8,936 karma · joined July 29, 2019
Downvotes mean I'm right, upvotes mean folks agree with me :)
Well China isn't the only country that builds electric vehicles, but even so internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles will be around for a long time. Actually that's in part because of China. We'd have seen greater adoption by now but because in part of Chinese hoarding of rare earth mineral processing American, European, Japanese, and Korean automakers have had to maintain ICE fleets. Of course, as you noted, there are scaling issues, they don't want to spend the money to develop EVs when the markets aren't really settled, &c. but there are quite a few factors at play. If you care about emissions/oil/energy usage you should actually be in favor of no cars to hold a more consistent position.
> Every unit they move assists in this, as well as reducing oil demand.
The good thing is that China helps US/EU/J/K/&c. here because reducing oil demand in other countries means there is more available for us to keep using.
> I don't care what happens the US or Europe legacy auto
Sure but US and Europe do and because they do they say sorry China can't sell your cars here and then China can't sell its cars there. They lose out on lots of $$ but as you said that's fine so it works for everyone.
> Subsidies, no subsidies, that's a silly argument.
China doesn't have infinite money so it's not a silly argument.
> The Western world is sad China plays by different spreadsheet rules, it is what it is.
What do we have to be sad about? We just say sorry can't sell your cars here and then we just keep living our awesome lives.
> China doesn't need profits, they need to keep their economy producing, even if at breakeven, or a potential loss.
You need profits though, that's an inescapable fact of reality. Otherwise you just go out of business.
> China will continue to scale up EV sales, and combustion vehicles will continue to decline. That's my point. Peak combustion vehicles sales was 2017, it's all down hill from here.
Well vehicle sales will decline even in China across all vehicles, not just ICE or EV. Continuing to scale up EV sales when sales will decline and your TAM isn't as big as you think means you're spending a lot of money building factories that won't get used. Resources and money are limited (this isn't a debatable fact) so at some point you just can't do it anymore, the companies go bust, and then at least in the west we never really cared because we're doing our own thing with our own cars.
That doesn't make much sense to me other than China's goal of trying to subsidize its companies and run other automakers out of business, but the US has already prevented China from entering the market (so 340 million of the richest customers on the planet are unavailable) and Europe will continue to restrict Chinese EV sales as well.
So that leaves China where exactly? Exporting $10,000 EVs to Indonesia? Sorry but that's not a big enough market with enough profit to keep the companies busy. Plus you have a glut of Chinese EV makers in China that are going to go out of business precisely because the economics don't work.
You can't sell cars at a loss indefinitely but if China wants to give away a lot of money to other countries without auto industries I mean they're welcome to do that. I just don't understand the economics of it. I'm not sure you're accounting for them either.
> Bookmark my comment for five years from now, see if I'm wrong. China has shown they can scale, the rest of the world has not.
I'm not sure what you're trying to be right or wrong about. Simultaneously you're citing things that I've cited (I guess you didn't read my comments for some reason) as reasons that Europe will restrict Chinese EV sales. The US already has. Japan and Korea will too, to varying extents.
Scaling doesn't matter if you don't have customers or you aren't making money.
> Chinese carmakers now sell one EV abroad for every two at home - https://restofworld.org/2026/china-ev-exports-overcapacity-g... - August 18th, 2026
This is the exact kind of problem that I'm highlighting. China's domestic market is faltering, there is a lot of subsidization and uneconomic business practices, and this leads to a race to the bottom which means many of these auto manufacturers will have to go bankrupt because they can't compete on cost. Instead China has to turn its over-capacity to its export markets. The problem is who will those markets be? Of course many Chinese automakers will survive all of this and go on to let's say be the dominant player in, idk, Indonesia and Brazil or something, but the export markets that everybody wants to play in are closing their doors precisely because the Chinese cars are too heavily subsidized or the cost is too low (regardless of reason) which would cause the domestic manufacturers to go out of business. Obviously the US, Europe, Japan, Korea aren't going to let that happen.
Selling 2 EVs abroad for every 1 at home is a bad sign, not a good one.
Can't make enough money doing that, plus not everyone wants a $10,000 USD EV that can charge in 5 minutes. Americans for example want Ford F-150s. Chinese people aren't even buying them since sales are down and China is focusing on exports while subsidizing factories (what does that tell you about demand and the economics?).
So you can't just say "BYD build this car therefore China will own every market" which is what you're implying here. Also BYD still has to compete in the Chinese market - race to the bottom means commoditization. Android sells the most phones, but Apple makes the most money. You'd always rather be Apple.
> The world my dude. Per my last comment, "total global TAM is ~90M units/year."
Can you provide a breakdown by country if you have one? For example the US wouldn't be included in that TAM, obviously, since we won't allow their cars here. Europe will follow as well with tariffs and sales quotas at a minimum because they will protect the industry before they'll adopt Chinese EVs, but until they formally do I think it's fine to include the continent in that TAM.
> They might price higher in some countries, but the demand for China produced high quality low price EVs will be voracious in a world of high oil prices for at least the next year or two.
Yes and no. There's a lot of nuance to be had here.
"The number of Chinese EV brands selling at least one product rose to a record 143 at the end of 2025, according to a tally by management consultant AlixPartners.” (Overcapacity subsidized by the CCP)
"Now, in a country with a shrinking population, reliable big-city mass transit and a growing robotaxi industry, sales of passenger cars to regular Chinese families are unlikely to ever again record a sustained surge, analysts said. But cities and their private-sector partners are reluctant to admit that their lofty ambitions won’t be fulfilled, which would result in factory closures and lost jobs.” (Lack of domestic demand means exports are the main path toward growth)
"In recent months, Germany’s once-towering trade surplus with China in automotive products has turned into a deficit. Germany—the country widely credited with inventing the automobile—is embracing Chinese brands, while German automakers are struggling in China.” (EU will begin restricting Chinese auto imports or enacting tariffs)
"In the U.K., BYD is selling its flagship Seal hybrid sedan for the equivalent of around $44,000, more than $10,000 less than a similarly equipped Volkswagen Passat. These vehicles are sold at Chinese price points we cannot match with European cost structures,” said Volkswagen Chief Executive Oliver Blume in an August memo to staff."
"About the only major market where Chinese automakers aren’t causing upheaval is the U.S., where tariffs and restrictions on Chinese vehicle technology have all but locked out the country’s automakers. General Motors and Ford are among the few automakers still pumping out relatively healthy profits.” (America isn't going to let them come in and destroy the US auto industry)
No clue, but there are millions. Just depends on the product.
Here are two examples. One made in France, the other in America:
[1] https://www.debuyer-usa.com
One of those pans is made in France (western) the other is made here in the US. The quality of the US pans are a bit better which is part of why they command the higher prices. But you can also buy a pan from Wal-Mart for 1/10 or 1/5th the cost. But that's up to you. You can support higher wages or you don't have to if you don't want to.
> And how many people will be willing to pay a premium when the locally made products are worse quality than foreign products?
Why are you assuming the American and locally made products are worse than foreign products? Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.
> Eventually there's a high possibility you won't be able to buy anything in the product category you want.
Well for a lot of these we can just do without, but those are the kinds of things you have to figure out if you want "living wages". Wages are higher in the west so we will automate things to keep some prices low/lower and we'll just pay higher costs to support the living wages. Or we won't and then we won't have living wages. You can do things like try to raise the minimum wage or w/e but then you're just making American/western products less competitive with the cheaper foreign products. Then you'll have to implement tariffs and agree with Trump there in order to offset the wage differences.
It's both. The nihilism (see France riots for ex) and general incompetence that many of us see in the workplace or in our dealings with, for example, government agencies, and in our dealings with others is obviously there too and needs to be rooted out.
How do you deal with incompetence? In Europe I have no idea because of labor laws. In America we should probably be aggressively firing bad workers and grifters, and at the same time increasing wages and benefits and providing for items like safety and proper rest for those who actually want to show up and get things done.
The fix is you will just have to buy American and pay higher prices for higher "living wages". There's no way around it besides taxes or tariffs on foreign goods to equalize the wage/price difference (which does have some down sides).
I buy American and western-made products as much as possible, and I pay higher prices (assuming high quality) for those higher wages. If you want low cost, you can't by definition support "living wages".
There's no "oh if only the CEO makes less" way around it either. Labor is simply more expensive in the west and will remain so and you can vote with your wallet, as I do, or you can pay people less than living wages.
I don't know what you are comparing or how you are comparing things. You should provide some examples like, cost per token or some other useful metric other than "open-weight models are closer and closer".
Maybe the best way to think about it is like this: Yes a cheap Android phone from Wal-Mart has a camera, you can text on it, and install apps, but Apple makes all the money. Why is that? Because it's not good enough to just be a cheap and "close" alternative. If it were, then we'd see a race to the bottom on cost and commoditization, but we don't. Technology matters, but so does commercialization and it is immature and incorrect to think otherwise. If OpenAI and/or Anthropic go on to capture 90% of the market's profits and leave the bottom 10% for open-weight model companies or distilled models or what have you to fight over the scraps then OpenAI and Anthropic still win regardless of the capabilities of the other models.
Similarly we don't see this race to the bottom with closed-weight models. If open-weight is or was superior we'd just see nothing but American open-weight model companies come in to existence overnight and take over the market just like we do for any other software. But we don't. The fact is that open-weight models while providing some advantages are only one part of the market makeup.
You can think through this a bit too. First, you can see that China is now requiring export licenses for some of its AI companies and closing up models. Why is that?
Second, can you talk through the revenues of open-weight models? And if closed-weight model companies go bankrupt because of the supposed superiority of open-weight models where will these companies get their weights from and who will train the models and on what infrastructure?
I don't know you nor do I have any say in what phone you buy, for example.
Open hardware is great but someone has to build it and it has to be better. Most of the time it's way worse. I'm a little unsure about what these Zerotrust architecture claims are going to turn out to be:
Restored computer sovereignty begins with local supply chains of trusted domestic and allied partners, and extends to Zero Trust architecture.
If this becomes available for personal use it's the HN dream with the focus (from what I can tell) on security, "zero trust", and presumably modularity. Presumably it'll work best with Linux too.
Sadly I also can't natively install my Nintendo Switch software on my Xbox.
No they won't, the market for "running local models" is approximately 0. There's nothing to bifurcate anyway because once they release the more capable chips they'll be able to be configured with hiring amounts of RAM.
Apple in recent years has been updating their laptop range or specific models (Air or something) with their latest base M series chip (M4, M5, M6, &c.) and then later comes the higher end CPUs. But the base series chips don't have the hardware to it seems support higher RAM loads, or maybe they are artificially restricted in some way.
You can install both Windows and Linux on MacBooks. For Windows you may need to buy Parallels[1] or something but you can do it.
Am I missing something?
(since I'm rate limited)....
With the OP's comment "guess its a use-once device now..." I was thinking they meant power supply in the desktop sense, not the power adapter. I have no idea why a power adapter would be the thing that makes a laptop a "use-once" device.
But yes in the configuration options you can choose between two power adapters.
I think you're assuming that the options will be: "uber-super-ultra-premium intelligence" and then something like that but only slightly less so and much cheaper. Those aren't the only potential options. One other option is "uber-super-ultra-premium intelligence" and "nothing that really matters".
That seems to be the crux of the "open-weight" models versus "closed" models debate/discussion. I think it's more of a belief system being expressed than it is a reflection of any reality.
Open source software evangelists tend to have a quasi-religious viewpoint on the openness of software and that the model is superior and will always be cheaper and if not better only slightly worse, but because it's cheaper it's better. They will proclaim its universality, and apply it not just to web frameworks but to artificial intelligence, or state secrets, or anything else where there is some secret or knowledge to be held and maintained. If I were to say I think closed-source software is better and more preferable, open-source software evangelists will come out from all corners of the internet to make sure I know how impossible it is for security to be good on closed-source software, or how software yearns to be free or something. Then it turns into "the AI industry ... prefers to make claims about infinite exponential growth".
All of that is just a belief system. It's not scientific or factual. And it clouds judgement.
Blueberries grow in the wild, ergo farmers don't matter.
> Finding meaning in the human condition and experience I suppose. Is that in your job? I argue no, but everyone will find meaning in their own way, if they find it before death.
So why are you prematurely defining what meaning should be for everyone? That's one of the problems with these authoritarian ideologies.
> I fly on Boeing equipment occasionally (not my choice), so I definitely fly on airplanes built by companies who think building good aircraft doesn't matter. I'm sure some people at Boeing care, but not enough to overcome institutional inertia of "bean counter idgaf".
I don't understand this at all. Clearly they care a lot or else these planes would be crashing and stuff. If you think they don't care and you're saying flying on the aircraft sucks because they don't care, then maybe they should care more about their jobs and then it would be a better experience, which sort of runs counter to your thesis here.
Sure, from a raw numbers perspective it's a drop in the bucket. But not all numbers are created equal. How does the pay of these employees from Microsoft compare? You mention those of the baby boomer generation, but are all employees who may be leaving Microsoft of the same age range? What about their skillsets and the investments they and we as society of spent in their education? Those other factors matter quite a bit, so you can't just do a simple 1-1 analysis of "people".
> Certainly, people should never be in economic peril, but they also shouldn't tie their identity to their job, or think their job matters. The evidence is robust that the job does not matter.
Why? Which evidence? I think more people could have more meaning if they were self-employed, were craftsmen or artisans, and such, but this nihilistic viewpoint (which is a hallmark of anti-social/authoritarian ideologies like DSA and others) not only doesn't reflect reality but seeks to belittle those who do in fact find meaning and joy in their work. I for one like my job and have liked most of the jobs I've had. Just because an organization no longer needs you, or you no longer need it, doesn't mean that the job all of a sudden "doesn't matter".
If people don't tie their identity to the thing they spend the most time doing what will they tie it to? Should a police officer or teacher not think of themselves through the lens of their chosen profession? When you ask a professor at your university do you want to work with one who doesn't tie themselves to their work or their research? Would you want to buy produce from a farmer who sort of doesn't care about the quality of the food they grow? Do you want to fly on an airplane built by people who think their job doesn't matter?
It's like sure yea you can access the Internet and tinker around or whatever, and with some old LLM model you can have it do fun things, but on a scale of absolute usefulness and if we include what people actually pay money for and what is highly adopted, your laptop and model are severely outdated and by and large irrelevant. That's why the iPhone sells like hotcakes all day every day and twice on Sunday and Apple is a $5 trillion company. Society disagrees with your measure of usefulness.
Sorry I'm rate limited since Dang thinks I'm arguing to much on political topics (he's probably right), but to answer a couple of questions regarding "my old technology does this one thing" you are conflating your personal and nostalgic uses for old hardware/software with what is useful for society or business. If the old hardware was still just as useful as the new hardware it would be used instead of the new hardware.
There could be, they can actually come from open American companies too. Ask yourself why we aren't seeing a thousand or more American AI startups spring into life overnight to build "open" models. Follow the economics.
> What's stopping a bunch of enterprising upstarts from updating all 2.8 trillion parameters, extending them, distilling the model into very competent flash models, or applying targeted RL?
> And that would come into play if the Chinese kill every closed American provider and then go closed themselves.
What's stopping American or European tech companies from doing this today? It's economic and technical capability. I'm very suspicious of any suggestion that it is in any way not incredibly difficult to build and scale up LLMs. Maybe in the future it can be much easier, but in that case you run into a sort of tautology where it becomes easier but the leading companies continue to lead and do so by a significant margin because they're the ones that have the most talent and access to capital.
The premise seemed to be "an open China" versus a "closed USA". I'm not sure that's a great premise. If China can create open-weight models so can the US. If the US can close their models (as clearly evidenced by the article) so can the Chinese.
Besides...
"If passed, the rules would require Chinese companies to obtain licenses to export the core technology behind their leading models.
They would also ban the export of A.I. that can be used to launch cyberattacks, as well as models trained on what China calls “core data.” The government broadly defines that as data that concerns national security, the welfare of Chinese citizens and the public interest. Experts say the scope includes data on the military or critical infrastructure, state secrets and other sensitive information. "
So pretty soon they won't even "do it".
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/world/asia/china-exports-...
What specifically could have been faked? "The whole thing"? In that case you're wrong because the whole thing happened.
But if you want to be specific you can enumerate each thing you believe could have been faked and we can prove or disprove each one individually.
Either. You can check major sources (WSJ, Financial Times, &c.)
> because the official ones are very questionable?
I trust the institution regardless of what party is in power.