Ford created the concept of mass produced cars with the implementation of the moving assembly line. Half a century later, Toyota’s kaizen philosophy and “just in time” manufacturing further accelerated automotive production, and nearly every car plant in the world now incorporates lessons from all of the above. The next benchmark for the world? China Speed.
I’m excited we’re all here today so that we can read The Morning Dump. It felt a little more touch-and-go there than usual yesterday. I doubt Honda is letting the brief euphoria distract itself from the much larger existential threat from Chinese manufacturing, which has achieved the difficult: fast, cheap, and good.
Making cars is hard, and even the most cutting edge automakers out there are trying to get consumers to pay a monthly fee for tech you can get for free elsewhere. How long can that last? The EU and the US have a framework for a deal, but it’s not set in stone and at least one automaker thinks the EU is trying to keep out big trucks. At the same time, there’s some good news for EV charging in the US.
What Is China Speed?
People I know who do business in China and the United States often marvel at how easy and fast it is to manufacture items in the country. If you’ve got an idea, you can get a 3D mockup by lunch, a prototype by dinner, and your first crate of products ready to go to the market by the end of the week.
This is called ‘China Speed,’ and it’s what happens when a country decides it wants to be the world’s producer, and has the ability to cut a lot of the red tape that seems to slow down everyone else (granted, some of that red tape exists to protect consumers, the environment, and workers). And this isn’t just about building things. This is about everything.
Here’s a recent example from Transport Topics:
A Chinese-made Leapmotor C10 was traveling down Germany’s fast-moving Autobahn last year when the driver-assistance system braked sharply and jolted it to the side, as if boxed in by scooters in a crowded China megacity.
Leapmotor International’s Germany head, Martin Resch, was at the wheel and emailed engineers in Hangzhou to report the problem before going into a meeting. By the time he got out, a software update had been beamed to the electric vehicle, smoothing its behavior. A similar fix at a European carmaker would have taken weeks.
What is it that gives China such a huge advantage here? Sure, the country started out basically copying and reverse-engineering European and American designs, but it’s gone a lot further than that in the last few years, with Ford’s CEO suddenly not wanting to give up his Chinese car.
The Transport Topic article has the rather startling stat that China has created more than five times as many patents in “future land transportation technologies” than Germany in the last 20 or so years. That article also points to a very different environment:
While legacy automakers are trying to reduce their typical five- to seven-year product plans, their Chinese rivals can deliver a new model in under two years. Founders at Xpeng, Nio and Li Auto all had internet startups, and Lei Jun of Xiaomi has a background in software.
Workforces skew young and mobile, and pay scales are lower than at Western counterparts — with compensation often tied to financial targets, fostering an entrepreneurial culture. Ferocious domestic competition forces continual innovation and squeezes out inefficiencies.
This is the universe that Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe stepped into when he went to China, according to an article in Nikkei Asia:
“We have no chance against this,” Mibe said during a visit to an auto supplier factory in Shanghai in late February. From parts procurement to logistics management, everything at the facility was automated, and there were no humans on the production floor.
The factory, operated by a major Chinese parts manufacturer, also supplies U.S.-based Tesla and maintains consistent quality while keeping labor costs down. Mibe witnessed firsthand the source of China’s competitive advantage: fast, cheap and good.
Obviously, Honda isn’t giving up, and it’s making a move to undo the now-questionable decision to get rid of the company’s legendary and independent R&D division. That’s probably not enough to reverse the slide, but it’s a start. Over at Nissan, even the design department is trying to learn from China Speed as 36Kr reports:
Nissan’s Global Design Director, Alfonso [Albaisa], admitted that Nissan’s design department has drawn important inspiration from the speed of its Shanghai studio in China. Compared with Nissan studios in other parts of the world, the employees at the Shanghai studio require 30% to 40% less work time to produce designs.
Now, Nissan’s global studios are gradually adopting the same efficient processes, abandoning rigid bureaucracy and cumbersome flowcharts to achieve more flexible and smooth creation. This transformation has greatly promoted close communication between engineering and design and accelerated the approval speed of senior management, making the entire product development process more efficient.
It’s not just Japanese automakers that are trying to rethink how they produce cars. When Ford announced more plans for its Universal EV Platform in Kentucky last year a lot of what CEO Jim Farley talked about was how it would be built:
We transformed the traditional assembly line into a tree with three main branches. We’ll assemble the front and rear of the vehicle on separate lines. The third branch is the vehicle’s structural battery, which we’ll pre-assemble with seats, consoles, and carpeting.
These three branches come together at the end, a process that revolutionizes the factory and simplifies work for our employees.
Can anyone catch up? It’s hard to say. The first step is recognizing the problem.
The Toyota Corolla Has More Tech Than A Tesla, Unless You Want To Pay For It
One of the big messages of the Lucid Investor Day I attended last month was that Lucid was going to make $69 a month from people who want to keep their advanced driving tech. For Tesla, that’s $99, and for Rivian it’s $49.99.
As Automotive News points out, this creates the sort of weird reality where the cheapest Toyota Corolla technically comes with more standard driver-assistance features than a Tesla (after Tesla removed lane keeping assistance from its basic cruise control package).
Consumers are particularly wary of subscriptions for features that once came with the car, said Jake Fisher, senior director of auto testing at Consumer Reports.
“It’s a little bit insidious, because what they’re doing is moving these features that used to be hardware to software,” Fisher said.
One example: Some automakers have moved the remote start button once found on a key fob to a smartphone app that requires a subscription after a free trial.
I do buy the argument that software-based items might benefit from a subscription because it’ll be technology that will continue to get upgraded over the long life of a car. I’m less inclined to think highly of an automaker that moves a physical feature to an app and then charges for it.
American Automakers Are Mad That Big Trucks Might Be Kept Out Of Europe
This is one of those stories that plays against a lot of my longstanding, internalized biases. I’m a Texan and I love giant pickup trucks. I also think people should generally be able to buy what they want. At the same time, I get why people don’t want big trucks in their narrow European villages. My general sense is that any societal cost should be balanced out with some form of levy (gas guzzler tax, congestion pricing for inner urban areas, et cetera).
As part of the tentative, not-yet-ratified trade deal between the European Union and the United States, there will be a harmonizing of standards between the two countries that should allow automakers to go beyond the current EU rule, which allows a small number of vehicles to be imported without being homologated.
As Automotive News reports, about 7,000 American pickups were brought to Europe this way in 2024. There’s a new article in the Financial Times with the feisty title: “US carmakers accuse EU of blocking supersized pick-up trucks from roads” related to some alleged behind-the-scenes moves by regulators to exclude big trucks. Here’s an interesting quote from an unnamed Detroit automaker to the FT:
“The U.S. administration is aware that not only is Europe dragging its feet on the trade agreement, but they’re also looking at restricting US products and limiting customer choice in Europe.”
Limiting choice, eh? There are a couple of reasons to believe that this executive might be from Stellantis. First, Stellantis loves using the term “freedom of choice” when it comes to cars. And, secondly, a majority of the trucks imported to the EU in 2024? Rams.
The Number Of High-Speed Chargers Rose By 34% In Q1
Charging infrastructure has been a common reason why consumers in the US have said they’re hesitant to make the jump to an electric car. To combat this, the Biden Administration put a lot of money into chargers, but the pace of rolling them out hasn’t exactly been China Speed. The good news is that faster deployment is finally happening, just as gas prices have gone up.
Some 605 public, high-speed EV fueling stations switched on in the first quarter, a 34% increase over the year-earlier period, according to Bloomberg News analysis of federal data. The country now has nearly 13,500 places to quickly add electrons to a car or truck, 25% more than it did a year ago.
[…]
Most of the demand is driven by the private sector. Truck stops, in particular, have been adding electron pumps in a bid to sell lucrative snacks and sodas to battery-powered road trippers. Pilot Flying J Inc., an empire of interstate rest stops, added chargers to nearly 30 of its locations in the first quarter, from Mount Airy, North Carolina, to North Platte, Nebraska. The company now has nearly 1,200 charging stalls, roughly half of what it intends to stand up.
Alright! Charge up the car and get some jerky. Everyone wins.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Man, this Major Lazer song featuring Wild Belle was everywhere ten years ago. Please enjoy “Be Together.”
The Big Question
What’s your go-to truck stop snack?
Top photo: LeapMotor/Honda/DepositPhotos.com
Local beef jerky and whatever I can find that I haven’t had before. New coke flavor? sold. New doritos? yup. And I’m a sucker for Arizona products on a road trip.
Went to the American Dream Mall in NJ Tuesday. Took our Bolt. Used 37kW of energy to get there. Over half a tank. Had to charge there. Used a level 2 charger.
Only issue was Tesla. It required me to sign up for the app, payment plan, address. It still didn’t start charging until I found the last 4 digits of the serial number for the physical charger I was plugged in to. That was a tiny, faded number on the side of the charger. Made zero sense that this was the technique to instantiate a charge. Had I not had my glasses, I would have been stuck.
It was otherwise an easy process and a fun mall.
You have the Tesla app setup already so I guess this comment won’t matter to you anymore, but for anyone scrolling down to the comments it might. When you install the app you have 2 options regarding account registration which are sign in and sign up. At the top of the app (it may have moved location since I last used it in November) there is also a “skip now” option that automatically takes you to the charging page. From there you can put in your card info and then scan a QR code on the side of the charger to initiate charging.
Thank you!
Did you ski while there?
No, we were there for the mall, and to see the features. It’s huge. And has everything.
“US carmakers accuse EU of blocking supersized pick-up trucks from roads”
EU residents accuse US supersized pick-up trucks of blocking the roads.
I ate at a truck stop in Tuscany near Luca, and the grilled sardines were amazing.
Stellantis loves using the term “freedom of choice” when it comes to cars.
Yeah, right. Where’s my fucking Peugeot!
And my Citroen.
Yes, but Bob Peugeot is vice chairman of Stellantis.
Is the Fiat Topolino still on its way to the USA? It’s almost a Citroen.
Pizza Pretzel Combos for the win! They’re terrible for you but always hit the spot and get you back on the road.
“By the time he got out, a software update had been beamed to the electric vehicle, smoothing its behavior. A similar fix at a European carmaker would have taken weeks.”
Is that because the Chinese engineers were shackled to their work stations to be administered electric shocks and sprayed with ice water till they submitted the fix?
“I’m a Texan and I love giant pickup trucks. I also think people should generally be able to buy what they want. At the same time, I get why people don’t want big trucks in their narrow European villages. My general sense is that any societal cost should be balanced out with some form of levy (gas guzzler tax, congestion pricing for inner urban areas, et cetera).”
Within reason. Should someone be allowed to buy a car in any color they desire? Sure. Even if that colour is hot pink.
Should just anyone be allowed to buy a vehicle that is 12′ tall in a world full of 11’8″ bridges even if they are clearly marked with all kinds of warnings? There are plenty of YouTube videos that say no.
I would be more worried that the software hadn’t been validated before using the car on public roads.
It’s China so laissez-faire is the way to go. Unless it fails in which case those responsible or their scapegoats are found and executed.
Yeah but the car was in Germany. Does the TUV know?
What happens in Hangzhou stays in Hangzhou.
So no.
That seems to be common now- using the customers as beta testers.
Ok let’s not get ahead of ourselves. China speed is more of a “fast, cheap, and good enough” with a pretty big asterisk about labor practices at the end.
How dare those Euro-peons stand in the way of the “V8 Symbol of Protest?” You’re a brave, brave boy, Stellantis. My go to snack is Dot’s Honey Mustard Pretzel Sticks.
I highly recommend you try Schneider’s Honey Mustard & Onion Pieces, not the nubs or whatever the intact ones are called! The breakage helps the flavor absorb into the the pieces. They are the devil’s work!
Favorite truck stop snack? Fritos Honey BBQ Twists. I am really bummed when they don’t have them. I suppose I could/should stock up on (less expensive) offerings in the grocery store.
They taste great, but I end up with an orange patch on my lower left pants leg from rubbing the outer dust layer so that stuff doesn’t end up on the steering wheel.
I have used remote start twice in the nine years I’ve owned my current car. Both times to get cool air to the vents of a heat-soaked car before my (now ex-) wife got in. And yes, I opened the door for her too.
Otherwise, opening the windows and moon roof for a minute or two to let the hot air out is fine for me. When it’s really cold, seat heaters are fine. My first three cars had neither a/c nor bun-warmers, so I feel like I’m living large these days.
What’s your go-to truck stop snack?
Tillamook peppered jerky.
“American Automakers Are Mad That Big Trucks Might Be Kept Out Of Europe”
I suppose Europe has a wordy, Newspeak reason to keep the big trucks out, but it doesn’t matter what they say it is, because there’s only one reason. The trucks are stupid. They’re way too tall, but they’re also too wide and too long. They are too f*&!^ing big. Was this country a just a collection of Hobbit villages with tiny houses and tiny bridges and tiny buildings until the aughts when the trucks got stupid big? Did our neighbors suddenly begin hauling 10,000 pound loads to and from the grocery store? Pickup trucks got enormous for sociological reasons that are frankly scary, especially since they are less useful for the majority of pickup truck tasks than they were forty years ago. I’m just going to end with this: the beds are still the same size!
They got big because the cost difference to manufacture a ginormous truck and a merely large truck is negligible but the profit difference is huge. Actually until recently ginormous trucks were exempt from some regulations so they cost less to build and are subsidized by the taxpayers through tax law.
And yeah, something about some of the owners.
It’s not like their form is of use to europeans.
-They’re not particularly practical for carrying loads;
A Peugeot Partner has a payload up to 1000kg,
whereas a Ram 1500 has a payload up to a whopping 1075kg.
(I’m not sure on Europe’s laws specifically, but on a car license in Australia you can only drive a vehicle with up to a 4500kg GVM, meaning the Ram’s payload capacity is reduced to around ~800kg depending on specification, unless you’re willing to get a truck license and not let anyone else drive it)
-If you want a 4WD, most of the more normally sized Japanese or European offerings will be far more practical and will go more places than a TRX will.
-And if you do really just want a monster truck for the sake of it, the Mercedes Dealer will happily sell you a Unimog which is properly homologated and comes with a warranty (also it’s objectively cooler).
“Some automakers have moved the remote start button once found on a key fob to a smartphone app that requires a subscription after a free trial.”
So on that basis, I’ll just act like the given vehicle doesn’t have the feature. Because I’m not whipping out my phone, unlocking it, opening/logging into the stupid automaker’s app… just to remotely start my car.
But anyway, remote start from a pollution/emissions point of view, is a bad feature.
It makes it easy for many people to waste fuel/energy just because their pasty soft asses can’t handle a car interior that isn’t pre-heated or pre-cooled.
“American Automakers Are Mad That Big Trucks Might Be Kept Out Of Europe”
Good.
Screw them and their oversized and needlessly tall trucks
Way too many people are buying these behemoths. I hate them just for headlight-glare reasons alone.
“What’s your go-to truck stop snack?”
Nothing. I’ve cut out garbage food like that to avoid diabeetus.
When I travel, I go to restaurants where I can get a healthy meal that includes vegetables or salad.
If I’m gonna have junk food or carbs, it has to be GREAT junk food or carbs. So in the case of things like doughnuts, I’m only interested if it’s from a great bakery or places like this:
https://daddyodoughnuts.com/
The stuff at truck stops generally isn’t carb-worthy to me.
Agree on all points except a soft spot for a danish from Starfucks with my espresso dubio
You’re gonna get DIABEETUS!!!
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExa2JqOHVoeXRicXNwdzl6b3o4bnd3Z3l0emZuZTdpMnV6Z2wxM2hseSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/fvE2zWIJ4fumc/giphy.gif
QOTD, mostly we carry our snacks with us, but if buying, cashew or almonds or similar and an unsweet ice tea or cold brew coffee or Vitamin Water. Though if there’s a local fave like kolaches, definitely getting those!
So is sweet vs. unsweet ice tea still kind of a regional thing? Grew up with unsweet and that’s still my preference, not into sweet tea.
Used to be that the saying was you can have 2 out of 3 of fast, cheap and good. Do we really think that China or anyone else has that totally licked now?
Yeah, Sweet tea vs. unsweetened is definitely a thing. I lived most of my life in Colorado. I like my iced tea unsweetened, and that’s how it was delivered to you at restaurants. They might ask if you want sweetener. I moved to Maryland a few years ago and here you have to request unsweetened tea or they give you a sugar bomb.
SWEET tea is definitely a thing in the South as well. But I don’t even like iced tea. One of the many culture shocks relocating from the PNW to Texas.
Yeah, years ago I had a roommate from Florida. He would make sweet tea by the gallon. Nasty stuff, but that’s where I first learned it existed. I didn’t expect it to be so ubiquitous in MD, but I guess we are below the Mason-Dixon line.
Maryland surprises me too.
Yeah, moving to MD from SC after college gave me an opportunity to get a wider worldview when on a cool crisp MD spring morning my carpool mate from Buffalo got in the car raving about the great weather living here ‘in the south’ moments after I’d been grousing about the cold weather ‘here in the north’. All a matter of perspective
Early December in San Diego, you could tell the people from So Cal from their down parkas while those of us from up north or further east were still running around in shorts and t-shirts. I’ve lived in a number of places around the States and San Diego’s climate is my favorite. I just can’t afford to live anywhere I’d want to there. If only I could have convinced my parents to buy that 3 BR/2 BA fixer in Del Mar for $150K while I was in college nearby.
Yeah, I have to say my MD experience was quite the opposite when I moved here – the barren wasteland of unsweetened tea hard up against the Mason-Dixon was a shock after the ubiquitous ‘sweet tea is the default water’ environment of SC. Adding sugar after brewing isn’t the same. Although, drastically reducing my daily sugar intake did probably forestall the onset of type 2 by a few years…
Maybe it’s the same experience but we just came from opposite ends of the spectrum? I notice the ultra sweet tea compared with whart I was used to and you notice the opposite compared with what you were used to.
Yup! Similarly I also posted here about the POV differences between my ‘MD is in the north’ opinion and my friend from Buffalo’s excitement about being in the south!
Very regional. You can tell when you’ve crossed into the South because the restaurants ask “regular or unsweet?” instead of “regular or sweet?”.
Except in New Orleans, which is only sorta South, so they ask “sweet or unsweet?”
Well yeah, it’s easy to push software patches quickly if you do piss-poor testing. I can’t verify that was the case here, but knowing how complex ADAS software is, I would put some good money on it.
“I’m less inclined to think highly of an automaker that moves a physical feature to an app and then charges for it.”
Its no different from going to a Courtyard Marriot and getting free WiFi – but going to a Ritz Carlton and being charged extra for WiFi.
It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
“China Speed”
It’s a heck of a lot easier to design a new vehicle on an existing EV skateboard, motor and electronic hardware and suspension setup than it is to package and engineer an ICE platform & electronics package.
kolaches
It doesn’t take long to irresponsibly build disposable trash and when you can do so at a loss because the government is guiding you to do so to global force competitors out of the market with the goal of controlling the supply.
“irresponsibly build disposable trash”
So what takes Stellantis so long to do the same?
They’re more responsible in that they adhere to Western labor and environmental laws. Other than that, they just milk platforms as long as possible. Why people buy most of them is the bigger mystery.
China speed is real. It is also part of a long game that they are deep into. China doesn’t allow or will greatly restrict further sales of items that don’t at least have some % of local Chinese manufacturing. For any larger, established company, that means you have no choice but to comply or else give up a large percentage of your sales.
People dumped on Trump for tariffs and other America First policies but his proposed agenda is minor compared to what the Chinese are doing and have been doing right in front of us for years yet people here are much happier to shit on the US and it’s policies instead of calling out what China has been doing which is far more impactful.
Add in the fat that they can manipulate the market quickly and painfully, ask anyone you know who sells medical items into China. Last year was painful as they restricted the number of tests and procedures a person could get. That decision alone sunk a lot of 2025 financial and sales goals for med device companies and if you are a Chinese citizen you suffered by not getting the higher level of care you used to get.
China speed is also deep in the culture and different parts of the country utilize local regulators that allow foreign companies to enter the markets quicker with varying interpretations of the laws and regulations. China subsidizes the business that will incubate yours, or work as a contract manufacturer, growing the site, helping move employees in to run it, etc. You can’t compete with it and be a free society – someone has to sacrifice something for the government and others to gain.
” Last year was painful as they restricted the number of tests and procedures a person could get. That decision alone sunk a lot of 2025 financial and sales goals for med device companies and if you are a Chinese citizen you suffered by not getting the higher level of care you used to get.”
Meanwhile, DC eliminates Medicare and ACA subsidies – and Americans suffer by rural hospitals closing, and many not getting any healthcare at all due to unaffordability and inaccessibility while healthcare CEOs recorded $54Bn in profits last year, and the US Oligarchy continue to pay little to nothing in taxes.
So explain the difference to us again please?
“Last years was painful as the US restricted the number of tests and procedures a person could get by stripping away affordable health care, ensuring you need deep pockets to get medical care. That decision alone increased a lot of 2026 financial and sales goals for med device companies and if you are one of America’s richest, you made more money through others’ suffering.”
I fixed it for him.
Nothing I wrote needed fixing, you just wanted to flex your anti-corporate stance and found a post to reply to. Might want to go over to the old car site that went overboard on politics.
They are different and I wasn’t pushing one over another in my comment, strictly stating what I witnessed happen in my industry and having first hand knowledge of med device mfg in the US and China.
The US is obviously a mix of public and private health systems/coverage. China is basically all covered by government backed insurance. In the US, at least in theory, you have a chance to complain to the government that there are issues with healthcare. In China, they can just cancel coverage, or in this case, drastically reduce it, and there is no one to complain to and you deal with it out of pocket if you are able to. Rural coverage in both systems is lacking.
“In the US, at least in theory, you have a chance to complain to the government that there are issues with healthcare”
A lot of good it does these days.
“In
ChinaThe United States, they can just cancel coverage, or in this case, drastically reduce it, and there is no one to complain to and you deal with it out of pocket if you are able to.”Which is likely why Luigi did what he did.
The whole “China Bad, US Good” trope is depressingly outdated.
Yeah, your not going to get me to agree that Luigi is some hero, he should get the worst of all punishment allowed per law. There sure are a lot of things that need to be fixed in the US but I bet you can at least understand that there are more people in China that want to live in the US than the other way around. We might not be perfect but the US is the better place to be.
A lot fewer people want to live in the US now than a year ago – including US Citizens – and record numbers of US Citizens are renouncing citizenship.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/americans-leaving-the-us-migration-a5795bfa
https://www.boundless.com/research-reports/rise-in-us-citizenship-renunciations-2025
I guess we can call that “US Speed”?
That is completely not true. Boeing used to sell 25% of its total production to China, and you know Boeing has very limited manufacturing footprint inside China. Airbus is in the same situation. Same with Intel. Even now China makes up 25% of Intel’s revenue, and Intel hasn’t had a fab in China for at least 5 years now. Likewise Broadcom. Qualcomm sells 40+% of its products to China, and Qualcomm doesn’t manufacture anything in China. The European luxury sector also exports heavily to China. The LVMH group gets 1/3 of its revenues from China.
You also acknowledged in your second paragraph that the medical equipment industry exports heavily into China.
Depends per industry. Right now, if you want to be the med device space in China, your best bet is to set up at least some level of local manufacturing. It gets you faster local approvals and because the government is involved in everything, procurement of devices made in China are preferred which means you have a better chance at making the sale. Those who haven’t moved are nearly shut out of the market and if they are not yet, they soon will be. This is the case in a number of industries.
Goetz’s Caramel Creams — they do not get sticky or crumbly, which is a plus. Also regional beef jerky.
Ah, yes, caramel creams are the best on the sweet side of snacks – Baltimore’s gift to road warriors. Corn nuts are the best salty road snack for me, either original or the street corn flavor.
Yessssss
Funyuns + Diet Mt Dew
TBQ: Bucees’ jalapeno sausage kolaches.
Well, duh! The Germans would have run quality tests during those weeks to make sure the fix didn’t break something else.
God I love kolaches, best part of visiting family in Austin.