China is basically an economic bully at this point. [LOCKED DUE TO VIOLATION OF NO POLITICS RULE]

[Freeewilly]

Car sales amongst a homogeneous culture in a silo’d Asian market is preaching to the choir. If Chinese cars were selling like hot cakes outside of China that would be a different story.

I don't think the US government (regardless any administration) is willing to allow Chinese car selling in the US
Feel like we're in the Chinese closed door policy during the Qing dynasties

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[dmorg]

Because it's fake info? There are public investor reports. It's not some state secret deep conspiracy... these are public companies with quarterly reports, just like porsche

Zeeker is profitable since 2024.
Xiaomi is profitable since Q3 2025
Geely is profitable
Despite BYD having a full on price war in China and foreign markets, they have been and are profitable since years.

So who are you talking about?

Some of you guys have the same mentality as porsche: "surely the universe aligns in the favor of XYZ chinese car brand, and they can produce cars out of thin air, and then sell them for less than the cost of air... and the cars actually suck, but they still sell tens of thousands of car a month somehow... " - surely it's not because VW group can't make a competitive product...

BMW IX3 nueue class sells like hot candy. Must be black magic, because we all know that it's a challenging EV market, porsche said so... DUH!

On this general topic:

Rivian CEO nailed it: Chinese government provides free capital, so of course the "commercial enterprises" they have in EVs can do well. This core reason is why their EV cos have taken off. Yes, they've implemented well, but its all based on free money from their govt. I'm in project finance world and more or less what free capital does, among many enabling things: it cuts overall cost on large projects by about 1/3 and enables more risk taking. The Chinese have taken that top down fascist model, and been very astute in implementing it to undercut everyone else on cost. China is indeed the worlds most effective fascist state. Hats off to them. Whatever is said in public, that is whats actually happening-i'm in aerospace and well aware how the Chinese support national champions and those same mechanisms apply to their EV industry.

The utter stupidity of what is happening in the USA right now is playing exactly, precisely into China's hands for future automotive domination. Interestingly, the Chinese have failed in commercial aerospace, despite 2 decades of massive state sanctioned free money. They finally capitulated on comercial aerospace in the past couple of years. While Boeing and Airbus aren't stellar models of efficacy, by any means (i worked for one of them), there's just something that just doesn't work with top-down control in the much more complex systems of systems that are commercial airplanes. Russia also tried and failed, and for exactly this reason. Top-down total control doesn't work for big airplane industrials.

There are signs EU is waking up to this automotive threat from China and after some futzing around, looking at BMW Neue Klasse and what the Quandt family did in investing in that platform, I see hope that my favorite car nation can do now what it did in the 90s when Japanese competitors came into their market. wake up to the threat, and re-imagine itself. Germany's automotive industry has been a very positive reinforcing pillar of its democracy since the end of WW2, I'm hopeful it can continue to play that role, while making great cars for us to love and buy, guided by EU policymakers being rational but firm in their resolve to prevent China's state sanctioned global EV takeover.

 

[chun]

On this general topic:

Rivian CEO nailed it: Chinese government provides free capital, so of course the "commercial enterprises" they have in EVs can do well.

European car makers have also gotten billions in subsidies since 2015 to develop EVs; so it's not quite that black and white.
And Chinese subsidies are long since over in the EV space, no more freebies. The market is mega competitive, and the chinese goverment is pushing for consolidation into already existing brands.

But yes, histortically speaking, Xiaomi/BYD/Geely and others have gotten land to build their megafactories for free; + reserch icentives into EVs. However, USA has also given land for megafactories for cents, and so has EU historically.

Just pointing out that China didn't take an approch to this all that different than EU. It's just that china went all in, as they had little to no interest in maintaining their all but non-existing ICE vehicles industry - while EU barely dipped their toes. Only now you see BMW and Mercedes going all in, with all new platforms dedicated to EV.

 

[dmorg]

Agree that both EU and USA govt have given incentives. But the magnitude is nowhere near what China has done. No argument that China saw an opportunity before EU or USA did (well USA govt today certainly doesn't) and moved massively and quickly as fascist states can do--again, top-down. This is less about a commercial model and far more about democracy vs fascism. I see this as the existential issue that will define where humanity and its civil society goes. EVs happen to be at the cutting edge of that issue, hence i put my investment in the democracy camp with my auto choices, and will do everything I can to surface PRC excuse-making. Talk to folks n Hong Kong about the difference between one system and the other.

Its up to the rest of the democratic world to counter this, and in the case of USA prevent itself from becoming a horrible joke of a fascist state that will end up in a stall from the wake vortex coming off of China's fascist laminar flow. If I can mix transport mode metaphors

 

[dmorg]

PS, at my previous employer, we did a lot of work to understand what underlies PRCs internal narrative which gives them a sense of moral-purpose in being able to institutionally steal IP from other nations' commercial and govt related industrial efforts.

PRC is comprised of many well-meaning people who are mission-driven and see a worthy cause to justify their actions.

Turns out, its pretty simple.

The dominant, and sort of culturally cascading rationale, for this massive state-sanctioned theft is this: all human civilization came from China, so everything that humans have accomplished, actually belongs to China, so PRC is simply taking back that which they own already.

Talk about a supremacy complex...

 

[chun]

PS, at my previous employer, we did a lot of work to understand what underlies PRCs internal narrative which gives them a sense of moral-purpose in being able to institutionally steal IP from other nations' commercial and govt related industrial efforts.

I will preface this by saying that your take is a valid view point and probably it is many the "correct" view point.

I myself am not a fan of IP ownership and am of the belief that it only holds back technology advancment. I unerstand it's purpose, and why corporations love it, who doesn't love owning a monopoly on something - but as a customer, I couldn't give a rats ass about who steals what IP, as long as I am getting the better product.

So i understand the argument, but from a customer perspective, it's worthless to me. All a customer cares about is the product they get, maybe a close to null procentile of customers care about the IP ownership behind the product.

There's hundreds of examples from all industries where IP ownership resulted in innovation stopping or completely deviate due to it. Be it gaming, auto or automation. Hell, mini games in loading screens used to be a thing before someone locked it

One another point that's not completely 100% relevant to present EV tech anymore. China holds a lot of self developed IPs relevant to the EV industry - and they do have the most advanced tech on HV batteries. With how fast they advanced, at this point, there's no point in them stealing IP, as their own tech is already ahead.

 

[dmorg]

You obviously like Porsches. So do I. IP ownership and implementation of it, is why Porsche is what it is today..so, I would argue you DO care about IP ownership

I see you are in Switzerland. I did alot of R&D related work there, and what makes that resource-poor country so valuable, among many other things: its knowledge economy and the cornerstone of that is IP securement and legal framework around it which helps it have commercial success.

China is doing the same thing, which you correctly point out. They just have an over arching moral-purpose for justifying their willingness to steal from others whilst trying to prevent others from 1) highlighting that theft and 2) being able to have others do what they did.

Assuming PRC has its lead and will keep it on EV/batteries: i see that as very unlikely. For the exact reasons PRC failed with commercial aviation. its good at stealing, quite unproven at level-playing field competing and enduring. I suspect the future will be PRC sells to PRC, but like aerospace, in the long run, the ROW will see PRC for what it is and will enact policy to make sure un-level competiton is levelled.

 

[Freeewilly]

PS, at my previous employer, we did a lot of work to understand what underlies PRCs internal narrative which gives them a sense of moral-purpose in being able to institutionally steal IP from other nations' commercial and govt related industrial efforts.

PRC is comprised of many well-meaning people who are mission-driven and see a worthy cause to justify their actions.

Turns out, its pretty simple.

The dominant, and sort of culturally cascading rationale, for this massive state-sanctioned theft is this: all human civilization came from China, so everything that humans have accomplished, actually belongs to China, so PRC is simply taking back that which they own already.

Talk about a supremacy complex...

I disagree with you.

I've never heard a single Chinese think all human civilization came form China. It's complete nonsense, or everything that humans have accomplished belongs to China. Yeah, maybe a few, just like some people believe earth is flat.

The reason for anyone to steal others IP is extremely simple. It's EASY.

 

[BeeEmm]

Some Americans (those from the USA) seem to be very much against China, brainwashed perhaps by their leader. I clearly remember the British Motorcycle industry was the best in the world, but they sat on their arse and the Japanese crept in and made far superior bikes for less £'s. End of the British Motorcycle industry. Open your mind, see the competition and.... err, compete.

 

[MissionE]

To be fair they are also starting to sell well in Europe and UK.

I see way more new Chinese cars (especially Jaecoo and BYD) than new Tesla's nowadays.
Whereas say 4 years ago, there were loads of new Tesla's and only an occasional MG.

*Checked the stats for 2025, it's about 5:1 Chinese v Tesla.

Keep in mind, aback any positive growth they may have, it’s spurred [you might argue] by the CCP; an origination that steamrolls ‘innovation’ with government funds. Not mention China’s dire birthrate situation. So not sure how sustainable all this is in the long run.

 

[f1eng]

No. The Chinese’s ability to replicate doesn’t = quality. Chinese car enthusiasts want authenticity when it comes to sports cars, surely not some faux 911. And you can program EVs to go fast, you can’t program them to handle well; that takes about 70 years of racing heritage.

For some years the Chinese have been educating more engineers than the west and don't need to copy much any more.
They are well ahead in some areas.

When I was an apprentice the Japanese were always accused of cheap copies - no more - and China are on the same trajectory and if people continue to bury their head in the sand the same thing will happen again with China.

 

[MissionE]

Most pple

I disagree with you.

I've never heard a single Chinese think all human civilization came form China. It's complete nonsense, or everything that humans have accomplished belongs to China. Yeah, maybe a few, just like some people believe earth is flat.

The reason for anyone to steal others IP is extremely simple. It's EASY.

Most ppl agree on Africa, though no one seems to glorify that culture/land.

 

[MissionE]

For some years the Chinese have been educating more engineers than the west and don't need to copy much any more.
They are well ahead in some areas.

When I was an apprentice the Japanese were always accused of cheap copies - no more - and China are on the same trajectory and if people continue to bury their head in the sand the same thing will happen again with China.

And then what?

 

[whitex]

For some years the Chinese have been educating more engineers than the west and don't need to copy much any more.
They are well ahead in some areas.

When I was an apprentice the Japanese were always accused of cheap copies - no more - and China are on the same trajectory and if people continue to bury their head in the sand the same thing will happen again with China.

Some companies are digging their heads out of the sand:
From this article:
Honda was shockingly blunt about its situation, saying that it was simply unable to deliver products that offer a better value than that of newer Chinese manufacturers.

Porsche in also seeing the writing on the wall, but are less frank about it. They are trying to become Ferrari instead (per their own 2035 Strategy - growing higher margin car, even higher than what they currently have in their lineup). My worry would be lower volumes of very expensive cars is going to mean even lower total profits, meaning lower engineering budget. Even with their past higher engineering budgets they've been having trouble making reliable products. Maybe their hope is Ferraris are even less reliable, or perhaps that Porsche cars purely become a status symbol - so its main function will be to look pretty while parked in a garage or at a show, or make sounds to evoke emotional responses.

On the other hand, somehow Tesla is finding a way to compete:
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/13/tes...wo-months-of-2026-while-byd-numbers-drop.html

 

[MissionE]

Some companies are digging their heads out of the sand:
From this article:
Honda was shockingly blunt about its situation, saying that it was simply unable to deliver products that offer a better value than that of newer Chinese manufacturers.

Porsche in also seeing the writing on the wall, but are less frank about it. They are trying to become Ferrari instead (per their own 2035 Strategy - growing higher margin car, even higher than what they currently have in their lineup). My worry would be lower volumes of very expensive cars is going to mean even lower total profits, meaning lower engineering budget. Even with their past higher engineering budgets they've been having trouble making reliable products. Maybe their hope is Ferraris are even less reliable, or perhaps that Porsche cars purely become a status symbol - so its main function will be to look pretty while parked in a garage or at a show, or make sounds to evoke emotional responses.

On the other hand, somehow Tesla is finding a way to compete:
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/13/tes...wo-months-of-2026-while-byd-numbers-drop.html

No.

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