alt Hacker NewsEveryone thought Toyota was Nokia when Tesla appeared... I think those days are over. Toyota survived that one already with a facelift for Prius.
BYD Dolphin base in Japan is $19k, the new Racco kei car is $14k. They're not doing so well - they just have no selling point. They're not even the cheapest of EVs in Japan, let alone the cheapest of all cars for Japan - $19k is literally 4k over the current gen JDM Corolla. I think that is an indication that BYD has no secret sauce but their pricing are just introductory one to starve off last bits of Western industrial capacities spared by Japanese automakers.
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Teslas started out at 40k USD in mid-2010s money promising more affordable options that we're still waiting on (even companies like Slate will probably eat them up when they're able to ramp and gain a fanbase)
Chinese manufacturers are starting far below even the base of contemporary economy ICEs, this is another game entirely
one of the biggest reasons why they haven't taken over the US is because our infrastructure is decades behind. for most people to get a fast charge at home means they either need a new house or an electrical upgrade whereas chargers are everywhere in Chinese cities (even fast battery swap shops). given how balkanized transport authorities are (State's rights-to-not-work-together being in effect here) I suspect EV growth will mostly happen in urban centers willing to spend a little extra money on electrification rather than outfitting their police departments with milspec armored trucks
facelift of prius which sells at 50k? Haven't seen one yet on the roads. Meanwhile i just got myself a byd. Rep said they got 50 sells for that car in this city within the past 30 days so i dont know where you get your numbers from but i test drove a lot of cars and its hard to beat that byd in stuff you get per dollar
Tesla never turned out to be Apple in this comparison though.
You could say same the thing about Toyota's EVs in China.
There's a lot of schadenfreude in the Netherlands about German car manufacturers but then we all know what happened the last time German industry went kaput... So I suppose we all have to support our brothers and sisters from the East until they get their act together.
Tesla never had the production ability to take out the established companies. Tesla simply saturated and moved on to other things, while Toyota etc. kept most of their untouched market.
China (BYD etc.) definitely has the ability to produce the entire amount of cars Toyota sells. It's a totally different scale of threat - the result of Toyota (etc.) not reading the signs in time. Tesla gave them a warning they did not listen to.