How China Built BYD, Its Tesla Killer

Re:How China Built BYD, Its Tesla Killer by saiya-jin on Sunday February 18, 2024 @12:53PM (#39421262)

Never grokked real market for it - all the toyota hilux owners? These type of cars are basically not used in Europe, you can sometimes see it on farms but almost never on the roads and general population simply doesn't buy them, they are not the best choice since they drive poorly and have high running costs, and also way too big for our roads and parkings.

Also, legendary hilux has solid reliability in brutal conditions (thats why every isis in desert has them, ideally with some gun or rockets mounted in the back). No way some early 1st generation of much more expensive electric car will match that. You want to have that safety of lugging around additional fuel tank or two in jerrycans and refuel in a minute, instead of doing additional mental gymnastic re chargers.

So a bad civilian car, and farmers are very price sensitive so not a great choice for them (now).

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Re:How China Built BYD, Its Tesla Killer by ephemeral-life on Sunday February 18, 2024 @03:17PM (#39422694)

I think it was an attenpt at the luxury SUV market. A lot of rich people drive huge SUV's, the cybertruck can kinda be a quirkie suv. The hilux type workhorse trucks will never be replaced by anything electric (atleast on the global scale, america might have a chance with the f150 lightning)

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Re:How China Built BYD, Its Tesla Killer by cduzz on Sunday February 18, 2024 @01:12PM (#39421441)

Tesla has a history of making low volume prototypes that they sell to weird early adopters and then making high volume cars. The prototypes validate the designs without as much potential for a crushing warranty bill if a technology bet isn't great.

For instance, tesla went through several varieties of battery chemistry in the early days of the S before landing on the setup they ended up sticking with for the model 100 and later models.

The CT is a similar low volume prototype of the maxwell technology dry cell battery stuff, 48 volt and "drive by wire" architecture that is 100% novel. They're really better off just selling it to a smaller number of people until they get the bugs worked out. The stainless steel stuff is cute but not the hard part of the CT.

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