We could have better public transport and walkable cities, but instead we're inventing self-driving cars.
Self-driving cars are public transportation and make cities more walkable.
Is this a joke? How does having more cars on the road, with the same capacity as other cars, and which rely on, adapt to and perpetuate the status quo of car-dependent infrastructure correlate with either of these things?
No. The goal of transport should not be to use a specific technology (trains, busses, cars, etc.). The goal of transport should be to move people and goods safely, efficiently, and quickly. When evaluated on those terms, legacy public transportation doesn't fare very well when compared to self-driving vehicles.
This is disingenuous. You yourself were discussing a specific technology as was the person you're replying to, and really, the specific technology is going to guide the conversation of what gets built. An autonomous car isn't the same as an autonomous train or a bus, and having a bunch of them on the roads does not create demand for other forms of transport or infrastructure that supports it.
BYD isn't in charge of road infrastructure to be able to fix it. That's the government's job.
What's the connection to Xiaomi here? (honest question)
Sorry my bad, I meant BYD, I was thinking of the other Xiaomi supercar.
"they", as if we didn't have potholes in the us/eu.
The UK certainly has its share ("councils expected to fix 2M potholes in FY24"[0] - London, alas, is not getting them fixed all that quickly given how many I've seen in the last 6 months. Greenwich roads, for example, are a disgrace in parts.)
I've never seen as many potholes as when I visited Canada FWIW. I'm a Kiwi and I've driven all over AU/EU/UK (Little bit of US, but only really CA and Maine).
I didn't drive in China, but I've been driven multiple times and the highways and main roads seemed solid.