BYD: Beating the MAGA bakkies
Slapping fat tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) is unlikely to put much of a dent in the wallet of the MAGA support base, whose vehicle of choice is a Ford truck with a giant engine whose relevant performance stat is proudly gallons per mile rather than miles per gallon.
There may come a time when these intellectual giants wake up to the fact that sticking tariffs on everything imported makes stuff more expensive for the doughty consumers of Pigsnuckle, Arkansas, but for the moment they can just revel in the glory of sticking two fingers in the face of Johnny Foreigner.
Meanwhile, BYD just goes about its business, which is churning out increasingly sophisticated EVs at prices that no Western manufacturer can ever hope to compete with. Its latest announcement is that it will be installing an advanced self-driving system called “God’s Eye” across its entire model line-up, even down to the Seagull hatchback, which is yours for less than $10,000.
There are clearly many drivers who could benefit from a bit of divine assistance when attempting to parallel park or overtake, and to offer these features at that price point is a game-changer.
BYD has also joined forces with other Chinese manufacturers to work with DeepSeek to integrate its remarkably cost-effective AI into their vehicle systems. If this is successful, it will bring them right up to speed in one of the areas where the US had happily been thinking it was way ahead of the game. BYD’s share price is at a record high as it continues to eat Detroit’s lunch.
Eutelsat: Too close to the sun
Connoisseurs of good old-fashioned state capture will be keeping a close eye on the outcome of Elon Musk wrapping himself around Washington’s levers of power like a particularly voracious octopus. Where the Founding Fathers used the constitution to enshrine checks and balances, the current administration looks to be more concerned with cheques and bank balances, the bigger the better.
Musk’s SpaceX has received about $20bn in federal funds since 2008, a period in which it has comprehensively outperformed Nasa, and while a $400m purchase of armoured vehicles from Tesla has been put on hold, there may well be more where that came from.
While there doesn’t seem much chance of Starlink becoming available in the beloved country, Musk has stuck about 6,000 satellites into low Earth orbit in the past five years to extend his broadband service to 130 countries. This, and the launch of Amazon’s Project Kuiper equivalent later this year, is extremely bad news for incumbent satellite services such as Eutelsat, whose higher-orbit businesses are struggling to compete.
Eutelsat has announced an annual loss of £728m, and its share price is in free fall just as it needs to raise billions to fund a new generation of OneWeb satellites.
While Starlink has been powering ahead, OneWeb has had repeated technology issues, including a 48-hour blackout on New Year’s Day caused by the minor detail of failing to spot that 2024 was a leap year.
Investors are piling into credit default swaps, betting heavily that Eutelsat will default on its debts, in a clear signal that you don’t want to fight the Musk.
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