Yes, but we're not talking about GM right now

Dated take. China and BYD are doing a lot of things right that make this possible. A recent article showing how they're consolidating parts that passes the buck to consumers is a great example as to why they can sell 20% cheaper and still have higher margins.

Yeah we can see that with Anthropic and OpenAI.

Surprisingly I have seen imported BYD Atto at 100% tariffs or so and Olectra buses which are actually BYD buses , probably CKU imported into India. Auto sector employment in India is seriously important as is the need for capturing a fair value even of EVs locally while on the other hand Oil & Gas imports have always been the biggest import bill and Forex drain so there are good incentives to move. It is just they do it slowly and in their own ways and the handful of capital intensive companies who tried getting LFP manufacturing into India failed as China scale cannot be replicated in India due to differing political systems and cultures, even today

What you linked to is of contractors building the plant, not assembly line workers. It's a blurry line and certainly affiliated with BYD, but car assembly itself is moving toward 'dark' factories, populated by robots that are indeed kept in slave-like conditions, unpaid and worked beyond humane shifts.

As a side note, BYD indeed has a lot more workers per car vs a lot of their competitors, but because of the vertical integration, most are assembling upstream parts.

Cheaper but not cheap. US can pay literally 0 and still be substantially more expensive than PRC, labour simply rounding error ($500-$1000) per chassis.

BYD cars are cheaper because China just has the most expertise at building things at scale and because they're making many formerly discrete car parts entire modules, which are cheaper to manufacture.

There's also been plenty of reporting of 'slave like conditions' at Tesla, GM etc.

BYD in China shows off their factory towns for how wonderful the workers live. Its a modern day Hershey. It might be more of a Brazil issue than a BYD issue.

Have you ever seen warehouses in the US or construction projects with only Mexicans. Not so much different to what you describe.

No they won’t as they have auto unions to protect

USA bans the onboard Chinese automotive software for national security reasons, effectively banning Chinese cars. This isn't a partisan political thing, Biden was the one that signed the Secure Equipment Act and Connected Vehicle Restrictions.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fact-sheet-safegua...

For all the talk about data and technology sovereignty in Europe, you would think they would take that more seriously too. Instead Europe is flooded with underpriced Chinese cars that they have no control over.

How do Chinese owned industrial factories in Brazil differ, apart from being more efficient and able to pivot to new markets better? Which seems like useful properties in a war footing?

Do you want your war munition manufacturers to say "we'd have better short term bonuses if we didn't manufacture what you need but instead just kept manufacturing our old stuff with no regard for the nations future"?

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> How are they being received generally in Brazil?

Very well. Not only BYD but also other brands like GWM and Geely.

> What kind of vehicles are people replacing with BYDs?

Combustion cars with the same price, they are not replacing other electrical vehicles because the Chinese brands are way cheaper yet they are good cars.

> I always assumed Brazilians drove mostly "legacy" VW or Nissans

Nowadays we have many models from different brands.

In the past the fleet was basically VW, Ford, Chevrolet and Fiat. In the late 90s and early 2000s the Japanesne (Honda, Toyota and Nissan) and French (Renault, Citroën, Peugeot) became popular, and then Hyundai also became a success here. Recently, the Chinese brands are becoming more popular, especially Chery and the ones that I mentioned before.

> including the ID.4

But I never saw it here, even though VW is a very popular brand here.

A lot of Uber Black cars in São Paulo are BYD ones, so I think it is creating a brand of “good quality” cars around here

Not OP but also a brazilian with friends that bought BYDs, the ones I talked to about it really like it.

I'd say around 60% of the Ubers I get are BYDs and I'm glad when it's one because that means it's a newer car and it's very comfortable.

Which doesn't mean most people can afford them - I live in Europe and I've yet to see an ID.4 myself.

For reference, the new BYD Dahan RWD model has a listed range of 626 miles and claims 'flash' charging of 10% to 97% in 9 minutes.

There are also a lot of inconveniences about petrol cars, like the volatility of oil prices, uncertain future emission regulations, higher mechanical complexity and hence maintenance costs, lower performance and more noise.

German and American cars who aren't getting subsidized by the government, in fact they actually have to pay taxes. In addition to the fact that China is letting companies destroy it's environment.