alt Hacker NewsThe same way they've fought cheaper ICE brands: delivering higher quality materials, a fancy badge and a great driving experience. Currently the Chinese EVs are cheap, but far from Merc levels of refinement.
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satvikpendem • yesterday at 3:48 PM
Are you sure about that last sentence? Plenty of Chinese EVs are as refined as luxury brands, such as seen here: https://youtu.be/xiFmuoBIyjQ
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I really don't know about that. Mercedes used to mean high, tactile, audible mechanical quality. You'd hear it while closing the doors, you'd see it when looking at perfectly assembled dash, you'd hear it while driving and you'd be happy with it when clocking 500k miles with just regular maintenance. I remember those cars - I think the quality started tanking around late 1990s.
Right now its just ok. My friends S class has visibly mis-aligned buttons (a 200k car). My other friends electric S-class bean-thingy has squeaking doors (a 2 year old, 120k-when-new car) and feels surprisingly cheap to touch and drive. Sure, small sample and all of that but I don't think those are exceptions.
I only drove one Chinese car, and it was just a normal experience - what I'd expect from a volvo, bmw, or audi. Good UI on the infotainment, was below average annoying. No big difference vs. a merc. For sure not a qualitative difference in levels of refinement.