BYD Atto3

Western companies have more expensive overheads. Like wages, staff welfare , health and safety, environmental protection etc.

there’s a reason why things coming from China are cheaper

Can you blame them? They had a nice profitable business model before

Now they are building things nobody asked for and governments are forcing us into them by banning ICE over nonsense emissions, which they make tighter every year and newsflash affordable EV's are not possible, not for EV's you'd like to drive anyway like 500km range, 40 min full charge.

Replacing a petrol tank that can do 500km and engine costs about 15-20k on it's own, the cost to make an EV is crazy, 70kWh battery, inverter, controller, high performance electric motor, dc charger, charge port etc ain't cheap and for somewhere like Ireland getting our forests back would be much environmentally

hmm... I'm going on what Gumbo said, which is that its €37k+€2k so as good as €40k OTR for the entry level model.

An ID.3 entry level is also in or around that price.... give or take a few thousand.

So, the Atto3 is cheaper and it might have a few other bits of spec that make it more appealing to an individual but its swings and roundabouts really as the ID.3 has things the entry level Atto3 doesn't have (3-phase AC, faster DC charging etc) so its a bit of a muchness really and since there is only a few €k between them its not going to shake up the market that much.... its just another competitor.

I think people were thinking that when "the Chinese" got here with their BEV's they would be alot cheaper.... that's clearly not the case.

They will provide more choice and more competition and that's a good thing.

I had a sit inside Atto design today. Spec is very good. Overall I was impressed with look and feel of the interior. The seats are better than the MG4, not much lumbar support though. It's undoubtedly worth the small premium over a MG4 exclusive for all the extra spec and the brighter interior. Rear passenger space is decent.

One thing that would annoy me is the sunroof glass shade closes when the car is off, the salesman said this was to reduce the heat on hot days. No frunk. The infotainment screen was fairly responsive but nowhere near as good as tesla. Sound system is decent when you turn on the 3D sound option. There's no preheating option for fast charging.

The air conditioning system is the noisiest I have ever come across. Anything above level 2 causes a strange whirring noise from the dumbell inspired vents - I don't understand how it passed quality control.

Battery warranty is 8 years or 200k kilometres. Electric motor warranty is 6 years which doesn't inspire much confidence for secondhand buyers, it should be the same as the battery warranty at least.

They have no trade plate atm so couldn't test drive. I'll give it a go next week just for the experience.

Would I buy one over a Model 3? No, but I understand why someone would buy one due to the ride height and it being a hatch.

True but the argument is that they aren't shaking up the market coming here with their sub 40k EVs. But I'd make the case that having more sub 40K options helped convince Elon to drop the price of the Model 3 to 40K.

Fair point. I thought it was smaller than it actually is. Comparing the dimensions its a little smaller/shorter than the ID.4 and obviously bigger than the ID.3 so it sits between the two but obviously competing with the ID.4 and Model Y, as you said.

So, the price gap is ~€6k then. The ID.4 and Model Y charge ALOT quicker (AC and DC) and have significantly more range. Two rather important things for an EV.

I suppose some will still jump at the Atto3 simply because of the €6k and not care (or maybe realise) about the negatives. I wont knock it, we need more competition to start driving prices down.

They have been making EV batteries for years. So the one company making the car and the battery means they can pump them out very quickly.

They started making batteries in 1995 and cars in 2003 so not like they appeared out of nowhere. A 20 year overnight success. Warren Buffets company owns a 10% share of BYD so I'd assume that helps to take on a more global market reach. They are on track to be the biggest EV car manufacturer in 2023.

One of the things I like is their blade battery technology doesn't use cobalt so that offsets some of the human misery involved in building EVs.

warren Buffet isa big investor and when BYD give EV figures it includes. PHEV and BEV

they were responsible for me being made redundant around 2001. I was a R&D engineer designing batteries and charging circuits for Motorola but they decided to just outsource it to BYD.

I’ll never drive one 😂

What ICE vehicles do they compete against?

Indeed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120528053/#Comment_120528053

they were responsible for me being made redundant around 2001. I was a R&D engineer designing batteries and charging circuits for Motorola but they decided to just outsource it to BYD.

I’ll never drive one 😂

So because of something that happened over 20 years ago you still hold a gruge against them when it was not there fault at all it was your management's fault.

Move on and grow up.

Its not good to hold gruges like that.

Ooofff let the man bear a grudge if he wants to would ya... although I think his "grudge" was a tongue in cheek one anyway...