Mastodawn

Rogan Dawes 8h ago

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸

“Wang Chuanfu, BYD’s CEO, barely slept for weeks. Three passengers, all in their twenties. His chemistry. His cell. His company’s name on the casing. He had not built it to kill anyone, but it had. He pulled his engineers together with one question: What is the mechanism by which this cell fails, and how do we make that physically impossible”

Someone needs to get this article in front of Mark Carney and Doug Ford and then the stupid limits on Chinese cars need to be eliminated so Canada can start building these things immediately.

This is the future.

China is leading that future and we need to come to terms with it and use our influence to make it, and them, better.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91519302/byd-nail-test-why-this-54-billion-innovation-is-terrifying-western-auto-executives?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
#climateEmergency #climatechange #byd #china #canada #canpoli

The Nail Test: Why this $54 billion innovation is terrifying Western auto executives

The practice of reproducing failure on purpose until the physics revealed itself became the bedrock of BYD’s entire operation.

Fast Company

@chris oh yeah, lithium iron phosphate and lithium titanate battery cells are remarkably boring - you can't make them go FWOOMP.

Lithium titanate will probably not make it as an EV battery due to low energy density (though it may remain an option for short-range, opportunity-charging things like transit vehicles!). LiFePO4 is ready to rock in common EV applications. What's odd is seeing that more EV manufacturers aren't using it

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸23h ago

@vxo i can only speculate that it is a supply chain issue

@chris I think it's just the challenge of making it in a competitive energy density to keep the range comparable with cars using ICR lithium-ion cells that do have the Surprise Self-Oxidizing Blowtorch failure mode. LiFePO4 does have lower energy density for comparably manufactured cells

@chris I could still be surprised by it actually being a supply chain thing... I thought the only real raw material challenge was the lithium and that's common to both sets of chemistries, but I admittedly haven't been following news on EV cell development as much as I've been watching it with regard to things useful for offgrid solar/wind energy storage where big heavy battery banks are not a disadvantage

Nicole Parsons 15h ago

Like the financialization of slavery, as described in Banking on Slavery by Sharon Ann Murphy, the fossil fuel industry's finances & politics are as deeply entrenched.

We still live with the legacy of slavery on behalf of the Epstein Class nearly 200 years later.

Disentangling the fossil fuel industry is equally daunting.

The oil industry amplifies each difficulty of the EV industry & is relentless in its payoffs to political parties & business leadership.

Malign influence.

One of the issues is new technology.

Solid-state batteries is one tantalizing edge. Another is a substantial change away from silicon.

And many of the break-throughs are patented by fossil fuel industry. And no, they are not letting anyone develop them.

So the current bleading edge is literally patenting ways to work around the newly claimed patents.

Zazzoo 🇨🇦22h ago

@chris An innovative take on batteries that makes them safer, an alternate view on electric vehicles from a country that understands the importance of sustainability. BYD cars look interesting and I can't wait to see one in the wild - and other manufacturers' - available as alternatives to the F-150 Lightnings or Tesla iPhones-on-wheels 'domestic' manufacturers think we all crave.

But eyes wide open. The issue with China has always been in their treatment of labour. This article gives me visions of nets mounted to the exterior walls of factories.

Human + Fixture = Robot

Robots are not only used to replace the cost of human lavour - sometimes they're used to remove humans from dangerous environments.

Electrode material was being ladled out of vats with kitchen spoons. Workers in rubber gloves operated machines that looked like repurposed sewing equipment.

Plus this article reads like an ode to Wang Chuanfu who clearly sees himself as the next Elon Musk, moving fast and breaking things.

Just my 2p.

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸21h ago

@zazzoo totally agree. That is why we have to lean in as Canadians. The fact is China is the leader and we must learn from a tech and manufacturing perspective, but we also must find ways to influence and impact that country so that the conditions of all workers, not just those in these high tech spaces, are safe and treated as workers should be treated.

Too long we have been using China as our cheap work shop and hypocritically lambasting them for the way they treat workers and claiming they produce “cheap stuff”. Yet here we are buying it for 40 years.

We need to turn that on its head, grow up, and work *with* them. Form real partnerships that can then demand and improve the working conditions and human rights.

Human 3500 21h ago

@chris @zazzoo We shouldn't ignore that the US has plenty of questionable labour as well. Illegal workers power the hospitality, and landscaping industries especially in the south.

I am not really sure how widespread prison labour is in the US, but I expect that there is quite a bit (to replace slavery).

Carolyn 21h ago

@human3500 @chris @zazzoo And prison labour.

Zazzoo 🇨🇦19h ago

@human3500 @chris Very true. Their hungry for-profit prison system that pushes for incarceration as source of enslaved labour, combined with inmates' disenfranchisement from the political system is probably the largest-scale human rights abuse in the US.

Well said.

My sibling has one of their cars (over 2 years now) and absolutely loves it.

numanumayey 21h ago

i agree, the treatment of labor in china is still a problem, BUT...

>Plus this article reads like an ode to Wang Chuanfu who clearly sees himself as the next Elon Musk, moving fast and breaking things.

...i will say there is a marked difference between wang, an engineer with a master's degree in metallurgical physical chemistry, who paid his dues and actually did prior engineering jobs in a field that's actually RELEVANT to EV manufacturing, and musk, a wealthy playboy and finance bro who LARPs as an engineer, does ketamine on the regular, and was on pewdiepie's meme review back in 2019.

(i shit you not, that last one actually happened, and i am quite happy to supply the link if you're interested)

also everyone forgets that tesla wasn't actually founded by musk, but by eberhard (M.S. in electrical engineering) and penning (B.A. in computer science), both men with engineering skills who were ousted by musk in a series A round of funding.

if eberhard and penning were still running tesla, perhaps wang would actually have some competent competition to deal with.

i think the real takeaway from this article here is that we need more people in charge with actual professional experience in the field the business actually works in, as opposed to parachuting in MBAs from god knows where.

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸21h ago

@breathOfLife @zazzoo 💯

Zazzoo 🇨🇦19h ago

@breathOfLife @chris That's all fair, but I was speaking less about specifics of their education/background than their approach to business. Just based on this article, Wang appears to be a move-fast-and-break-things disrupter.

Luke Kanies 16h ago

@zazzoo @breathOfLife @chris where do you get that? He seems incredibly methodical, and incredibly patient. There’s none of zuckerberg’s get rich quick shit going on.

MattChippytea 18h ago

@zazzoo @chris he sounds more like a move fast and fix things… moving fast is always a risk, and not always the best course of action but western, especially American, manufacturing has far too much form for not moving at all, not changing anything and happily continuing to produce known dangerous products.

What an amazing story. I had no idea. I'll be looking a little closer at BYD from now on.

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸19h ago

@gsymon it is a really well written article isn’t it!?

Well... I read the entire thing. Word by word. That doesn't happen often these days. 😊

Wraithe 18h ago

@gsymon @chris The funny thing about it is how strongly it’s based on fundamentals. “Do a good job. Make it work. No, really work.”

Jack Yan (甄爵恩)18h ago

@chris Amazing story. Perhaps unsurprisingly, BYD overtook Ford last year in units sold. Geely overtook Honda and is just behind Ford.

https://autocade.world/2026/02/top-10-car-makers-by-sales-2025/

Top 10 car makers by sales, 2025

These are official figures from the manufacturers, not made-up ones that certain other websites and "AI" are claiming.

Autocade World

@chris "Do not settle for a plausible explanation. Demand a reproducible one."

Heck yes.

3Jane Tessier Ashpool 15h ago

@chris wow. This is exciting.