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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

Could you explain some specific ways in which they are ahead?

In the case of the Xiaomi SU7[1]: you name it. Pretty much every conceivable way. Performance, comfort, electronics, styling, build quality. Xiaomi is on par with Apple for electronics and they actually followed through on making the car Apple wishes they made. Sells for around 40k, so on par with a Model 3, but absolutely embarrasses anything Tesla makes.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdSusCDZcDg

Their world leading battery tech is much cheaper and last longer, as they bet on the right tech compared to basically every western car company. Their cars overall are much cheaper for equivalent or better quality. Their car companies are desperate to stand out given there are over 100 of them so produce wide ranges of extra features and designs.

But the battery is commodity technology, not a moat. There's not much stopping every other manufacturer from adopting the same thing.

And of course they are cheaper, they are selling in a market with much lower price capacity. They would not be nearly so cheap if they sold in the market like the US, so it is not sensible to compare prices as if they would.

For starters they can sell EVs at a profit, a feat which I believe only Tesla has managed among the US manufacturers.

Sure, but that's mostly an R&D vs time thing. All manufacturers go through a period of time where they are losing huge money as they build out the production capacity and develop their tech. Tesla went years without making money, as did BYD. The incumbents will get there eventually.

The incumbents had the same time the Chinese did, and more. They still couldn't do it. Now the Trump administration has effectively forced them out of the EV business. If you're not making EVs, you're not getting any better at making EVs. The best case scenario for US automakers now is that tariffs remain high post-Trump, and America becomes like Cuba or the former Yugoslavia, with people driving inferior cars to the rest of the world because that's all they have access to. But rest assured, at least the rich will be driving the finest Chinese EVs.

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