The SkyNomad—with heated floors, a projector, a pop-up roof, a fridge, swiveling seats, and over 1,000 miles of range—is a “luxury” ride that undercuts Range Rovers by tens of thousands of dollars.
They’ll be banned faster than you can memorize the spelling of Xiaomi. At least in the US, where we make sure the old inefficient companies stay afloat despite their incompetence.
The thing is, if the American government wants to be protectionist against Chinese cars, IMHO they need to pass legally binding legislation to force US car manufacturers to meet or exceed what the Chinese cars are offering and then directly subsidize the cost of those vehicles to the consumer, freely, with no stipulations. The punishment for failure to meet and exceed those expectations should be bankruptcy through immediate removal of the protectionist mechanisms.
Chinese cars are heavily subsidized by the state. The reason they’re so cheap is because China bets it can squeeze the competition out of the market before charging basically whatever they want.
I’ve seen Starbucks do the same thing to independent coffee shops.
And yet even at 2-3x the price, the Chinese EVs provide a better value than the handful of the American options they would compete against.
This SUV would be competing with the likes of a high end EV option like Lucid or Tesla. The Lucid Gravity starts a around $70k, and the Tesla Model X (now discontinued) was around $92k.
The Xiaomi SU7 (the car the Ford CEO has driven since 2024, despite being banned in the US) starts at $32k and clearly is targeted to compete the Porsche Taycan at $112k.
The vehicle in this article has heated floors, a projector, a pop-up roof, a fridge, swiveling seats, and over 1,000 miles of range. Functions western companies consider “luxury” are basically just standard in the Chinese market like heated and ventilated seats. They don’t even bother to advertise things like that because it’s a minimum expectation. There are zero western options that come close to something like that. The options available in the US suck, even taking industry subsidies into account.
Both statements can be true at the same time. But the scale of one is many times larger.
China’s MO from rare earths and magnets to cars to silicon follows the same plan. Take IP, Subsidize the industry, Research, once you have a monopoly use it to squeeze adversaries.
I will say at least China is willing to kill off underperforming companies.
The US needs to let a lot of legacy companies that aren’t performing die off. It also needs to break up oligopolies in many industries. Why compete when you can buy up the future competitors and set prices with a handful of competitors. The financialization of our economy is choking us.
American capitalism has rendered companies incapable of producing anything that’s not crap at a scale because they need to maximise profit at all costs, while quality doesn’t mean shit. Every company is Boeing.
So you think the entire world’s auto manufacturers outside of China are incompetent and inefficient? People always act like the only vehicles sold in the US are domestic brands when they don’t even make up a majority here.
Corrupted by the oil industry and colluding together would be a better term. Someone please stop China, they are destroying the “EVs are luxury vehicles only” gimmick.
Well I wouldn’t say they’re all incompetent but look at how glacial all the “traditional” car companies have become. These guys are innovating at a speed never seen before while your traditional car manufacturers are stumbling over themselves trying to keep up.
On the german side, just take a look at BMW and how long it took for them to come up with a competent electric platform. They just got their first car on a good platform (the new X3). Mercedes still doesn’t have a good EV, and neither does Audi. Their etron is outdated.
Moving to the Japanese brands. I know Toyota isn’t focused on EVs at all and their hybrid is top notch so they’re one of the better ones out there. But no one else is even close. Not in terms of value for money. Not in terms of tech.
The only ones that get close are Tesla because, like the Chinese, they’re running their car companies like tech companies and not car companies.
What innovations are lacking specifically? I dont know of any features unique to Chinese brands. It seems more like you think every company should only be selling EVs for dirt cheap prices, but that isn’t realistic becausw those aren’t real prices and EVs aren’t yet practical for everyone which is why they make up such a small percentage of sales here still (though this number climbs with each quarter).
They’ll be banned faster than you can memorize the spelling of Xiaomi. At least in the US, where we make sure the old inefficient companies stay afloat despite their incompetence.
The thing is, if the American government wants to be protectionist against Chinese cars, IMHO they need to pass legally binding legislation to force US car manufacturers to meet or exceed what the Chinese cars are offering and then directly subsidize the cost of those vehicles to the consumer, freely, with no stipulations. The punishment for failure to meet and exceed those expectations should be bankruptcy through immediate removal of the protectionist mechanisms.
The US is too busy licking other corps boots. They do not have enough funds to do it for everyone.
They’d probably need to tax the rich a significant amount of money to do that.
Chinese cars are heavily subsidized by the state. The reason they’re so cheap is because China bets it can squeeze the competition out of the market before charging basically whatever they want.
I’ve seen Starbucks do the same thing to independent coffee shops.
And yet even at 2-3x the price, the Chinese EVs provide a better value than the handful of the American options they would compete against.
This SUV would be competing with the likes of a high end EV option like Lucid or Tesla. The Lucid Gravity starts a around $70k, and the Tesla Model X (now discontinued) was around $92k.
The Xiaomi SU7 (the car the Ford CEO has driven since 2024, despite being banned in the US) starts at $32k and clearly is targeted to compete the Porsche Taycan at $112k.
The vehicle in this article has heated floors, a projector, a pop-up roof, a fridge, swiveling seats, and over 1,000 miles of range. Functions western companies consider “luxury” are basically just standard in the Chinese market like heated and ventilated seats. They don’t even bother to advertise things like that because it’s a minimum expectation. There are zero western options that come close to something like that. The options available in the US suck, even taking industry subsidies into account.
Oh yeah, because US car companies are NOT subsidized at all /s
Both statements can be true at the same time. But the scale of one is many times larger.
China’s MO from rare earths and magnets to cars to silicon follows the same plan. Take IP, Subsidize the industry, Research, once you have a monopoly use it to squeeze adversaries.
I will say at least China is willing to kill off underperforming companies.
The US needs to let a lot of legacy companies that aren’t performing die off. It also needs to break up oligopolies in many industries. Why compete when you can buy up the future competitors and set prices with a handful of competitors. The financialization of our economy is choking us.
Sure, but try launching a new auto startup here. It’s a lot harder than in China.
Wrong. US manufacturers have effectively been shut out of China. But not before they made investments that China basically stole.
Who would want a US made car?
Even Americans don’t want them.
I worked in the government for a bit, national park service if it matters, we were only allowed to use US made vehicles.
Constant recalls, constant breakdowns, overall unreliable. These were all vehicles that were less than 5 years okd
I have a 2007 toyota today that refuses to die and has barely needed any work. I’ll probably have it at least another 3 to 5 years at this rate.
American cars are shit
American capitalism has rendered companies incapable of producing anything that’s not crap at a scale because they need to maximise profit at all costs, while quality doesn’t mean shit. Every company is Boeing.
So you think the entire world’s auto manufacturers outside of China are incompetent and inefficient? People always act like the only vehicles sold in the US are domestic brands when they don’t even make up a majority here.
Corrupted by the oil industry and colluding together would be a better term. Someone please stop China, they are destroying the “EVs are luxury vehicles only” gimmick.
Well I wouldn’t say they’re all incompetent but look at how glacial all the “traditional” car companies have become. These guys are innovating at a speed never seen before while your traditional car manufacturers are stumbling over themselves trying to keep up.
On the german side, just take a look at BMW and how long it took for them to come up with a competent electric platform. They just got their first car on a good platform (the new X3). Mercedes still doesn’t have a good EV, and neither does Audi. Their etron is outdated.
Moving to the Japanese brands. I know Toyota isn’t focused on EVs at all and their hybrid is top notch so they’re one of the better ones out there. But no one else is even close. Not in terms of value for money. Not in terms of tech.
The only ones that get close are Tesla because, like the Chinese, they’re running their car companies like tech companies and not car companies.
What innovations are lacking specifically? I dont know of any features unique to Chinese brands. It seems more like you think every company should only be selling EVs for dirt cheap prices, but that isn’t realistic becausw those aren’t real prices and EVs aren’t yet practical for everyone which is why they make up such a small percentage of sales here still (though this number climbs with each quarter).