This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/49178
I took my first ride in a Chinese car recently. Not in the U.S., of course, since sky-high tariffs have made them almost impossible to import. I was visiting family in the U.K., and we rented a BYD Sealion SUV. And let me tell you: I saw immediately why American car companies are desperate to have these things kept out of this country. It was elegantly designed, incredibly comfortable, and a smooth ride.
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Id rather be spied on by a country whose jurisdiction I am not within
Maybe make regulations to limit the degree to which any car sold can spy on citizens? Nah, let’s limit competition so U.S. companies can keep making huge profits from inferior cars that still spy on everyone with no need to up their game.
For real. Every. Damn. Time.
Like if you want privacy or control of your car in the US you have to buy cars slowly becoming antiques or rip and replace a bunch of electronics not built to be maintanced at all. Doesn't matter the country of origin. I think I'd rather EU, Japanese, or South Korean spying at this point but what a hell of a choice...
Because they want you to be a fucking debt slave and die penniless.
(That's why they're bragging about how well credit card companies are doing right now.)
I'll stick with Hyundai for now but if BYD becomes available in Canada, I wouldn't mind giving it a try.
Hyundai/Kia have a major problem with the integrated charge control units that they're basically refusing to provide a long-term solution for. If it fails in one car, they just replace it with an identical module and hope it doesn't happen again. But the root cause has not been addressed.
i think they've offered a lifetime warranty in Germany on this item?
what cluster fick though
to be fair i have had the tbox fail in my BYD, can still drive it though, just lose in car maps ams connected services
I bought my Hyundai used, a 2019 Kona base edition, back in 2023. Haven't had any issues with it so far.
I'm in IT and personally I'd genuinely like to see a "grey hat" examination of the internet traffic they send/receive before I'm ready to listen to a car reviewer giving reviews on how nice the seats are or charging is.
The fact that I work in IT is also why my home is secured with security doors and deadbolts.
That's sort of why I want them. America loves to customize cars. We'd take them apart and put them back together again six ways from Sunday.
There'd be YouTube channels dedicated to this and recycling the drivetrains with various levels of creativity. There'd be someone rewinding motors for torque and reflashing anything they could find to see what happens.
It will be a good time
Yeah... As much as I'd love to ride an EV, i think i need to stick to an older gas car just to avoid all the tracking.
As an Australian im ok with the chinese tracking me, what i don't want is my government or a 5eyes nation tracking me, my government is the one who wants to do me harm.
It's worth looking into how much data modern US cars are gathering as well, if you're concerned with that. Frankly, it seems like you're just deciding who gets your data at a certain point.
As a Canadian who holds negative views of both the American and Chinese governments, I think to myself: which am I more likely to visit someday and will therefore have the opportunity to stick me in an ICE detention center when they look up my profile to discover that? Which of the two governments is a more direct threat to my own country's security and sovereignty?
I get an answer that would perhaps surprise Americans.
The two Michaels gives me serious pause to even consider visiting China again. I've been there before and even have extended family from there.
They're cheap because BYD received about $1.86 billion dollars in government subsidies last year.
Like in other sectors, they flood the market with cheap goods to put competitors out of business. Then they're the only car company in town and they have you by the balls.
So what?
As if the US government or US compabies don't play the same "underhanded" tactics to harm competition.
Selling at a loss to earn market share is a perfectly valid strategy for US corpos. Why is China supposedly doing the exact same thing suddenly not as nice?
We could also subsidize this if we chose to. It's not cheating, they don't have to play by America's made-up rules that they don't follow themselves.
Most western countries subsidize the purchase of EVs, regardless of where they're manufactured. China subsidizes manufacturing EVs (and also purchase, but that's irrelevant if you're not buying in China). If you buy a Chinese EV in a western country that has EV subsidies, they get to double dip in subsidies, while also paying their employees significantly less due to the lower CoL in China.
Should European countries also start subsidizing manufacturing? I don't think we could afford it, particularly if we wanted to truly compete and subsidize cars sold to China as well, like they do. China simply has too much money and it's amplified even further by the super cheap labour.
How dare China offer citizens a higher standard of living at a lower cost, when prior generations worked so hard to checks notes do exactly this?
Not entirely sure that the standard of living for factory workers in China is as high as it is for union jobs in a non-American country in the west. For one, 996 is STILL a thing in many companies in China even if illegal officially. Try pulling that shit in Germany, see how far that gets you.
Germany is discussing a four-day workweek. BYD has a 14-day workweek
For the umpteenth time, 996 is illegal in China, and businesses caught doing this are prosecuted. And it's more than a fine that's pennies on the multimillions.
Only if they're allowed to be caught though. China has swept things under the rug before if it would be bad for national interests.
China is not the paragon of virtue you seem to think it is. The fact that 996 was extremely commonplace just a few years ago until workers cries out en masse is proof enough. Surely the government must've known on some level that all of its biggest companies were enforcing 996, but since it wasn't discussed widely enough, it was kept tidily under the rug since it's good for the economy. East-Asian work culture in general is toxic and China is no better than Japan or Korea.
Workers voted* for it. Please. I've said some mighty ignorant things and some recently, and admitted my mistakes. Please avail yourself of something other than Western psyops.
Workers fairly elect their representatives, and discuss what is important to them and how best to achieve their goals. These things are then voted on and accepted/integrated into five year plans, or rejected/put on hold. This obviously isn't the best explanation, but a quick down n dirty. Please look outside your propaganda sources for more information. Or just look at where China was 100, 50, 25 years ago in income, housing, education, health, literacy, and where they are now. Ffs
China adds about as many new billionaires per year as the US. Which is obviously fewer per capita since it's a bigger country, but the healthy amount is zero, especially for a supposedly communist country.
The truth is, it's about as capitalist as most western countries. The only major country that's worse is the US, which is a special kind of shitty. When it comes to workers rights, the Chinese have it worse than most western countries (US being a notable exception). The five year plans are of course great for things like infrastructure though. They get to prioritize government spending in areas where it's most beneficial. But that doesn't mean the government always has the worker's back. Saving face is incredibly important in some Asian cultures and China knows a lot about saving face. If there's something bad happening and it's possible to sweep it under the rug to protect the economy and corporations, they will do it. Hell, they've protected TESLA from common people. A foreign company. Think of what they'll do for local megacorporations.
