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Comment by jwallace98221 | Hacker News Reader

Same. The only brand I know that even comes close is Kia but even then they don't have many EV's and the cost is still pretty high compared to BYD.

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Hyundai and Kia are being hit pretty hard by tariffs, and the expiration of the EV tax credit.

https://www.carscoops.com/2026/03/tariffs-kill-kias-hottest-...

The tariff thing is a bit misleading if you're not familiar with the industry. Kia/Hyundai produce some of the "most domestic" vehicles on the market. Hyundai EVs were beating all American brands (incl. Tesla) by domestic content when the tariffs came into effect. Those lines are very well positioned to accommodate them.

The article is talking about a certain specialty model that's only produced in Korea, probably because it's low volume.

Kia has ev2,3,4(x2),5,6 and 9, plus the pv5 in our market. They probably just determined they can't sell them in your market.

I tried to buy an EV3 last weekend but every dealership around me is sold out through the year.

Not clear to me why they started it with such low inventory, but I ended up getting a new Leaf since I couldn't wait another bunch of months.

there is a reason.

Is there a reputable summary that explains the cheaper sales price? I'm having a hard time believing it all boils down to politics, but there's way too much noise in the way.

What most folks in the USA don't understand, BYD manufactures two types of vehicles. One type is for the domestic market (cheaper and dangerous), the other is for export (meets some semblance of safety). I have heard that the export models are built to higher standards and are more dependable, hence the higher price than domestic models.

This is business as normal for most large automakers -- segmenting different parts of their product lineup for different regulatory markets.

For example, the original VW Beetle from 1938 was sold in Mexico up until 2003.

And even models that are sold in different regions may lack some safety features in other regions: e.g. https://www.latinncap.com/en/result/44/chevrolet-spark-no-ai...

Why BYD is cheap? They're heavily vertically integrated, they're ruthless about cutting production costs, they operate in an environment with more manufacturing talent than anywhere else, and they're a young company without many legacy costs.

for example: https://x.com/maxiaoalex/status/2062910018840854722 ( https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/741394 )

An interesting explanation I heard is that China had this massive housing crisis that they never allowed to go Boom and clear the system in a few hard years. Instead the problems are lingering with an abysmal local credit market. This is why the local population can't/won't buy much and China either has to produce less or export more. For now they decided to export more to keep the machine going.

The bigger principal problem I have is that I do not understand how the Chinese economy/trade is supposed to work. China is working extremely hard to be completely self sufficient and not import anything. How is trade supposed to work if you do not want anything from your trading partners? What can they sell you besides sovereignty/land...

It will/is be a hard awakening when all those nations start to default/nationalize those projects. That is the point were usually the gunboats show up in the harbor....

Because China has a surplus of batteries, electric motors, ICs and microcontrollers?

If it isn't, it's certainly an advantage over the trashy EVs we have in America.

The reason is there's fierce competition between automotive companies in China.

Markets elsewhere that consolidated down to the 2 or 3 domestic champions that settled into a comfortable coexistence with their domestic "competition", and are coddled by protectionist government policy will have a hard time remembering how to compete for real.

That sounds quite reminiscent of America's auto industry, as well as the desktop computer, smartphone, web search, AI, fast food and supermarket industries too.

Man, China's been taking notes.

id recommend you look at soldering work, steering, materials used under the body of a chinese car vs a german made one.

Kia (and Hyundai) have a big problem with their ICCUs dying. They extended the warranty but no fix, which means your car could die at any time.

You are repeating years-old news by now. It’s true that the 2022 through 2025 model years had the ICCU problem, but they improved the ICCU design in 2026, with both better hardware (heavier duty power electronics) and better software (slow start for 12V charging).

Of course time will tell whether this brings failure rate down to be negligible. But I feel pretty confident.

It's not years old news, I was looking at used models and it still is an ongoing question. Having no real fix (time will tell if the 2026 revised part is reliable) and leaving owners with a potential brick (and re-servicing it again when the part dies) is completely unacceptable. Many Kia's were lemon'ed based on this issue.

Maybe I'm sensitive as I have a young child, but I will not buy a car with a known potential of stranding me.

It’s simple; if the used model has undergone an ICCU replacement in 2026 it will be better. It has a new part number, 36401-1XAD6.

And if not? Roll the dice on when you might get stranded? Its not an active recall, so you can't just take it in to get the new part.

If not, just don’t buy it. Let the free market sort it out. If the new part is proven to be good, the market will price these cars much higher, and sellers will perform a preemptive replacement to get higher resale value.

It should be noted that is for their E-GMP platform, which is their 800 V system. Their older 400 V platform, used on the Kia Niro and Hyundai Kona, has a completely different ICCU which has not had those problems. The first generation had some coolant leaks in the DC-DC converter housing and sometimes did a bad job keeping the 12 V battery charged but they seem to have got it all worked out for the second generation in 2024.

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