Does the Biden Administration read The Morning Dump? Probably not, but the theme of this week has been Chinese automakers at the border and the rise of BYD. Are we wagging the dog or are we the ones being wagged? It’s hard to say, but President Biden announced he’d do… something about it.
Can I sneak one more BYD story into the week? I feel like I can squeeze one more into the week. The Chinese automaker announced the sale of its tiny, affordable EVs in Mexico and Brazil at a price of about $21k new, which I think means they could sell it here (if tariffs didn’t exist) for under $20k.
Tariffs do exist, which means that California’s EV mandate is raising a lot of questions. Do you know what would help? Hybrids. Do you know who makes a great hybrid? Ford! At least according to Consumer Reports.
Aight, let’s do this thang.
President Biden: We’re Looking Into It!
Not to get too political here, but I don’t think that President Biden’s big statement on being ready to protect us from connected Chinese vehicles actually means that much.
Here’s the full text of President Biden’s statement, which I shall quote from at length:
China is determined to dominate the future of the auto market, including by using unfair practices. China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security. I’m not going to let that happen on my watch.
Sure. Fair.
Most cars these days are “connected” – they are like smart phones on wheels. These cars are connected to our phones, to navigation systems, to critical infrastructure, and to the companies that made them. Connected vehicles from China could collect sensitive data about our citizens and our infrastructure and send this data back to the People’s Republic of China. These vehicles could be remotely accessed or disabled.
The quotation marks around connected are a little amusing, but the general concept is correct, though at the moment we’re also letting Elon Musk, Germany, Japan, and South Korea do this already. Hell, GM wants to charge people a subscription to have this done to them.
China imposes restrictions on American autos and other foreign autos operating in China. Why should connected vehicles from China be allowed to operate in our country without safeguards?
Better question: Why should any connected cars from anywhere not have a decent amount of scrutiny, regulation, and protection?
So today, I am announcing unprecedented actions to ensure that cars on U.S. roads from countries of concern like China do not undermine our national security. I have directed my Secretary of Commerce to conduct an investigation into connected vehicles with technology from countries of concern and to take action to respond to the risks.
What is the unprecedented action? That’s a good question and one that many reporters have asked the Department of Commerce. I love this explanation given to Automotive News:
“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out how a foreign adversary like China — with access to this sort of information at scale — could pose a serious risk to our national security and the privacy of U.S. citizens,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters.
The department has not yet determined what action it would take, as it is still in the early stages of understanding the risks and how significant they might be.
“This is really the beginning of an inquiry, and we are collecting information,” an administration official said during the briefing. “We are in no way committed to a ban on the import of Chinese electric vehicles. That really remains to be seen.”
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination especially when, you know, it seems like imagination is all we have at the moment as a country. Why even imagine it? This is a major plot point in Fast and Furious 8:
There are two things I know to be true. There’s no difference between good flan and bad flan, and…
The BYD Dolphin Mini Could Sell Here For Under $20k
BYD marks a historic day with the launch of the BYD DOLPHIN MINI across Brazil and Mexico. As the most compact and vibrant member of the Ocean Series, the DOLPHIN MINI is the most anticipated 100% electric hatchback, packed with innovative technology at an attainable price. The… pic.twitter.com/BipqpTboBp
— BYD (@BYDCompany) February 29, 2024
I’m leading this story with this BYD tweet because, for all of their technological sophistication, this is a bad tweet. There are so many good photos of the BYD Dolphin Mini, why would you use a front 3/4 shot and a front 4/5 shot? This makes no sense. [Ed Note: I still dig it. -DT].
BYD may be able to make cheaper cars at a vast scale, but there’s no swagger in these tweets. America still has the swagger market cornered.
The cars are good, though. And cheap. I wrote almost a year ago about the BYD Seagull, which went on sale for the equivalent of under $15,000 in China and offered a range of about 300 km/186 miles on the NEDC range test (or about 130 miles on the EPA test).
Now the cars are coming to Brazil and to Mexico, joining other BYD vehicles, and being sold as the Dolphini Mini (the international name for the Seagull). The pricing here is what’s interesting to me. For various market reasons and tax reasons, cars in Mexico are generally more expensive than cars in the United States on a direct comparison basis.
For Mexico, the BYD Dolphin Mini will cost 358,800 pesos or about $21,000. By comparison, the cheapest Tesla Model 3 costs 881,900 pesos in Mexico, or about $52,000.
The Model 3 is a nicer, bigger, safer car with more range, but they’re in different classes. A better comparison is the Mexican market Nissan Micra, which is gas-powered and about $16k.
Ignoring any potential subsidies, if there were no extra tariffs and BYD could build the cars in Mexico and export them here (as many automakers do), my back-of-the-napkin guess is at scale the price could be about $16-18k for a completely nice city car.
That ain’t happening, of course.
Is California’s 2035 Vehicle Mandate Possible?
Would a bunch of cheap Chinese EVs make California’s plan (and thus the plans of states that follow CA guidelines) to ban the sales of non-PHEV gas-powered cars by 2035 more feasible? Probably.
But given that the Biden Administration is already looking to slow its non-mandated plans, it’s no surprise that automakers and others are looking to get California to rethink its plans.
Specifically, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which is essentially a lobbying group for automakers, sent a comment to the EPA pointing out that every state isn’t California and isn’t going to be able to make the switch to EVs as quickly.
California’s EV requirements might be feasible “at least in the early years for California” but said the feasibility for other states with significantly lower current EV sales “is far less certain,” the auto industry group said.
The onus for complying with the rules rests with automakers but it is unclear “whether customers in each jurisdiction will accept (zero-emission vehicle) technologies and purchase them in sufficient quantities.
And how did California’s Air Resource Board reply?
CARB said in response: “States that have adopted California’s program understand that clean cars improve public health and address a global challenge.”
While I see the EPA backing off of its plans, I am curious if California can be so easily persuaded.
The Ford Maverick The Only American Top Ten Consumer Reports Pick
You want to know the real truth about Consumer Reports? The writers there may carefully and thoughtfully consider the vehicles on the market and make some safe (boring) calls, but they love cars and most of them can really wheel. That’s right, they are car-loving sickos just like us.
The organization also buys its own cars, secretly, and tests them carefully. So when they say a car is good then you can assume it’s probably good.
CR is out with its list of its ten most recommended cars and its most recommended automakers and just one American vehicle made it into the top ten. And it did it for the second year.
It’s the Ford Maverick/Maverick Hybrid! Hell yeah.
Subaru is also high up there, 2nd overall as a brand only to BMW which, uh, was not my experience. While American cars mostly did mediocre, they are improving:
The remaining brands in the top 10 are little changed from last year, with the exception of Porsche, which jumped 11 spots into third place, and Hyundai (10th place, up three spots from last year). Honda, Lexus, Mini, Kia, Mazada, and Toyota round out the top 10.
In a bright spot for the domestic auto brands, Cadillac surged 11 positions to 14th place, its highest ranking in seven years, due to improvements in reliability. Ford jumped six spots to 17th place, its highest charting since 2016.
17th isn’t great, but it’s better than 23rd! CR also added that you can buy any vehicle from BMW, Porsche, Honda, Mini, Kia, Mazda, and Acura and feel confident it’ll be ok.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Often I listen to songs I think people here might like. Sometimes I just listen to whatever pops into my head. Yesterday, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts and in this week’s episode the host, Rob Harvilla, mentions Kathleen Hanna and her punk band Bikini Kill. I enjoy Bikini Kill but, also, if you’ve never listened to Fugazi or Minutemen this one might not quite land. If you know what a ‘zine is, though, maybe this will.
The Big Question
How connected is your car?
Top image: Universal Pictures
It has a radio and a remote key (with 2 buttons, later versions got a *decadent* 3rd button for the newly introduced power-opening frunk). I had all sorts of connected stuff in my previous car and never used any of it, so it’s nice to know I’m not carting around a bunch of extra antennas and modules that don’t add value for me.
I WANT a nice Android Auto head unit so I can leave my phone in my pocket, but have never wanted anything other than audio and nav, and I feel that opening cars up to OTA updates just enables manufacturers to ship unfinished and/or untested products and fix them on the fly later, exactly the same way it did for videogames and consumer electronics.
In my opinion, all chassis/body software should be completely offline, and the infotainment should be a self-contained box inside a DIN-shaped hole. As technology progresses, these embedded infotainment screens can make an entire car horribly dated.
When I’m connected, it’s by a $15 FM Bluetooth thingy which works remarkably well. I’m not using a screen at all unless I’m on a road trip where GPS is useful. For around town, I’m listening to either the radio or my podcast queue that I don’t need to fiddle with when driving.
I desire no more than that connectedness and don’t want a screen so I’m sticking with old cars.
My truck has no radio, nothing sophisticated in the engine bay (292 v8), no connectivity at all, and for that matter no cup holders either, and seat belts were added by my dad.
My car is connected by an aux audio cable.
My car is exactly as connected as my smartphone is.
you welcome
Not connected at all because I never connected it and I’m pretty sure the unit isn’t doing something untoward without my permission—not out of trust, but because it hasn’t tried to auto-update or even make me aware of an open update for the infotainment that I learned about online a few months ago. Since everything works and the stupid thing reportedly takes an hour to download with the engine running, I’m not bothering and, if there was an issue, I’d rather go to the dealer than have it connected. Any future cars I might not trust will get their antenna disabled.
Not connected at all. Except for Sirius. I am afraid of Skynet, seriously.
I use a Bluetooth/FM converter or a aux/usb-c connector… js sayin
Does Consumer Reports buy and test cars now? Some years ago, I checked CR for some major appliance and discovered that they stopped buying and testing products and just compiled data from elsewhere. I think that their business model failed with the advent of ‘reviews’ on the Internet. I did not research before posting this.
The CR employees creating the CR videos say on camera they buy cars they review.
I prefer my car’s connectivity to be in the form of carplay and nothing else, although I will allow for a local wifi connection for preaheating and cooling.
I have fond memories of playing bikini kill songs in Rock Band for xbox 360
To the best of my knowledge, my 2012 Prius v is not. It is only connected when I connect my phone to the Bluetooth Android Audio head unit, but even then, that’s just the big tech companies we all love to hate (Google, Apple, etc.). Nothing specific should be going to Toyota, for example. It’s all through my phone.
My Corvair is currently connected to a battery charger. Do you think that thing is downloading my mix tapes?
My truck’s connectivity has been somewhat malleable over the years. When I got it I had a free starter subscription to the 3G functionality (which I used once and never paid for). Then at some point they added the ability to update UConnect OTA, which it couldn’t do when I first got it. Now that 3G is dead I probably have no connectivity to it whatsoever.
In the words of my nephew (which got him in trouble with his grandparents because they didn’t understand what he said): That’s sus.
I enjoy that you think government needs to learn anything for them to act.
I wonder why nothing is done about Chinese made computers and phones which also can provide information
I am sure the Administration will act, I applaud them taking action, I believe their reasons might be different than stated. UAW?
I think back in the day when IBM decided to sell their hardware business to Lenovo, Lenovo did promise (I think they still do) make sensitive computers ie federal politicians at the facility in the North Carolina.
The problem is never about the physical hardware but the software.
What’s going on with Consumer Reports these days? Recommending the Ford Maverick and BMW? I have a Ford Maverick, and it’s… fine, except for the quality issues. Otherwise, it’s nothing special, though I do appreciate the fuel economy and the price. I guess if you don’t mind recall after recall, it’s great. BMW? I have no direct experience with BMW, but everything I read says they are expensive to maintain and are prone to mechanical issues. It really makes me wonder how CS determined their rankings.
I was wondering this too. I’ve had 3rd gen neo-Mini for about 1.5 years. The sunroof brackets broke and engine mounts needed replacing. It’s a 2015 I bought used, so this isn’t horrible, but doesn’t seem to be a Toyota-reputation-level of quality.
Do they make recommendations based only on 6 months or a year of ownership? I assume when they say “any BMW or Mini” they are referring to current or prior year models and not all models for the last 10-20 years.
Contrary to what the article states, no ‘car people’ would put Subaru all the way up into 2nd place, when other cars exist. Unless you really don’t care about cars or driving in general and you just need an appliance to get you to work and back (a slow, unreliable appliance with very poor gas mileage), in which case you’re the opposite of ‘car people’.
As far as CARB, honestly, it’s achievable right now, they could say no non-EVs may be sold in California after March 2024 and it would just happen, because an enforceable regulation is an enforceable regulation, automakers and dealers would just have to figure it out and do it. It would just mean that like 95% of current car and light truck models could no longer be sold there and consumers would have to just pick from the current crop of EVs or buy used. Which is also exactly what will happen in 2035, if they stick to their existing deadline, ICE sales stop, the only vehicles left on the market will be whatever EVs are in production. Automakers with few or no EVs will just have their business in California evaporate, consumers who need a specific type of vehicle that doesn’t have an electric version will do without or buy an older used ICE equivalent
This is a bit like saying I could stop breathing anytime. Technically correct (the best kind of correct), but the consequences would be rather dire.
That depends on how dire the members of CARB think it is that people maintain a wide selection of vehicles at various prices, if you’re not concerned about that, it becomes more possible to do whatever. Besides, California has high speed rail
Nobody NEEDS to buy a new car, and no companies need to sell cars in California either. I’m not saying it would be good, but it wouldn’t be that bad. Not really worse than the current truck age regulations that are causing many companies’ business to evaporate in California right now.
It looks like you are forgetting about PHEVs which apparently they will also allow. Outside of pickups and large suvs (suburban et al.), there are already decent to excellent PHEV options in all major vehicle segments. Assuming RAM delivers the Ramcharger PHEV in 2025 like they say, that will leave only large suvs without a viable option. Frankly, phasing out non-PHEV gas new-vehicle sales is totally doable by 2035. At least for non-commercial vehicles. Commercial vehicles are probably another story. And don’t forget that any deadline like that is effectively smeared out over time by the ability to purchase used vehicles.
TLDR: California’s current timeline is about the most reasonable one I can think of in terms of balancing acting on climate change and the realities of day-to-day life for most people.
Well, really, a fully hybrid range was probably doable like 10 years ago, but for reasons that are vague to me, automakers were pretty tepid to the technology for a long time. And it isn’t cost, hell, a Prius is $27,000 right now and an Ioniq, when they were still made, was like $24,000, at a time when the “average” price of a new car is over $40,000, most hybrids on the market today are cheaper than the average pure ICE vehicle, so the price thing falls apart. And I don’t know anyone who thinks getting better fuel economy is a bad thing, Corvette owners, the few who actually drive their cars, brag when they hit 25 or 26mpg highway, if they did 30 or 35, they’d be ecstatic. I had a Pentastar Challenger for awhile that reliably got 30 or 31mpg on the Interstate with cruise set, if a hybrid one got up to 40, you know damn well they’d have had no problem selling every one they could build.
But, automakers have been weirdly guarded about what sorts of vehicles to drop those powertrains in, and then you have something like the Maverick, where Ford somehow was caught off guard by the lowest priced and most fuel efficient version being the one people wanted to buy and has never been able to build enough. Gee, who’d have guessed a 40mpg $24,000 pickup truck would be popular, too bad crystal balls don’t work
“You want to know the real truth about Consumer Reports? The writers there may carefully and thoughtfully consider the vehicles on the market and make some safe (boring) calls, but they love cars and most of them can really wheel. That’s right, they are car-loving sickos just like us.”
“The organization also buys its own cars, secretly, and tests them carefully.”
Carefully fake rollovers, maybe.
So I know this was 30 years ago, but I still have a really hard time with Consumer Reports’ automotive journalism. Ever since they falsified a car review to such an insanely criminal degree that the entire organization should have been forcibly disbanded, and it literally sunk a car brand in the US, I just can’t trust anything they say. Because the organization shouldn’t even exist anymore, and they really shouldn’t be doing anything with cars.
The Wikipedia article on this topic isn’t as unfavorable towards CR. An interesting read as I only vaguely recalled the topic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Motor_Corp._v._Consumers_Union_of_the_U.S.,_Inc.
No, this Wikipedia article is not very unfavorable towards Consumer Reports. I’d encourage you to do some more reading, theres lots of information out there. A Consumer Reports employee talked about how ridiculously difficult it was to get the Samurai to roll, including trying different drivers cuz the first one couldn’t no matter how hard he tried, and adding ballast to raise the center of gravity. The test was totally falsified and they did it just for the scoop.
However connected the UConnect system in my Voyager is.
I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% sure what sort of data is being collected from me, or how. I would have to imagine most of the data being shared is fairly generic as the system itself is pretty basic.