'We Have No Chance Against This': Honda Reacts To China's Supplier Strength
Posted by trail-g62Bim@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 174 comments
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Posted by trail-g62Bim@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 174 comments
[removed]
ApprehensiveWash7969@reddit
Am hoping speed does not replace reliability. Let me know when Chinese automakers consistently produces vehicles that can reach 200k-300k miles. Toyota and Honda are already there. Ford, Mazda, and few other brands are not that far behind. Kia and Hyundai are also catching up. I have noticed Chinese cars have a bunch of flashy features to many of their new cars but some of us are looking for durability. And some of us who are used to buying older cars realize that many of those options will fail at some point. Even our own automakers are suffering from having too much new tech and are paying the price as a result.
BanThisDick111@reddit
IDGAF about how fast china can build something. They can do it fast because they don’t give a second thought to safety or quality of products.
narcistic_asshole@reddit
This isn't just a Honda or EV issue, but an industry wide issue. Most legacy automakers work around a 5ish year development cycle from concept to production. These Chines automakers are able to do it in 2 years.
In the same amount of time it takes a legacy automaker to start preliminary testing, the Chinese manufacturers are starting production.
desf15@reddit
Legacy automakers simply need to change. Renault has been doing it in last years, and they newest model (Twingo) was done in 2 years, with plans for it be the new norm.
narcistic_asshole@reddit
The biggest difference is that Chinese manufacturers tend to skip a lot of the physical testing milestones in favor of simulation. Pretty much every component in a car goes through multiple levels of validation and testing. The two big developmental phases are your DV and PV phase, with DV being an early build of the part to test and see how it performs or holds up in different conditions and then from there make changes until its ready for the PV phase which is the final step before production.
The Chinese OEMs tend to skip or speed through the DV phase and go right into the PV phase. To their credit the Chinese OEMs seem to be making quality products, though I'm also a little scared of how the Legacy OEMs go about replicating the Chinese developmental cycle.
Soggy_Cheek_2653@reddit
So...the Chinese are faster and cheaper because they ignore standards and treat workers like slaves, what else is new?
dice7878@reddit
Ignore standards? How do they sell the products in china and overseas? Slaves do not produce work good enough to take over the world.
RobertM525@reddit
Cheap stuff that has decent initial perceived quality can still be very popular with buyers. Nobody can tell what the long-term durability of a product is at a glance. Buyers just know that it looks like it's a quality product and that it's cheap.
We don't build anything to last anymore across a wide range of consumer products. Cars were an exception. It sounds like that's not true for Chinese cars.
dice7878@reddit
Cars are consumer durable goods. For businesses, they are capital purchases. Slapping a Chinese marque on them doesn't change the category, which is anything but cheap.
Tesla exports plenty of cars from Shanghai. It is the only gigafactory driving the stock price the last few years. The rest don't make money.
I don't know what you are insinuating except the prejudice that china = cheap.
RobertM525@reddit
I'm going off this:
That and Chinese cars being mysteriously cheaper than their foreign competitors. Some of that is government subsidies. But if it's not all of it, how else are they producing cars at a fraction of the price that their foreign competition is? They're just so much more efficient and less wasteful? That could be part of it. But the fact that they are skipping part of the testing/validation procedures that their foreign competitors undertake—something those non-Chinese companies definitely aren't doing out of the goodness of their hearts but because they had to do to regulations/product issues—makes me suspicious.
Cutting corners is one way to make things cheaper. The prior commenter was providing one way that that is apparently happening. That's what I was commenting on.
"Cheaper" sometimes does mean "cheap." Especially when something is way, way less expensive than competing products for no obvious reason.
By no means do I think that it's impossible to produce quality products out of Chinese factories. They do it all the time. But they also make cheap crap all the time, too. Trying to figure out where their auto industry sits on that spectrum is an ongoing curiosity for me. I just don't buy the angle that they've made some miraculous breakthrough that every other countries' car makers can't figure out because they are all just too old and stupid. Maybe it's just cheaper labor and government subsidies. But maybe it's more than that.
Pinedale7205@reddit
As someone who has worked in automotive for quite a while now, I would offer the following perspective.
Legacy automotive has gotten comfortable, and has tried to rest on their laurels, raising prices but not necessarily improving their products. The bigger players have been sending their manufacturing to China for years in order to keep costs low and keep their C-Suite folks very comfortable. And China has learned a lot in that period, becoming a manufacturing powerhouse.
At the same time, China has seen the opportunity (even if it’s not sustainable long-term) to pull away from the competition with EVs. Low costs, manufacturing expertise, short lead times aided by simulation-only testing etc. The best part for China is that it doesn’t need to be sustainable long term. It just needs to be enough to convince the world to buy Chinese and to give China the opportunity to really separate themselves technologically from the competition.
From there, prices on export vehicles can go “back to normal” and China will have already become the world leader in automotive, dethroning the long-reigning Germany, who will be too slow to react and will fall behind.
But this is nothing new, this has been a situation in development over the past couple decades, and we are just now seeing the fruits of those decisions.
dice7878@reddit
That's naive. Tesla makes the same model 3 stateside and Shanghai. It makes no money stateside, despite selling at higher price. Why?
As for DV, Chinese firms typically prototype and iterate at rates and cumulative numbers in the multiples of foreign competition. That is why Kickstarter projects are centered around china, for the engineering.
You don't have to buy into the hype. Just visit a major Chinese car show. There are several a year.
Chinese cars are not cheaper for no good reason. The main reason is not having to pay inflated foreign IP for the key stuff and immense competition. And the lack of inflation post-covid. Compare that to America and Europe where people are buying fewer cars while revenue goes up, not too different from ground beef price gouging.
I don't think you have examined how the big boys approach engineering in china. They would have died pursuing sloppy cheap or cutting too many wrong corners.
Do you know how many EV brands there are?
tooltalk01@reddit
China has chokehold on battery supply-chain and I don't mean just the raw material. China achieved the market dominance in the supply-chain heavily subsidizing every layer of the supply-chain and even effectively banning foreign competitors. They also take shortcut to tech by trampling IP of foreigners -- all foreign competitors were forced to give up their IP in hybrid/EV/battery tech to compete in China since 2010.
China's strategy of force tech transfer/IP theft, restricting foreign competitors, subsidizing overcapacity to dominate isn't anything new.
WorldlyOriginal@reddit
Sometimes the current, old standards aren’t necessarily the best. At the end of the day, their cars that they export, are still passing Euro/American independent safety eaters like IIHS or NCAP
Riverrattpei@reddit
And some of them are getting Best in Class ratings from NCAP
WolfingMaldo@reddit
While you repeat drivel the Chinese are surpassing everyone on most manufacturing sectors
V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit
Average Chinese car buyers hold their cars around 5 years which is shorter than Western car buyers. It makes sense these Chinese automakers needing shorter time to develop their new cars.
NarcoticCow@reddit
Wow
I wonder how long this is sustainable for
xarune@reddit
Presumably they'll export the used models to lower wealth countries. So it's basically like everyone is leasing and then the used market is just international. It's a lot easier to China to move those used cars to neighbors in the region.
Similar to how cars in western and central Europe move east as they age.
DankChunkyButtAgain@reddit
But that still isn't infinitely sustainable. If China is exporting 2x the cars due to the their population and 2x faster due to their ownership cycles compared to western countries there will be a limit to that consumption.
Also considering many of those are EV there will be the issue of charging infrastructure in lesser developed countries.
xarune@reddit
I can't say if it can go on forever. That said, a lot of countries culturally replace cars a lot faster than the US. Japan, for example, has a median car age 30-50% younger than the US because they value newness and their auto industry is built around that. I would expect China to be similar.
Charging infrastructure is interesting. Because, yes, long distance and public charging infrastructure is a barrier in many places. But for local use "charging infrastructure" is just an electrical grid and there is increasing pressure to get power to remote places in poor countries. Most places that distribute fuel also have electricty and it can end up being more reliable to rely on that electricity than unreliable or unbuilt fuel networks. Basic power service is good for 50-100mi of daily use (depending on your voltage standard) with access to a basic outlet and there are lot of places that cars aren't going very far day-to-day.
Africa is seeing weird EV adoption patterns beause of this. And I imagine we'll see more as political pressure for electrical grids increases and used chinese EVs are available for cheap when they are dumped. It was also surprising how many first gen Nissan Leafs were running around the in background of news footage from the beginning of the war in Ukraine: a scenario where one would normally expect there to be basically zero dedicated infra.
pdp10@reddit
Yes, but let's be careful not to overweight the Ethiopian ban on combustion imports. They have a big new hydro dam, and we don't know how the regulation is going to play out in the longer term.
xarune@reddit
I guess I'm not really talking about top level government policy around vehicles specifically: I had no idea Ethiopia even had a ban.
Mostly that I bet some of these places are going to jump to electric because it's a lot easier to cobble partial electric systems and distribution than it is gasoline refining and distribution. And a lot of these places people are driving way less far than western nations so slow changing and short ranges are far more acceptable: the cars are competing with bikes.
I am far from an expert here. But a lot of low income countries have an automotive history of throwing together whatever they can find. And EVs are actually decently suited to that: simpler power source, less moving parts, less maintenance.
Joatboy@reddit
I'd argue that's not their true preference. Their total auto market has been pretty skewed due to their rapid and massive growth, combined with heavy subsidies. Their used market is still developing as secondary market inventory grows.
Instead I'd argue that the hypercompetitiveness of their OEMs leads to this kind of change
maveric101@reddit
They keep a car as long as I keep my phone? Jeebus.
manytakes@reddit
Development Validation and Production Validation? Sorry, I'm in the auto industry, but we use similar terms for drug development and manufacturing
narcistic_asshole@reddit
Close. Design Validation and Production Validation. But yea its basically just different stages of validation. DV uses preproduction tooling, software, etc... and then PV is the final check before customer vehicles go into production
CubanLinxRae@reddit
They also have a larger and cheaper workforce and don’t have to adhere to the same standards as the western world
desf15@reddit
So does Renault. They've opened new fancy simulator designed to cut development time 2 or 3 years ago, I guess Twingo utilized its capabilities.
ramsfan00@reddit
Plus they have higher demands on their workforce, a larger workforce, and a cheaper workforce. Its very difficult to compete globally. This is one of the primary reasons for bringing manufacturing back to the US. Its not to create jobs, its to build AI plants to at least somewhat potentially compete with China.
drsilentfart@reddit
Built in two years is indeed impressive but named in two seconds... even more so.
Artistic_Check_98@reddit
The Twingo is co-developed in China.
Lighthouse_seek@reddit
They were the ones that spun up an office in china right
desf15@reddit
I think so.
chanrahan1@reddit
And the Twingo was the first model to leverage the Chinese expertise in that way. They still managed to source all their components within 1000km of the factory in Slovakia where the car is assembled.
They've also really leaned in the vertical stuff with the campus in Douai where the 5/a290/micra is built, the battteries are made there too.
blue92lx@reddit
2 years seems too fast though. Imagine if every car you bought was outdated before your lease was already up, or you haven't even come out of the initial drop in price during financing.
The used car market wouldnt really benefit since any car available, at minimum, is 1-2 generations old even after a few years.
Being good enough to produce new models in 2 years sounds good on paper, and it is good as far as showing your capabilities, but in real terms it has drawbacks too.
andrewia@reddit
Other automakers like Ford have recognized it. That's why Ford is trying with their "universal EV" project. From what I've heard they're hauling ass to match the engineering integrations and project timelines. I'm sure some other automakers are also following that model pioneered by Tesla and China.
revvolutions@reddit
It's funny, in the golden days of Honda, their model cycles were all 4 years. Just being competitive wasn't enough.
Now they're 6 years for r the Civic, and the Odyssey hasn't been redesigned in 8 years!
engineer_jonathan@reddit
The article isn't referring to how many model years a vehicle stays in the market. It's referring to how many years it takes to develop a given model.
You could have a lengthy development cycle and still refresh every two years by doing it as parallel programs. Conversely, you could have a short development cycle and decide not to update a model for 10 years.
Recoil42@reddit
Supplier integration has nothing to do with it. It's risk adversity.
rtekaaho@reddit
The risk is gone when the Chinese govt supplies the funding regardless of profit. That’s the difference.
Tyrannosapien@reddit
So you're saying that it's a bad idea to rely on a "free market" where the govt allows automakers to chase quarterly shareholder profits instead of building long-term, competitive industries? Makes sense to me.
tooltalk01@reddit
It's bad idea to weaponize "subsidies" to force extract IP/tech transfer from foreign competitors, or favor domestic "champions" such as CATL/BYD over foreign competitors, which is also a prohibited practice under the global subsidies standard, aka, the WTO's Subsidies and Countervailnig Measures (SCM) agreement.
drjellyninja@reddit
They don't do that though. They absolutely have many subsidies but the auto industry in China is extremely competitive and many brands have gone out of business
ramsfan00@reddit
Not true,
There are 5 different programs China offers to buy Chinese made cars including tax write off, an automatic credit for trade in of a non Chinese car, and free registration fees for Chinese made cars. This doesn't include the tariffs they put on international cars. Its not a free market though, its a communist state so they can push the demand one direction or the other.
drjellyninja@reddit
Yes those are all subsidies and incentives, they are not guaranteed profits if a company takes a risk that doesn't pan out. In China the deck is stacked in favour of domestic brands, but the competition between those brands is fierce
b6q28q@reddit
This is the same with all governments.
rtekaaho@reddit
No it isn’t. That’s a child’s answer.
Henrarzz@reddit
Legacy automakers wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for governments lol. Heavy industry isn’t a free market
GVIrish@reddit
What are you basing that on? From what I've read, the Chinese manufacturers are taking vertical integration to a level the legacy makers are not.
Companies like Honda are risk averse for sure, but it seems like China's advantage isn't primarily that they take more risks.
Recoil42@reddit
Chinese manufacturers are typically some of the least verticalized, owing to the extremely strong domestic manufacturing ecosystem. You don't need to develop your own servo motors in China, there are ten servo motor manufacturers down the street you can just pop off to and get a million servos from. Verticalization would just slow things down. This is well known in the industry. The only casual exception is BYD, which is structured much like Toyota and Hyundai, but... Toyota and Hyundai are legacies with strong supplier integration. Everyone else outsources their batteries to CATL, their software to Huawei, and everything else to a hundred other suppliers peddling everything else.
This whole "verticalization" narrative is franky bizarre, and best I can tell one mostly cooked up by low-information Tesla fans with verticalization psychosis. It isn't actually how the industry works and it isn't how China works in particular.
NarcoticCow@reddit
Given time, wouldn't byd be more successful? Their production will be the cheapest and it'll be easier for them to come out with more models. Less negotiating with suppliers and more making new designs and features.
I know Byds proft margins are just lower than Honda rn, but given time, I can see Byd taking over. They can raise prices whenever they want, and they are more capable of coming out with new models with new features, meanwhile less vertically integrated automakers (Honda, Mitsubishi, Mazda) are barely coming out with new cars or innovating.
HeyyyyListennnnnn@reddit
Rapid model cycles aren't necessarily a positive. Even the abbreviated development period is still an expensive proposition, and rapid churn means you have less time to achieve a positive return on investment. Constant pivots in product design would mean constant write-offs on previous tooling investments, variations to supply agreements and retraining of workers. It's not sustainable, and the Chinese government has recognized that.
China is just speed running the first 50 years of car manufacturing elsewhere. They'll consolidate, mergers and acquisitions will happen and things will slow down. Most of what's reported as rapid innovation isn't really all that innovative and there's a boring uniformity of product design in the Chinese market as a result of the push to quickly release new products to the market. They've hit the smartphone problem of no one really needing or wanting a lot of the features they pack in, and there's too much competition to take big risks aesthetically.
rtekaaho@reddit
That’s the whole Chinese plan. Subsidize a market no matter if the company makes a profit in the short term in the hopes of taking over that whole sector.
maveric101@reddit
That's a common big business strategy all over. Amazon ran a deficit for many years. You're investing in growth and also paying no taxes in the meantime because of said investment.
rtekaaho@reddit
Correct. Why is that? Govt subsidies. It’s easy to get a loan from the govt in China. It’s why china has a deflationary problem.
GVIrish@reddit
Thank you for this, I deserved to get cooked but you decided to educate instead. I had read about the colocation thing as well but hadn't looked too deeply into. I have that Wired issue sitting in my mail pile right now, guess I'll go read it now.
rtekaaho@reddit
It’s the way china does business in all sectors. They heavily subsidize their companies to put other companies out of business in order to secure that market. It’s what they’ve been doing for decades. It’s called dumping.
GVIrish@reddit
I would love to hear the hard discussions being had at all the manufacturers that did those technology sharing agreements so they could get access to the Chinese market now that those same Chinese companies are ready to eat their lunch with the Chinese government's help.
Recoil42@reddit
Most of those companies are now licensing from the Chinese companies and forming joint ventures with them. Volkswagen, for instance, now uses Xpeng's platform.
NarcoticCow@reddit
Isnt it though? The money saved from owning your own supply chain can be used to fish out new models with better tech than the competitors at a cheaper price
Recoil42@reddit
Owning your own supply chain is an expenditure; not a savings.
NarcoticCow@reddit
Don't Hyundai and Toyota have (slightly) higher profit margins than honda/nissan? With the two being more vertically integrated.
Recoil42@reddit
Honda makes their own engines, transmissions, and components. They're verticalized. The thing you're saying isn't actually true. Verticality and cost savings are orthogonal concepts, there's a series of trade offs. It's not as easy as "derp derp derp verticalize save money" — if that were true, everyone would be doing it.
NarcoticCow@reddit
Ok I’ll agree my argument is flawed for Toyota. They don’t fully own their supply chain, but they are partners
However, Hyundai is integrated down to the steel in their cars, no? They also have Kia to help as they lead r&d with some of their shared cars
I know byd owns some rights to mining in Brazil. They also make their own batteries.
Recoil42@reddit
Toyota is a Keiretsu. Monolithic zaibatsu conglomerates were effectively banned after WW2, so Japanese megacorps effectively became communities of tightly-associated partner companies. Denso, for instance is both Toyota and not Toyota at the same time — it's like a magic trick.
On that note: Remember when you throw shade at Nissan for being non-verticalized, you're talking about a company that a US-led occupation actively dismantled by force in 1946. There's a whole wildly important layer of historical context here.
yobo9193@reddit
Yes, it's incredible what can happen when the national government sets a strategic plan to increase their domestic manufacturing capacity for green vehicles and also subsidizes those industries to allow market competition. It also helps when they engage in regular and reoccuring IP theft which allows them to "innovate" (read: copy) what manufacturers have already done so they can then leap forward where manufacturers have not.
The advancements China has made in manufacturing are incredible, but don't let the pro-China bots convince you that China is doing anything magical to get there
Shakeyshades@reddit
The second half is the majority of the reason. That and the whole if you want to sell in china you have to have 50% Chinese ownership which in turn provides china with the blueprints of tech they didnt have before.
dedboooo0@reddit
didnt have to scroll too far down to read the stupid brainwashed shit
yobo9193@reddit
+5 social credit for you, comrade
dedboooo0@reddit
classic braindead reply haha
social credit 50 cent tiananmen square xinjiang
got ur whole vocabulary right there, actual fuckin idiot lol
Bay1Bri@reddit
"stop making the same valid points!"😭😤
dedboooo0@reddit
you dont even know what you’re talking about
Bay1Bri@reddit
Calm down, dude. Not everyone glazes West Taiwan like you do.
dedboooo0@reddit
imagine thinking i give a shit about you calling china west taiwan lol, absolute bot replies over here. you can call it my right nut for all i care but it wont change the fact that you're stupid
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
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Bay1Bri@reddit
I sure hope you said that to the person who actually started this conversation, which was not me
Recoil42@reddit
+10 fox news points sponsored by palantir
threeinacorner@reddit
Let me ask you this: how long are you going to use "IP theft" like a crutch when it's clear they have innovated beyond that? When CATL made sodium ion viable, solving the voltage drop issue, do you think they did it by stealing?
This is horribly unproductive. Western automakers should learn from China and (to an extent) take advantage of the sprawling supplier ecosystem that China has. Like Renault.
Recoil42@reddit
Americans: "Intellectual property is god and all that is holy you should only ever have original ideas and never learn from othe.."
Also Americans: "Look, we made a cheap Ferrari! We made it look like a Ferrari, and we also took apart a Ferrari to make it, and we used the same engine design as a Ferrari. American ingenuity ha ha ha ha"
Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho@reddit
The ZR1x doesn’t look like any Ferrari, doesn’t have the underlying mechanics of any Ferrari, and is much faster for it.
NarcoticCow@reddit
Uhh I think IP theft is like copying technical designs that would violate ip. The corvette being a good supercar isn't ip theft lol
Recoil42@reddit
Chevy Corvette Z06 Engineers Bought a Ferrari 458 Engine on Ebay to Learn Its Secrets
Thompkins noted specific areas the team wanted to learn from, like how Ferrari protected various ignition and electronic components from the vibrations of the flat-plane crank. “One thing Jordan and team took a closer look at was Ferrari’s techniques for ignition coil isolation and securing electrical connectors to avoid fretting problems,” he told The Drive.
American ingenuity, baby.
NarcoticCow@reddit
I mean ok let’s say they fully copied everything
There’s an argument that there was ingenuity in mass producing the product. What “Italians” offered to a handful the “yeehaw Americans” offered to the much bigger handful (100k+ still ain’t cheap lol)
Recoil42@reddit
Hey man, if you're going to argue China good, have at it.
NarcoticCow@reddit
Eh to some extent
I know I’m sorta talking in circles but if you take something and improve on it or also make it available to the mass I’ll applaude it
Recoil42@reddit
I mentioned Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of Hardware in a different comment. Find some time to watch it; it's very good. It talks about this at length, and has some interesting re-framing of the Chinese copycat electronics of the 1990s and 2000s as a form of democratization.
threeinacorner@reddit
Then a lot of those "stolen" Chinese car advancements aren't IP theft since they utilized technology transfers from western automakers and reverse engineering to gain knowledge.
You know, like how GM learned from the 458 engine.
g0atm3a1@reddit
I gotta say the old, trite “China bad” response has become less frequent on this sub over time as people have slowly come to the realization that Western manufacturing is in trouble. You still see this type of comment from time to time, but I think most intelligent folks now see the existential threat before them without resorting the old “cheap Chinese, communist, stolen junk” stereotype.
familyguy20@reddit
It’s so laughable you just have to ignore these stupid people who are still harping on it. Same old trite that was said in the 80s about Japan. They are mad that western manufacturing is falling behind and can’t comprehend how the Chinese market is booming now. Like it’s not hard to understand but people still want to feel superior.
No one gives a fuck about IP theft much anymore. Also western companies engage in that too. China doesn’t seem to care and they really don’t have to. They just buy up a company and integrate its workforce and production lines into its network. I mean when you have all the domestic supply and production in country…this is the result you see.
It’s such a different way of doing things that I think the knee jerk response is “hmmm that’s bad and they must be using slaves or something blah blah communist”. While people are babbling on about that, China is making inroads into foreign markets and offering cheap but high quality and subsidized vehicles to people who want them.
markyymark13@reddit
Until we end up bailing out western automakers again and learning nothing from it. Just like last time with previous bailout, the big three put all their eggs in the SUV basket and got caught with their pants down when money was tight and gas wasn't cheap. We had every opportunity to use this as a wake up call to push our brands into the future but we didn't - gotta protect those profit margins!
yobo9193@reddit
Western automakers do leverage China’s supplier ecosystem, where have you been for the last 10 years?
And time will tell if CATL’s tech actually works as they say it does.
threeinacorner@reddit
Not in a way that can help them reach China speed. Look up how Renault develops the new Twingo.
You know the Naxtra is here right? And I trust CATL with batteries.
WOW_SUCH_KARMA@reddit
It blows my mind that same people wanting better paying jobs and better working conditions and a freer marketplace are first in line to cheer on the Chinese cars.
Like…
CorrectCombination11@reddit
We want productive industrial policy.
The US production policy is military contracts with rtx, boeing, honeywell, ge, northrup, and other bomb and war machine makers.
BulaBulangiu@reddit
From who are they stealing all this new tech from ? What american / european companies make 5 mins charging batteries and all that shit ?
Alive_Internet@reddit
While there’s no guarantee that it’s stolen technology, I think people are skeptical because China has a history of “borrowing” American IP instead of inventing things.
The49GiantWarriors@reddit
This is just sticking one's head in the sand. Twenty, thirty years ago, as China was starting it's generational run, western companies essentially handed over IP to Chinese companies in order to get in on the Chinese market. During this time, Chinese companies did steal IP as well, but that was never the biggest issue. The bulk of what China needed to learn was happily taught to them by the west. How to design a car factory. How to set up the equipment.
After a critical mass of knowledge is attained, you can go off and learn on your own--you no longer need a teacher. High school students need teachers, PhD candidates, not so much. China has been in this phase for over a decade now. The things they're doing over there no longer has anything to do with things they learned from the Germans in the 2000s.
familyguy20@reddit
Then those people have their head in the sand and haven’t been keeping up with the industry then. Their manufacturing capacity cannot be matched right now. Like US automakers are fusing about CarPlay and AA in their cars and even excluding it for some reason and China is like ok cool, we’ll just take the technical knowledge that Huawei has on their phones and try to integrate it into their cars.
Watched a video on the new Volvo ev without the back window and they were pointing out the OS and infotainment was fast and responsive because they had the bright idea to actually care about the tech in their cars and use high end processors and RAM and storage. They can go down the street and get that stuff so easily while US/Japanese manufacturers can’t even put in good tech in the cars that make it usable and not laggy.
markyymark13@reddit
They're not doing anything magical, they're just doing the complete opposite of what we're doing. How long are we going to bang the "china bad" drum as a convenient excuse for our inability to innovate? We had a chance to learn from the previous bailout of the big three and move away from our reliance on big trucks and gas guzzlers but we didn't. Now after years and years of outsourcing our manufacturing and technological capabilities to China, turns out they've gotten really good at it. Gas isn't going to be cheap forever and we're witnessing that in real time, but western brands are going to get caught with their pants down yet again and come crawling back for more bailout money a decade or so from now.
familyguy20@reddit
Glad to see that Canada and other countries are recognizing that and don’t have to rely on Western/Japanese manufacturing anymore for the cars they want and will sell and are attractive to buyers.
They are still set in their old corporate greed and having to maneuver political bs
CorrectCombination11@reddit
China didn't come up with the idea of industrial policy and patent its use and wouldn't license it out.
China got it right on this call. Credit where credit is due.
Alive_Internet@reddit
This is a key point some people here are missing. Of course you can do things faster when you’re “borrowing” American IP instead of innovating yourself.
yobo9193@reddit
American, German, and Japanese IP; remember that China only allows cars to be sold in their country if a foreign brand partners with a domestic manufacturer
Salty-Dog-9398@reddit
This isn’t true for Tesla and yet most top China EVs follow the Tesla playbook as closely as possible, not traditional OEMs
wtcnbrwndo4u@reddit
Tesla has a gigafactory in China. That's the other option.
purz@reddit
I mean can’t blame anyone but our greedy oligarchs. Sold out everything for cheap labor in China and China now has extreme leverage over most markets that it’s now taking advantage of. Beyond stupid and short sighted to essentially give them a huge portion of control over manufacturing. Anything for a buck though.
Dren7@reddit
Not sure how subsidizing allows market competition. Do you mean the state subsidizes to make Chinese products cheaper than other nations?
yobo9193@reddit
Yes. They subsidize R&D costs that otherwise would have to be factored into the unit costs for a vehicle that's being sold. Selling their vehicles well below market cost is a known strategy to drive out competitors. In the case of China, it's also part of a national security strategy to make neutral nations economically dependent on them, something that President Obama tried to address in his final term
pdp10@reddit
I think of the Chevy Vega. A 24 or 26th month development period. Established model in time for the '73 oil embargo. GM leadership was no doubt still themselves on the backs, when it became undeniable what the rushed development cost in terms of testing and quality.
That was before modern computing, though. But it was also before a lot of modern regulations and modern complexity.
Vtakkin@reddit
Meanwhile Acura took 4 years to "refresh" the integra by giving it a blue grille.
lesubreddit@reddit
Does development speed really confer that great of a market advantage? Toyota has never been particularly fast at putting out new models and has never been known for cutting edge technology (unless you count the Prius back in the day). But they have been top dog for a long time because of their reputation for reliability and not cutting corners; shortening development times seems to cut directly against that.
The only possible cataclysm I can foresee is if Chinese automakers are able to significantly eclipse the Japanese in terms of autonomous vehicle deployment in USA and the EU. Given the immense regulatory hostility that this prospect faces, I don't think the Japanese need to be too worried about this.
IMO the only way that the Japanese lose here is if they betray their reputation for quality in pursuit of trying to keep up with the speed of the Chinese.
Lighthouse_seek@reddit
If you make a misstep you can correct quickly. If you notice a new trend you can also catch on quickly.
Look at Mazda for example. Their cx-5 is like the opposite of what customers say they want. If they see sales dropping they can't do anything about it for a couple years because they have limited resources.
trail-g62Bim@reddit (OP)
Depends on what people want in cars. Despite what the loud minority on the internet would indicate, I think most people really do like a lot of the (good) tech that gets put into cars and being five years out from making changes feels like an eternity, especially if you end up with something that is a stinker.
One thing I think about is the infotainment systems Subaru is currently using. The new one in the Outback appears to be much improved over the previous generation. idk how long it will take to make it into other models, but it will be at least 2-3 years and I wonder how long a Chinese company would stick with the crappy system when they already have a newer, better system available. Being able to make those changes quickly is a good thing, imo.
familyguy20@reddit
I think that’s where Hyundai and Kia have excelled as well is the tech, they actually care about it. From what I’ve heard that new Subaru tech is great too, it’s just…mind boggling it too them this long to do it
thephenom@reddit
Cost. If a R&D team takes 5yrs to bring 1 model to market, and competitors takes 2yrs, that's 3yrs of expenses attributed to the cost of that specific model/platform. You'll need to sell 2.5x amount of cars to offset that costs, or 2.5x the cost to each car. Whereas a shorter R&D, they could also develop 2.5 car models for the same costs/time period. They could also spend that resource on improving current process, or whatever they feel like doing. These are huge operation advantage.
Now let's say battery tech changes, self-driving tech changes tomorrow or other major breakthroughs. That's a 3yrs lead time for a competitor could/would have on you.
Toyota, you can almost put them as one of the biggest problem child. They are living off past glory, building off tech they've refined, but are unable to live with anything new either. Like the bZ, they ended up delivering a product that is subpar, below market offering. And you can kind off see where cost of developing something new needs to be a joint venture (e.g. 86/BRZ, Supra/Z4, bZ/Solterra, etc) shows that additional costs.
V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit
Toyota ever still has had good reputation in China, they’ve good sales last year in there.
ItsForFun76@reddit
This really is the question reliability and holding value. I think an advantage China has by going all in on EV. EV's to comparable ICE/Hybrid have less maintenance and far less points of failure. Will they be reliable is yet to be seen but being EV helps.
rtekaaho@reddit
When you have the entire govt behind you with funding regardless if you’re making a profit or not, of course you can have 2 year cycles. It’s called dumping for a reason.
andrewia@reddit
Most companies aren't dumping much. https://rhg.com/research/why-are-chinese-evs-so-cheap/
CorrectCombination11@reddit
Part legacy corporate culture problem, part Japanese work culture problem.
E-sign is no-no, must stamp paperwork with personal ink seal in order for it to be effective.
andrewia@reddit
Yep, there's a lot of stagnation in Japan; everything seems to move very slowly. I think their companies and management structures are too risk-averse.
NarcoticCow@reddit
Ya know
I wonder how much of this is cause aging population vs younger populations in china
Probably not that big of a factor but I wonder if it is one at all
UnmakingTheBan2022@reddit
I don’t care. I’m not buying a car made in China.
wesinatl@reddit
Will that Chinese car still be rolling around in 20 years? I saw a 90’s Honda Crx go through the intersection the other day and was like what the back to the future? I want one!
The49GiantWarriors@reddit
What would you guess is the percentage of new car buyers who think about, or care, if the car they're buying will last 20 years? What percent of new car buyers keep their car for 20 years? 10%? 5%? Less?
wesinatl@reddit
Good point and that’s their loss with the price of cars getting Higher and higher. Keeping a car an extra 5 to 10 years make a decent difference financially in the long haul. Honda and Toyota made American car manufacturers up their game. Maybe china does the same for everyone and lowers prices. Of course we may never see those cars in yhe US.
Foe117@reddit
Internationally, it's a big headache, but you'll never see them sold in western countries where certification and safety laws are involved.
The49GiantWarriors@reddit
9% of new cars sold in the EU were made in China. 20% of new cars sold in the UK were made in China. They're in Australia, they're reinvited into Canada, they're all over Latin America.
ag2f@reddit
lol Chinese cars are at the top on Europe NCap ratings wtf are you talking about
WordWithinTheWord@reddit
It’s going to be a shock to the industry. That’s why every western government is fighting Chinese import vehicles to some extent.
Some of it is greed, laziness. But I don’t think the west is ready to compete with the (lack of) work-life-balance that China has.
The49GiantWarriors@reddit
Fighting Chinese imports? My impression is they're fighting to get Chinese imports in.
uberdosage@reddit
As if japan and korea are any better? All three countries are famous for their awful work life balance
juh4z@reddit
The average chinese citizen works less than the average american citizen
Pryffandis@reddit
Source?
Everything I can find states that the average American works 40-41 hours/week while in China the average is 48-49 hours.
uberdosage@reddit
In engineering? I dont know about the automotive world, but in semiconductor everyone is working more than 40 hours
FledglingNonCon@reddit
A lot of the advances in China are in automation, software, and scalable platforms. US oems develop every vehicle completely independently, often even down to the software. I talked to a GM software engineer once. The Lyriq and Blazer had completely separate software teams that didn't share code or even talk to eachother. Just going to a centralized electronic architecture that runs the same software with minor tweaks across models would save billions and likely years of development. There's a ton western OEMs can do to improve short before we get to labor, which frankly is a relatively small part of the cost of building cars these days.
xlb250@reddit
“small cost”
BYD has 1 million employees
Fishlickin@reddit
Diversity can be a strength in this case. having multiple software's across multiple vehicles can make it so that when an issue arises, not all vehicles are impaired.
Recoil42@reddit
But that's literally what Ultiium/Ultifi is.
FledglingNonCon@reddit
Yes, finally, likely 10 years or more after starting development on their ultium platform. Should have been built that way from the start. This is what people mean when they say legacy OEMs move at a glacial pace.
Recoil42@reddit
Eh, I'd agree with some of this but differ materially with you on the conclusion you're barreling towards. The reason it happened so slowly across-the-board is because so many pieces had to fall into place to make it possible. China had a large base of manufacturing/electronics expertise to make it possible quickly as a convergent technology, and we should definitely talk about that, but that's convergence — it happened as part of a set of factors that were not totally within the OEMs' control.
Fundamentally the iterative plan is a good one; that's what MVP'ing looks like. Where they failed it was often in not being iterative enough, like in Volkswagen's case.
FledglingNonCon@reddit
Tesla has been doing it in the US for at least 15 years. I would argue it had more to do with the inherent inertia within companies that have done things one way for 50-100 years.
As someone who works for such a company, I can say it is real and a big reason why so many large, old companies struggle when the world around them starts to change in significant ways that threatens their old ways of doing things.
Recoil42@reddit
My dude, Tesla has three cars. Three! Your whole argument was that "centralized electronic architecture that runs the same software with minor tweaks across models would save billions and likely years of development" and yet the example you're pointing towards is the company that is most known for being structurally unable to deliver new models on time (or at all!) and has left existing designs to stagnate.
What the fuck are we doing here?
CubanLinxRae@reddit
Definitely not arguing against unions but the labor unions in america make it hard to compete with so much cheap labor in china. When there’s close to zero red tape and regulation it’s not exactly level. The shirt im wearing now is made in the USA fwiw
Skensis@reddit
End the regulations so we can just make the F150 in China.
I don't want a 20k EV BYD made in China, but I would love buying a 35k F150 V8 Raptor made in China.
MarshXI@reddit
Also hard to compete with no IP laws…
Pkock@reddit
Absolute gem of a take regarding the need for many modern cars to seemingly react, ping, and notify about EVERYTHING.
Correct-Team-1152@reddit
You may have heard about ‘China Speed’ and how local automakers can develop an entirely new model in two years or less. In comparison, traditional brands often take twice as long—sometimes even more—to design a new product.
I hadn’t realized China was that fast, although it has always felt like traditional automakers move too slowly. I’m sure some people will blame regulatory frameworks for that, but I wonder how much of it comes down to these being massive, legacy companies without vertically integrated suppliers.
With that in mind, Honda is restoring its independent R&D division, relocating thousands of engineers to a newly established engineering subsidiary. It’s expected to operate with more autonomy than it has over the past six years, when development was centralized and tightly controlled by headquarters. Whether this added creative freedom will actually make a difference remains to be seen, although it’s reasonable to assume that major decisions will still be made at the top.
It really feels like Honda may have dropped the ball here. Let’s see how it plays out.”
magshell-alpha@reddit
In a near future, all cars will be manufactured in China just like so many other things.
yetiflask@reddit
They can learn from Koreans too. Hyundai does a great job of churning out new designs.
turb0_encapsulator@reddit
the fact that the XPeng came out with the second, all-new version of the P7 less than 5 years after the first blew my mind.
IllustriousSteam@reddit
Realistically there’s not much legacy automakers can do, if they try to take on China in a race to the bottom, they will lose. China is unique in their engineering scale and speed of iteration because they’ve been the world’s factory for over 40 years. Legacy automakers have commitments to unions and can’t just cut off their suppliers, part of the reason Toyota supported the GM bailout in ‘09 was because if they fell, many suppliers the whole industry relied on would also face insolvency.
It does make me wonder which companies will survive. The Americans, besides Tesla, haven’t been that relevant globally ever since GM sold off Opel. The Japanese will take a hit, especially in developing countries, but should still have a strong foothold in NA. Japanese cars (with a few outliers) weren’t ever really that great of a value in the USA, especially in the ‘80s and ‘90s. You’d get a lot more for the dollar in a domestic car, but the quality and reliability of the Japanese rocketed them up the sales charts. Europe is harder to judge, but companies like Renault are seeing great success by focusing on design. If VW has a successful rollout with their next range of ID models they also will have a chance.
Recoil42@reddit
So uh.... you know GM sells more cars in China than Tesla, right?
Quality and reliability are antithetical to... value? What?
IllustriousSteam@reddit
I didn’t know, and thank you. But does that figure include SAIC-GM-Wuling? Because my understanding is that those cars are mostly Chinese in terms of the product.
On the second question, my point is that sparsely equipped Japanese cars were competing with well equipped American cars. To a lesser extent that’s still happening with Hyundai. I’m not sure what word other than “value” you could use to describe that, maybe a phrase like “the domestic car has a better price to feature ratio”.
Recoil42@reddit
General Motors running Chinese teams is proof of global relevance, not disproof of it.
I'm not sure I agree with the premise. For one thing, Hyundai/Kia have been historically known for delivering a better feature set for less money, not the opposite.
IllustriousSteam@reddit
You’ve convinced me that the U.S. besides Tesla is still globally relevant. It is also true that the they are less globally relevant than when GM and Ford had a larger presence in Europe.
On the Hyundai thing, I was saying that Japanese cars are still selling well even though Korean cars are less expensive and better equipped. I’ll edit that part to clarify any confusion.
Recoil42@reddit
I do not disagree on this point at all: Still relevant, but that relevance is dwindling.
RaverDrew@reddit
I'm kind of confused by your comments regarding features and costs on 90s Japanese cars vs American cars. In an apples to apples comparison, what does say a 1998 Ford Taurus offer that a 1998 Camry does not? If you want to step things into the realm of luxury vehicles, what american vehicles in the 90s were capable of competing with any offerings that Lexus had at the time? Having personally been around these vehicles, the American offerings generally are poorly made and in most cases lacking features or creature comforts when compared to their Japanese contemporaries.
In my comparison between the Taurus and the Camry, the biggest difference I can see comes from the Taurus offering a V6 standard, which unfortunately was slower than the base i4 in the Camry at the time, and offered worse mileage.
If you've driven both of them, you'd see immediately why the Camry would win out, as the only real driving factor for considering a Taurus at the time would have been that they were slightly cheaper cars than the Camry given the assumption that you were buying both with automatic transmissions. Cut to 28 years later, and that generation Camry is still a super common sight on the roads, whereas the Taurus had all but vanished from the roads 15 years ago. This is even more telling because in the late 90s and early 00s, it felt like every single car on the road was either a Camry, Taurus, or Accord, as all three were selling in massive numbers.
IllustriousSteam@reddit
The Lexus LS400 is the definitely an exception on the value front. There wasn’t really anything worldwide that could touch it. Even the famous quality of Mercedes was being surpassed by Lexus for thousands less and for a little while, the Germans only had brand prestige and sportiness going for them.
This is a C&D article from ‘94 that compares several sedans.
The American cars scored well on their space and features. The Camry was a better car in basically every other sense with the only real hangup being its price:
You also see this in some old Motorweek videos. This is a compact car comparison. The Neon and Saturn start at under $10K and rise to around $12K with options, which is less than starting MSRP for the imports. By the late ‘90s and early ‘00s the gap had mostly narrowed. You are correct that the Taurus remained a bestseller, but fleet buyers were really propping up those numbers. It was pretty clear that Japan had won by that point.
dice7878@reddit
Well, BYD sold 4.5m vehicles in 2025. Honda 3.5m. Byd has 4x the number of employees and 4x the R&D engineers. 80% of the R&D hires have a masters or better.
Add in the supplier chain which are all similarly stacked with competent R&D and operations engineers and rapid prototyping and more importantly, iterative engineering is possible at speeds not possible anywhere else.
The japanese have a complete all-japanese vertically integrated ICE vehicle stack, but they don't have the same for EVs. China has everything, including suppliers of Toyota, VW and Tesla. They have the pick of the world, including exotic materials from the Germans, japanese and Americans who all have factories in china. BASF recently opened a giant plant, for example.
We can't say the same of Japan, which are japanese dominated, and hence, limited by not only raw materials and parts, but also human capital.
DZello@reddit
The Chinese manufacture electric vehicles that require fewer parts than a gasoline vehicle. They reduce the complexity and number of suppliers. They also don’t need to worry about international emission standards, various ethanol content and octane rating. It is certain that they can create new models more quickly.
angrycanuck@reddit
The legacy car makers decide what a car is by accountants, China is deciding by what the consumer wants (because there is so much competition).
yobo9193@reddit
Accountants don't make any decisions at a massive corporation; product managers and senior leadership do.
trail-g62Bim@reddit (OP)
I've said it elsewhere but it's funny when people blame accountants. I have never met an accountant that gave two shits about how the money is spent. They care about tracking the money (you know...accounting for it). Other people make the decisions.
yobo9193@reddit
Because kids on Reddit don’t know the difference between an accountant and a product manager
franksandbeans911@reddit
It has been a meme long before reddit was even born. "The penny pinchers" always get blamed when a feature-starved new model hits the market and tanks. Nobody understands those pinchers are actually product managers.
angrycanuck@reddit
Accountants/bean counters/ MBAs etc.
Call them what you want, but cost reduction for minimal viable product is all they care about.
V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit
They can prevent more worse coming if they’re really serious in Chinese automakers coming.
Honda still has same Toyota reputation, but their cars are generally overpriced and overrated in general. It’s one of reasons why their sales in OZ and Europe now so low. They need to fix that issue.
costafilh0@reddit
Tariffs or let them devour your car industry. Simple as that.
And is not restricted to the car industry either.
turboevoluzione@reddit
The same Honda that is outsourcing production to China?
Lighthouse_seek@reddit
Didn't even put up a fight. They just took a look at a factory and said "we're cooked"
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