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Absolutely phenomenal analysis, you're really making this stuff accessible for the layperson.

Interest rates as temperature is a brilliant metaphor

boycott all USA Brands

WOW!! This helped me like no other video I have ever seen! What a masterpiece

I've been working with LFPs and the SoC-voltage behavior is an absolute nightmare. If you give someone an LFP battery and ask them to determine its SoC based on the voltage without charging or discharging it and the voltage is let's say 3.35V, the uncertainty is like 50 SoC percentage points. It's ridiculous and it takes a lot of effort to get around this in a usage pattern where you don't reach the high or low SoC points to reset your coulomb counting.

BYD should make cars in the US. Detroit is now way behind in technology, it has to learn and catch up. The best way is to invite BYD.

I am a Chinese audience. BYD's latest product, called BYD-qin-L (exact English name unknown), is a hybrid model with a 17 gallon fuel tank that can travel up to 2000km on full gasoline. It was released two days ago. There have been many Chinese drivers test driving, and there is no exaggeration. I believe this is the biggest challenge for Tesla. The most important thing is that the price is only 100000 RMB, which is equivalent to 13500 US dollars.how do you think?

BYD majority shareholders are mostly US companies. 😂😂😂

Solid sodium ion battery is indeed the future.

Doesn’t matter which is better. We still need more charging stations in the US. For every 3 gas station in the US, one needs to add a super charger.

I can’t wait to buy here in the US

If BYD sucks in quality by your analysis, Why was taxed with 100% in the US? If you look the prices in Europe aren't ship are at the same range of others automakers.

Good details. Intersting

There was a time when the TV makers in many countries made different and unique standards to protect domestic production. With mobile phones they tried this too with SMS starting in Sweden. Japan had their own system. Canada made one for them large coverage needs. The French invented a steam car, the Germans started not only the volatile fuel with their Otto engines but Rudolf Diesel did it with oil. VW made peoples cars, France built comfort cars. Italy built fast ones. Japan emerged as a car building nation. Korea is now a brute force both in combustion and EV. VW made their money in China. Malaysia had a go with Proton. India needed partners but now will emerge as the new cheap labor and smart people production land. Biden put a 100% subsidy onto Chinese cars and they are still cheaper. Hey there is Vinfast from Vietnam. If the Taiwan issue blows then Musk can kiss his factories in China goodbye. They got his technology, who cares if they have to build a larger engine management computer because their chip technology is a bit behind?

Awesome video as usual Jordan! Thanks!

care to do a touch-up on this? since tesla is kinda shaky lately and qs bringing out new data, the whole think might be looking slightly different? I think some of your valid points could be annihilated in a hype. Like tesla, they could massively extend production capabilities simply because they got hyped like crazy, right? making batteries so cheap.

The price of Chinese vehicles inside and outside China are not the same. In Mauritius the BYD Seal is equivalent to 60KUSD!!! In my country BEV are more from BMW, Porsche, Kia, Hyundai, Mercedes, BYD and MG. Tesla is considered unreliable and difficult to fix with no aftersales support.

To me, I trust Tesla to make a vehicle that won't kill me. I expect Chinese manufacturers to cut every corner possible. Certainly Tesla will innovate an try to reduce production costs and time, but they are very much aware they can be sued, and the designers likely drive the vehicle.

Hi, I’m currently doing research related to the lithium ion battery. First of all, thanks you very much for providing this video online, this is a great introductory resource to understand what happen inside the LIB. I have a question that I cannot find the answer of: as the ionization energy of Li ion inside LiC6 is positive, it will require an activation energy to remove the Li from LiC6. I understand that the energy stored inside the bond (or chemical potential) between Li and C6 is less than the one between Li and (in this case) CoO2; therefore the net energy received is still exothermic. however, we need a activation energy for Li to give up its electrons, and as mentioned the electron will flow through the wire, so there must have surface charge and electric field formed in the wire to propel the electrons. Therefore, what is causing the electron to leave Li at the first place? After reading your comment section, you mentioned that it is because the cathode is starve of electron, so I’ll assume is that once the pass-way is connected, the electrons reacted with the Li in the electrolyte to form the intercalation reaction, which means there’s is a lack of negative charge locally, which cause the surface charge on the wire to form and propagate toward the anode to provide the activation energy. However, as the intercalation is driven by local electrical attraction induce on both particles, and as the cathode is neutrally charged at the initial state of discharge, so for intercalation to happen we need excess electron on the cathode lattice to attract the Li ion floating in the electrolyte and strong enough to fight over the ion dipole intermolecular force between the Li ion and the solvents. Therefore although we know that cathode lattice “wants” Li to intercalate in it as it is more “energy stable”, but the only way for intercalation to happen - in my understanding” is that by some way Li ion in the electrolyte need to be close enough to the lattice where the negative salt (ex. PF6-) need to be away to prevent cancellation of electrical field so it will pulls in electron and form intercalation. This arise another question, if there are already Li ions close enough to the cathode and perhaps pull the electron from the lattice itself to form intercalation, making the lattice net positive, then this can occur even before connecting the anode to cathode. One hypothesis I have is that the Li ion is already taking the electron from the oxygen of the CoO2 lattice before compete the circuit, therefore making the CoO2 lattice positively charged, therefore when the circuit is completed this positive charge form a local electrical field to pull electrons from the wire, which induce surface charge and eventually propergate toward the anode, providing the activation energy for Li ti de-intercalated. However, this will only work if electron is more stable to form this kind of ionic bond between oxygen and Li ion rather then between O and C. However, this means that right after charging the battery, the open circuit potential of the battery will decrease at first as Li is reacting with CoO2. The second hypothesis is that the locally negatively charged O in CoO2 (as Co ans O can form ionic bond) locally attract the Li ions, which kick start the process. However, this also means that the positive Co can attract the negative salt (ex. PF6-) to cancel out the effect. I’ll love to hear from anyone

Come on Ford is not losing $130k per car, people are adding the new factories, expansions and development costs to the calculation. This is not done for Tesla, considering $5B has been invested so far at Giga Texas, how much are they losing?

As usual Jordan very interesting and superbly researched. I hope Elon Musk is downloading all your valuable information to a supercomputer so as Tesla can keep ahead of the pack. Thank you!! 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

It amazes me that a hybrid is cheaper to produce than a BEV. Why are batteries so expensive if the price of lithium has fallen 80%??

There are more than 2 electric car companies in the World and it is obvious that Tesla was already forced to reduce the price of its cars over 10 times in the last 18-months not because of BYD. The Tesla share price has collapsed over that time because the demand has collapsed. I love the performance of Tesla cars and the pioneering efforts with rapid charging but they cannot compete with BYD when Tesla cars are buying BYD Blade batteries to go into Tesla cars going to Europe because the BYD (and CATL) LiFePO4 batteries are so much cheaper, so much longer lasting and so much safer than the Panasonic Lithium-ion Nickel battery cells going into everything that Tesla makes in America. President Biden chose to help his Detroit Union friends and Tesla with those 100% tariffs because American salaries and technology cannot compete with BYD and CATL. BYD was a battery company before it was a car manufacturer ! This video is quite biased and missed the point: BYD cars are cheaper to make, drive further (standard models), and are safer and longer lasting - ask customers and cost and range will be their top 2 priorities. Tesla has been wonderful but it was Nissan that really started EV mass production with the Leaf and China that will destroy all other manufacturers just like they have with solar panels. The CZcams show "Just Have A Think" has a great review of the economics of Chinese car manufacturing

Although some of this content is well over my head when it comes to Chemistry's, I found this to be a very well balanced interview and very informative.

They aren't coming to the USA. Tariffs are a killer.

European car makers are moving on cheaper EVs. You only take the premium Fiat 400e which has been out for years now. Renault R5 is coming soon this year with 25k€ as the imminent Citroën e-C3 for 23,3k€ (depending on the country) with both a 40kWh battery. There is also the Dacia Spring for 18,4 k€ but it's made in China and tariffs up from 10 to 25% are maybe incoming imminently. Then in 2026 the Renault Twingo will come for 20k€ and maybe other cars based on this platform will join it as discussion are happening right now between car makers. That's the entry level. Battery factories are being built and operated in order to bring down prices for all vehicle type.

BYD's main advantage is not only labor cost, it's a more vertically integrated company than Tesla. Their overall manufacturing capability is very impressive. They make all their batteries in-house and even sell to Tesla, which you omit to tell. Tesla's battery production on the other hand is difficult to gauge, and it's such a difficult endeavor that I doubt Tesla will produce a significant amount of battery in-house. Tesla is excellent at software, leads in efficiency and bring many great ideas to manufacturing but their manufacturing quality is not the best. As for China, with the US declaring an economic war years ago beginning with Huawei's ban and only increasing in force, Chinese consumers' sentiment for US products is fading fast. They want Chinese products. Also the ultra-competitive nature of the Chinese car industry makes that BYD is not the only competitor to China. Lately Xiaomi just introduced the SU7 and Lei Jun explicitly targeted the Model 3. The car including its pricing is impressive. Nio introduced a new brand called Onvo and William Li's first car for it is the L60 which aims to the Model Y killer. We don't know everything about it but it beats Y in efficiency, which is very impressive. I watch Chinese car reviews, they say Tesla is great at certain things but doesn't lead in interior quality (offering only a single screen for this price point is not standard there and the interior is sparse) and the manufacturing quality with panel gaps is inferior to what other cars offer. I think Tesla like all other foreign brands will experience a very tough time in China. The market there will eventually look like those of South Korea and Japan, with few if any foreign brands.

Have you done a video on the Shenzing battery? I would love to hear your breakdown of this battery and how it compares to others on the market

One point that I feel should have been mentioned, but wasn't (just like every other youtube video that mentions Ford losses) is that the loss figure stated includes fixed overheads amortized over the vehicles produced. This is a big part of why the loss per vehicle has increased as numbers sold dropped. What really matters most isn't the total loss per vehicle produced but rather the marginal loss per vehicle sold. It is quite possible for a manufacturer to have a marginal profit per vehicle sold while still having a large absolute loss per vehicle sold. Indeed, this is the normal state of affairs during the early phase of a new product introduction, during the production ramp. It may not be that Ford can't make a profitable vehicle, but rather that they can't make a compelling enough vehicle to sell enough vehicles to make a profit.

Waaay too many assumptions in this. And hopium. The elephant in the room is the self driving which we just don't need. What we need is small, affordable EVs but Tesla to daihas done exactly the opposite. Look at that latest monstrosity. Environment? What's that?

Still waiting for Tesla to implement brake by wire. Canoo vehicles already have this feature. Brembo’s Sensify brake by wire system appears designed for Tesla and ready for prime time.

You've presented some good points on a complicated topic. They are a few wild cards, however. 1. If China, Inc (CCP) decides to target the US auto market by subsidizing BYD (or other), then any labor or manufacturing efficiency by Tesla will be moot. 2. A lot of US auto owners are still skeptical, or even against, EVs, no matter the price. A hiccup in gas prices might change this. 3. Elon seems to have shelved the compact "model 2" in favor of robotaxi, although the R&D and design would probably be applicable to both cars. 4. The take rate on FSD doesn't seem to be high enough to support Tesla if they sell cars at cost.

We traded out of the second of our RWD Model 3s into a fully loaded BYD Seal.......for LESS money. Australia is a free trade country, likke Elon musk wants (occasionally). Unboxed is a talking point. " If Tesla". says it all. If, maybe, could possibly, suggests, claims........ says it all yet again. Our German engineered BYD Seal is better quality than our Shanghai M3. Has greater range, cooler panaroof, stalks, buttons, HUD, blind spot WARNING, more comfortable, equal handling and 5.9 sec 0-100 kph. Wakey wakey. If Tesla delivers........yeah right !.

No one wants the stupid Tesla cabin which is missing essential physical controls and causes safety problems. Elon Musk has explained that Tesla is almost worthless as an investment without a working robotaxi. The BYD blad battery is longer lasting and safer than the Tesla Panasonic battery and that is why Tesla must buy BYD batteries for its Tesla vehicles! I love Tesla but it cannot compete against BYD Blade lithium iron Phosphate batteries and CATL LiFePO4 cells are dropping by 40% in costs next year.

Here in New Zealand the made in China Tesla Model 3 costs $66,000 (USD $40,250) and a BYD Seal costs $65,000 (USD $39,650). BYD has to use New Zealand companies to provide local advertising, distribution, sales, servicing and warranty support. Once those extra costs are added on, BYD has almost no cost advantage over a Tesla when competing in the same vehicle category. BYD has a greater cost advantage with their compact vehicles, such as the BYD Atto 3, but that's a market which Tesla has not entered yet. Could be game over for BYD when they do.

How will Tesla Compete? by Lobbying the US gov to put trade barriers on Chinese EVs. oh wait they already did! So much for free market and competition. Global car market share, Toyota 10% - BYD 6% and tesla...... well 0.4%....

nice vid

Excellent interview. It certainly improved my understanding of Lithium battery technology.

What are the chances that the unboxing method would actually reduce the costs? The structural 4680 battery pack design was meant to reduce costs too but so far it's actually more expensive to make.

Your battery content is excellent but at this point, anyone who believes anything Elon has said about FSD needs a wakeup call.

The change is to robotaxis. Not ice to EVs Lets say Tesla can do 10m by 2030. Not 20m. And 2 seat small. And 1 other company licenses FSD. Or waymo or Wayve 20m robotaxis. Displacing 10 conventional people driven cars. 200m equivalent. 6 years=1.2b car equivalent. Only 1.4b vehicles globally. Steinbeck was asked how he went bankrupt. "Slowly, then suddenly!"

Instead of fearing of Chinese EVs, US should be more feared of EVs from south Korea and Japan. I think Japanese auto companiese will catch up soon in EV productions.

@thelimitingfactor Two additional factors. The USMCA trade agreement is up for renewal in 2026. It could change. China has SASAC 'managing' the EV companies. SASAC in misunderstood by most. Few realize that it giveth and it taketh away in all of chinese industry. If you want to produce a hot new car design. They have the power to take a factory and make it yours. With whatever strings it sees fit to attach. They also have the power to allocate money again with or w/o strings. I suspect it is willing to subsidize cars intended for local consumption more than exported cars.

Cars =transportation which has a cost ($.70/mile). ROBOTAXI will, at scale, cost <$.25/mile and will be hugely disruptive to the price sensitive portion of the market. Like cities. Where most people live. Cars are nice but…..

BYD profit margin of its automotive business was 25% for Q4 23. Where did you get your 6% figure. It has never been below 10% profit margin since before the covid. BYD subsidies its solar business with its auto business. Your Testa's affordable models are hypothetical at this point. BYD brings out new models far quicker than Tesla. Tesla's roadster was supposed to come in 2019, at that time BYD U9 was not even in the discussion. BYD U9 is already in the market, where exactly is Tesla Roadster.

In term of full self driving you are missing xpeng car which already deployed their version of FSD with more data (china is big with a lot of people). The decision from the chinese government to allow tesla to have access to Chinese data was not a simple coincidence 😅 First of all , it will allow the chinese version to get a competitor and improve if needed. Secondly drag Elon away from India. VW has decided to work with xpeng to accelerate their knowledge on new achitecture. Therefore , i see BYD just licensing xpeng tech if needed in order to compete with Tesla on FSD. Some journalist tried the xpeng version during shanghai auto show and it seems to be quite good

BYD will need 7 ships just to send EVs to Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. Plenty of GROWING markets near them. And there’s all of S America. The big stumbling block is a charging network, of course. Will Chinese companies solve the chicken and egg problem like Tesla did? Massive up front investment. Entire video is an Excellent exposition of how all the pieces fit together. Unparalleled.

I am no longer convinced that Tesla will produce an economy EV, a "$25k" EV. I think it more likely they will produce a sub-$40k EV using existing factories. A Tesla with a price of $35k would cost $28,500 after the federal subsidy. Rather than building an economy EV and compete in what is likely to be a low margin segment where success is based on volume production, look for Tesla to put their future efforts into a very much more profitable robotaxi enterprise. Additionally, robotaxis would do more to meet Tesla's mission statement of moving the world off fossil fuels ASAP. Using Tony Seba's calculations, one robotaxi should replace five to ten privately owned vehicles. A factory producing robotaxis is going to shove a lot more ICEVs out of existence than a factory producing EVs that spend most of their time parked.

The new tariffs will make it impossible for China to export to US without losing money. The low cost Chinese cars are labor intensive. opening factories in the NAFTA zone would eliminate any labor cost advantage.

Very high quality analysis, as always, thank you