China, for all its flaws, is the undisputed master of innovative automated manufacturing. They can iterate over design revisions quickly. They will build you whatever you want, and, unlike twenty years ago, it will be insanely precise, and everything that can be automated will be. US and EU automakers have to keep their unionized employees happy, which means less automation and less precision and higher prices. Robots and AI don't unionize.

No disagreement on the technical skills today. My point was simply that Chinese EVs are cheap, in part, because the government spends money to make them cheap.

And they do have plenty of flaws to call out, though living in the US today I don't want to throw stones in a glass house...