American Tesla Engineers Tore Down a Cheap Chinese Ev — It Is Terrifying

When Ford took apart the first Tesla Model 3 and then the Chinese cars, its CEO said, "it was shocking what we found." Tesla took them apart too, according to its former president. So did Rivian, a Michigan teardown lab, and UBS. This is what they found inside BYD and Xiaomi's cars — the 30,511-rpm motor, the Blade battery, the same wiper motor in every car, the extra mile of wire — and why America's car companies are rebuilding around it. CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold Open 1:10 The Ten Thousand Dollar Car 2:55 The Number UBS Found 5:02 What Tesla Saw 7:20 Inside The Motor 9:24 Inside The Battery 11:02 Ford's Shock 12:33 No Magic 14:07 The American Answer 16:25 The Wall 18:52 What They Really Found SOURCES (as shown or quoted, in order) - Carscoops, "Ford's Jim Farley Was 'Shocked' After Tearing Down Chinese And Tesla EVs" (Nov 12, 2025) - NBC News / CNBC, "Why a small China-made EV has global auto execs and politicians on edge" (Mar 26, 2024) - UBS Evidence Lab, "Will Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) win globally?" (Sep 7, 2023) - Business Insider, "Tesla's former president says Chinese EV makers use a 'super smart' technique that even Tesla has applied to its cars" (Nov 27, 2025) - CnEVPost, "BYD unveils new EV platform with 1,000-kW supercharging support, starts Han L, Tang L pre-sales" (Mar 17, 2025) - Battery-News, "Tesla vs. BYD: Study Reveals Different Battery Cell Technologies" (Mar 10, 2025) - Business Insider, "Ford's CEO says China's EV progress is 'the most humbling thing' he's ever seen" (Jun 30, 2025) - TechCrunch, "Ex-Tesla exec leading Ford skunkworks project to develop low-cost EV" (Feb 6, 2024) - CBS News, "Biden announces new tariffs on Chinese EVs, semiconductors, solar cells and more" (May 14, 2024) - NBC News / Reuters, "Trump says he would be OK with China building cars in the U.S." (Sep 11, 2026) - Also: Rhodium Group "Why Are Chinese EVs So Cheap?" (Feb 19, 2026); CnEVPost BYD/Tesla sales data; Electrek; Fortune; CarNewsChina; electrive; TFLtruck; Ford 8-K (Dec 15, 2025); BIS/Commerce Department (Jan 14, 2025); IEA Global EV Outlook 2026; AlixPartners Global Automotive Outlook 2024; SciTechDaily; Automotive Manufacturing Solutions; CleanTechnica; Charged EVs. FOOTAGE & PHOTOS Official company footage © its owners (BYD, Xiaomi, Tesla, Ford, CATL, General Motors/Chevrolet), used for news commentary. Photographs from Wikimedia Commons under CC0 / CC BY / public domain. Full per-clip and per-photo credits in the pinned comment. Subscribe to USA Truck Insight for more deep dives into the car industry. #BYD #Tesla #ChineseEV #ElectricCars #XiaomiSU7