Europe, for all of its bluster, hasn’t taken a completely hard line against the import of Chinese electric cars and hybrids. The resistance in the United Kingdom has been even weaker. Now that the tariff issue has been temporarily resolved, China’s leading EV automaker has a gambit to pierce the heart of even the toughest skeptic: Soccer.
If soccer doesn’t work, there’s always cheap local production. Stellantis has started manufacturing its first cheap Chinese-designed electric cars in Poland in advance of an expanded rollout later this year. This is possibly one way to avoid tariffs, which are coming to Europe and have resulted in a bit of delicious retaliation from China.
Shifting back to the United States, there was a huge spike in used car sales in May, which I think is more proof of my theory that people simply cannot wait much longer to replace their aging vehicles.
Euro 2024 Tourney Leads To 69% Increase In BYD Searches
When the topic of soccer comes up I tend to remember the old Dave Eggers line about how only communists play sports with their feet. At the very least, communists are happy to pay for Europeans to play sports with their feet.
BYD is an official partner of the Euro 2024 tournament, which is where all of Europe’s soccer teams battle one another. Streaming TV deals, Ted Lasso, Ryan Reynolds, and the success of the USWNT have all conspired to get Americans to care a little more about soccer. This is why some of your friends pretend to be experts in the sport for a couple of weeks every four years.
On the other side of the Atlantic, everyone is an expert and everyone is watching. A record 10 million+ people in the United Kingdom watched Germany kick the ever-lovin’ crap out of Scotland (it’s a shite state of affairs to be in). Data shows both the wanker colonizers and colonized-by-wankers are at least open to the idea of being invaded by Chinese cars.
According to data from Auto Trader UK, traffic on the car sales/research site for BYD vehicles increased by 69% during the weekend, with most buyers interested in the BYD Seal. Here’s what Auto Trader editorial director Erin Banker had to say:
“Our traffic data shows that this tournament is already triggering a step-change in awareness of BYD little more than a year after they entered the UK market. This high-profile media partnership only underlines their ambitions in Europe where they face tough competition from the well-established legacy brands. BYD’s sales are growing rapidly, albeit from a low base, and the Euros partnership has the potential to cement them in the public consciousness.”
It was here I was going to make a joke about pitching cars and soccer pitches, but I can’t quite make it work. Please give me your best soccer/BYD/Euro joke in the comments.
Another quote I like about soccer is the Lewis Black one about how Europe has avoided another continent-wide war by engaging in the far more violent and nationalistic UEFA soccer tournament. The War in Ukraine undermines this a bit, although I think I’d allow a Russian team in the tourney if the Russian army would leave Ukraine. Fair trade?
Leapmotor Is Starting To Produce Its $20,000 EV In Poland
While Stellantis has some screwy plans for North America, the company’s co-venture with Chinese automaker Leapmotor (of which Stellantis is the majority shareholder) makes a lot of sense to me. Chinese firms, for various reasons, got ahead of everyone else at making EVs. Chinese automakers also sell the kind of small, supermini-class electric vehicles that are popular in Europe.
With a large number of plants in Europe, Stellantis has the right footprint to produce Chinese-designed cars locally. In this case, the company’s plant in Tichy, Poland has begun to do some early test production of the intriguing Leapmotor T03. This is a small car (about half a foot shorter than a Mitsubishi Mirage) that should cost around $20,000 when it goes on sale later this year and deliver 145 miles of range on the WLTP city cycle.
Automotive News Europe is reporting that, from a financial performance perspective, localized production works:
Manufacturing costs at the Polish plant amount to around €400 to €500 ($428.08-$535.10) per car, similar to those at Leapmotor’s base in China, versus around €1,000 in Italy, the management said according to Jefferies.
Leapmotor is another one of those Chinese companies facing new tariffs on imported cars, though on the lower end at 21% (plus the 10% on all imports). Building in Europe should, so far as I can tell, help the company avoid the fee. While the supermini might be popular, the company also plans to produce its more Model Y-sized SUV, the A12, in Poland next year.
Forget The Chicken Tax, Here Comes The Pork Tax
While China has mostly shrugged off the new European tariffs, this doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be some form of retaliation. China has already threatened to add a 25% tax on top of large-engined cars from Germany and to punish French cognac producers.
What about the rest of the EU? China might hit them right in the chops:
China has opened an anti-dumping investigation into imported pork and its by-products from the European Union, a step that appears mainly aimed at Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, in response to curbs on its electric vehicle exports.
The investigation announced by China’s commerce ministry on Monday will focus on pork intended for human consumption, such as fresh, cold and frozen whole cuts, as well as pig intestines, bladders and stomachs. The probe will begin on June 17.
The joke here is that the EU did an investigation into Chinese electric cars before pushing tariffs as high as 38% on the country’s automakers.
Retail Used-Vehicle Sales Up 15.9% Month Over Month
The green line on this chart of retailed used car sales shows a massive increase in sales that are way ahead of what we saw last year. What’s going on?
The chart comes from Cox Automotive and here’s what they had to say:
“Following a less-than-spectacular spring selling season, May used-vehicle retail sales rebounded to the highest level so far this year,” said Scott Vanner, senior analyst of Economic and Industry Insights at Cox Automotive. “In fact, used retail sales volume is higher than any month since March 2022, when tax refunds were juicing the market.”
It’s worth noting that March 2022 was an ideal time for used car sales because interest rates were low, people were flush with refund cash/stimulus money, and there were very few new cars available. The fact that we’re close to that number I think shows that there’s still a ton of pent-up demand in the market and, while incentives are up, higher interest rates are making it harder for people to swallow huge car payments.
If I were running a large multinational car company sitting on extra inventory I’d be tempted to lean heavily on financing deals to move cars.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Can I brag a little bit about an old friend? My pal Will Butler wrote the music for a play called “Stereophonic” (go see it!) about a band recording their breakout album. It put Will in the position of having to write a fake ’70s rock album, which sounds super hard! The play won many Tony Awards, including “Best Play” and I’m just super happy for my dude.
Also, it allows me to retell the story of how non-musical I am in a much funnier context. It must have been 9th grade and Will and I were both at a speech and debate tournament in some random Texas suburban high school (Cy Falls?). There was always a ton of downtime between rounds and one can only play so much Egyptian Ratscrew. Knowing that Will was musical I suggested we compose a song together based on a tune in my head.
Will dutifully recorded the notes and played out the tune on the small portable keyboard he carried with him. By the end of the day, I was sure we had a hit on our hands. When the basic song was worked out I asked Will to play it all back for me.
“Why does this sound familiar?”
“It does sound familiar.”
“I think it’s the theme song to Bewitched.”
“Damn, it’s the theme song to Bewitched.”
I gave up songwriting/composing then and there, which the world is surely better for, though I’m glad Will wasn’t so discouraged.
The Big Question
What are your friends saying about buying new/used cars?
“What are your friends saying about buying new/used cars?”
Nothing much. We’re much more preoccupied with our homes/houses… either stuff our houses need, or finding a new place and stuff like that.
I personally have been talking about car insurance and how it impacted my used car buying choices. In my area, for me to insure a used 2014 Tesla Model S that I can buy for around $18K, the insurance will cost CAD$3600/year.
Meanwhile a 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5, which costs more than twice as much and can be even more expensive to fix, only costs only around $2700/year… which makes little sense.
If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might speculate that it’s collusion between the legacy OEMs and the insurance industry.
But I’m not. What I actually think is going on with Tesla insurance rates is a combo of them being ‘high performance vehicles’ along with the insurance industry relying on outdated replacement cost data that is from peak pandemic pricing and not the current reality where used Tesla prices have dropped significantly over the past year or two.
Part of it could just be that the Tesla is considered a luxury sedan while the Ioniq isn’t. Could it also be because of Tesla’s poor service/repair system, which was part of the reason why Hertz’s Tesla experiment failed.
This is only tangentially related to your post, but today I found out that in Florida you don’t need insurance to ride a Vespa, as long as you have health insurance. There is no helmet law as well. Kinda blew my mind.
“Kinda blew my mind.”
Especially if you crash and have a head injury… LOL
soccer/BYD/Euro joke… ok.
Say you’re a BYD executive. Why do you think of soccer every time you’re in the restroom?
Because when you’re in the restroom, European!
Also, if you’re playing Dungeons and Dragons… Bring Your Dice…
“as well as pig intestines, bladders and stomachs.”
Yummy!
I’ve been trying to add a hybrid or EV to the fleet for a long time. I almost pulled the trigger on a Bolt before COVID when they were $9-10k as they appeared a good deal.
Recently they almost dropped down to $10k again, but then the clean vehicle dealer subsidy rebate became point of sale and all dealers instantly added $4k to their asking price. Yes, there is key-savvy, but basically the used prices have inflated so … it’s not the best deal.
And the biggest issue is that the only company repeatedly putting out solid 3 row vehicles that are hybrids is Toyota and their heavily used vehicles are $40k+ somehow.
So yes, I’d like to spend $200 less per month on fuel (I’ve done the math), but the options are pretty limited for a 6 year payoff on that.
I don’t see myself buying a new car any time in the near future. My wife’s 2016 and my 2019 DD are reliable. I am considering putting my 2004 TJ up for sale and using the proceeds for a cheap, old Suburban or something. I have 4 cars right now and 2 of them get the majority of my driving.
Checks out as the “newer” of our two cars turned 10 this week.
That’s all well and good for China until an inevitable wave of swine flu sends domestic pork prices soaring.
Well, we bought one….traded my high mile 2009 MINI Cooper Clubman S for a 2018 Audi Allroad with 14K on it.
My friend who was in the market for a “reliable daily” asked me what to get that was manual, fun, reliable, economical, cheap and RWD. Given his current roster of ancient sports cars, I told him to forget RWD and just get a fuel injected hatchback. The bastard bought a Volvo P1800ES with Bosch D-Jetroinc.
Cars and football are a thing for generations. BYD is trying to dislodge Audi for European soccer advertising. It has a long (Gooooal !?!) way to go for that to happen.
If BYD tried something like that in the US with NFL football commercialization to try replacing the Ford/Chevy truck juggernaut, then I’d start to reconsider our whole world order at that point.
Nothing to do with BYD or Euro 2024, but this is the bestest soccer joke ever:
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/pornhub-pleads-users-to-stop-uploading-videos-of-brazil-getting-f-ked-by-germany-in-the-world-cup-9594287.html
As a person who has been looking at buying, I’ll tell you some of what I’m thinking.
One, I think interest rate concerns are valid, but overblown. Between low/no interest deals, money off, and paying it down early, a smart buyer’s not really in a bad position if they’re a little flexible.
Two, I am not a flexible buyer. I don’t want a grayscale vehicle or something that is as uninteresting as my current vehicle. My car functions, so I’m not going to settle until I find a reasonable deal on something I actually want. Mostly I can find a reasonable deal or something I actually want. Really tempted by a first edition EV6 right now (the only way to get a factory yellow one), but $35,500 is still pretty high, given I could lease a brand new one for very little.
At least I’m not trying to buy a 3 row SUV. That’s a rough market right now.
Three, if you’re looking at EVs, there are lease bargains out there, and that’s the way to go. If you’re careful, you can even find the occasional deal on a PHEV, but those are few and far between.
Four, used vehicles are still not the deal they used to be. You can find some deals, but you have to be careful. We’re not back down to the CPO being the near-automatic value it used to be.
I wonder if at least part of the cast of Stereophonic was selected based on how similar their singing voices sound to Stevie Nicks.
Ew
I can’t think of any friends that are currently in the market. I have a coworker who just bought a new Trax, he got a pretty good price and good financing. I’ve been shopping for months now as I can’t wait much longer to replace one of our aging vehicles. Prices and financing offers have finally reached a place where I guess I’m ready to pull the trigger. I don’t love what I’m seeing, but I can live with what I’m seeing and I kind of need to. Shit’s expensive, but getting a little better.
My brother just bought a car 2 weeks ago, he absolutely detested the experience. The dealer kept messing around with the payment and interest rate, the numbers kept changing on him. He’s already got a refi lined up.
He had held out a long as possible, but his Jetta wagon was literally falling apart. His mechanic finally had to tell him it was a safety hazard, and no way should he drive his kid in that car.
*shrug* I don’t have many friends (cries in corner) and the ones I talk to I don’t talk to about car buying normally I just send them links to hoopties I find on Facebook. Oh since my dad broke his sonic he will be looking for a car in the near future but he is holding out currently due to prices.
“My dad broke his sonic” is a funny sentence.
My car friends are in a much different tax brackets from me, one just a picked up a “play” car that is more expensive than any car I’ve ever owned, lol.
Haha hey if I just sell every vehicle I own I could maybe buy an entry level 911 would it be smart? Probably not. Practical in the Midwest winters? The magic 8 ball says no. Would the fiance leave me for selling all our cars? Possibly? Could I afford the car insurance for it? Maybe? Would I have fun before winter hits and I cannot get to my job anymore because it wouldn’t be able to get out of my rural driveway and roads so I would lose my job? Why yes I would have a a whole hell a lot of fun.
This isn’t really related to buying a new car, but my 2012 Mazda is having an issue with the A/C, so I called up the dealership to schedule an appointment. They informed me they will not work on a car that is older than 10 years. A Google search showed this is not uncommon for many dealerships now. You would think non-warranty work would be welcome, but I guess not.
Wow, first I’ve ever heard of something like that. I’m constantly getting emails to bring my 2009 Outback in for scheduled maintenance work.
I doubt independent mechanics will have such qualms. Probably cheaper too.
I don’t really talk to friends about buying cars. Then again, I don’t really get to talk to my few friends since the joys of life are sucking out our souls leaving us with no real time to talk that much in the first place. I replaced my 13 year old truck with a new one in 2022 that came with an admittedly high monthly payment but 0% interest. Half way to paying that sucker off now. Bought another new SUV, to replace the old one, for family hauling at the same time in 2022. Plan on keeping both as long as possible. I owned the old truck for 10 years, the old SUV for 8.
How on earth did you come up with your username? lol. Jeez, man.
I have no idea. Life’s mystery.
I’m not telling you what to do by any means, but if you aren’t familiar, take some miniscule time to look at the writings of The Stoics. It might help.
Have a great day tomorrow. 🙂
Text a friend today, John.
Ooof, your 2nd sentence hits home. I was just thinking the other day that I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen some of my really good friends. I keep thinking “I’ll have to call so and so to make plans next weekend”, but by the time the weekend rolls around I’m too beat down and tired to wrap my brain around actually going out.
It’s really hard. Having a 4 hour gap after work to cram your entire personal life in every night while trying to get enough sleep is just not enough. The weekends are consumed with house work and errands. Add on kid activities and I don’t really know how people manage to keep up with each other.
Yeah, it’s crazy. Add in a commute and the weekdays are gone in a blink of an eye. I told my mom a few years back, I have no idea how she and my dad did it, I have a hard enough time managing my life being single with a dog.
I’m pushing for a 4-day workweek at work, all my coworkers are on board, but the head honchos in corporate look at us like we have three heads when we mention it.
Everyone is saying that things are too expensive. So they’re holding onto their cars as long as possible.
Personally I’m shopping financing deals on EV’s. The current soft market for full EV’s has made for some pretty good deals. With manufacturers subsidizing interest rates and Uncle Sam sprinkling some government cheese on top, this is a great time to buy an EV.
My wife doesn’t need a new car right now but she really wants an EV (her trip the gas station today set it off) and this soft EV market has us looking around. Sometimes you need to strike when the iron is hot.
Agree, initially I had a reservation for a Blazer EV that I cancelled due to the initial insane price. Few months later they went down in price plus they have great discounts (13K that I qualified) leaving the lease payment around $450 with zero down. This is the RS model, LT are running around $350, the features are great and it’s been pretty reliable so far. I don’t miss CarPlay at all
I’ll throw out another cautionary post in that I’m eyeballing Alpha motors out of Cali. I put a no money reservation for one of their Ace PE trims in the hopes that by the time it’s being produced, I’ll have money for one. Infrastructure and battery tech being in good shape as a condition. They appear to be just on the cusp of starting production of their small two door truck, but I can’t imagine where. Hopefully not by hand themselves or that list of orders won’t be fulfilled until like 2040. If it’s China or adjacent, they can just go ahead and cancel my reservation.
Me TOO!!! I’ve been on their mailing list for years now. I almost dropped loot for the presale reservation of $500, but didn’t. I’ve wanted what they are selling for a long time now, but can’t back them because of the environment around these small electric players.
With that said, it does appear that they are actually approaching this correctly, and I honestly believe that they will ultimately succeed (in that someone will eventually buy them and sell the living fucking shit out of them, cause they are beautiful).
Good luck Alpha motors!!!!!
Chrysler needs to sell the Leapmotor over here.Maybe call it the Dodge Omni.
or as the Dodge Dodgeomni.
Soccer/BYD/Euro joke? Hmm, nothing really comes to mind, except that song “Getta A Bloomin’ Move On (The Self Preservation Society) from the original “The Italian Job” keeps running through my head. Probably because Charlie and his mates dressed up like English football fans and used the massive crowds and traffic to distract from their nefarious doings, much like BYD.
Almost none of our friends are buying or considering buying cars. They’re too goddamn expensive. My parents both bought new cars to replace their aging German money pots last year but they’re in one of the tax brackets that the economy is rigged to benefit. Most of our friends are professionals in their early to mid 30s.
Absolutely no one has a luxury car. Everyone is either riding out their cheap/paid off cars they’ve had for a decade at this point or are enjoying their cheap new ish cars from before the market went bonkers. I can think of only two people who bought in the last two or three years. One couple leased a Model Y, but only because they were the victims of a gnarly accident that totaled their leased CRV Hybrid.
We have another friend who bought a used Tiguan from a rental company. May god have mercy on her soul. Anyway, everyone is tying up their money in property. The overall landscape is a mess but DC is pretty robust market regardless of what’s going on nationally. Most of us bought in 2021-early 2023 before mortgage rates went insane.
There was an initial dip in all of our home values when the Fed went LOL RATES GO UP repeatedly but things have leveled out and depending on measure most of our homes are worth a little more than we paid for them at the moment. I love cars…but they’re just too damn expensive right now, and if you have any sort of functioning asset that you’ve either paid off or have a low interest rate on you’re literally throwing money down the drain if you get out of it for something new right now.
Interest adds up, and quickly. If you have a functioning car, home, etc. that was bought in the before times there’s no reason not to stick with it indefinitely. My wife will need a new/bigger car soon ish and we are waiting it out as long as we can. Why finance a $50,000 car (this is about the average transaction price too!) at 7% interest if you don’t have to? Something isn’t adding up, because cars are selling and the average transaction price is within spitting distance of the median household income in this country. I’m no economist but I don’t think I’m out of my depth in saying that’s not sustainable…
I think a lot of people are choosing cars based on low APR deals if they’re buying right now. There are still some 0% interest deals if you’re flexible on the vehicle.
Which tells us one (or more) of four things:
Lower income people aren’t buying, cutting down on the low-end purchases (likely true in many instances).
Higher income people are buying expensive vehicles, driving up the average (Hummer EV, Cybertruck, fancy pickups, Escalades, and who knows what else support this somewhat).
The folks who need a car and are lower income are ending up in a financial hard place (usually true, probably even more true than usual right now).
Lower-value vehicle sales are occurring mostly on the private market, keeping them out of the market (unlikely to have changed that much–people who feel better buying at a dealership or who need financing aren’t likely to suddenly flock to private sales).
Edit: one more option is leases. If people are switching to leasing, it’s possible that they are getting more expensive vehicles because they’re basing their choice on payment, rather than total vehicle price. I think this one’s unlikely, too, but I could see people choosing to lease more with interest rates higher than they were.
When TMD had a bit about average transaction price last week, I tried to see if I could find anyone who published the median transaction price. I’d really be interested to see what that is, but couldn’t find anything. Granted I only searched a few minutes. Averages can so easily be brought up by a few high numbers and it could easily be the case that less luxury car sales are driving up the average.
Yeah, I can’t find anywhere reporting median, either. I found a couple reddit posts speculating on the median, but that’s no help.
A couple that recently purchased are saying they’re going to recruit me to help with their next one because they felt like they didn’t get a good deal.
Those who aren’t looking mostly say nothing or ask about what I’m looking at buying.
Those who are currently looking mostly seem disheartened that prices are still higher than they used to be.
I’ve got a pickup listed for sale right now and the offers I’ve had are mostly attempts to trade smaller pickups with similar/more mileage and lower trims. I sort of take that as an indication that people recognize they aren’t getting the money from selling/trading they would have at the height of the market and they’re hoping to get that value via private trades.
A BYD soccer joke, you say? Well, I suppose it’s not quite a joke, but the first and most important rule in soccer/Football is “No Hands”. With that in mind, one could go with BYD as an acronym for “Bugger Your Digits”.
Although, now that I think about it, I’m not sure the acronym is all that necessary for the Uyghurs, seeing as how that’s the bread and butter punishment for disobeying anything.
Happy Monday, Western World! 😉
No hands except the goalies and throw-ins.
None of the rules are as simple as they seem, which adds an extra layer of tedium to a game which, if it’s a good one, will maybe have something actually happen once every half hour.
90 minute games where neither team scores are common.
Imagine watching that.
Imagine getting on a bus to travel across a continent to stand in the rain to watch that.
It’s not as dull as cricket though. I’m not sure what else is.
“You bought a what? Yes, of course you did.”
What are your friends saying about buying new/used cars? “The rent is too damn high!”