The China Thread

[Read_Lives_of_Saints]

If you want real information about a serious topic like the car industry in China, go to someone who covers the car industry, not propagandists whose entire agenda is to bash China, typically Chinese expats with first names like "Miles" or "Byron".

Here's the scoop on BYD's January sales drop from "Electric Viking" an Australian car market specialist and politically neutral source:

He confirms the sales figures and emphasizes that BYD has increased its exports to nearly half of its total as evidence of wise diversification that has significant overall costs short-term. He says that Geely's sales did not suffer the way BYD's did and so the excuse of the market being the main reason for BYD's Jan. 2026 drop compared to Jan. 2025 is not viable.

However, he said that the Chinese New Year is what affected the Jan. 2025 vs Jan. 2026 sales drop of 30% year-on-year decline because production shuts down for one or two weeks during Chinese New Year. This does not make sense to me because the Chinese New Year in 2025 was Jan. 29, so it would have had the largest impact possible on those 2025 sales figures, but the Chinese New Year for 2026 is upcoming on Feb. 17, so I would think that it affects February 2026 sales figures much more than Jan., unless I'm getting this all wrong.

 

[Caduceus]

I'm looking back at this post and the last and you incorporated a lot of different offhanded comments about lacking visitors and so forth so I thought that was the core of your argument so I was reactively responding to that because thats actually not the reality with record people traveling from HK to Shenzhen every weekend here. I apologize.

I see your posts now and now realize its about WeChat and the onboarding process. There are services that help first time travelers (I usually recommend this to friends traveling in - https://www.trip.com/moments/detail/hong-kong-38-139780811/).

I have my WeChat connected to my Hong Kong Bank Account and it debits for me when I make a transaction. As for criticisms, its really the way China was developed over the past few years. When in Rome. You could carry cash as backup and vendors have to legally accept it but unfortunately, you'll need to onboard to ease your travels in. Its a shame that yourself and other visitors are scared away by it but there are services online that'll guide you.

Thank you for the apology.

With regard to the obligation to use Chinese smartphone smartphone apps to pay for everything in mainland China...the main issue is NOT difficulty using them (although many foreigners have this problem when arriving) but the fact that you have to upload a picture of your passport to use the app and then the Chinese government knows every single thing you pay for, and can instantly block your account for any reason without telling you. Most foreigners are not happy granting that much invasion into their daily personal financial affairs, and certainly do not want to give the government absolute power to suddenly shut off the only form of personal commerce, essentially leaving you without means to pay for anything.

 

[Cooper]

He confirms the sales figures and emphasizes that BYD has increased its exports to nearly half of its total as evidence of wise diversification that has significant overall costs short-term. He says that Geely's sales did not suffer the way BYD's did and so the excuse of the market being the main reason for BYD's Jan. 2026 drop compared to Jan. 2025 is not viable.

However, he said that the Chinese New Year is what affected the Jan. 2025 vs Jan. 2026 sales drop of 30% year-on-year decline because production shuts down for one or two weeks during Chinese New Year. This does not make sense to me because the Chinese New Year in 2025 was Jan. 29, so it would have had the largest impact possible on those 2025 sales figures, but the Chinese New Year for 2026 is upcoming on Feb. 17, so I would think that it affects February 2026 sales figures much more than Jan., unless I'm getting this all wrong.

Reduction in domestic subsidies might have been a bigger factor. I guess we will find out in the months to come if the BYD and Chinese EV doomer narrative has any legs at all. I am pretty sure it doesn't, and don't expect the doomers to own up to their propaganda when their goyslop storyboarding collapses like an Indian bridge.

 

[Read_Lives_of_Saints]

Reduction in domestic subsidies might have been a bigger factor. I guess we will find out in the months to come if the BYD and Chinese EV doomer narrative has any legs at all. I am pretty sure it doesn't, and don't expect the doomers to own up to their propaganda when their goyslop storyboarding collapses like an Indian bridge.

I don't care for the doomer perspective either, but sometimes I am irritated (disproportionately, I admit) by what I perceive as general ignorance of Chinese culture by analysts and reviewers.

I was glancing at Electric Viking's YT channel and it seems he puts out a few videos per day, so his overlooking of this glaring mistake of blaming the sales decline on the Chinese New Year is understandable, but tends to indicate his limitations on analysis of China.

It sounds like he was fed a line regarding the Chinese New Year and he regurgitated it without understanding the meaning. I could be wrong and he's an Old China Hand or whatever, but to me this is almost as much of a bias as I would say was in the video about BYD that I posted by Ken-Cao, who is a "China crash imminent" youtuber, from what I can tell.

However, Ken-Cao's claim about BYD 0 KM "used" cars is, IMO, much more relevant to the sales figures than anything the Electric Viking reported, considering that they both mentioned the reduction in Chinese govt EV subsidies.

 

[Cooper]