We got picked up in an actual Mercedes at the airport here in Hangzhou. It was gas powered too. Felt like a significant step down from the luxury Chinese EVs I had been in the last few days. Didn't know it was this bad. Damn.
DHH
@dhhOct 18
I'd never heard of the Chinese car brand that just drove us back to the hotel in Shenzhen, but the interior was as nice or nicer than a top-spec Mercedes S class and the 20-minute drive was $6. Germany should be very worried indeed.

Oct 19, 2026 · 1:34 PM UTC

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Will you cancel roadster preorder and get Xiaomi Skynomad? 👊😁👊
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Tesla is the only Western car company that feels well prepared to meet the Chinese competition. But I am visiting Xiaomi later on this trip! So I'm excited to see what they have to offer.
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oh, DHH in Hangzhou, what a wonderful day. Will you visit any companies in Hangzhou.
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Yes! Here to meet new friends at Alibaba Cloud.
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Westeners think of Chinese EVs as luxury. Chinese think of Western ICE cars as luxury.
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Favorite thing is to request DiDi black car. I got some insane Chinese car last week in Guangzhou. Super cheap too.
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And my Zeekr 7x was 1/3 the price of my Mercedes GLE… But I’m sure the bureaucratic process for selecting the subpar materials for the Mercedes was followed to a tee.
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Yes, US public is actually very disadvantaged by not allowing Chinese EVs to enter the US market. I am not able to see the endgame though, the gap will only get wider by prolonging the ban. Hard choices.
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Going from a Chinese EV back to a gas Mercedes is like going back to macOS after a week on Linux
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Well...wait until those Chinese cars gave been used in a Scandinavian country for a few years, then check for rust etc. I should know, I got one, and parts are literally starting to fall off.
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Imagine Tesla were so heavily subsidized that a Model 3 cost $18K. It'd be like that. We could have nice things too.
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getting picked up in a gas Mercedes and calling it a downgrade is a sentence nobody would have believed five years ago
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Chinese EVs did to German luxury what the iPhone did to the iPod. Still works fine, it just suddenly feels like it's from another era.
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Here in Dubai a lot of the Ubers are BYD or other Chinese brands and honestly they’re seriously impressive
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In Delhi people buy the Mercedes for the badge, the neighbours only ever see it from outside
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German car manufacturers are more interested in their political opinions in these times, they don't care about customers or quality ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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going from chinese ev interiors back to a gas mercedes must feel like time travel
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Check out Jack Ma’s Yun Gu school that he co-founded, while you’re visiting unitree. He sunk 200m into it and makes some of the smaller universities in the US look… underfunded.
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wow never thought ddh would show up in china. feels like the dimension is broken through.
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Some times my DiDi arrives and it’s a brand new Mercedes or BWM, I’m always disappointed 😂 more excited when it’s a new Chinese EV I’ve never experienced!
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Those are very nice cars from the 1900s
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Wild that a gas Mercedes is now the 'oh… we got the cheap one' car right? 👀
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Yup, that's how I felt getting into a F-150 after driving the Cybertruck for a bit. It's insane how so many of the car companies feel so far behind.
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Chinese car manufacturers are 2 steps ahead right now. NIOs come with a little robot on the dash.
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Every time I'm telling people about this, they like you never owned maybach to discuss quality (yes I owned just a humble 750 Li). Now the guy with the freaking Pagani and 12Cilindri talking about this.
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I saw a (angry motortrade) short vid opening and closing a tinny non 'clunk' benz door and tapping all the interior and it looked like plastic garbage with color LEDs. Shocking how far they have fallen.
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Mercedes comfort has really declined with the latest models. At the same time the Chinese have caught up fast, on comfort and on engineering. Just look at how they handle bumps. Which Chinese luxury EV were you riding in?
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I can't stand driving ICE vehicles anymore, at least not under powered ones. If someone wants to let me drive their supercar/hypercar, I'm not turning that down. 🤣
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Luxury EV MPVs or SUVs?
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Old money in Hangzhou loves Mercedes more :)
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酒香也怕巷子深，不光外国人，很多中国人都不知道中国车已经比德国车好了。
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Hangzhou is Zeekr's home turf, so you were probably riding in the exact cars eating Mercedes' lunch. Mercedes' China deliveries fell 30% in Q2.
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I can't wait to see these EVs on the Canadian market.
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So you enjoyed the big display, the big sofa, and the refrigerator on the Chinese Mercedes?
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Your journal in China is v amusing. Do keep us updated!
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