combo store which was about as jarring as Long John Silver/Taco Bell combo.

You can tell a ton of money is being spent in the EV industry, possibly without a focus on profit . Pretty cool vibe over all, if I were a US or German car manufacturer I would be terrified.

Still prefer my gen 1.1 Taycan . I also still think no manufacturer has nailed the infotainment/cluster balance yet. So much potential and so little understanding by the industry it seems. After observing the minimal approach with Porsche, and the deeply integrated into your whole life with Xiaomi … I oddly prefer the Taycans lackluster setup which still mostly lets me focus on driving and enjoying the car.

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[PorscheTaycan]

Thanks for sharing. China is still in its infancy in terms of car manufacturing compared to US, Europe and Japan, even Korea. Give them a couple of more decades.

 

[Dee]

Thanks for sharing. China is still in its infancy in terms of car manufacturing compared to US, Europe and Japan, even Korea. Give them a couple of more decades.

I think you couldn't be more wrong.
That's exactly why the rest of the world is already hopelessly behind, especially in the EV manufacturing.
In China EVs were already a thing, way before Tesla became mainstream.

 

[PorscheTaycan]

You're right that their tech is probably more advanced when it comes to EV - but their quality control may still be trying to catch up.

 

[Dabz]

I’ve had a few neighbours buy BYD EVs and the build quality is amazing, performance is great and the price is just insane vs any other western EV. China are doing a lot right

 

[whitex]

You're right that their tech is probably more advanced when it comes to EV - but their quality control may still be trying to catch up.

Then why are western countries to afraid so let in Chinese EVs? Why is Ford CEO saying Ford would not survive if US lets in Chinese EVs?

 

[PorscheTaycan]

They should let them in for sure. Let the free market and consumers decide.

 

[babylou66]

They should let them in for sure. Let the free market and consumers decide.

Why? The Chinese didn't have a free market until they decide they're strong enough to compete globally. For decades, to sell in China, an outsider had to have a 50/50 joint venture and share all technology rights. Never mind China does not respect intellectual property theft, uses stolen software, etc.

A competition should be all having equal playing field. This is the same reason doping isn't allowed in sport.

 

[dmorg]

Fascist systems have always been really good at causing focus on specific areas of interest to the folks who run them. PRC has been good at doing that on EVs. Democracies largely let the petroleum-industrial complex work to undermine EVs and related adjacancies, and thats largely why democratic car-building nations lag.

If those democratic car-building nations let PRC win in this trade-dumping situation, PRC will indeed win this one.

Democracies historically can be slow to respond to fascist threats (in the case of USA, the threat is both internal and external), but in the end, that bottom-up approach seems to be more enduring and effective.

Get the popcorn....

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