China's EV State and Plastic-Wrapped Produce
Some notes & quotes from recent reads:
The Electric Vehicle Developmental State
Quotes:
BYD is also increasingly active in the “downstream” part of the car industry, namely sales and service. It has recently entered the shipping sector with BYD Explorer 1, a Ro-Ro vessel able to transport 5,000 cars, which is expected to be the first of an expanding fleet, guaranteeing BYD better control of the delivery of its products. Like the Fordist model, BYD’s vertically integrated strategy is labor intensive. The company’s employees have doubled in just two years, reaching 570,000 workers in 2023 (just under Volkswagen’s 670,000 and significantly above Toyota’s 370,000). Bucking the Japanese model of highly automated production involving expensive machinery, BYD has instead long relied on comparatively cheap manual workers performing a myriad of small tasks. Such lower “capital intensity” has thus far proven an excellent recipe for expanding revenues and profits—but this may change as labor costs rise due to competition between automotive companies.
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