New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China

AndrewS

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BYD hires people to build cars because they don't have the Tesla obsession with needless automation and doesn't have think they know better than companies with accumulated centuries of experience.

The problem is that we are seeing a Revolution in what is a car and how factories should be organised because of advancements in automation technology. So once Tesla have made the mistakes, they will know what to do.
Remember previously that all those companies have accumulated centuries of experience with ICE vehicles with production using the techniques of a prior Industrial Revolution. Most of that experience will be obsolete in 5 years time.

Despite the automation hype, Tesla has about the same number of people per car sold.

It's difficult to say because BYD are at another level in terms of vertical integration and they have other business lines.

Most automakers including BYD has a variety of vehicle types and models that aren't conductive to full automated assembly. Compare how many models Tesla has vs BYD or any other automaker. You automate parts that make sense like stamped parts, cell manufacturing, etc and don't automate the parts that don't make sense like final assembly.

As noted previously, the improvements to robots and the nature of a factory now means a higher level of automation is possible and also desirable.
 

AndrewS

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If anything, we have seen legacy automakers completely unable to ramp up production and making a bunch of projections that are just fantasies. Only BYD has been able to ramp up production to this degree. Have you see NIO and Xpeng been able to ramp up production? I don't think so. Producing large number of EVs is really hard.

I completely agree. But this has no relevance to your assertion that BYD will create more jobs in the Chinese auto-related industry.



Since we are talking about vertical integration, here are things to think about. CATL had 83.6k employees at end of 2021. It would be reasonable to believe that BYD would need about the same number of employees right now in its battery division since it's production by end of this year will likely be about the same as CATL production at start of 2022. We know that EVs need a lot more chips than ICE cars. Now, BYD produces its own chip, its own electric motor and it's own dual motor. It's reasonable to assume that most other automakers would have a good number of employees in charge of integration batteries/chips into their cars and developing/manufacturing different kind of motors. As an example, SMIC employed 17k employees at end of 2020. It would surprise me if BYD's chip making division employed more people than that. Let's say that BYD's chip making division and electric motor division employed 30k more than what you would expect out of an automaker of similar size. Let's say their construction company employs 20k people for the various projects they have on going. Their largest rival in commercial truck/buses is Yutong and they employ 17k people. Yutong sells more truck/buses than BYD. I'm not sure how many people their construction company can employ, but 10 to 15k would sound like a lot.

All of which would put 175k as the very high end of their non passenger vehicle business. Which would put their PV division at over 300k employees. Keep in mind they do not product all their own subsystems. They do buy a lot from domestic firms. There are pictures of empty warehouses from BYD taking deliveries from suppliers as soon as they are produced. BYD really hires a lot of people. I don't know how else to put it.

That doesn't help your argument. We've got too much uncertainty about EV employment numbers versus output to compare companies directly. But we can compare other specifics which are proxies for labour requirements.

I think the big news from today is just how much Geely has seen their production slow down due to the shift to EVs
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They are looking to deliver 10k a month through zeekr. This is a company that apparent has enough production capacity for 2 million cars a year. And, they are having trouble delivering 10k EVs a month with their premium brand. This is the brand that will carry them through EV revolution. This just shows how hard it is to ramp up EV production.

Yes. Tesla and BYD are deliberately trying to starve their competitors in the supply chain.

For example, BYD recently started buying power semiconductors from outside companies instead of only using their own.

Apparently they have bought up all spare supply of power semiconductor chips in China, so other companies (like Geely) find it really difficult to ramp up.

That is not relevant to your assertion that increased BYD production will increase the number of overall auto industry jobs.
 

henrik

Senior Member
Registered Member
I completely agree. But this has no relevance to your assertion that BYD will create more jobs in the Chinese auto-related industry.





That doesn't help your argument. We've got too much uncertainty about EV employment numbers versus output to compare companies directly. But we can compare other specifics which are proxies for labour requirements.



Yes. Tesla and BYD are deliberately trying to starve their competitors in the supply chain.

For example, BYD recently started buying power semiconductors from outside companies instead of only using their own.

Apparently they have bought up all spare supply of power semiconductor chips in China, so other companies (like Geely) find it really difficult to ramp up.

That is not relevant to your assertion that increased BYD production will increase the number of overall auto industry jobs.

BYD should build more gigafactories like what tesla has done, rather than building a large number of smaller factories.

The Chinese government should prevent byd from buying all the power semiconductor chips in China, as this would slow down other Chinese makers effort in displacing the foreign makers.
 

NiuBiDaRen

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India's Ola plans massive EV push but obstacles await​

Company aims to develop cells by 2023, launch electric car in 2024
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Ola boss Bhavish Aggarwa teased his company's plans for an electric car on Twitter. (Photo by Yuki Kohara)




Whoa he gonna release the 'secret' sauce of how India will overtake Tesla in 1 year. I'm trembling.
 

AndrewS

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Registered Member
BYD should build more gigafactories like what tesla has done, rather than building a large number of smaller factories.

My gut tells me that in China, it's best to locate battery Gigafactory capacity next to the evaporation ponds or to a cheap electricity supply.

The raw evaporated salt only has a maximum of 6% lithium content by weight and processing is expensive.
So if you can do the processing locally, you can cut down the transport weight by a factor of 16x.

The other major materials required for LFP batteries (Aluminium, Copper, Graphite, Steel, Iron) are readily available, cheap and easy to transport because they have already been processed.

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But if you're talking about vehicle Gigafactories for car sales inside China, I reckon a larger number of smaller car factories is more efficient.

We saw this play out previously with the GM strategy of many smaller factories dotted around the USA versus Ford's single huge production plant at River Rouge. Transport costs are a big factor for finished cars which are bulky and difficult to transport.

Remember that Giga Shanghai is located next to the port, so its production can serve a global market with the lowest seaborne transport costs. So I do expect BYD to come to the same logic of a few large vehicle factories next to a port for export sales.

The Chinese government should prevent byd from buying all the power semiconductor chips in China, as this would slow down other Chinese makers effort in displacing the foreign makers.

To be honest, if you're talking about displacing foreign automakers and given the overall shortage of power semiconductors - I think BYD is currently the company best-positioned to do this. In China, I see it playing out similar to the smartphone space with Apple (Tesla), Samsung (BYD) and space for 2-4 other major players (Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo)
 

henrik

Senior Member
Registered Member
My gut tells me that in China, it's best to locate battery Gigafactory capacity next to the evaporation ponds or to a cheap electricity supply.

The raw evaporated salt only has a maximum of 6% lithium content by weight and processing is expensive.
So if you can do the processing locally, you can cut down the transport weight by a factor of 16x.

The other major materials required for LFP batteries (Aluminium, Copper, Graphite, Steel, Iron) are readily available, cheap and easy to transport because they have already been processed.

---

But if you're talking about vehicle Gigafactories for car sales inside China, I reckon a larger number of smaller car factories is more efficient.

We saw this play out previously with the GM strategy of many smaller factories dotted around the USA versus Ford's single huge production plant at River Rouge. Transport costs are a big factor for finished cars which are bulky and difficult to transport.

Remember that Giga Shanghai is located next to the port, so its production can serve a global market with the lowest seaborne transport costs. So I do expect BYD to come to the same logic of a few large vehicle factories next to a port for export sales.



To be honest, if you're talking about displacing foreign automakers and given the overall shortage of power semiconductors - I think BYD is currently the company best-positioned to do this. In China, I see it playing out similar to the smartphone space with Apple (Tesla), Samsung (BYD) and space for 2-4 other major players (Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo)
In the Chinese smartphone market, samsung has only 1-2% of market share. For EV market worldwide, it is possible to have a repeat of the smartphone market, with 1 american EV maker tesla(apple), 1 korean maker Hyundia/Kia (samsung) and a couple of major Chinese EV BYD(huawei), Nio, xpeng, Li, GAC, geely, zeekr, leapmotor etc. The difference with EV market is that the Chinese will lead in market share, since it is very difficult to impose any sanctions on Chinese EV makers, the same way the US is sanctioning huawei 5G equipment.
 

AndrewS

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Registered Member
In the Chinese smartphone market, samsung has only 1-2% of market share. For EV market worldwide, it is possible to have a repeat of the smartphone market, with 1 american EV maker tesla(apple), 1 korean maker Hyundia/Kia (samsung) and a couple of major Chinese EV BYD(huawei), Nio, xpeng, Li, GAC, geely, zeekr, leapmotor etc. The difference with EV market is that the Chinese will lead in market share, since it is very difficult to impose any sanctions on Chinese EV makers, the same way the US is sanctioning huawei 5G equipment.

Yes. I see the market share of foreign automakers like GM, Toyota following the trajectory of Samsung's smartphone business.

Samsung used to be a huge player in the Chinese smartphone market, but now they're down to 1% market share.

Inside China, I expect BYD, Nio and some other companies to do something similar to GM and Toyota.
 

tphuang

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There is going to be some EV production issues from factory shutdown in Sichuan. Tesla has already complained about it.
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We will see how this affects the end of month numbers. I don't think this affects BYD, but we will see. I think BYD should make sure it has enough of its own battery storage and backup power in all its plants.

That doesn't help your argument. We've got too much uncertainty about EV employment numbers versus output to compare companies directly. But we can compare other specifics which are proxies for labour requirements.
you made your argument based on some theories about automations. I provided you solid numbers and you just ignore it and continue to believe your thoughts are more important than actual numbers.

900k by the end of next year is a lot of people. You should reflect on that. I've already demonstrated the number of employees the largest chip maker, battery maker, truck/bus maker hire in China. They are all a tiny fraction of that.
Yes. Tesla and BYD are deliberately trying to starve their competitors in the supply chain.

For example, BYD recently started buying power semiconductors from outside companies instead of only using their own.

Apparently they have bought up all spare supply of power semiconductor chips in China, so other companies (like Geely) find it really difficult to ramp up.

That is not relevant to your assertion that increased BYD production will increase the number of overall auto industry jobs.
BYD has been buying power chips since end of 2021. BYD's new fab will come online at some point. It strives for self sufficiency. If Geely and Chery can't get enough chips, they need to be run better.

BYD should build more gigafactories like what tesla has done, rather than building a large number of smaller factories.
Absolutely not. BYD has its own business model. It builds factories in a lot of 2nd/3rd/4th tier cities where it can get cheap land, tax subsidies and much cheaper labor. That's why it's not obsessed with automating stuff like Tesla. It has just much lower cost labor.

Remember, BYD gets preferential treatment and red carpet reception everywhere it goes, because all the provinces are vying for its factories. This is hugely different from the companies that only build factories on the Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui area.

It has also proven itself to run a really great construction company that can build plants capable of outputting 400k cars a year in very short. It has also got logistics figured out in China. It can somehow build EVs without disruption despite having plants all across the country.

This is quite different than Tesla that does not understand Chinese regional politics and have to concentrate its factories in a couple of places. Even Tesla will need to build another factory in China. Shanghai giga is running out of land.
The Chinese government should prevent byd from buying all the power semiconductor chips in China, as this would slow down other Chinese makers effort in displacing the foreign makers.
hmm, this is a competitive world. If BYD can ramp up production and its competitors can't, then those competitors will go out of business and BYD takes over their plant on the cheap.

So far, we have actually seen the opposite. Legacy JVs are suffering and closing factories. Chinese EV companies are ramping up. Chery and Geely have shifted their focus to export market. As a result of this, import/JV sales are way down, export numbers are way up. You will see by end of this year how many cars BYD can export abroad. Remember, BYD sells cars much more expensively than Chery.
 

supercat

Major
CATL will supply Tesla with M3P lithium magnesium phosphate batteries, which have a 25% higher energy density than the current LFP batteries and cost about the same (this is unconfirmed info as far as I know).

EXCLUSIVE: NIO to officially enter the German Market on October 7​

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If China can extend purchase tax exemption for compact and subcompact ICE cars, they can certainly extend tax exemption for NEVs.

China to extend NEV purchase tax exemption to end of 2023​

China will establish a coordination mechanism for the development of the NEV industry and will vigorously build charging piles.
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