this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
194 points (91.5% liked)

World News

39332 readers
3575 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

When China’s BYD recently overtook Elon Musk’s Tesla as the global leader in sales of electric vehicles, casual observers of the auto industry might have been surprised.

But what’s caught other carmakers around the world off-guard is something else about BYD, which is backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway: its low prices.

“No one can match BYD on price. Period,” Michael Dunne, CEO of Asia-focused car consultancy Dunne Insights, told the Financial Times. “Boardrooms in America, Europe, Korea and Japan are in a state of shock.”

BYD can keeps its costs low in part because it owns the entire supply chain of its EV batteries, from the raw materials to the finished battery packs. That matters because a battery accounts for about 40% of a new electric vehicle’s price.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] nekandro@lemmy.ml 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

China doesn't need to subsidize the entire supply chain because the reason Chinese EVs are so cheap is literally hyper-capitalism. China has had an immensely competitive EV market for years, and they're been getting into price wars without government intervention. That's forced innovation at a pace that Tesla cannot match alone because they have no need to compete at such a pace. Here's a list of national EV subsidies and their status:

  1. In 2022, the 12600RMB consumer incentive to buy a BEV vehicle was ended. This is rather similar to Biden's EV tax credit.

  2. China has waived the consumption tax for the EV market, which is a tax designed to target environmentally-unfriendly products. The consumption tax is commonly applied to automobiles, but they're being explicitly waived for the EV market for what is hopefully an obvious reason.

  3. Currently, the tax-free allowance for an EV (the portion of an EV purchase that is not charged VAT) is 30000RMB (@13% VAT, = 3900RMB). This subsidy is being reduced in 2025 and phased out entirely in 2027. This is also rather similar to Biden's EV tax credit.

  4. Costs of EV charging/battery switching on the grid are borne by the government because the government manages electricity on the supply-side, including finding producers and managing distribution. This is not unusual of crown corporations in other countries.

While there are provincial incentives for companies to set up shop in one province over another, they're smaller scale, not received support at the national level, and not unique to China (see: subsidies to Tesla for their production and to Amazon for their HQ2). The most unique element of China's subsidy regime is the elimination of excess consumption tax in the EV market, which has created a huge marginal advantage for developing EVs over developing ICE automobiles. Importantly, that subsidy is simply reducing the excess tax charged on automobile manufacturing over that charged on typical consumption.