alt Hacker NewsWhen I grew up in Germany it always made me proud that 100% of taxis were Mercedes Benz. If a car can withstand the rough demands of taxi service, it has to be good. And even in South America back then German cares were ubiquitous, especially Volkswagen.
When I was in Brazil this spring[*] I rode a lot of Uber and they were 100% BYD - 100%, no exception. It's not that my head hadn't known that German auto was dead but seeing it playing out like this hit hard.
[*] northern hemisphere
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Tesla has no moat
1. Batteries - BYD has them beat 2. Self Driving tech - other players are better 3. Luxury brands already provide the luxury aspect & even better built cars 4. in the US they're being saved by US protectionism. in Europe etc - we already see the chinese brands making inroads for EV sales
I think the issue is to create an ICE is a very complicated process requiring lots of specialist knowledge, skills and technologies. An EV is just much simpler, comes down to who has the cheapest batteries. Europe and Japan are great at the former, the latter no chance.
I've been riding a German electric motorbike for a couple of years, and before that, German electric mopeds.
I think there is a lot of innovation in the German electric vehicle industry. I am quite excited for BTM, my bikes manufacturer, to design and release new versions of their platform. This model is distinctly German.
To be fair taxis have unique requirements. Taxis in the UK were like 80% Prius for a long time because they drive very long distances and hybrids are very cost effective for city driving where you're doing a lot of low speed driving and don't have convenient recharging opportunities. But most people aren't in that situation.
Still, I think BYD are kind of killing it.
Sadly the German car industry has lost its way in the EV transition and is now vainly trying to get the EU to rollback the sun setting of ICE car sales in 3035.
Meanwhile the Chinese are eating their lunch.
In the UK, for a very long time they were Skoda Octavias.
I know of two ex-taxis that were scrapped at about five or six years old - one was taken off the road because of a deep paint scratch down to bare metal from about half way along the front wing to the rear door, rendering it beyond economic repair - with over half a million miles on the clock each.
Neither had been outside the Greater Glasgow area since they were dropped off on the transporter.
BYD recently went live with a highly automated, large scale manufacturing facility in Brazil. The BYD Dolphin Mini sells for ~$22,500, and the manufacturer already has 200 showrooms open across the country.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/11/22/cop-brazil...
https://www.byd.com/us/news-list/First-BYD-Electric-Vehicle-...