“There are Chinese vehicles at every price point, from the very lowest, around $20,000, almost all the way up. And what I think they are selling is affordable luxury. Even at the lowest price point, you're getting features and quality that you really don't see in cars that might cost a third more, sometimes twice as much. It's not that they have magic cars, it's just that they're delivering so much value.”
sputnikintelligence.com
The columnist had test-driven Chinese EVs in Mexico, where Chinese brands now hold a large share of car sales. Asked what he thought of the cars, this was his verdict on why they are winning.
…15% of the cars now being sold in Mexico are actually Chinese brands. And Chinese brands have about a 90% share of the EVs in the country. And so Americans are just not really making the cars that Mexicans are buying in terms of electric vehicles and even increasingly just conventional vehicles.
Let's talk qualitative here. You drove a bunch of them, generally speaking. What'd you think?
So what's fascinating is that there are Chinese vehicles at every price point from the very lowest, around $20,000, you know, almost all the way up. And what I think they are selling is affordable luxury. So even at the lowest price point, you're getting sort of features and quality that you really don't see at cars that might cost a third more, sometimes twice as much. And so overall, I was very impressed. It's not that they have magic cars, it's just that they're delivering so much value.
Let's talk about Detroit here for a second because they started in on EVs and then the Trump administration came in and got rid of a lot of incentives and changed its overall policy. And now, you know, they're backing away like it's on fire.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, so, you know, the big three and American car makers in general were making a huge bet. And the bet was that the world is going to electrify and we need to be in that race. Now, unfortunately, they were right about the bet. It is electrifying. In fact, the first half of…
You had to go to Mexico to write this piece because you can't get a Chinese-made EV in this country. That can't possibly stand, right? I mean, it's going to happen that they're going to come into this country somehow.