this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2025
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Electric Vehicles
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I thought we needed to protect domestic auto production. What does BYD pay their workers to get away with smaller margins?
They pay their workers well, but that's not why these cars are cheap They are cheap because BYD loses money on every car, propped up by the Chinese government on a long term plan to kill off local industries across the world.
Seems like local industry only wants to focus on ICE vehicles so there's not much to protect
Probably because local industry needs to sell vehicles to make money, not go into $40B debt fronted by the Chinese government.
For every EV sold, Ford sells 15 F150s.
EV sales are barely 6%, you want to try and stay alive with 6% of the market? EU sales are higher, but EU is warmer and they drive a fraction of the distances of Canada.
I thought most of the Canadian car industry are assembly lines for US American and Japanese companies. Especially the US part is probably dead anyway, given Trumps tariffs.
They're vertically integrated. It isn't that they need to low-ball their workers. They just don't need to pay a daisy chain of administrators and investors.
They also don't invest as much in R&D as some of their upstart competitors. So we'll see where that lands them, long term.
There is not much R&D to invest in EVs. Motors are 98% efficient and any technical advances come from battery suppliers. No transmissions, no emissions to meet, etc.
Most electric motors are designed to run at 50% to 100% of rated load. Maximum efficiency is usually near 75% of rated load. Thus, a 10-horsepower (hp) motor has an acceptable load range of 5 to 10 hp; peak efficiency is at 7.5 hp.
We just need to make it so they are built here. To hell with the US car companies.
Unlikely to happen because that would mean they would cost as much as other EV imports and Canada does not buy enough cars to justify the investment. The only reason why the auto sector exists in Canada is to feed the US market.
I've heard there are a few Canadian carmaking employees looking for work. Wink-wink nudge-nudge.
SayNoMore, SayNoMore.
BYD just has had a 30% drop in profits. So the answer is they do not get away with it. They are among the best Chinese car makers too. A lot of them loose money. The fundamental problem is that China built up a massive local car industry. Not for export, but for the domestic market. This was massivly supported by local Chinese governement, which gave subsidies to built car factories. Globally nobody cared that much, but Covid destroyed car sales in China and they so far have not recovered. The factories have been built, so it makes economic sense to just built cars in them, if the losses of doing so are lower then taking on the loss of the entire factory. Obviously export is a great solution for that problem and obviously Western car makers are not happy about having to compete with companies, which basically have free factories.
We probably will see a lot of bancrupcies in the sector and some of the large ones survivng and doing well globally. BYD is probably among them.
BYD is $30B in debt.
China is dumping and drop shipping these cars. If Carney allows this, he's basically going to shut down the auto sector in Canada and 440,000 jobs. Australia did this, and now they have all the shitty Chinese cars they want.
The question is for the long term: is the auto sector worth the billions of continual subsidies? Australia did the math and concluded not.
That's a fair point, the trade off being it pushes people away from cheaper vehicles.
Considering is probably just gaslighting, but can make auto sector more cooperative with Canadian investment. Very good news to finally visit China and talk for a change, though.
A 30% tariff would allow for decent Chinese market share while also preserving existing auto sector marketing preferences. Ultimately, a trade deal that includes manufacturing investments in autos, solar, H2, robotics, AI datacenters, public charging is a needed boost for Canadian economy including local use of metals and other resources, and a plan B for autoworkers. Canada needs new friends.