Seems like a good plan. Canada has the third largest hydroelectric power production in the world, and quite a bit of nuclear, so let's use it properly. People talk about transmission infrastructure like it's difficult, but we're the ones who made the ~5,000 KM HVDC system that feeds the northern US from James Bay! I don't see why we can't quickly electrify transportation, it's the kind of project Canada seems to be pretty good at.
I mean, this is hiding a lot of geographic reality. You're using the word Canada pretty broadly here, when the reality is that the left-half of the country past Ontario (or arguably Quebec) is pretty shit in this regard.
Quebec has that hydroelectric power production. And their power grid is cheap and pretty clean. And their government and populace is highly pro-EV and yeah, it's great.
Ontario a bit second to that but reliant on nuclear, and those nuclear plants will be going offline for maintenance and its ... a whole thing.
Under Doug Ford we just keep increasing the amount of natural gas in the mix and the prices keep going up on electricity. (This being the guy who lied his way into power claiming that under the Ontario Liberals we had "the most expensive power in North America" [again a total lie])
The rest of the country? Oof. Have you looked at the prairie provinces power generation?
They're now quite popular in the UK, along with Jaecoo, although not a huge number of them are pure-EV. Since I have been in the market for a car recently, I've been carspotting to see what's actually on the roads, and looking out for green-flash plates. VW and Tesla seem to be the carspotting winners so far. Autocar (and other reviewers) are mad about the Renault 5, which does look extremely good. I have an Abarth(!) 600E on lease-order, which I will review for HN eventually.
It is very funny that the Seagull had to be renamed Surf because Brits hate seagulls, though.
I don't know that there is. It takes ages to develop an EV-focused platform, and the lines to manufacture it. Tesla is the only American manufacturer that has already done that work, and they're circling the drain. Aside from them, there's exactly one decent US-owned EV on the market, the Chevrolet Bolt. All of the top-of-the-line EVs are Korean or Chinese, and the 2nd tiers are all European. America's EVs aren't even on the horizon, they'll be playing catchup for decades.
> there's exactly one decent US-owned EV on the market, the Chevrolet Bolt.
I drive a Chevrolet Blazer EV. Test drove a Equinox EV as well. There is the silverado EV as well. Chrysler and Ford are mostly working on plug in hybrids which is 90% of the advantages of an EV for those who charge at home (if people will is debated).
Which is to say the big-3 car makers all have EV or close enough EV cars and are making more.
A major problem is that dealers hate carrying and selling EVs. If you want to get these vehicles you either have to special order them or you have to buy used.
I think a big portion of why Tesla is so prominent is because it's relatively easy to get a Tesla almost anywhere.
It’ll happen eventually, it’s an economic certainty. And when it finally does it probably won’t be that bad for the American consumer buying a car.
The real loss is the international trade and the effect that’ll have on the overall economy. Mexico and Canada will already be dominated by Chinese cars and it’ll be too late to compete.
While America is slow, the transition is happening. There are a fair number of electric cars on the road. Some like the cybertruck are obvious, but there are a lot of cars that come in ICE or EV variants that you can't tell and people are talking. Don't lose hope.
I see parallels with the failed metric system transition: a voluntary shift with inconsistent policy, the impression that it's all just an elitist/foreign conspiracy, cultural/political resistance, and so on. Of the major developed economies, only Japan is lower on BEV market share. Realistically the transition will probably happen in pockets, for instance California has similar EV sales share as Germany right now.
It will happen. My guess is that Canada is BYD’s pilot into the US. They have very similar buyer characteristics and the Canadian tariff deal allows them to enter the market without taking the risks of local factories.
It won’t take much to get BYD access to the US. It’s a two-step process:
- Toss a million bucks at Trump or wait for a Democratic administration
- Build a plant in Alabama/Tennessee/South Carolina/Georgia
A million? 100M only gets you an ev advertisement on the Whitehouse lawn. It will need to be something more like Saudi Arabia's investment in ivanka, i mean the affinity group. 25M a year to his son in law gets your phone calls answered when you feel like Iran is acting up too much.
I am not as optimistic. If that doesn't happen the only candidate likely to let china do as they wilt is aoc. Vance would happily start ww3 with them. Rubio/newsome/shapiro etc will all keep the full pressure of all allies in them, potentially kicking them out of places they already sell.
> Rubio/newsome/shapiro etc will all keep the full pressure of all allies in them, potentially kicking them out of places they already sell.
I sincerely doubt the US is capable of this. Trump has lit your soft power on fire. Trying to get people to give up a superior and cheaper product is an extremely large ask.
The leaders there know that China isn't exactly a friend of liberal western democracy. They have won the current round of propoganda, but that doesn't mean they are anyone's friend either.
No, they have won the current round of foreign relations. Threats to invade numerous allies. Blatant war crimes like murdering random people on boats. Violating established and signed trade deals left right and centre. Openly soliciting and accepting bribes. Kidnapping foreign countries citizens and holding them in inhumane camps. None of this is a matter of "propaganda" - it's a matter of actual actions the US is taking.
> The leaders there know that China isn't exactly a friend of liberal western democracy.
Indeed, but this has never been a prerequisite for trade with liberal western democracies. See for example the gulf monarchies we trade with.
It is pretty much a prerequisite for extraordinary actions like successfully asking liberal western democracies to restrict trade though, and the US no longer meets it...
> Which is to say Trump failed at the current round of propaganda.
No, it really isn't. "Propaganda" merely refers to communication intended to influence. Trump failed when it came down to actual actions, not just communication. And when he failed in communication it was actual diplomacy meant to come to agreements, not merely the words meant to influence minds.
Propaganda is the least of the USes problems right now.
I suspect America will continue to be weird about China until one of three things happens:
- a new Great Power enemy is selected; it would make sense for this to be Russia, but India is also a candidate
- some sort of face-saving moral victory is achieved which allows the US to continue feeling superior and not threatened by China's capability (unclear what this might look like)
- Xi dies and his replacement launches a relationship reset
> Xi dies and his replacement launches a relationship reset
Among all Chinese leaders from the past and likely to the near future, Xi Jinping is the warmest towards US. He cherished his short stay in Iowa and his daughter graduated from Harvard.
I dont think future leaders will share that feeling.
I read an article recently that said something along the lines of “China is pausing on the idea of a BYD Mexico factory over fears of US stealing their technology.”
Both countries have been accusing each other of stealing technologies since forever, nothing here is new. No tables have been turned, unless you've been sleeping under a rock for the last three decades.
In the context of automotive technology, the tables have absolutely turned. There was nobody anywhere interested in Chinese automotive technology 10 years ago.
What company has better mass market battery technology than BYD? Who else has megawatt fast charging?
BYD sells more vehicles globally than Honda. I think that concept would have been unthinkable to the general public not very long ago.
Western media has been overwhelmingly one sided regarding state led IP theft for the last three decades. China steals western IP has been the story, and it hasn't been even a little balanced until reading this.
Usually it’s better to have the best technology, but at some point execution is better than raw tech.
Does Germany make a better high speed locomotive than China? Maybe they still do.
Which contract is going to be more attractive? I almost guarantee it’ll be China.
Then you look at Chinese AI which is sidestepping the two generation hardware disadvantage with execution: cheaper, more abundant electricity, ASIC data centers, and leaner operations that aren’t so heavily focused on financial games.
So if China attacks Taiwan and NATO intervenes, how Canada will ensure BYD will not remotely brick the charging infrastructure or will not make cars suddenly speed up and crash into oncoming traffic?
We already have US threatening to invade for absolutely no reason while the American people stand by and keeps arguing about the scandal of the day, I think this argument has sailed for Canadians. The US is now a very unreliable business partner, nothing else.
Same question, but for Tesla and the proposed US invasion of Canada.
(one of those things which the POTUS says that we're all told shouldn't be taken as serious or real, as if that wasn't a massive disqualification for him)
> This will be a logistical challenge for the grid but absolutely fantastic for BYD owners in particular.
Interestingly BYD actually puts batteries next to these chargers that they charge "off peak" to minimise the strain on the grid. So often times cars will actually charge from that battery instead of directly from the grid.
> batteries next to these chargers that they charge "off peak"
I don't think that's what they'll do. Charging off peak means being able to store the entirety of the energy demand for the power station in a battery, which is going to be very expensive (assuming 20 cars charge during peak hours every day, that'd mean having to swallow the cost of 20 cars worth of battery per charging station. Good luck getting a good ROI with that).
Instead I think they'll just use the battery so that they never drain the full power of a charge when a car is charging. Drawing a megawatt of current 5% of the time is putting lots of pressure on the local grid, and it can be mitigated by having a battery with the capacity of a car battery that you charge slowly during the whole day (including during peak hour) and discharge fast when a car is charging (for instance, if in average you have 2 cars charging for 5 minutes every hour, you can draw 166kW continuously instead of having bursts of 1MW consumption).
> if in average you have 2 cars charging for 5 minutes every hour, you can draw 166kW continuously instead of having bursts of 1MW consumption)
You definitely need to have that to not load the grid with 1MW, but the question still remains what the capacity of the battery is. A charger that promises a 5 minute 1MW charge BUT which can only do it once per hour and then falls back to 200kW doesn't seem as special as a charger that actually charges a car every five minutes.
It's convenient to get going in 5 minutes. But the time you REALLY want the charger to be quick is when you are third in line to charge at that charger.
I was definitely using simplifying assumptions to get my point straight here.
Setting the actual parameters for such systems is an engineering job, I just wanted to illustrate that the goal isn't going to have the charging station off the grid during peak hours thanks to the batteries, and more about managing the burden you put on the grid.
Generally fast charging has been a much harder nut to crack than fast discharge. If you have fast charging you necessarily have fast discharge in my experience.
> And this is fantastic for EV owners in general, assuming the charging network is open to all.
Given that the job descriptions seem to include working with local subsidy programs, I sure hope the Canadian government is going to require an open standard or adding more DC chargers under existing standards.
Does anyone know if they have looked at how charging quickly impacts the longevity of the battery? Can the cells be damaged by the rapid increase in temperature and current?
Significant work has been done on the "dendritic" failure mode of electrodes, where crystals grow from one electrode to another and may punch through separator membranes. This has gradually increased cell lifetimes. Now it's all down to temperature. Control-loop monitoring has got a lot better than "shove X amps in there and hope for the best".
Even if it did, this type of rapid charging only happens on long road trips.
I don’t specifically know for this type of battery but I’ve looked at pretty in-depth analysis of smartphone batteries (way less sophisticated battery management tech) and fast versus slow charging made very little lifespan difference. The best mitigations were fewer cycles and keeping the battery in its sweet spot (not discharging to 0% and charging to 100%)
There's been a lot of study into this already and the forming consensus is that fast DC charging is less of an issue on battery longevity than was first thought. In cars with decent thermal management systems it seems to have a fairly limited effect on battery lifetime as opposed to natural calendar aging.
Fast charging appears to damage batteries less than expected. There are lots of reports of taxis which almost exclusively used fast charging with over 200,000 miles on their battery.
Of course that is normal fast charging. Flash charging is 3x or more faster, so that's unknown.
Probably a bit but here’s the thing: if charging fast is, well….faster…then people care less if they loose a little extra battery because getting it back is less inconvenient.
There’s a graph i imagine here where slow charging, you want to retain all capacity. Faster it gets, you tolerate more battery loss.
> The automaker has built over 5,700 Flash Charging stations in China in about a year, and as we reported earlier today, it is now deploying 2.4 times more charging power per month than Tesla adds to its Supercharger network.
I'm against BYD factories unless car parts shipped from china are not heavily tariffed. You don't want to allow them to ship entire kits from china to final assemble in Europe. You want them to buy from providers in Europe. Otherwise I'm in favor of massive tariffs on their cars to avoid dumping.
That’s the exact model they follow in Brasil - they ship over the car without seats or a steering wheel, install them in Brazil with a Chinese labour force, declare it Brazilian made, pay no tariffs on the parts or the final vehicle.
There’s an aspirational goal of at least 50% Brazilian parts, but its currently 0%.
Ban them. Beyond cars is the fact that somehow its ok to buy unregulated chinese made products following no safety standards of the EU on temu, shein, aliexpress etc allowing them to skip all the costs of producing safe consumer goods in the EU. Ban all of them or put a 1000% tariff on all of the items. To long the EU has been followed the financial interests of German industry and their dealings in China. Since that phase is over we should treat China as the hostile power it is and force cuts to trade. Not a single Euro more in trade in than export to China.
Some US politicians were proposing a total ban on allowing cars of Chinese origin into the US, which is rather extreme. They don't want to risk US nationals seeing them and wanting them.
BYD's America containment policy to make Americans drool with jealousy. America will still be home to boring vanilla EVs that looked like it was stuck in the 2010s. BYD has a better chance of entering US market by offering tribute to Trump & Co over an inflexible protectionist / labor union friendly Democratic party.
This is bold considering the uncertainty in the Canadian market right now.
For those not familiar with the situation...
Before Trump 2.0:
----------------
The auto sectors of Canada, U.S. and Mexico were highly integrated with parts and vehicles crossing the border at scale. There wasn't much EV production and the NA auto sector probably wasn't up to competing with the Chinese auto sector on prices, but there were steep tariffs keeping Chinese vehicles out of NA markets and many foreign ones too. The highly integrated nature of the sector was seen, by most, as a competitive advantage.
Trump 2.0:
---------
Trump wanted vehicles to be manufactured in the U.S., not Canada or Mexico. Because... reasons. He slapped sectoral tariffs (that violate CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC) on cars and parts from Mexico and Canada. His desire seems to be to cut Canada and Mexico out of the NA auto supply chain but somehow still force Canada and Mexico to buy only American, while maintaining tariffs on Chinese autos. It's not exactly easy or quick to just pick up an auto plant and move it, nor is it clear that being inside the U.S. tariff wall is better than being outside of it. These tariffs have mostly just caused the NA auto sector to become really uncompetitive right when people are starting to notice that Chinese autos are offering a lot more bang for the buck.
Canada responds:
---------------
Canada now allows in 49,000 autos to enter the country without facing the former 100% tariff rate. This was in exchange for China lifting tariffs on some Canola products. That's a small fraction of the Canadian auto market, but it's also 49,000 cars that won't be from the U.S. (or Canada). This prompted Trump to suggest that China will not allow Canada to play ice hockey anymore[1]... Hockey aside, this move has sent a message. If Trump does succeed in completely strangling the Canadian auto sector, why would Canada continue to give U.S. autos preferential access to their largest export market?
The uncertainty going forward:
-----------------------------
Is China's foothold in the Canadian market secure? Is it a bargaining chip that might be traded away, or is it permanent? Are trade talks between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico going to go so poorly that the 49,000 number gets upped significantly? China's response to this door cracking open is, evidently, to ram their foot in as fast as they can. A new EV brand or two would likely not make a huge impact in Canada, but a new rapid charging network might make itself indispensable in very short order. It's not like the U.S. has a response for this. Their main EV brand, Tesla, is poison in Canada because of Musk's links to Trump.
No, it is a marketing term relating to the chargers BYD is deploying. According to the article the chargers can charge a car with enough electricity to provide a range of 400km in around 5 minutes. Another separate, but important, factor is that these chargers apparently work very well in winter and can provide a similar charging speed at -20°C.
You must be confused with the Jeep recall where even parked cars just spotaneously catch fire.
It's insane to me how so many people bring up the idea of EVs catching fire when ICE vehicles are constantly having recalls for spontaneously catching fire.
I've had multiple recalls on multiple ICE cars advising me to not park the car near my house. I haven't with my EV.
Seems like a good plan. Canada has the third largest hydroelectric power production in the world, and quite a bit of nuclear, so let's use it properly. People talk about transmission infrastructure like it's difficult, but we're the ones who made the ~5,000 KM HVDC system that feeds the northern US from James Bay! I don't see why we can't quickly electrify transportation, it's the kind of project Canada seems to be pretty good at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_%E2%80%93_New_England_T...
I mean, this is hiding a lot of geographic reality. You're using the word Canada pretty broadly here, when the reality is that the left-half of the country past Ontario (or arguably Quebec) is pretty shit in this regard.
Quebec has that hydroelectric power production. And their power grid is cheap and pretty clean. And their government and populace is highly pro-EV and yeah, it's great.
Ontario a bit second to that but reliant on nuclear, and those nuclear plants will be going offline for maintenance and its ... a whole thing.
Under Doug Ford we just keep increasing the amount of natural gas in the mix and the prices keep going up on electricity. (This being the guy who lied his way into power claiming that under the Ontario Liberals we had "the most expensive power in North America" [again a total lie])
The rest of the country? Oof. Have you looked at the prairie provinces power generation?
Any long terms Europe BYD owners? How is the build quality of their export vehicles?
Long-term reviews are available: https://driveauthority.com/is-byd-reliable-after-5-years/
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/byd/dolphin-surf/long-t...
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/byd/atto-3/long-term-re...
They're now quite popular in the UK, along with Jaecoo, although not a huge number of them are pure-EV. Since I have been in the market for a car recently, I've been carspotting to see what's actually on the roads, and looking out for green-flash plates. VW and Tesla seem to be the carspotting winners so far. Autocar (and other reviewers) are mad about the Renault 5, which does look extremely good. I have an Abarth(!) 600E on lease-order, which I will review for HN eventually.
It is very funny that the Seagull had to be renamed Surf because Brits hate seagulls, though.
Canadians also hate seagulls, so I wonder if they will do the same (although I'm not sure the Seagull was intended to come to Canada).
Re: The dead comment wondering why when Canadians largely don't live near the sea.
Seagulls, despite the name, aren't restricted to the sea. We have tons of them far from the sea (as well as on our rather large coasts).
I own a Sealion 7 since August. Build quality is much better than European brands like BMW or Audi, it really feels premium. I'm loving this car.
What about the software side?
As an American, I'm going to be really sad when we miss this transition. Maybe there's still time?
> Maybe there's still time?
I don't know that there is. It takes ages to develop an EV-focused platform, and the lines to manufacture it. Tesla is the only American manufacturer that has already done that work, and they're circling the drain. Aside from them, there's exactly one decent US-owned EV on the market, the Chevrolet Bolt. All of the top-of-the-line EVs are Korean or Chinese, and the 2nd tiers are all European. America's EVs aren't even on the horizon, they'll be playing catchup for decades.
> there's exactly one decent US-owned EV on the market, the Chevrolet Bolt.
I drive a Chevrolet Blazer EV. Test drove a Equinox EV as well. There is the silverado EV as well. Chrysler and Ford are mostly working on plug in hybrids which is 90% of the advantages of an EV for those who charge at home (if people will is debated).
Which is to say the big-3 car makers all have EV or close enough EV cars and are making more.
A major problem is that dealers hate carrying and selling EVs. If you want to get these vehicles you either have to special order them or you have to buy used.
I think a big portion of why Tesla is so prominent is because it's relatively easy to get a Tesla almost anywhere.
I wonder how US-specific this phenomenon is. UK dealerships don't seem to have a problem stocking them, and have been quick to pick up BYD franchises.
Rivian as well - whether they're able to be successful long term or not is an open question.
It will absolutely happen. BYD is already in Mexico and the door has been opened in Canada.
It’ll happen eventually, it’s an economic certainty. And when it finally does it probably won’t be that bad for the American consumer buying a car.
The real loss is the international trade and the effect that’ll have on the overall economy. Mexico and Canada will already be dominated by Chinese cars and it’ll be too late to compete.
While America is slow, the transition is happening. There are a fair number of electric cars on the road. Some like the cybertruck are obvious, but there are a lot of cars that come in ICE or EV variants that you can't tell and people are talking. Don't lose hope.
I see parallels with the failed metric system transition: a voluntary shift with inconsistent policy, the impression that it's all just an elitist/foreign conspiracy, cultural/political resistance, and so on. Of the major developed economies, only Japan is lower on BEV market share. Realistically the transition will probably happen in pockets, for instance California has similar EV sales share as Germany right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country
It will happen. My guess is that Canada is BYD’s pilot into the US. They have very similar buyer characteristics and the Canadian tariff deal allows them to enter the market without taking the risks of local factories.
It won’t take much to get BYD access to the US. It’s a two-step process:
- Toss a million bucks at Trump or wait for a Democratic administration
- Build a plant in Alabama/Tennessee/South Carolina/Georgia
That’s literally all it takes.
A million? 100M only gets you an ev advertisement on the Whitehouse lawn. It will need to be something more like Saudi Arabia's investment in ivanka, i mean the affinity group. 25M a year to his son in law gets your phone calls answered when you feel like Iran is acting up too much.
I am not as optimistic. If that doesn't happen the only candidate likely to let china do as they wilt is aoc. Vance would happily start ww3 with them. Rubio/newsome/shapiro etc will all keep the full pressure of all allies in them, potentially kicking them out of places they already sell.
> Rubio/newsome/shapiro etc will all keep the full pressure of all allies in them, potentially kicking them out of places they already sell.
I sincerely doubt the US is capable of this. Trump has lit your soft power on fire. Trying to get people to give up a superior and cheaper product is an extremely large ask.
The leaders there know that China isn't exactly a friend of liberal western democracy. They have won the current round of propoganda, but that doesn't mean they are anyone's friend either.
Agreed!
The CCP still hasn't figured out that we'll take their money and still hate them.
Western civilization has been sneaky and duplicitous for centuries, and we're good at it.
> They have won the current round of propoganda
No, they have won the current round of foreign relations. Threats to invade numerous allies. Blatant war crimes like murdering random people on boats. Violating established and signed trade deals left right and centre. Openly soliciting and accepting bribes. Kidnapping foreign countries citizens and holding them in inhumane camps. None of this is a matter of "propaganda" - it's a matter of actual actions the US is taking.
> The leaders there know that China isn't exactly a friend of liberal western democracy.
Indeed, but this has never been a prerequisite for trade with liberal western democracies. See for example the gulf monarchies we trade with.
It is pretty much a prerequisite for extraordinary actions like successfully asking liberal western democracies to restrict trade though, and the US no longer meets it...
> They have won the current round of foreign relations.
Which is to say Trump failed at the current round of propaganda. If he had won this round you would excuse all those things.
Being a friend of liberal western democracies is not a requirement for trade. However it does influence how trade happens.
>restrict trade though, and the US no longer meets it...
Again, the US lost the current round of propaganda.
> Which is to say Trump failed at the current round of propaganda.
No, it really isn't. "Propaganda" merely refers to communication intended to influence. Trump failed when it came down to actual actions, not just communication. And when he failed in communication it was actual diplomacy meant to come to agreements, not merely the words meant to influence minds.
Propaganda is the least of the USes problems right now.
Still, if you're going to buy a car from an enemy of liberal western democracy, you might as well buy BYD over Tesla.
Idk we have a lot of protectionism around vehicle sales in the US already. I don't think it'll be easy but it could happen.
I suspect America will continue to be weird about China until one of three things happens:
- a new Great Power enemy is selected; it would make sense for this to be Russia, but India is also a candidate
- some sort of face-saving moral victory is achieved which allows the US to continue feeling superior and not threatened by China's capability (unclear what this might look like)
- Xi dies and his replacement launches a relationship reset
> Xi dies and his replacement launches a relationship reset
Among all Chinese leaders from the past and likely to the near future, Xi Jinping is the warmest towards US. He cherished his short stay in Iowa and his daughter graduated from Harvard. I dont think future leaders will share that feeling.
Nope the congressfolks from Ohio and Michigan would never allows that
Anyone know if it's NACS or a proprietary connector?
I read an article recently that said something along the lines of “China is pausing on the idea of a BYD Mexico factory over fears of US stealing their technology.”
Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think?
Update: link to the article I was reading: https://electrek.co/2025/03/19/chinese-authorities-delay-app...
> Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think?
Why is that ironic? The US talks about stealing/preventing others from stealing stuff from them too, not sure why this would be surprising.
That was the irony, that the US accuses China of stealing IP with the assumption that US IP is superior.
Now the tables have turned and China is the country with the superior IP.
Both countries have been accusing each other of stealing technologies since forever, nothing here is new. No tables have been turned, unless you've been sleeping under a rock for the last three decades.
In the context of automotive technology, the tables have absolutely turned. There was nobody anywhere interested in Chinese automotive technology 10 years ago.
What company has better mass market battery technology than BYD? Who else has megawatt fast charging?
BYD sells more vehicles globally than Honda. I think that concept would have been unthinkable to the general public not very long ago.
Western media has been overwhelmingly one sided regarding state led IP theft for the last three decades. China steals western IP has been the story, and it hasn't been even a little balanced until reading this.
China has better execution.
China's aviation, chip, space, and military tech are weaker than those of the West.
Usually it’s better to have the best technology, but at some point execution is better than raw tech.
Does Germany make a better high speed locomotive than China? Maybe they still do.
Which contract is going to be more attractive? I almost guarantee it’ll be China.
Then you look at Chinese AI which is sidestepping the two generation hardware disadvantage with execution: cheaper, more abundant electricity, ASIC data centers, and leaner operations that aren’t so heavily focused on financial games.
So if China attacks Taiwan and NATO intervenes, how Canada will ensure BYD will not remotely brick the charging infrastructure or will not make cars suddenly speed up and crash into oncoming traffic?
We already have US threatening to invade for absolutely no reason while the American people stand by and keeps arguing about the scandal of the day, I think this argument has sailed for Canadians. The US is now a very unreliable business partner, nothing else.
We can get fucked on both sides.
From Canada's perspective, China is willing to cooperate even through conflict, and the US is literally threatening to invade.
Same question, but for Tesla and the proposed US invasion of Canada.
(one of those things which the POTUS says that we're all told shouldn't be taken as serious or real, as if that wasn't a massive disqualification for him)
This will be a logistical challenge for the grid but absolutely fantastic for BYD owners in particular.
> it is now deploying 2.4 times more charging power per month than Tesla adds to its Supercharger network
And this is fantastic for EV owners in general, assuming the charging network is open to all.
> In short, BYD isn’t just shipping cars to Canada – it’s planning to build and operate its own charging infrastructure
They're mastering the "don't build on someone else's foundation" philosophy. Vertical integration is a very powerful tool.
> This will be a logistical challenge for the grid but absolutely fantastic for BYD owners in particular.
Interestingly BYD actually puts batteries next to these chargers that they charge "off peak" to minimise the strain on the grid. So often times cars will actually charge from that battery instead of directly from the grid.
One of the wonders of vertical integration.
> batteries next to these chargers that they charge "off peak"
I don't think that's what they'll do. Charging off peak means being able to store the entirety of the energy demand for the power station in a battery, which is going to be very expensive (assuming 20 cars charge during peak hours every day, that'd mean having to swallow the cost of 20 cars worth of battery per charging station. Good luck getting a good ROI with that).
Instead I think they'll just use the battery so that they never drain the full power of a charge when a car is charging. Drawing a megawatt of current 5% of the time is putting lots of pressure on the local grid, and it can be mitigated by having a battery with the capacity of a car battery that you charge slowly during the whole day (including during peak hour) and discharge fast when a car is charging (for instance, if in average you have 2 cars charging for 5 minutes every hour, you can draw 166kW continuously instead of having bursts of 1MW consumption).
> if in average you have 2 cars charging for 5 minutes every hour, you can draw 166kW continuously instead of having bursts of 1MW consumption)
You definitely need to have that to not load the grid with 1MW, but the question still remains what the capacity of the battery is. A charger that promises a 5 minute 1MW charge BUT which can only do it once per hour and then falls back to 200kW doesn't seem as special as a charger that actually charges a car every five minutes.
It's convenient to get going in 5 minutes. But the time you REALLY want the charger to be quick is when you are third in line to charge at that charger.
I was definitely using simplifying assumptions to get my point straight here.
Setting the actual parameters for such systems is an engineering job, I just wanted to illustrate that the goal isn't going to have the charging station off the grid during peak hours thanks to the batteries, and more about managing the burden you put on the grid.
So do those batteries support fast charging AND fast discharging?
Yes. IIRC they are the same batteries in the cars.
Oh then that's like the battery swap idea but without the swapping!
Generally fast charging has been a much harder nut to crack than fast discharge. If you have fast charging you necessarily have fast discharge in my experience.
Tesla often does this too.
> And this is fantastic for EV owners in general, assuming the charging network is open to all.
Given that the job descriptions seem to include working with local subsidy programs, I sure hope the Canadian government is going to require an open standard or adding more DC chargers under existing standards.
Does anyone know if they have looked at how charging quickly impacts the longevity of the battery? Can the cells be damaged by the rapid increase in temperature and current?
Significant work has been done on the "dendritic" failure mode of electrodes, where crystals grow from one electrode to another and may punch through separator membranes. This has gradually increased cell lifetimes. Now it's all down to temperature. Control-loop monitoring has got a lot better than "shove X amps in there and hope for the best".
Even if it did, this type of rapid charging only happens on long road trips.
I don’t specifically know for this type of battery but I’ve looked at pretty in-depth analysis of smartphone batteries (way less sophisticated battery management tech) and fast versus slow charging made very little lifespan difference. The best mitigations were fewer cycles and keeping the battery in its sweet spot (not discharging to 0% and charging to 100%)
There's been a lot of study into this already and the forming consensus is that fast DC charging is less of an issue on battery longevity than was first thought. In cars with decent thermal management systems it seems to have a fairly limited effect on battery lifetime as opposed to natural calendar aging.
Fast charging appears to damage batteries less than expected. There are lots of reports of taxis which almost exclusively used fast charging with over 200,000 miles on their battery.
Of course that is normal fast charging. Flash charging is 3x or more faster, so that's unknown.
Overall it's less the lone act of moving ions and more the heat that affects battery longevity.
BYD is using, among other methods, a "3D direct refrigerant cooling system", so the batteries are dipped in phase-changing coolant.
Aside from that the cells are pre-warmed and were optimised for lower internal resistance.
Probably a bit but here’s the thing: if charging fast is, well….faster…then people care less if they loose a little extra battery because getting it back is less inconvenient.
There’s a graph i imagine here where slow charging, you want to retain all capacity. Faster it gets, you tolerate more battery loss.
I looked, but didn't find anything. Perhaps it's too early to tell?
Also to Europe.
> The automaker has built over 5,700 Flash Charging stations in China in about a year, and as we reported earlier today, it is now deploying 2.4 times more charging power per month than Tesla adds to its Supercharger network.
Glad to hear this!
I'm against BYD factories unless car parts shipped from china are not heavily tariffed. You don't want to allow them to ship entire kits from china to final assemble in Europe. You want them to buy from providers in Europe. Otherwise I'm in favor of massive tariffs on their cars to avoid dumping.
That’s the exact model they follow in Brasil - they ship over the car without seats or a steering wheel, install them in Brazil with a Chinese labour force, declare it Brazilian made, pay no tariffs on the parts or the final vehicle.
There’s an aspirational goal of at least 50% Brazilian parts, but its currently 0%.
Ban them. Beyond cars is the fact that somehow its ok to buy unregulated chinese made products following no safety standards of the EU on temu, shein, aliexpress etc allowing them to skip all the costs of producing safe consumer goods in the EU. Ban all of them or put a 1000% tariff on all of the items. To long the EU has been followed the financial interests of German industry and their dealings in China. Since that phase is over we should treat China as the hostile power it is and force cuts to trade. Not a single Euro more in trade in than export to China.
There is a huge startup opportunity, steal this idea:
US Governement doesn't allow BYD imports
BUT you can lease a car from Canada for a year in US
So lease BYD a year at a time with Canadian plates, etc. to US drivers
Some US politicians were proposing a total ban on allowing cars of Chinese origin into the US, which is rather extreme. They don't want to risk US nationals seeing them and wanting them.
https://driving.ca/auto-news/driver-info/proposed-us-bill-ta...
Canadian snowbirds drive their cars and RVs into the US all the time all the way down to the southern states
There's just a limit to how long the car can be in the US
So lease for a year at a time from Canada
Musk himself was an illegal Canadian import so hey only fair lol
You see them occasionally in southern California with Mexican plates
There you go, so someone turn that into a frictionless service
Every year you just exchange the car/lease/plate whatever
Once enough people drive $5000 electric cars they will insist politicians allow them officially
Detroit is doomed anyway once 9 out of 10 workers is replaced with "AI" controlled bots
BYD's America containment policy to make Americans drool with jealousy. America will still be home to boring vanilla EVs that looked like it was stuck in the 2010s. BYD has a better chance of entering US market by offering tribute to Trump & Co over an inflexible protectionist / labor union friendly Democratic party.
This is bold considering the uncertainty in the Canadian market right now.
For those not familiar with the situation...
Before Trump 2.0:
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The auto sectors of Canada, U.S. and Mexico were highly integrated with parts and vehicles crossing the border at scale. There wasn't much EV production and the NA auto sector probably wasn't up to competing with the Chinese auto sector on prices, but there were steep tariffs keeping Chinese vehicles out of NA markets and many foreign ones too. The highly integrated nature of the sector was seen, by most, as a competitive advantage.
Trump 2.0:
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Trump wanted vehicles to be manufactured in the U.S., not Canada or Mexico. Because... reasons. He slapped sectoral tariffs (that violate CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC) on cars and parts from Mexico and Canada. His desire seems to be to cut Canada and Mexico out of the NA auto supply chain but somehow still force Canada and Mexico to buy only American, while maintaining tariffs on Chinese autos. It's not exactly easy or quick to just pick up an auto plant and move it, nor is it clear that being inside the U.S. tariff wall is better than being outside of it. These tariffs have mostly just caused the NA auto sector to become really uncompetitive right when people are starting to notice that Chinese autos are offering a lot more bang for the buck.
Canada responds:
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Canada now allows in 49,000 autos to enter the country without facing the former 100% tariff rate. This was in exchange for China lifting tariffs on some Canola products. That's a small fraction of the Canadian auto market, but it's also 49,000 cars that won't be from the U.S. (or Canada). This prompted Trump to suggest that China will not allow Canada to play ice hockey anymore[1]... Hockey aside, this move has sent a message. If Trump does succeed in completely strangling the Canadian auto sector, why would Canada continue to give U.S. autos preferential access to their largest export market?
The uncertainty going forward:
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Is China's foothold in the Canadian market secure? Is it a bargaining chip that might be traded away, or is it permanent? Are trade talks between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico going to go so poorly that the 49,000 number gets upped significantly? China's response to this door cracking open is, evidently, to ram their foot in as fast as they can. A new EV brand or two would likely not make a huge impact in Canada, but a new rapid charging network might make itself indispensable in very short order. It's not like the U.S. has a response for this. Their main EV brand, Tesla, is poison in Canada because of Musk's links to Trump.
[1]https://globalnews.ca/video/11645943/trump-warns-canada-that...
Is “flash” the blinding light the car makes when it bursts into flames?
> throwatdem12311
every time.
No, it is a marketing term relating to the chargers BYD is deploying. According to the article the chargers can charge a car with enough electricity to provide a range of 400km in around 5 minutes. Another separate, but important, factor is that these chargers apparently work very well in winter and can provide a similar charging speed at -20°C.
You must be confused with the Jeep recall where even parked cars just spotaneously catch fire.
It's insane to me how so many people bring up the idea of EVs catching fire when ICE vehicles are constantly having recalls for spontaneously catching fire.
I've had multiple recalls on multiple ICE cars advising me to not park the car near my house. I haven't with my EV.