Here is a short video showing the highly automated manufacturing of an automobile by Xiaomi – another of those substantial Chinese manufacturers that only enthusiasts have heard about … so far.
The entire Western world cannot supply little Ukraine with enough ammunition to hold off Russia – a gas station with nukes, as Our Betters like to think. What makes Our Betters think they could go nose-to-nose with the manufacturing giant of China?
There are cars then there are car factories then there are factories that produce factories then there are the people who produce the factories that produce factories then there are the people like me who would produce the people like Musk that produce the factories that produce the factories. Then people like me run into the brick wall that I ran into in 1992 when I proposed replacing the 16th Amendment with a single tax on liquidation value of that assets and replacing the government with a Citizens dividend.
You want to fix the problem with the west? Ask me. Forget it I’ve already told you a million times. It’s about time to pull the plug.
If you believe the internets, SU7 bears more than a passing resemblance to the Taycan.
Xiaomi is a tech company. Their cars are built by BAIC.
BAIC was one of the state owned manufacturers that Western companies were forced to partner with to sell in China. Notable junior partners were Jeep and Hyundai. It ultimately bought Saab out of the GM bankruptcy.
One Car Every 76 Seconds: Inside Xiaomi’s Smart Super Factory - autoevolution
“Xiaomi builds the sedan at the Xiaomi Super Factory in Beijing, China.”
It is not clear from media reports what is the extent of BAIC’s contribution to manufacturing the automobile. However, the issue of which component of China’s vast state-of-the-art manufacturing complex contributes to building the vehicles is far less important than the obvious growing capabilities of that industrial complex. This is not manpower-intensive hand-crafting using low cost labor – this is capital-intensive high-output automated manufacturing with skilled workers … the kind of thing that was supposed to happen in the “advanced” West, not in “backwards” China.
Imagine that plant converted to producing tanks, or cruise missiles. If Our Betters are stupid enough to start a conventional war with China, they will simply get overwhelmed by that manufacturing capacity.
Or high-speed rail, no? (source, as of December 2023). Image cropped for readability.
And here is the same statistic from August 2020 (source)
Between the two snapshots, Turkey increased it high-speed rail network by 77% (from 594km to 1052km), while China only increased by a paltry 14% 
though arguably the absolute value increase is much larger.
Clearly China lagging behind Turkey /s
Yes, there are many different ways of presenting numbers. In the 3 years between 2020 & 2023, China added about 4 times more High Speed Rail track than the Rest of the World combined. But we should not worry about that demonstration of industrial capacity when planning Our Betters’ coming war with China. After all, the people who present numbers to us tell us that inflation is not an issue. 
USA 
should abandon any delusion about high speed rail and focus on building a wall and possibly land mines near the border like South Korea
The point is not high speed rail. Historically, the US had the ability to deliver these type of large scale projects. For instance, federal interstate highway project. Started in 1956, it built 5,000 miles of new highway roughly every 3 years for almost 20 years (source).
And that was without the benefit of GenAI
It would be interesting to see how much railroad track was laid during the railroad boom.
Therefore, I looked it up and the FED has data!
I downloaded it and made some charts. From 1848 to 1908 the average was 3823 miles. The average was 7034 from 1880 to 1892. The peak 20 year period average was 1870 to 1890 at 5887.
I did the cumulative, 20 and 30 year average calculations.
| DATE | Miles Laid | Cumulative Miles | 20 year average | 30 year average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1830-01-01 | 40 | |||
| 1831-01-01 | 99 | 139 | ||
| 1832-01-01 | 191 | 330 | ||
| 1833-01-01 | 116 | 446 | ||
| 1834-01-01 | 214 | 660 | ||
| 1835-01-01 | 138 | 798 | ||
| 1836-01-01 | 280 | 1078 | ||
| 1837-01-01 | 348 | 1426 | ||
| 1838-01-01 | 453 | 1879 | ||
| 1839-01-01 | 386 | 2265 | ||
| 1840-01-01 | 491 | 2756 | ||
| 1841-01-01 | 606 | 3362 | ||
| 1842-01-01 | 505 | 3867 | ||
| 1843-01-01 | 288 | 4155 | ||
| 1844-01-01 | 180 | 4335 | ||
| 1845-01-01 | 277 | 4612 | ||
| 1846-01-01 | 333 | 4945 | ||
| 1847-01-01 | 263 | 5208 | ||
| 1848-01-01 | 1056 | 6264 | ||
| 1849-01-01 | 1048 | 7312 | ||
| 1850-01-01 | 1261 | 8573 | 408 | |
| 1851-01-01 | 1274 | 9847 | 467 | |
| 1852-01-01 | 2288 | 12135 | 571 | |
| 1853-01-01 | 2170 | 14305 | 665 | |
| 1854-01-01 | 3442 | 17747 | 824 | |
| 1855-01-01 | 2453 | 20200 | 930 | |
| 1856-01-01 | 1471 | 21671 | 994 | |
| 1857-01-01 | 2077 | 23748 | 1080 | |
| 1858-01-01 | 1966 | 25714 | 1157 | |
| 1859-01-01 | 1707 | 27421 | 1216 | |
| 1860-01-01 | 1500 | 28921 | 1269 | 933 |
| 1861-01-01 | 1016 | 29937 | 1294 | 964 |
| 1862-01-01 | 720 | 30657 | 1300 | 984 |
| 1863-01-01 | 574 | 31231 | 1303 | 997 |
| 1864-01-01 | 947 | 32178 | 1334 | 1024 |
| 1865-01-01 | 819 | 32997 | 1365 | 1043 |
| 1866-01-01 | 1404 | 34401 | 1419 | 1084 |
| 1867-01-01 | 2541 | 36942 | 1524 | 1157 |
| 1868-01-01 | 2468 | 39410 | 1629 | 1225 |
| 1869-01-01 | 4103 | 43513 | 1774 | 1343 |
| 1870-01-01 | 5658 | 49171 | 1993 | 1513 |
| 1871-01-01 | 6660 | 55831 | 2250 | 1712 |
| 1872-01-01 | 7439 | 63270 | 2544 | 1933 |
| 1873-01-01 | 5217 | 68487 | 2683 | 2085 |
| 1874-01-01 | 2584 | 71071 | 2703 | 2159 |
| 1875-01-01 | 1606 | 72677 | 2616 | 2205 |
| 1876-01-01 | 2575 | 75252 | 2622 | 2279 |
| 1877-01-01 | 2280 | 77532 | 2660 | 2342 |
| 1878-01-01 | 2428 | 79960 | 2677 | 2411 |
| 1879-01-01 | 5006 | 84966 | 2822 | 2539 |
| 1880-01-01 | 6876 | 91842 | 3068 | 2727 |
| 1881-01-01 | 9789 | 101631 | 3462 | 3002 |
| 1882-01-01 | 11599 | 113230 | 3966 | 3335 |
| 1883-01-01 | 6819 | 120049 | 4257 | 3481 |
| 1884-01-01 | 3974 | 124023 | 4419 | 3539 |
| 1885-01-01 | 3131 | 127154 | 4523 | 3529 |
| 1886-01-01 | 8400 | 135554 | 4884 | 3721 |
| 1887-01-01 | 13081 | 148635 | 5440 | 4096 |
| 1888-01-01 | 7066 | 155701 | 5655 | 4257 |
| 1889-01-01 | 5707 | 161408 | 5809 | 4377 |
| 1890-01-01 | 5739 | 167147 | 5887 | 4507 |
| 1891-01-01 | 4620 | 171767 | 5838 | 4608 |
| 1892-01-01 | 4648 | 176415 | 5742 | 4725 |
| 1893-01-01 | 3024 | 179439 | 5532 | 4799 |
| 1894-01-01 | 1760 | 181199 | 5367 | 4838 |
| 1895-01-01 | 1420 | 182619 | 5312 | 4853 |
| 1896-01-01 | 1692 | 184311 | 5316 | 4881 |
| 1897-01-01 | 2109 | 186420 | 5294 | 4904 |
| 1898-01-01 | 3265 | 189685 | 5341 | 4927 |
| 1899-01-01 | 4569 | 194254 | 5443 | 4995 |
| 1900-01-01 | 4894 | 199148 | 5437 | 5020 |
| 1901-01-01 | 5368 | 204516 | 5365 | 5011 |
| 1902-01-01 | 6026 | 210542 | 5186 | 4991 |
| 1903-01-01 | 5652 | 216194 | 4903 | 4933 |
| 1904-01-01 | 3832 | 220026 | 4761 | 4888 |
| 1905-01-01 | 4388 | 224414 | 4781 | 4947 |
| 1906-01-01 | 5623 | 230037 | 4899 | 5076 |
| 1907-01-01 | 5212 | 235249 | 4747 | 5161 |
| 1908-01-01 | 3214 | 238463 | 4278 | 5191 |
| 1909-01-01 | 3748 | 242211 | 4120 | 5234 |
| 1910-01-01 | 4122 | 246333 | 4044 | 5205 |
| 1911-01-01 | 3066 | 249399 | 3917 | 5082 |
| 1912-01-01 | 2997 | 252396 | 3839 | 4863 |
| 1913-01-01 | 3071 | 255467 | 3764 | 4588 |
| 1914-01-01 | 1532 | 256999 | 3693 | 4418 |
| 1915-01-01 | 933 | 257932 | 3654 | 4320 |
| 1916-01-01 | 1098 | 259030 | 3639 | 4254 |
| 1917-01-01 | 979 | 260009 | 3605 | 4015 |
| 1918-01-01 | 721 | 260730 | 3539 | 3616 |
| 1919-01-01 | 686 | 261416 | 3416 | 3410 |
| 1920-01-01 | 314 | 261730 | 3213 | 3236 |
| 1921-01-01 | 475 | 262205 | 3003 | 3066 |
| 1922-01-01 | 324 | 262529 | 2763 | 2928 |
| 1923-01-01 | 427 | 262956 | 2496 | 2792 |
| 1924-01-01 | 579 | 263535 | 2254 | 2713 |
| 1925-01-01 | 644 | 264179 | 2103 | 2677 |
| 1926-01-01 | 1005 | 265184 | 1941 | 2663 |
| 1927-01-01 | 779 | 265963 | 1711 | 2634 |
| 1928-01-01 | 1025 | 266988 | 1511 | 2599 |
| 1929-01-01 | 666 | 267654 | 1390 | 2515 |
| 1930-01-01 | 513 | 268167 | 1236 | 2384 |
| 1931-01-01 | 748 | 268915 | 1075 | 2251 |
| 1932-01-01 | 163 | 269078 | 937 | 2083 |
| 1933-01-01 | 24 | 269102 | 796 | 1889 |
| 1934-01-01 | 76 | 269178 | 653 | 1709 |
| 1935-01-01 | 45 | 269223 | 582 | 1587 |
| 1936-01-01 | 93 | 269316 | 542 | 1448 |
| 1937-01-01 | 148 | 269464 | 497 | 1272 |
| 1938-01-01 | 38 | 269502 | 452 | 1105 |
| 1939-01-01 | 58 | 269560 | 420 | 1003 |
| 1940-01-01 | 26 | 269586 | 389 | 883 |
| 1941-01-01 | 54 | 269640 | 377 | 752 |
| 1942-01-01 | 74 | 269714 | 358 | 655 |
| 1943-01-01 | 56 | 269770 | 345 | 560 |
| 1944-01-01 | 121 | 269891 | 330 | 465 |
| 1945-01-01 | 65 | 269956 | 306 | 418 |
| 1946-01-01 | 68 | 270024 | 278 | 390 |
| 1947-01-01 | 154 | 270178 | 238 | 360 |
| 1948-01-01 | 96 | 270274 | 205 | 331 |
| 1949-01-01 | 78 | 270352 | 160 | 310 |
| 1950-01-01 | 109 | 270461 | 134 | 292 |
| 1951-01-01 | 129 | 270590 | 115 | 286 |
| 1952-01-01 | 116 | 270706 | 85 | 274 |
I understand.
I’m saying that we should focus on other non rail projects.
ICC and Amtrak ruined railways already
Standard Oil used rail to transport oil before pipelines
Looks like the peak year was 1887, when a much smaller US population laid about 13,000 miles of track. For comparison, it looks like China laid an average about 1,700 miles of High Speed Rail track in recent years – granted that HSR track is technically much more challenging.
However, the issue is not the number of automobiles produced per day or the miles of track laid per year – it is having the physical capacity to do such things … or not having that capacity.
Everywhere we look (except SpaceX), the message is that the US has already lost that physical capacity to turn natural resources into useful products. Yet that physical capacity is what underpins the real wealth of a nation. The loss of that physical capacity will have – is already having – major consequences.
The copy cat model worked once, it will probably work again. Interesting to see SU7 copies Taycan not Tesla.
I have a friend who went out of his way to get a non Tesla EV because Elon purchased Twitter. He also said he would leave Twitter but like so many who left he came back
My cousin asked me about EVs. In her state the combined Fed and State tax credits can get massive. IIRC, a Tesla Model 3 got the most and a Hyundai got the most for a not-Tesla. When I mentioned this she freaked out upon just hearing the name Tesla.
Hybrids and plug-in hybrids are much more useful, and the market seems to be shifting in their favor.
More on the X7:
