mini_cooper4
Autotechnik Ace
- Messages
- 5,775
Could also be of better quality.
I'm not even kidding unfortunately.
BYD BYD Han coming to Europe, expected pricing announced
- Thread starter DjordjeC63
- Start date
BYD is a global leader in electric (BEV) and hybrid (PHEV) vehicles. It owns premium brands like Denza and Yangwang. Official: BYD
I'm not even kidding unfortunately.
- Messages
- 35,867
Yupp. Huawei and TikTok are facing serious head winds. I cannot envision a Chinese electric car with always on Internet connectivity succeeding in Europe or the US.
- Messages
- 13,229
Why I think Chinese will acquire western brands to make Chinese cars more palatable in Western markets like what they are doing with Volvo/Polestar.
CrunchSlaughtered
RPM Ruler
- Messages
- 7,389
I've read only positive reviews about the Polestar 2 and nowhere was mentioned that it uses a platform developed mainly by Chinese engineers.
- Messages
- 37,138
The Polestar 2 has a fantastic UI too, from Google. Works absolutely brilliantly, and dare I say it industry standard setting.
Volvo is without a doubt an exception though. And today, I doubt any Chinese company can just grab a western company like that anymore. Relations are rapidly deteriorating with the CCP. And I fully endorse that.
Good luck with that lol. EU might still be possible, but I very much doubt Trump will let any Chinese company buy an American...
Volvo is without a doubt an exception though. And today, I doubt any Chinese company can just grab a western company like that anymore. Relations are rapidly deteriorating with the CCP. And I fully endorse that.
Good luck with that lol. EU might still be possible, but I very much doubt Trump will let any Chinese company buy an American...
- Messages
- 13,229
It uses the CMA platform used by XC40 which is "joint" development between Volvo and Geely as per wikipedia. Not sure where the electrical drive components are developed, guessing the battery pack is Chinese. Guessing the exterior and interior design is Volvo. But the car is entirely manufactured in China and owned wholly by a Chinese company that gets all the proceeds from any sales.
- Messages
- 19,745
- Name
- Martin
Entire business ecosystems are founded upon the basis of imitating original thinking, invention and innovation even in "western capitalist" economies. Imitation is nothing new and, as long as there's innovation and invention, it will persist.
Innovation in itself is infinitely applicable and being able to quickly assimilate and copy another product or idea is also innovative by all accounts. Someone invented a smartphone and every aspect of its innovation was rapidly disseminated, subsumed and reproduced. Copying something you see that works better, and which you don't have or do, is human nature and - ultimately - a bastion of economic competition.
Why, as "westerners" do we choose now to brand the Chinese copycats when copying has been going around in free-market economies for centuries? The automobile is a classic case in point for, at this stage, no one's done anything truly original for as long as I can remember. The automobile in its current form is just a box atop motorised wheels to transport human beings from one point to another. It has manifested in so many guises that, to now claim imitation and preducially direct this at a certain demographic, is to be very glib indeed. The fundamental automobile concept has not been dramatically reinvented in as many years as one would care to go back - not even by Tesla, for example.
Of course, I also acknowledge that there's a certain unwritten elegance in copying another idea or product without being blatant and in doing so creating enough differentiation in your product for it to be similar but not the same. And herein lies a fundamental concept: there are varying degrees of what constitutes a copy - we get a true copy meaning something exactly the same, then on to something similar or nearly the same, and eventually something that's alike but distinctly not the same. Besides an exact copy - an exact and entire facsimile - the rest of it is exceedingly subjective and open to one thing: human interpretation. It's the very reason why patent law was invented: to protect the monetary value of an idea, design or product for its originator and owner. This hasn't stopped things from being imitated - sometimes deeply so - though, has it? I'm pretty sure Apple filed numerous patents for its iPhone but tell that to every smartphone manufacturer running Android operating systems.
A quick and unsubstantiated Google (those dastardly copiers of the internet search engine) states that, in the US alone, 600 000 patents are filed every year. That's a lot of ideas. This loosely brings me to a thread that I love visiting for many reasons: The Chinese copycats thread [The Chinese copycats thread]. This thread classically showcases the degree of graduation in automotive imitation. Sadly, and unfairly, it's directed specifically at Chinese cars at a time where automotive imitation (subtle or not) has been going on in the "first world" economies for decades. Poor Haval H6 - whose trapezoidal grille did you copy? Was it Audi's or Subaru's? Tsk, tsk. Such unabashed imitation of something so original - shame on y'all. Similarly, there are some examples of such blatant and brazen imitation - the pre-facelift Landwind X7 springs most prominently to mind - that one can only laugh at the gall of its maker. Copyright (patent) law eventually put paid to Landwind's aspirations to knock-off the Range Rover Evoque and, by all accounts, probably rightly so. But, then again, was the X7 exactly the same or just very, very similar?
So, we will argue forever and a day that there's copying and then there's there's copying but to single out and vilify China for doing so is to be biased and discriminatory. Imitation has been going on in the automotive industry since it began; the art lies in ensuring your imitation is sufficiently different from something that's already out there to avoid subjectively being cast as a copy.
Innovation in itself is infinitely applicable and being able to quickly assimilate and copy another product or idea is also innovative by all accounts. Someone invented a smartphone and every aspect of its innovation was rapidly disseminated, subsumed and reproduced. Copying something you see that works better, and which you don't have or do, is human nature and - ultimately - a bastion of economic competition.
Why, as "westerners" do we choose now to brand the Chinese copycats when copying has been going around in free-market economies for centuries? The automobile is a classic case in point for, at this stage, no one's done anything truly original for as long as I can remember. The automobile in its current form is just a box atop motorised wheels to transport human beings from one point to another. It has manifested in so many guises that, to now claim imitation and preducially direct this at a certain demographic, is to be very glib indeed. The fundamental automobile concept has not been dramatically reinvented in as many years as one would care to go back - not even by Tesla, for example.
Of course, I also acknowledge that there's a certain unwritten elegance in copying another idea or product without being blatant and in doing so creating enough differentiation in your product for it to be similar but not the same. And herein lies a fundamental concept: there are varying degrees of what constitutes a copy - we get a true copy meaning something exactly the same, then on to something similar or nearly the same, and eventually something that's alike but distinctly not the same. Besides an exact copy - an exact and entire facsimile - the rest of it is exceedingly subjective and open to one thing: human interpretation. It's the very reason why patent law was invented: to protect the monetary value of an idea, design or product for its originator and owner. This hasn't stopped things from being imitated - sometimes deeply so - though, has it? I'm pretty sure Apple filed numerous patents for its iPhone but tell that to every smartphone manufacturer running Android operating systems.
A quick and unsubstantiated Google (those dastardly copiers of the internet search engine) states that, in the US alone, 600 000 patents are filed every year. That's a lot of ideas. This loosely brings me to a thread that I love visiting for many reasons: The Chinese copycats thread [The Chinese copycats thread]. This thread classically showcases the degree of graduation in automotive imitation. Sadly, and unfairly, it's directed specifically at Chinese cars at a time where automotive imitation (subtle or not) has been going on in the "first world" economies for decades. Poor Haval H6 - whose trapezoidal grille did you copy? Was it Audi's or Subaru's? Tsk, tsk. Such unabashed imitation of something so original - shame on y'all. Similarly, there are some examples of such blatant and brazen imitation - the pre-facelift Landwind X7 springs most prominently to mind - that one can only laugh at the gall of its maker. Copyright (patent) law eventually put paid to Landwind's aspirations to knock-off the Range Rover Evoque and, by all accounts, probably rightly so. But, then again, was the X7 exactly the same or just very, very similar?
So, we will argue forever and a day that there's copying and then there's there's copying but to single out and vilify China for doing so is to be biased and discriminatory. Imitation has been going on in the automotive industry since it began; the art lies in ensuring your imitation is sufficiently different from something that's already out there to avoid subjectively being cast as a copy.
- Messages
- 11,377
- Name
- Matt
I agree, X copied Y seems to get thrown around in loads of threads here, and it's frustrating, however, there's imitating an idea and delivering your version of that concept, and there's making a thing like something else to gain appeal for your thing... the former case provides the evolution you speak of, the latter is more just a money grab at the expense of other people's IP, IMHO.
In any case, rightly or wrongly, it is a brush China has been tarred with, and it's a part of the Chinese car industry's image that they'll need to work on. As @Sunny alludes to, a reasonable way to do that, is to buy into the brands they might otherwise imitate.
CrunchSlaughtered
RPM Ruler
- Messages
- 7,389
Why do you use the term "copy" here? No one has mentioned it here before. The Chinese do not copy EVs, obviously they have the better technology, than the "western" companies and the Polestar, which is using the EV technology of its purely Chinese sibling (I don't remember the name) is a superior product to all EVs coming from Europe. The question here is not that the Chinese are copying, but that they are leading and the Europeans lost their advantage gained with the ICE vehicles.
KiwiRob
Autotechnik Ace
- Messages
- 5,967
It uses the CMA platform, the same one used in the XC40 and all the Lync & Co vehicles. It is a joint Volvo Geely development.
KiwiRob
Autotechnik Ace
- Messages
- 5,967
To be fair to the Chinese which US auto manufacturer would give the Chinese any tech they don't already have, GM and Ford are both dinosaurs and FCA is off the table.
- Messages
- 19,745
- Name
- Martin
Please read the thread more carefully. The word copy is used a number of times as is the insinuation that the Chinese copy.
- Messages
- 11,377
- Name
- Matt
I don't think it's about tech, I think it's about having a relatable brand that average American Joe thinks he can trust.
CrunchSlaughtered
RPM Ruler
- Messages
- 7,389
It uses the EV technology of the Chinese company and Volvo is not involved in it. The platform is jointly developed, but the EV technology is purely Chinese.
- Messages
- 13,229
Martin, while I agree that everyone copies. But where Chinese entities are more nefarious is they steal criminally. I am not talking about just design or other visible trademarks but underlying technologies. Yes, others do that too but not at the same scale and they are usually held accountable when caught, while Chinese do it with impunity under the protection of the Chinese government and often facilitated by them. A good example is the downfall of Nortel - the Canadian telecom giant that dominated telecom till 2000s when it was hacked and we saw subsequently saw the rise of Huawei. Bloomberg.com has a good article on it - Did a Chinese Hack Kill Canada’s Greatest Tech Company?. (Google if link doesn't work).
DjordjeC63
Vorsprung Visionary
- Messages
- 2,668
Similar threads
Trending content
-
Thread '"Introducing Lucid Air Sapphire: The Pinnacle of Electric Performance."'- Tourbillon
Replies: 257 -
-
-
