My NY Times Op-Ed: BYD, China & America
"The company embodies a Chinese industrial model that is leaving America in the dust."
You’ve probably heard of BYD.
A middling player in the auto industry just a few years ago, the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD surpassed Tesla last year to become the world’s top-selling E.V. brand and is expected to pull with the world’s biggest carmakers, Toyota and Volkswagen, by 2030.
Yet most Americans have never even seen a BYD and probably won’t anytime soon.
BYD, which stands for “Build Your Dreams,” is essentially banned from American roads by tariffs, imposed to protect U.S. automakers, that double the price of imported Chinese plug-ins.
Erecting tariff walls may buy the domestic auto industry some time, but it ultimately won't insulate American manufacturers from BYD or the bigger threat that it represents.
Read the complete NYT piece here:
Tariffs built the European, and, to a greater extent, the Asian, automakers after WWII.
So did unfettered access to the US market.
While the US will never have unfettered access to China, Trump is opening up other markets, and the US tariffs will keep Chinese predatory dumping from destroying US automakers. I’m not as pessimistic as Mr. Dunne. GM, Ford may never again become global powerhouses, but they can thrive in the US.
I'm jealous of the New York Times slot, but kudos, great op-ed. Your analysis of China’s vertical integration in electric vehicles is spot-on. I’m curious though: do you see potential in the opposite direction? In regions like Guangdong, it’s possible to source rolling chassis in small batches and layer in batteries, powertrains, bodies, and software from different vendors to do systems integration of a modular architecture.
Xiaomi’s quick time to market with the SU7 shows what can happen when that kind of agile system integration meets modular sourcing. Might this business model offer a strategic edge for smaller players—or even nations—seeking to restore innovation and supply chain diversity in the face of China’s strong supply chains and vertically integrated giants like BYD?