Chinese EV makers won’t get subsidies from Mexico after US pressure

Mexico has offered generous incentives for automakers in the past.

See full article...

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

https://markets.businessinsider.com...tt-berkshire-hathaway-china-ev-munger-2023-11
Per that, Buffett invested in BYD a long time ago (2008) and "Buffett rarely sells a stock without a compelling reason, as doing so can incur taxes, and he takes pride in owning companies for the long run."

In 2008, Buffet bought a 25% share of BYD's stock. Mid-2022, nothing sold, so still 25%. Then he sold off a bunch over the following year or so and is at 8%. Business Insider speculates that it is possible it was political, but as far as I know Buffet hasn't given any specifics.

Or just portfolio rebalancing. He was up something like 20x, probably sold at an average of somewhere around $65/share, up from around $3/share. And his timing was good - BYD is now $51.

 

[m0nckywrench]

Why won't Canada be seeing those? We don't see to be anything near as worried about BYD as the US is.

Canada having no serious geopolitical differences with the CCP why shouldn't it import them or even negotiate manufacturing? The US would be harder put to interdict Canadian exports and Canada already makes a large volume of automotive parts. More middle class jobs cannot hurt and greater BEV market penetration may help defang support for petroleum extraction.

The US has geopolitical reasons to compete with Beijing but Canada, freed by geography, can do business with anyone.

 

[rabby]

Simple math. Even BYD does not get subsidization, its car is still way cheaper and good enough. And you know what, in China BYD is not a low price brand. There are less famous local brands producing even cheaper EV in China.

 

[rosen380]

Or just portfolio rebalancing. He was up something like 20x, probably sold at an average of somewhere around $65/share, up from around $3/share. And his timing was good - BYD is now $51.

But I think that is the sort of thing he basically never does.

Apple, BoA, AmEx and coke, account for about ~68% of Berkshire's holdings. If he's not rebalancing due to four companies that make up over two-thirds of the value of the portfolio, I think rebalancing isn't the likely answer for BYD, which made up about 2-3% at it's peak.

 

[cerberusTI]

Or just portfolio rebalancing. He was up something like 20x, probably sold at an average of somewhere around $65/share, up from around $3/share. And his timing was good - BYD is now $51.

That article notes that he basically said it shot up a ton, and he thought there were better places to put the money. It made its jump, and executing on the expectations which led to it is going to be hard. That does make sense.

It looks like he sold TSMC as well, which lends support to the idea he does not like where he sees the world heading in general, and this is partially about political and war risk. It could all be part of that decision.

It is a relatively well monitored corporation from a financial perspective regardless though, they have major international investors who should be paying attention.

 

[m0nckywrench]

Russia says blyat.

Russia didn't have anything noteworthy to lose on the car end and Kamaz does nicely in its truck niche.

The British auto and motorcycle industries OTOH so famously destroyed themselves by relentless, spectacular management incompetence it's still studied.

 

[James_G]

Anecdotal videos of fires are irrelevant. Statistics are what matters. Last I checked (in the US) - an ICE was more than 10x as likely to catch on fire when compared to a BEV. It's so common that it's not news unless someone dies, and sometimes not even then.

In China anecdotal is the best you get since true numbers are covered up, it's telling though that BYD EVs are banned from many parking lots. It's not a problem with EVs in general, it's a problem with Chinese EVs that are built to lower standards. Before all this hubbub about exporting their poorly-built EVs, China set up a Euro NCAP facility in the country. You can rest assured the testing is not up to European standards.