BYD overtook Tesla as the world’s top seller of electric vehicles (EV) at the end of last year, crowning an extraordinary rise for the Chinese carmaker.
It delivered more fully electric cars than Tesla for the first time in the three-month period to December 31, and slashed the sales lead held by Elon Musk’s company over the year as a whole.
So how did a little-known Chinese battery maker grow so quickly to become Tesla’s biggest rival?
From what I understand, it’s safety regulations in the US preventing it. However, regulations in the EU are more likely to be able to see the BYD cars imported.
So, the US government is at a stagnant stand-still where they can’t get anything done and it’s been that way for about a decade now. Further, Republicans screech bloody murder about anything related to China. They wanted to ban Tik Tok but American companies stealing data is totally fine. US government putting backdoors into electronics is fine, it’s just bad when China does it. It’s not like the NSA has an entire wing dedicated to intercepting packages and inserting physical taps before the electronics even make it to customers doorsteps.
The point being, don’t expect US regulations to get worked on positively for allowing these kind of imports any time in the near future. US government is fucking broken and some folks in politics want it to be that way, because it gives one party carte blanche to sell the idea of authoritarianism as a solution.