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BYD drops the price of its Atto 1 to a stunning $19,990 driveaway – making it the cheapest new car in Australia (www.whichcar.com.au)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/electricvehicles@slrpnk.net
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~ USD $14000

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[–] 10 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Putting tarrifs on Chinese vehicles wouldn't be logical, because there is no domestic car manufacturing left in Australia for tariffs to protect.

Ford and GMH both stopped making cars there a decade ago, Mitsubishi stopped in 2008. All of them were propped up by the Australian government with hundreds of millions before they left.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

    True, but they could still have a tariff on ALL cars. Or only Chinese just to make USA happy.
    Here in Denmark where we also don't make cars, we used to have a very high tax on cars, officially to limit pollution, but also because the state was low on money.
    This dated back to post WW2 where for years for instance color film was illegal to import, because the country lacked the wealth to import luxury items.
    Even when in the EEC later EU we still had/have high taxes on cars, but they were not called import taxes, they were added at registration, so it was called a registration tax, that however was obviously a workaround, and EEC/EU allow it.
    Taxes are now way lower on cars, because to stimulate transition to electric, they have way lower registration tax, and the sales of BEV cars is 90% now.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    Registration cost is quite high in Australia as I understand it, my small 4 cylinder car is around €500 a year, and it's about double for an 8 cylinder.

    There is a tax on luxury vehicles over approx €50k, and a fuel tax of about 30 percent per litre , and fuel at about €1.75/l, there's plenty of revenue coming in for the government.

    And while Australia is friends with the USA, putting tariffs on Chinese vehicles "to make them happy" would be quite disadvantageous. A lot of Australian raw materials go to China to be turned into stuff that is then sent back. Retaliatory tariffs from China would be quite devastating on those primary industries.

    Having said all that, employee leasing arrangements where your employer folds in a car as part of your salary package have been exempt from "fringe benefits tax" if you buy an EV. That works out to around €5000 a year if you are in the upper income tax brackets, so that has had quite an effect on the market.

    And to be honest, BYD make EVs that are relatively well built, have good range in the typical Australian climate, have lots of "luxury" items, and are cheap compared to EVs of similar spec from other overseas companies. So if by those means they bring on the wholesale electrification of Australian vehicles, I say go for it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    From what I've heard BYD should have decent build quality.
    The problems I mostly hear about are poor steering characteristics, it is not as safe as the average European car in double evasive maneuvers. And some of the assist systems are horrible. So users simply turn them off.

    But the value is undeniable. And here in Denmark we are not seeing them rust yet. Which is a common occurrence with cheap new brands of cars. Honda Civic in the early 70's probably being the worst yet, they rusted away in a couple of years back then.
    So for such a young company, BYD is doing really well, avoiding common problems we've seen with other brands that have become reputable brands with improved quality over time.

    Regarding the taxes, I can see you have some "funny" regulation like we do here. 😋

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