Volkswagen seeks to counter rivals with budget EV model

I don’t really trust BYD quality. I’ve seen way too many videos leak out of Chinese social media about build issues they refuse to acknowledge, thin or weak structural materials, fires, etc. Easier to trust Tesla or VW. I wonder if they would make different quality vehicles targeted at different markets.

The moment you focus on quality, your price can't be that low. Then good luck competing with VW or other cars.

These cars are garbage, people are happy because they are cheap, shiny and have all multimedia and can do 400KM... why not.

You probably need to brush up on a little concept called "Economies of Scale."

They are massively popular here in Australia, and I've not heard of any issues with quality or safety. They are held to the same standards as everyone else.

> These cars are garbage

A few years ago this was true, but quality has improved massively since then. Was in China recently, got to ride in a bunch of Chinese EVs including several BYDs. Really impressed with them, and came away wishing I could buy one myself, but that seems unlikely to be an option for now in the US unfortunately.

I'm old enough to have been around this bush twice already.

In the 70s your argument was made against emerging Japanese makers. Unknowns like Toyota, Datsun (now Nissan), Honda etc.

Then in the 90s it was Koreans entering the market. Daihatsu, Hyundai, Kia etc.

Now it's the Chinese brands arriving as well. The incumbents will talk about "quality" all day long, but in truth European quality was always a bit of a myth (British Leyland anyone?) And the heyday of BMW or Mercedes quality is long gone.

The gold standard for quality today? Probably Toyota or Honda.

So yeah, laugh off the Chinese options as low-quality.

I don't either, but simply on account of there not being a 10, 20 year old Dolphin to see how they'll do in terms of reliability years down the line.

History shows that pretty much no one who set out to make a reliable design the got it right the first time, things tend to fail in unexpected ways.

From the teardowns, BYDs seem to be pretty much unrepairable - batteries are glued together, and the motor/inverter/charger/heatpump/etc seems to be put together into one sealed unit - something they're pretty proud of, but let's hope nothing fails in there.

From what I hear from the Chinese, they aren't big on the second hand market, so that's another worrying aspect.

The problem is China is taking the different strategy.

All of the products they are making actually have two lines, one for the oversea, one for the nation. The oversea line would be high quality at first. But once they eat up all the market share, the story would start to change. The oversea buyer would happily to see they are been treated the same as Chinese.

Just think about the product from TEMU.

>> But once they eat up all the market share, the story would start to change.

You may be right. But at the moment this is just speculation. Just like happened from Japan and Korea, the quality ramped up quickly. And yes, companies age, and as they do so quality drops off. And another rises in it's place. That's literally the issue you're seeing now with US and European goods.

>> Just think about the product from TEMU.

Interestingly the quality there is climbing too.

"Easier to trust Tesla or VW."

Teslas are now old enough to be subject to mandatory yearly inspection in EU. They are dead last in the German and Swedish rankings based on the number of issues found during the yearly inspection.

German TÜV EV+ICE ranking:

  1. Honda Jazz

  2. VW Golf

  ...

  110. Ford Mondeo

  111. Tesla model 3

Swedish Besktining EV car maker ranking

  1. Polestar

  2. Lync

  ...

  X-1. Dacia 

  X. Tesla

Source:

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/11/tesla-model-3-comes-bottom...

https://www.tjanstebilsfakta.se/teslas-besiktningsresultat-a...

The Chinese can make cheap rubbish and also very good quality depending on the incentives. Most of the Apple stuff is still made there.

I used to have a Chinese made imitation Yamaha and the quality was awful as you'd expect from a counterfeit knock off manufacturer but I imagine the BYD stuff is pretty good.

I remember our British Leyland Rovers. Yeah not great.