Geiz ist geil…
Newton’s -lesser known - fourth law states that in a free, open, global market, all production naturally moves to China.
It’s a natural application of the law of universal gravitation; China is probably the country in the world with the most human mass.
They also severely underpay the workers making it hard for anyone else to compete.
so does all of Africa, all of SE Asia, all of South America, all of India, so “severely underpaying the workers” is obviously not it, or lots of people would be going to those places as well
That’s old news; Chinese workers now are actually decently well-paid AFAIK, while the low-paid export labor is mostly in Southeast Asia.
Do they still have netting under the multistory windows to catch the suicidally over worked?
Citation needed. Not that I don’t want to believe you,but this is the kind of claim that requires citation.
Fair enough. “Underpaid” isn’t an objective measure so it’s hard to argue against, but ths average wage in China in 2024 was 124k yuan. Multiplied by 3.5, the PPP factor for China in the same year and converting to 2024 USD, we get approximately 60k USD equivalents annually. That’s basically the same as France. Now that said there are two caveats here: First this is purchasing power parity, which measures how much money goes domestically; a French wage will go much further when importing foreign goods. Second China has higher inequality than France, and specifically a large rural-urban divide, so the same average is coming from a more equitable distribution in France, meaning most people are making more money than China even in PPP despite the average being the same. Still, it’s clear that the poverty wages China gets derided for are a thing of the past (try doing the same math with 2014 numbers). Chinese factories run on automation now, not cheap labor.
not op but why ? the post that was given about them being underpaid was not citied. That which can be claimed without proof can be dismissed without proof.
the occasional article i read suggests it mostly about their automation and supply. chain integration.
I can’t really understand why injection molding machines are cheaper to run in China than Germany. Bike helmets are basically large coffee cups with straps.
Lower security standards, lower wages for supervisors, lower electricity costs
Still no fan, would rather pay a bit more for my helmet
Probably it’s the electricity costs because Germany killed it’s own solar industry
Germany’s solar industry collapsed when China took over the market by exporting lots of photovoltaic cells at a loss.
Anyway this isnt related to energy prices, Germany is quite good with renewables. But safety regulations (which are a good thing!) for both power plants and the grid make the price higher
And nuclear industry
Nuclear is expensive as shit
I know, but they had it already
More middlemen taking bigger bites.
KED for anyone wondering.
So now those helmets are chinese and customers are going to move to cheaper alternatives as why would they pay more for non local product?
Quality control and design still matter.
They will still design in Germany and Chinese manufacturing will provide any level of QC clients pay for. American companies design an inferior products, refuse to pay for QC, then blame China.
But if they still design in Germany, where are they actually saving money? Rent for the building where those injection moulding machines are housed?
Producing a helmet is not actually something requiring human labour or lots of (cheaper) energy.
So what’s left is indeed quality control…
I don’t think they were expensive in comparison to ABUS, Uvex, Alpina.
