Posted by segasaturn 10/24/2024
I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system. This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions (at least until we transition to carbon neutral energy infrastructure). A gallon of diesel would last for months if it was just used for heating the cabin, and it would improve the range. It might even be an effective solution for keeping the battery at optimal temperatures but obviously a lot of math is required here to see if the tradeoff is worth it vs integrated battery heating.
> Imagine the Chinese electric cars are similar to this but the article is lacking much detail.
No, Chinese cars are usually loaded with gimmicks. Even the $10,000 Dolphin has two screens.
> This would be much more effective than electric heating and likely generate less carbon emissions
Even more efficient is to utilize the waste heat from motors, as a proper heat pump system does.
What really kills the range of an EV in the winter is bringing the battery & cabin up to temperature at the beginning. Once the car is moving, the heat pump can scavenge heat from the motor to relatively efficiently heat things. So if you pre-warm your car while it's plugged in the range loss isn't too bad.
Diesel heat would prevent you from doing this because you can't run a diesel heater in the garage. So ironically, a diesel heater could reduce your battery's range even though it doesn't use battery power.
Where I live (-25c during winter) houses typically don't have garages where cars are kept. Modern apartments have underground parking, but the temperature often stays above freezing.
It would be hard to justify not using a screen these days, IMO.
Not every cars are made for Japanese, far from it, but abolition of LCD based map-radio on a standardized slot is a weird hill to die on, so every cars has it anyway.
And, I think, this is where the actual "it's cheaper to..." argument begins: since every cars will have the standard issue map-radio, it _can be cheaper to move buttons into it_. Differences between the standard version and one with this context is whether the cost of the entire 2DIN screen is included in it or not - if the screen cannot be removed, to shut up whining Japanese or not, it becomes sunk cost and becomes a constant term of equation, which physical buttons have no chance of winning.
Unless you were concerned about the safety of someone having to look at a screen to operate vehicle controls. Otherwise you could just make it a smartphone app and ditch the screen entirely.
Being able to separate design decision timelines on how the UI works from manufacturing timelines is also very helpful organizationally.
Then consider how long it takes to wire up and install the LCD versus 20-30 switches (plus mounting brackets, plus functional testing etc.)
Right off the bat all radio controls are free if tossed into the software.
Interesting that the market is so held hostage that you didn't even think to mention that the market could demand it.
Do people actually prefer touch screens? I know I don't. I won't buy a car unless every function I need while driving is on a physical knob or button.
If I have to press on a touch screen every time I start the car, this test drive is over.
How is a diesel heater different than my furnace? Why can’t you run one in your garage?
And for new build cars, they often lack a lot of the entertainment and safety systems required in western countries, so they also don't have the onboard computers that would run the touch screen.
When your car already has a backup camera required, so it _has_ to have a screen, and add at least handsfree bluetooth phone connectivity, bluetooth audio and digital radio since I haven't seen a new car without them for years, you have an onboard general purpose computer already. Switching to a touch screen is a small marginal cost over that, and you can lower costs by removing physical controls which not only removes the part cost, but also labour cost of installing, wiring, and quality control.
Also all the features not found in cars for low-cost markets don't need controls, so even if physical controls cost more per-item than touchscreens the total number of controls is much lower.
New cars in here (at least chevrolet, isuzu and toyotas) are being shipped with a touchscreen. As you say, it covers the camera display, the infotaiment and map navigation. Everything else still has manual controls, THANK GOD. For instance AC, lights, wipers.
I currently have a 2017 Mazda Bt50 it didnt have the touchscreen. It does have a rearview camera, and the image is displayed in a little square screen in the central rearview mirror. It also has a frontal camera and both of them can record video continuosly. You can have Features without a "general purpose computer"
The most common transmission is manual, automatic costs around $1000 more. Why? Market preference. We do have some poorly maintained roads, and some dirt roads, mind you.
The only reason to ship all controls in a touchscreen is because it is fancy, and since it is already there, they want to save some money by not including physical buttons.
That's also true in New Zealand, half of the vehicles registered here every year are used imports from Japan, normally 5-10 years old. We don't get the low-cost models though as our safety standards are higher, though you do see Kei cars and trucks. When they can't be sold here anymore they get re-exported to the islands, and generally they make it back here as scrap.
There _are_ brand new cars of course, with the full suite of touch screens, but they're out of reach for most people. Even here in NZ we get feature-cut models to keep the price down.
As for 2017, the cost of large touchscreens was much higher then, and the general purpose computer that was definitely running it behind the scenes was much slower.
And as I said in my post, it's certainly for cost saving. Manufacturers realised they could save a few cents on controls and dollars in labour per car by using the touchscreen they were going to add anyway and there was enough compute power to make it responsive enough to sell. Plus a touchscreen look shiny and most people won't realise the problems until it's sold...
My presumption is you meant cheaper?
Making the screen into a touch screen with a digitizer is cheaper than buttons and knobs.
So if you already have a screen, making it a touchscreen is indeed cheaper.
Wiring in a set of buttons and knobs costs more than a small screen. The buttons and knobs are more ergonomic. The real answer to the above question is that it’s happening already. All new cheap Chinese (or anywhere else that caters to the developing world) made cars have a touch screen and fewer hardwired controls.
If that saves 10% of range that’s 10% less batteries which cost more than $50. Eventually all these savings add up so much that EV is lighter and cheaper than similar ICE vehicle…
Turning an AC unit into a heatpump is indeed pretty simple, but that type of heatpump doesn't work well when the temperature gradient is too high.
What you'd need to heat a car during winter is a "high temperature heat pump", which usually requires multiple stages, different thermal fluids, etc.
That's a much more complex and expensive system, not well suited to vehicles.
For the mid-cold regions though, yeah - I can believe that.
We own a Volkswagen e-Up, it's exactly like this. We love it too, it's just such a great little car, you can easily get 150 miles out of its 32kWh battery and it fits everything, has no touchscreen, good old buttons for the climate controls and even proper analogue gauges for speed and battery level. I will own it until it falls apart.
>>I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system.
I honestly doubt that anyone would like the "convenience" of having to fill up the tank for it with diesel every now and then.
>>and likely generate less carbon emissions
CO2 - yes. But these heaters(and devices like Webasto etc) are hugely polluting because unlike the exhaust from your engine their exhaust isn't filtered or treated in any way, all the bad stuff goes directly outside.
>>A gallon of diesel would last for months if it was just used for heating the cabin
No, it wouldn't - I own two cars with a webasto and they both use about 0.4L of fuel for hour of operation, it's not much but it's not insignificant.
Besides, this is a fixed problem - just use a heatpump instead of a resistive heater. A 500W heatpump will produce as much heat as a 2000W resistive heater.
Anyway, from its spec sheet it says it can actually use up to 0.6L/h at full load:
https://www.webasto-comfort.com/fileadmin/webasto__media/web...
But you're right, without any insulation, the moving vehicle will lose heat much faster. The room has terrible insulation but at least it has bare brick for the bottom 3 feet which probably retains a lot of the heat. I suspect with proper insulation your fuel usage would be drastically reduced.
Isn’t this highly dependent on the outside temperature?
However at 0°C/32°F this bumps to 3.5-3.8, so you'd be getting much closer to the quoted 2000W.
If you're operating in -20°C or below for much of the year a heat pump might not be the best option, but even in Yellowknife that's only three months of the year and it's still twice the heat per kW.
I guess it's a concern if you live in Norilsk?
I'm pretty these will never be sold in the US, unfortunately.
Look at the Dacia Spring. The entry level barely has a screen at all, and no camera, not even a backup camera, it doesn't even have a display for it. Also: no A/C, no thermostat, no rear power windows. You have to pay if you want these, and even if you take the "premium" model that has a touchscreen, it is pretty basic, essentially that's just a display for Android Auto / Apple Car Play, and you get a backup camera.
That's what you would expect for an economy car. It is less than €20k. Unfortunately, it also has a pretty bad range and overall performance because of its small battery. Of course, batteries are expensive, and it is a cheap car. It means you won't get far with it. That's unlike "A-segment" gas cars (ex: Fiat 500) that while not the most comfortable, have no problem driving cross-country.
Ford F-150, base price: $39,345, per Car and Driver.
Ford F-150, electric, base price: $49,875, per Car and Driver.
Ford did badly at this. Stellantis did even worse. (Stellantis is the company that ended up with Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge.) Stellantis had a big push into crappy mild hybrids (22 mile electric range). Nobody likes them. A few years ago, the CEO was talking about achieving profit margins as large as as tech companies through higher prices and fees. Now, there are unsold vehicles piled up at dealerships, the market share of Stellantis brands is half what it was a few years ago, and Stellantis is getting a new CEO. SHere's what the dealers have to say about that.[1]
[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25136851/letter_to_ta...
I don't buy often but I occasionally fly to nice airport and have rented fiat pandas. Pre covid they were from £5/day rent, £7000 odd to buy. Post, rental rates went silly the other way like £100/day. Now about £15/day rent, £13k ? to buy. I miss the olden days of 5 years ago with £7k cars.
I'm not sure manufacturing costs have really gone up 2x in that period? I guess they were probably losing money at £7k.
If a manufacturer released the stripped down, no-frills car you're describing, a competitor would release a competing car with all the bells and whistles and slightly less range at the same price-point.
Cheap EVs suffer the most from the drawbacks that make electric kind of suck (smaller batteries reduce range, more sensitive to heating costs, etc). Once you can shove a 60kwh pack in a cheap car, most of those drawbacks go away.
Only thing that’s missing g for me is a 4x4 model.
Europe do not have that particular import restriction, and if someone wanted to personally import and register a brand new wheeled fuel drum with appropriate paperwork, they can.
This is how most first generation EVS from legacy car makers were made, and they dramatically underperformed in range, performance, and comfort due to the assumptions, parts, and manufacturing methods inherited from ICE cars.
Suspension isn't infinitely adjustable without other tradeoffs, including cost. Batteries are already very heavy compared to ICE drivetrains.
That might be fine for an expensive car like an Audi or BMW that have a high end suspension anyways (probably even driver adjustable), but that probably won't fit into the budgetary constraints of a more affordable vehicle.
Those things cost a few dollars now. This isn't the 00 where it was advanced tech. Physical buttons cost more.
Perhaps in the case of an EV using resistive heating, however, most have moved on to using heatpumps.
Heatpumps have COPs that range anywhere from 2 to 10. Which means for every 1kWh in, you get 2 to 10kWh of heat out. A resistive heater has a COP of 1.
Fossil fuel power plants operate at ~40->60% efficiency, which means that past a COP of ~2 you are going to be more efficient for heating even if your power source is directly from fossil fuels. It's sort of neat.
When talking about generation mixed grids (which most are now) the COP level needed to beat having a diesel burner for CO2 output plummets.
But one more point to consider, a modern EV needs an HVAC to ensure the proper operating temperature of a battery. The thing that killed the old Nissan Leafs was the fact that they didn't have any sort of cooling system for their batteries. Put those in hot climates and you are talking major and fast degradation.
So, it wouldn't even be (much) lighter to omit the heatpump. To convert the HVAC system for the battery into a climate system is pretty much just requires a single valve.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-lithium-ion-batteri...
Anyway, sodium ion will scale to less than that regardless of inflation.
A sodium ion battery should cost 40% of nmc.
I've ridden in the dolphin and it has two screens and a bunch of tech attached to it (including gps directions). It's the cheapest BYD car. Two screens + CPU cost probably less than $300. Software doesn't incur extra cost per vehicle.
We're observing in real time - mostly via skyrocketing insurance rates - the impact & unsustainability of expensive, all-proprietary parts. Vehicles are getting totaled out now more than ever for things that should be repairable.
Speaking of diesel - what I really want is a simple plug-in hybrid truck or SUV (e.g. a USA Toyota Hilux or 4runner) with ~50-80 miles of battery-only range, and a diesel generator for 'indefinite' range extension.
As for air conditioning (heat and cold) there's more efficient heat pump system that's being used by Tesla that's 3 times more efficient than the conventional system [3].
1) Caterham V: Lightweight EV sport car without infotainment (just phone mirroring)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41719818
2) Caterham Project V:
https://caterhamcars.com/en/models/projectv
3) Heat pumps make new Tesla more efficient:
https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/heat-pumps-makes-new-tes...
The people who would gain the most from EVs will probably get them when they start to be more common and cheap. Think how long it took for cheap Honda Civics to hit the road from when the first Fords rolled off the line. Of course, it'll probably be quicker this time around.
Is this true? Honest question. My understanding is that for cars in general (implicitly driving range), electric cars are lower impact on the energy grid as a whole (ignoring last mile) because of how energy intensive oil is to refine.
Is it that diesel specifically is less energy intensive because of how it differs in refinement to petrol? Or is it that because heating is effectively 100% efficient it doesn't matter that you're using the energy in refinement?
Some of it comes down to the rocket equation because it takes a lot of energy to warm a battery up. If that energy has to come from a battery itself, then the vehicle needs even more battery. Carrying around that extra battery all the time will consume even more energy. And you lose about 8% total electrical energy by putting it through the lithium battery.
In comparison two litres of diesel fuel with a nearly 100% efficiency can absolutely be more efficient from a full-system standpoint.
What in talking about here is a mostly EV with a 100 ish all electric range, and the diesel/Atkinson adds even more tange
Software is a cost center. Your car company probably isnt going to win on it. Enable everyone else to compete to be a good infotainment for your base car.
I'm curious how much control is offered on these Android Auto systems. Ideally in my mind, there would be protocols for controlling windows, sunroofs, seat controls, HVAC, interior lighting, windshield wipers, defog, maybe even running lights headlights cruise control & those closer to the driving experience aspects. The whole car experience should be BYOD.
> I also think it would make a lot more sense to have an auxiliary diesel heating system
I think a heat pump (which some EVs have now) would be better especially if it could pump heat away from the engine and batteries.
The only reason Tesla succeeded is by making sexy car.
Sure we are at the cost point where you can making boring EV. It would cost almost the same and only appeal to 1% of market.
I don't think so. They succeeded because the batteries made by Tesla seems incredibly good. A Model S owner I know swapped his batteries after... 280 000 km (175 000 miles). They seem to live long and have better mileage.
But neither the Model 3 nor the model Y nor the model X are "sexy": they just have a weird shape. Although I'll grant you the Model S is good looking.
To me the german, Porsche and Mercedes for example, make way better looking EV cars than Tesla and with much better interiors. But inferior batteries.
Any lithium battery -- even a bad one -- will last much longer with a great BMS.
I literally don't know anyone who thinks Teslas look sexy - they are like bars of soap, nothing "sexy" about them. But I also know plenty of people who own them, because of their superior battery tech, crazy efficiency, and the supercharger network. I don't know anyone who bought a car because it's "sexy" maybe other than one friend of mine who bought an Alfa Romeo Gulia because it "looks cool" - the argument that it's just a rebranded Fiat Punto never really worked on her unfortunately.
Mind you the competition at the time was only a Prius, which only last year became reasonably good looking.
Model 3 and Y are worlds best selling cars. By definition they have to be boring.
EVs weren't really economically viable at the entry level. Tesla was the first company to figure out how to design, style and market an EV for higher end customers at price points where it could actually compete decently against ICEs both on paper and in actual ownership experience.
Admittedly i’m talking about first generation cars - roadster and S. Cars that decided Tesla’s fate.
I agree we should actually limit top speed and acceleration so people don’t use them as weapons so much.
In a way - nerf and desex the cars.
This is dumb because you can just have sex with your hand. Logically why even involve women? On this regard, you sir are a genius.
Can your Civic do that?
I'll answer for you: No it cannot.
https://www.zeroto60times.com/vehicle-make/honda-0-60-mph-ti...
We all have different definitions of sexy.
The basic concepts here are 1) integrating the motor, rear axle, and differential into one unit, and 2) integrating all the high voltage electrical components and their controls into another unit. This doesn't mean the electronics are down at axle level.
If you look at a modern "E-Axle", it's a wheel and axle assembly with a modestly sized motor mounted on the side of the differential.[1] These are BYD E-Axles for large vehicles. Others integrate those into buses and trucks. The car-sized versions would be smaller. The E-Axle component contains all the "greasy bits", as automakers use the term. Looking at those things, you can see them going together easily on an automated assembly line. No need to work at funny angles, assemble big objects around other objects, or other assembly hassles. No shafting or belts - just wires.
This is reasonable enough. It is, however, a major change from traditional automaking priorites. Traditionally, The Engine was the core vehicle component. Final drive, differential, and axle were way down in priority. GM's worst plant used to be Detroit Gear and Axle. (It was bought in 1992 by a startup guy who made it non-union, wrote a book about it, and then went bankrupt.)
So it's a bit of a shock for auto companies to find that the axle people are now in charge. An electric car needs only an e-axle, a battery, and a HV electronics box as the power train. That comes from the power train supplier. The vehicle manufacturer adds a frame, wheels, body, interior, and dashboard. It all plugs together with CANbus.
This drive 'unit' that BYD is using across their vehicles is that for internal use only? Or is it also being sold as an OEM part for other manufacturers to produce their own branded vehicles?
Tesla talks big about making a semitruck, but BYD is shipping them in quantity, and DHL is buying them. Range about 200 miles, which is enough for the daily trips of most local trucks. They're not trying to do long-haul trucks yet. Just take over the local trucking market. BYD isn't selling cars in the US much, but they make trucks in Los Angeles.[2]
Quietly, local trucking is going electric. Especially in China and Europe.[3] The US lags in electric medium trucks.
Ford CEO Jim Farley called the BYD Seagull “pretty damn good.” If US manufacturers don't keep up with BYD, “20% to 30% of your revenue is at risk.”
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/company/findreams-technology-co-ltd...
[2] https://en.byd.com/truck/about/
[3] https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ID-57-%E2%80%...
Tariffs will be needed by countries that refuse to create state backed companies but which also want an automotive industry and a manufacturing base that can make weapons of war.
So, tariffs won't solve anything. Which is why despite the Jones Act, China builds 200x more ships that the US.
Or, hasn't Tesla received billions in government assistance? what about the major automakers that'd have crumbled around 2008 if not for the US gov. pouring rivers of cash into them?
So, protectionism is only a band-aid: it doesn't change the fact that American businesses have developed a short-termist culture that only cares for the next quarter.
At the same time that Intel was allowing product quality to degrade, Nvidia, a 30 year old company, was continuing to innovate.
The not-so-big management secret is that even if Musk took your advice and sandbagged his timelines, then the timelines still wouldn't be met. However it would move the actual time of completion further to the right! By using best-case predictions, things are actually getting done sooner. Call it the Applied Parkinson's Law.
A lot of these are promises, and most of the timelines are not "best case", they were clearly not going to happen.
Even if it somehow gets things done faster, lying to your customers is not acceptable.
It's a company worth unthinkable amounts of money. Most people would have less patience with a guy running a Patreon in his spare time who had claimed for years his supporters would have a product soon, let alone an organisation swimming in funding (Twitter debacle aside).
People in China have a work ethic, capability, and intelligence that can eclipse the US.
1 The feds told American car makers that they would release the tarrifs if they didn't release an electric car under $xx,xxx (15k? 20k?) in the next x years, or if
2. they made the tarrifs naturally diminish over time (from 10k to 9k to 8k) to give American companies a runway but slowly pressure them to improve their offerings.
I'm far from a policy expert here. I just wish we could put some price pressure on them without entirely ceding the industry.
They can simply maintain these tariffs till forever, effectively doubling the price of any car out of China. The US population is essentially a captive audience.
Also, judging by America's antagonistic politics, any Party that opens the market to Chinese cars would be branded traitors & enemies of the working man and they'd likely do poorly in state and national elections.
Which countries are those? All western car manufacturers are backed by the state as far as I'm aware.
As far as I can tell, this is entirely incorrect when it comes to European car companies. In the US, beside bailing out GM in the 2008 crash, they do give government loans to some car companies. But I don't agree that giving loans that equates to being "backed by the state".
Do you think the German state of Lower Saxony would hurt its 20% shares of Volkswagen?
Or what about the exemptions for power costs for high usage companies?
Maybe not car manufacturer specific but still a kind of subsidy.
Every country does more or less obvious.
And Tesla isn't? https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-201...
GM, Ford, and Chrysler (now Stellantis or whatever they call themselves) could easily be described as the same with all the subsidies and trade protection they get.
For example, aero headlights were not legal in the US for ages until Ford wanted to use them in the upcoming Taurus. European and Japanese companies had to use US-specific headlights, usually sealed beam units.
This nonsense still goes on today. Why do you think CCS has a unique-to-US charge connector? To make things more expensive for foreign car companies.
Then we have the insane "must be built here" restrictions...
That amounts to $1k per vehicle, so China subsidies are an order of magnitude smaller than US or EU subsidies.
https://electrek.co/2024/04/12/china-gave-byd-an-incredible-...
USA and EU should be doing the same.
Their partner Panasonic is a keiretsu and I think has gotten billions in EV battery related subsidies overall.
BYD I think is similar order of magnitude to the two partners combined.
The purpose of an economy is not to increase shareholder value when the majority of the shares are held by .1% of the population.
Car factories have used robots to make cars for decades now. The cars should have become cheaper with time, not several times more expensive. And if the factors making cars unaffordable for the average citizen is beyond the carmakers control, then those factors should be adressed. But tariffs sure won't make cars cheaper.
Tesla has basically been the only domestic automaker taking risks and aggressively pursuing manufacturing efficiencies.
There are all sorts of unacceptable national security tradeoffs that come with allowing domestic industrial capacity to diminish and China to own more of the automotive supply chain, but the industry is also going to be less competitive long term, and consumers are going to have fewer discretionary dollars.
Sometimes too aggressive which may come back and hunt them.
For example, multiple companies are doing full body casting but Tesla moved very fast and ended up selling cars that now have cracks in them. There is a reason it took others longer time to introduce this in their factories...
https://www.thedrive.com/news/tesla-model-y-owner-finds-scar...
The situation is much worse for Chinese manufacturers. Some of these cars are death traps.
But no, we have to buy overpriced pieces of shit because God forbid we touch one hair of the "free" market
Except for the subsidies, no bid government contracts, tax breaks, loan gaurantees and eventually piles of cash for when they blow through all of the above and run out of money.
Unlike those backwards communists we are proud free market capitalists.
Both have given up on some parts of ideology in the face of the real world.
"The CEO of Ford says he's been driving a Xiaomi EV for the past 6 months and doesn't want to give it up"
>...China has pulled way ahead of the U.S. and the rest of the world by one key measure.
>China graduates in excess of three times more engineers — electrical, industrial, bio-chemical, semiconductor, mechanical, even power generation — with bachelor's degrees than the U.S. university system. https://eu.jsonline.com/story/archives/2017/08/02/china-engi...
and now maybe it's bearing fruit.
Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. It will eventually get your main account banned as well.
The same way China has been predicted to collapse every year since 1990? No matter how much money you lose, you can grow yourself out of it. Which is why OpenAI can raise $6b at nearly $150b, despite losing $5b annually. So, why do you suggest the CPC will let BYD - their EV golden goose that has thoroughly thrashed Western competitors - to fail?
More serious predictions have been made in recent years. And lo and behold we got Evergrande. The news since that has not been great. Some successes, and progress, yes. But also more and more deep fundamental issues brewing under the surface.
Nobody of note has claimed China will collapse over night. This is a process that spans over years if not decades.
The predictions of collapse have had demographics as its primary factor. People don’t go from 40 to 70 overnight. Yet the demographic factors are completely undeniable and its consequences bearing out year by year relentlessly.
And that is on top of a debt to GDP ratio which is utterly insane if you include shadow banking.
“CPC”, eh? Hmmm..
>According to Bloomberg, there were 500 Chinese electric car manufacturers in China in 2019. After fierce competition, only 100 manufacturers remained by 2023. According to Wired, as many as 300 manufacturers, both domestic and international, were offering electric vehicles in China in 2023. (wikipedia)
looks more like a capitalist free for all than a few state appointed winners. BYD got a big boost in the early days when it got investment from the US company Berkshire Hathaway, rather than the Chinese govt. Which was because Charlie Munger thought the founder seemed like a new Thomas Edison.
The Chinese government strategy is to fund a massive number of attempts and then suffer a huge number of failures and consistent end up with far too much production capacity leading to a large number of unprofitable companies.
It’s not a terrible strategy if you can dump vehicles elsewhere. It may or may not work if you can’t.
It’s not stupid but it’s probably a bad strategy.
This sounds like a problem, but it doesn't have to be. I've driven cars from brands that no longer exist and some parts were a challenge, but largely you could make everything work. It's unfortunate that new cars aren't like that. :(
I drive a 24 year old Lexus - mechanically, an absolute tank. Electrically? Well, it's relatively "electronic" by the standards of its time, and it shows. If I coughed up the money to fix the handful of little electrical glitches it's picked up over the years, I'd be paying more than the car is worth. It'd cost more than all the other work I've done on it combined.
The headlights don't switch on automatically anymore, and you have to manually lock all of the doors (except the driver's door which mysteriously still works). I can live with that! The powertrain isn't inundated with electrical stuff, which makes it less susceptible to the weirdness that comes with aging sensors, rotting wire harnesses, corroding electrical contacts, moisture ingress, and so on.
If enough people have this problem at once someone will make big bucks solving it.
https://cn.nikkei.com/industry/icar/56879-2024-10-09-09-00-2...
Although it's in Chinese, Google Translate can help you out.
The TLDR version is that BYD integrates many components of the electric drivetrain into a single sub-assembly, and shares said assembly between multiple vehicles to achieve volume cost savings.
Which is fine for bringing the costs down, but keep in mind their cars have zero repairability, which might be a concern, considering the engineers though the components aren't protected well enough agains water ingress.
Although, I admit my skepticism might be unfounded. I've owned the same car for close to a decade, and I haven't replaced anything besides consumables and fluids.
GM has been doing the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultium
One of the characteristics of ATTO3 is the promotion of component integration. In the electric drive device "E-Axle", in addition to the motor, inverter, and reducer, a total of 8 components such as the on-board charger and DC-DC converter (DC voltage converter) are integrated. This can reduce component costs and reduce weight.
https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-electr...
But it is not comparable with a Model Y. It has half the cargo capacity, cannot tow, has a puny rooftop load capacity, significantly less payload, etc. If you are a small family running around town, the BYD is fine.
If you are taking a trip with adults and luggage, the Model Y will do things the BYD can't.
If you are taking a trip to IKEA and buying things that aren't particularly heavy but are bulky and box-shaped, the Model Y will carry far more than the BYD, with seats folded in a way that has less probability of damage to the longer boxes, etc.
Is how this thread started.
And a similar sized car with the same LFP batteries has a similar efficiency to the Model Y. Tesla has generally been regarded as making efficient EVs.
edit: probably worth mentioning that the Teslas with LFP use BYD made batteries.
second edit: and for those unaware, the LFP batteries are safer and cheaper, but their key drawback is that they are less energy dense.
This both explains a key Chinese EV advantage (LFP is about half their market) and why comparing them with non LFP cars on efficiency is misleading.
Sunsetting ICE's in Human transport (specially in urban environments) is an Environmental and Public Health benefit that far outweighs whatever carbon estimation you make.
