Free link: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/business/china-xiaomi-apple-electric-cars.html?unlocked_article_code=1.004.JrHO.YaLEg8q5xxnh&smid=url-share
This is why you read mainstream news.
My inbox is full of those who decry the mainstream news. They claim it's biased, they want nothing to do with it, they get their news from a cornucopia of bloggers, podcasters and broadcasters, mostly echoing what they already believe. And this is on both the left and the right.
Now it's instinctual to hate the big kahuna, that which has more power than you do, but that does not mean you don't need to pay attention. Because the mainstream newspapers are in the business of collecting and reporting news, whereas nearly every other outlet is about opinion. Sure, the mainstream has got a lot of that too, but don't forgo the news just because you disagree with the slant of the Op-ed page.
Recently all the publicity has been about AI, where there's been a ton of investment and very little return, except for NVIDIA, which makes the chips AI is based upon. As for AI's economic impact in the future? That's up for grabs. Meanwhile, there's the issue of hallucinations. You can't take what AI says to the bank. And in a world of zeros and ones, where we want it exactly right, that's a humongous failure.
But transportation? It's never going out of style, people have to get from here to there. And for the foreseeable future it will be in cars.
Now the right wing decries electric cars, despite their hero Elon Musk manufacturing them. They want fossil fuel burners, the bigger the better, that's the American way, right?
Well, decades ago, but not anymore.
And even if you don't believe in climate change electric cars are the future. You'd think we'd all get on the same page and try to prepare before the Chinese eat our lunch entirely.
Yes, that's what they're poised to do.
Xiaomi, which is best known for smartphones and appliances, just released the fastest EV on the market, the SU7 Ultra. It goes from zero to sixty in less than two seconds. And it looks just like a Porsche. But it costs only $73,000.
Oh, that doesn't sound so cheap. Until you learn that the regular everyday model sells for THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!
Not a single foreign competitor has been able to make a cheap EV, but there are a plethora in China.
Last year Chinese carmaker BYD sold four million new cars across the planet. That's more than Mercedes, BMW, Mazda, Subaru and, of course, Tesla... Which didn't even break two million.
Sure, Tesla is hobbled by security constraints in China. They're finding it hard to compete because their self-driving software has not been approved, because of worries about data leaks. But irrelevant of that, Teslas are just too EXPENSIVE!
And oh yeah, since the introduction of the SU7 Porsche's sales have tanked in China by 30%. We've seen this movie before with computers. IBM charged a premium price, Dell came along and sold at a much cheaper price point and ate market share and caused every other manufacturer to imitate their process and drop prices.
So how did Chinese EVs and hybrids make inroads so quickly?
"Chinese electric vehicle companies have benefited from billions of dollars in government support, which has helped them gain control of the supply chain down to the very minerals inside the car batteries."
But in the U.S., the government is the enemy. Its support is being cut everywhere, private business baby, no one wants to pay more taxes.
But that might leave us like a walled garden South American country. Where you buy an inferior product at a premium because the superior foreign one is taxed astronomically.
Now this can't happen, right?
Of course it can! We saw it half a century ago with electronics. Japan ate the Americans' lunch.
Furthermore, your Xiaomi car integrates with the rest of the software in your phone and in your home. It's the Apple construct on steroids!
And the Easter eggs!
"On the first day SU7s were delivered, buyers could go to Xiaomi's app store and get accessories to trick out the cars, like analog dashboard clocks and a row of physical switches that attach to a touch-screen panel."
Now it's not only the "Times" that covered Xiamoi's entry into the automobile market, last week the "Wall Street Journal" had an article too:
"The Chinese EV Maker Threatening Ford and GM - Lei Jun set out to build the 'Apple of China.' Xiaomi's car business is now outpacing Tesla and Rivian."
Free link: www.wsj.com/business/autos/chinese-ev-maker-xiaomi-threatening-ford-gm-tesla-757cabb4?st=de7Heb&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Here's the money quote from the WSJ article:
"Farley, Ford's CEO, had a Xiaomi SU7 specially shipped to the U.S. and spent six months last year driving it.
'It's fantastic,' Farley said on an October podcast. 'I don't want to give it up.' The maker of the sporty sedan, he said, was 'the Apple of China.'
Furthermore:
"The bestselling car brand last year in Singapore, long a bastion for Japanese carmakers led by Toyota, was China's BYD."
Science, facts, they've become up for grabs in the U.S. Everything is about emotion and opinion. And that doesn't stand up to science and organization.
I know you hate to read the mainstream press, just like you hate to listen to the Spotify Top 50. That's for other people, the less sophisticated.
But if you truly want to know what is going on, you must pay strict attention to the mainstream press, you must consume the news, because he or she with the most information wins, all the time.
Which is why I'd rather sit at home and read than talk to most people.
But that's just me.
This Chinese car thing is a juggernaut. And yes, there are hybrids along with EVs, but the dirty little secret of a hybrid is...
It requires service just like a traditional internal combustion engine. You're worrying about getting a charge in the middle of nowhere, you're hedging your bet, but the joke is on you. An EV requires almost no maintenance, period. Then again, too many people hate electric vehicles in principal to know this. Then again, the dean of automobile writers, Dan Neil, pointed this out this advantage of EVs in one of his recent WSJ columns.
America invented the transistor, but Japan saw the opportunities and fed it back to us in consumer electronics. The same way Brits heard the Delta bluesmen and created music that resulted in the British Invasion.
But we're dismantling our infrastructure in the U.S. Cutting funds for scientific exploration in universities for fear of what they teach. Believe me, an automobile doesn't care whether the company that made it had a DEI policy or not.
Or whether it was built by trans people.
We're so caught up in our petty wars in America that we're missing the point. We're so busy hating each other that we can't move forward.
This must change.
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