I know that "laziness" is kind of a generic/useless criticism to throw at a company or sector, but there really is that vibe for EVs in the West.

▲

jlarocco an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The problem is that few people in "the west" wants EVs.

It's basic supply and demand - the sales are tanking, and without subsidies nobody will buy them, and the car companies are realizing that.

A few models (Teslas, for example) do okay with the upper class, but the lower and middle class can't afford them, don't have anywhere to charge them, and have to drive too much to depend on them.

Even in a trendy, wealthy city like Boulder, CO which is all about saving the environment and going green there isn't nearly enough charging capacity for everybody to use EVs.

An EV is better than no car at all, but they're a downgrade from an ICE in most cases.

	▲	brikym 30 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It depends where you live and your driving distances. The US is the worst case for EVs because of longer driving distances and cheaper gas. I plug mine in at my own home so I never have to stop to fill it up a tank which is really nice. A renter might struggle to find anywhere to charge though. ICE is horrible to drive in comparison. They are noisy and lack torque and lots of moving parts need maintenance. For sparsely populated areas or city to city driving plug-in hybrids should bridge the gap and allow people do most driving on electric and get the benefits of EV performance.
	▲	cyberax 32 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The "west" doesn't want expensive EVs. The most popular (or the second most popular) EV in China now costs $5000 for the base model. And for $15k you can get a very reasonable car. Beefing it up to the US/EU safety standards and even accounting for higher labor cost, it would be around $20k. I'm pretty sure consumers would be quite interested in something like this.

▲

smallmancontrov 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Triffin Dilemma, not laziness. This is a macroeconomic problem.

▲

ZeroGravitas 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not angering the oligarchs who profit from oil appears to be the root cause.

This then flows downstream to inconsistent and patchwork government support for the transition to EVs.

The short term incentives aren't all properly aligned for car makers to fully commit to build EVs and support the supply chain to do that.

	▲	Tiktaalik 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Decades from now we're going to look at the oil patch lobbyists as the villains that killed countless jobs in NA and enabled China to take over whole industries. You had some politicians like Justin Trudeau that tried to create a frame work that would guide and advantage capital toward investing in innovative green technology and future jobs, but then politicians saw the advantage in politicizing and opposing everything and they tore this all down. Now China has continued to move ahead meanwhile NA remains at square one with increasingly backward technology, with no incentive to change. It's going to get really bad!

▲

raverbashing 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I really wonder what are the parts where BYD gets its competitiveness from vs where it might be behind

Software explains a lot, dumping explains some of it but it might not be all of it

	▲	tonfa 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Isn't China at the forefront of battery technology (and BYD was initially a battery company).
	▲	timbit42 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Japanese engineers disassembled a BYD vehicle said BYD's E-Axle drive system was so advanced it would take them 10 years to replicate it. BYD's blade batteries are also a major competitive advantage.