1.
China’s Electric Vehicles Are Going to Hit Detroit Like a Wrecking Ball
The biggest threat to the Big Three comes from a new crop of Chinese automakers, especially BYD, which specialize in producing plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicles. BYD’s growth is astounding: It sold three million electrified vehicles last year, more than any other company, and it now has enough production capacity in China to manufacture four million cars a year. But that isn’t enough: It’s building new factories in Brazil, Thailand, Hungary and Uzbekistan, which will produce even more cars, and it may soon add Indonesia and Mexico to that list. A deluge of electric vehicles is coming.
BYD’s cars deliver great value at prices that beat anything coming out of the West. Earlier this month, BYD unveiled a plug-in hybrid that gets decent all-electric range and will retail for just over $11,000. How can it do that? Like other Chinese manufacturers, BYD benefits from its home country’s lower labor costs, but this explains only some of its success. The fact is that BYD — and Chinese automakers like Geely, which owns Volvo Cars and Polestar brands — are very good at making cars. They have leveraged China’s dominance of the battery industry and automated production lines to create a juggernaut.
2.
After Insta reels, YouTube shorts and TikTok videos, now comes 2 min soap operas
In the past few years, short dramas have become hugely popular in China. They often span nearly a hundred episodes, but since each episode is only one or two minutes long, the whole series is no longer than a traditional movie. The most successful domestic productions make tens of millions of dollars in a few days. The entire market of short dramas in China was worth over $5 billion in 2023.
These short dramas prioritize quick, oversimplified stories of love, wealth, betrayal, and revenge, sometimes featuring mythical creatures like vampires and werewolves.
Thought of the Week
“It doesn’t take much to convince us that we are smart and healthy, but it takes a lot of facts to convince us of the opposite.” – Dan Gilbert
“The greater the ignorance, the greater the dogmatism.” – William Osler
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