by gokhan on 3/18/25, 8:21 AM with 198 comments
by Arch-TK on 3/18/25, 9:38 AM
I don't want to spend a shitload of money on an iPhone with wheels which doesn't even come with all the privacy promises apple makes and which is full of dark patterns, subscription models, and proprietary interfaces (talking about apple carplay, android auto, feature allowing you to use spotify, etc. The mere fact the car has these makes me not want to buy it, even though I would never use them. Paying money to have a hardcoded e.g. spotify client in my car is encouraging exactly the wrong design practices.).
by thiago_fm on 3/18/25, 9:12 AM
China is so ahead of the west in EVs, their battery tech, supply chain and also expertise is so amazing.
In China, you can buy even a car with swappable batteries. They are also extremely cheap in comparison to the West.
For people that live in the best Chinese cities and work in a white collar job, it's very cheap as well. Cheaper than it is in America or Europe as the purchase parity there is much higher.
The West needs to drop the "free markets economics" and heavily invest and subsidize EVs, they are the future.
We can't afford to wait 10 years and lag behind so much, China will end up producing all cars in the world and that's millions of well-paid jobs.
Go to Brazil and you'll see how many BYDs are everywhere. China will unfortunately eat the entire third-world car market, which has long been a good line of profit to US/EU car manufacturers.
by kelseydh on 3/18/25, 9:51 AM
For ~$60k you can buy vehicles like the Li Auto L9 that are nicer than a brand new Rolls Royce. The value for price you get blows other manufacturers out of the water.
by internet_points on 3/18/25, 10:41 AM
by chadconway on 3/18/25, 9:05 AM
by bob1029 on 3/18/25, 10:24 AM
Obvious safety concerns aside, I really worry that we are losing perspective on what the grid is capable of and the possibility that distributed technology won't get us to the ideal outcome fast enough.
The power plant nearest to me could only handle ~1000 instances of this kind of charging before it is completely saturated. The transmission (transformer) infrastructure is the biggest bottleneck. Even if Entergy built several additional gigawatts of capacity on their existing site, they'd have no way to deliver it. Tesla would have to install supercharging stations in their switch yard and figure out how to operate at much higher supply voltages.
by feverzsj on 3/18/25, 9:10 AM
[0]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3301053/unus...
by voidUpdate on 3/18/25, 9:18 AM
by ZeroGravitas on 3/18/25, 10:59 AM
Often on HN that statement would mean that someone with relevant technical experience has commented, but not this time.
Instead the comments on a fairly mundane incremental improvement in technology are full of concern trolling, whataboutism, nitpicking and cope.
This suggests to me that people are starting to absorb the information that China is ahead in this area of tech and they are emotionally uncomfortable with that reality.
by reitanuki on 3/18/25, 11:06 AM
by numpad0 on 3/18/25, 9:24 AM
Cutting down charging time to below 1/4th standard Earth hours require material science breakthroughs(hard). While this system might be useful for charging a 4MWh train packs, or a 1MWh semi pack with a not insignificant degradation penalty, this does not accelerate charging for most EV users even if this was to be deployed widely.
by heisenbit on 3/18/25, 10:54 AM
by poisonborz on 3/18/25, 11:55 AM
> peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts (kW)
Who will deliver this in the next decades at scale? In western EU you find 150W poles at most, and that's like 10 stations/120km.
by erk__ on 3/18/25, 10:39 AM
by incompatible on 3/18/25, 9:15 AM
by mansoorsheriff on 3/18/25, 9:05 AM
by Mashimo on 3/18/25, 8:42 AM
by sharpshadow on 3/20/25, 8:15 AM
by nikanj on 3/18/25, 8:40 AM