BYD launches $15,000 Qin Plus EV Honor Edition kicking off price war with gas cars

BYD is kicking off a price war with gas-powered cars as new lower-priced electric vehicles begin rolling out. After launching the new Qin Plus EV Honor Edition on Monday, BYD said it’s “officially opening a new era of electricity is lower than oil.”

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BYD is coming on fierce. Other car makers ought to be very afraid right now. $15K is cheaper than most gas vehicles. That’s … compelling to say the least.
- We're just not getting any of the chinese EVs. Many of them are only so cheap because of how much their government is subsidizing them so they can build market share.
  ~~The car only has 75 miles of range which just won't fly at all in the US. Anything sub 200 is considered unusable here.~~ nvm thats the phev model. That's not bad for a phev. but 260 miles of range and 15k has to be heavily subsidized. And I doubt Americans would be willing to buy a Chinese car.
- Mind you, that's the price in China. By the time they bring those to the US or Europe, that price usually doubles.
  
  Still, $30K … still compelling.
- No way that can release one here in the US for the same price as a 10 year old Camry. Unless the Chinese government is going to pay for 1/2 the cost of the car, we aren't going to see brand new vehicles selling for $15k.
  
  Even at $15K or $20K, they would be underselling most new EV and ICE models. They're already looking at opening plants in Mexico: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas-byd-plans-new-electric-vehicle-plant-mexico-says-nikkei-2024-02-13/
  If the U.S. changes trade rules, they'll just do what Japanese, S. Korean, and European countries did back in the 80s and start U.S. subsidiaries.
  
  That's a you problem. The parent comment doesn't even mention US and it is not the center of the universe. China is one of the top polluter currently, and if they alone phase out ICE cars, it would be a net benefit for the world (if they use renewables).
  Not everything has to reach the US to be considered "cheap". Western news mentioning USD doesn't mean the company is looking for people in US specifically to buy it. Same as not everyone buying Tesla gets it in local prices abroad.
  
  We're seeing that across my commodity chemical market prices too. The prices China offers seem... literally impossible. We are almost certain that China is paying either all the capital for the infrastructure, or just subsidizing 10x harder than we (US/EU) do.
- When they start selling in the US, the destruction of legacy manufacturers will be worse the the 1970s small car invasion
  
  I believe it. We need reliable infrastructure for this revolution now.
Qin Plus EV Honor Edition
Christ
- Number One, sexy time, best EV high class, five star.
If the entry model came to the US, it could become the Ford Taurus or Toyota Camry of electrics. But the charging infrastructure would need to build up massively to be able to support that kind of volume.
The fact that they're hitting both low end and high end (plus everything in between) should be massively concerning to every car company.
- Should we be rooting for or against this company. I'm all for competition, but Elon Musk has made me lose faith in any car company.
  
  Rooting for any company is always a bad idea. Companies are never your friend. They'll always put profits first - way before ethics, values or even laws or common sense. Don't trust them, don't depend on them and especially don't root for them.
  
  Personally I root against basically any Chinese company by principle.
- Don't worry, they will pay politicians to make it illegal for them to sell here.
  
  Just like they did with Tesla at first.
Starting at 420 km range, that's actually pretty impressive. We might be looking at a tipping point here for electric cars.
- Holy Jesus. The 2025 prediction is here early for certain markets.
Meanwhile in the US the entire automatic industry are keeping prices of EVs higher than crap and also eliminating their affordable car lines.
I’m not in the US but have been waiting for these cars to make their way here. We already have other cars by Chinese companies and I just saw my first one today.
I’ve curious about their pricing. Hopefully they are cheap here too.
Sadly, I don’t have a way to charge an electric car at my condo.
Parts count on EVs is an order of magnitude less than combustion. They should scale for batteries and motors with the price being an order of magnitude less expensive to build them. The foundry, machining, and precision parts of combustion are massive operations.
The real problem is that military tech relies on the same supply chain and EV's don't handle battle quite like combustion. So what does the USA do? Pretend that this is not the real issue and build luxury EV's instead because the scale will still follow the lower end.
Mark my words, until you see most military vehicles going electric, we won't see low cost mass produced EV's. It has nothing to do with what is best for any of us. It has everything to do with exploitation and killing people abroad over petty nonsense for the most part.
I checked on https://prod.byd.com/en-sa we don't have it here yet, I'd buy it

46 comments