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Casting a Harsh Light On Chinese Solar Panels
New submitter Eugriped3z writes with an article in the New York Times that "indicates that manufacturing defect rates for solar panels manufactured in China vary widely, anywhere from 5-22%. Secrecy in the terms of settlements negotiated by attorneys representing multi-million dollar installations perpetuate the problem by masking the identity of unscrupulous or incompetent actors. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that unit labor costs in Mexico are now lower than in China."
There ya go. At least it's made in North America then. We need to help the Mexicans out anyway what with the Cartels wearing them out and all. Let's buy some from our neighbors.
So you paid before you got a sample? or the first delivery?
That seems fraught with peril.
We can create a domestic solar panel industry to replace the cheap defective solar panels bought from a country that helped destroy our previous domestic solar panel industry. Bark! Bark! Bark! We will catch that tail eventually.
People don't even do escrow when they buy a house. But they should. But I guess the real estate lobby wouldn't like that at all.
Mostly random stuff.
I would never have figured Mexican labor would become cheaper than that found in China. Sure, there's an education gap between Chinese and Mexican labor, but Mexico has been successful at producing exports in a variety of industries.
Significant to what I'm seeing in that comparison is that while the "build it wherever labor is cheap" attitude has certainly been prevalent, I have to wonder if rising fuel costs will begin to whittle away at that? Several years ago, a man who ran a raw cotton storage facility told me that the cotton was grown here in Texas, shipped to China, manufactured into completed products, and shipped back to the United States. How much longer can transportation to and from across the Pacific be cost effective compared to other options?
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I should note an addendum to my comment about "this will probably get sorted out." There will be stratification in the market. By that I mean that you'll be able to sort out good producers from bad based on quality (and reputation - deserved or not), with price point being a proxy measure of that. People seeking reliability, and who are willing to pay for it, will know where they can go. Those who don't care if they get early failures, can shoulder the risk of early failures, or just can't afford better will likewise know where they can go. There will also be some paradoxical cases of companies that command a price point not at all justified by their quality.
It is, again, like the consumer electronics market as a whole. If you are looking for, say, a PC power supply, you can get quality products backed by good warranties and a long track record, but you'll pay a price premium for it. You can also go bargain basement, know that you are getting a lower quality product that has a higher chance or early failure, but be OK with that. But power supplies are a relatively mature market in terms of size, growth rate, component supply chain, and R&D roadmap. Photovoltaics are still very much in flux, and it'll probably take another few years - even a decade or two - before things settle out.
Another parallel with the PC industry: things were simpler when it was small and niche. Think back to the 1970s and 1980s - PCs were not yet a commodity, lots of manufacturing was still taking place in industrialized countries to high standards, there were lots of small- and medium-sized companies that devoted a lot to the design, build, and manufacturing quality, because a bunch of warranty claims would either bankrupt them or kill their brand (which would have the same effect). Computers were purchased and used by fairly knowledgeable people. Then there came an explosion in the late 1980s and 1990s, when there was a feedback loop of commoditization: more widespread use and standardization lead companies to compete on price, which drove down costs, which allowed for more widespread use, etc. Along the way, prices went way down, but quality also suffered along the way.
I will noet that, during that same time period, value went up tremendously. Even if the reject rate of components and finished goods went up, you still got a lot more product for the same amount of money. This is also true in solar: you can get a lot more for the same amount of money these days, even taking into account the higher reject rate. This will continue into the foreseeable future.
Yeah, people put $500 in escrow when looking at houses all the time. How much earnest money is put into escrow depends highly on location and value of property. It should ideally also reflect how much a buyer wants the property.
When I bought my house I put a lot of money in escrow. When is that not the normal method?
Anything argued in a court of law by anyone should be open, with very few restrictions (identities of minors and victims in some criminal cases, etc). I've not yet heard any convincing arguments for keeping details of cases involving corporations from the public, at least not after some short delay in extraordinary cases (a month or so).
A great idea, but if you implemented it, companies would hack around it. Perhaps by adding another layer of lawyers invoking client privilege, or binding arbitration by a secret panel.
When companies sue each other, neither wants the results public. When a person sues a company, the company will offer them more money to stay quiet, than they can get from the original lawsuit. (once you figure the likelihood of winning & the time value of the money) A settlement keeps most of the facts away from the courts.
Stronger whistleblower protection and a better FTC would help shine light on corporate malfeasance. A law that made silence contracts non-binding would be bad for a few individuals, but good for the rest of the country.
People need privacy. Corporations, not so much.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I hope you're being sarcastic. Using the terms "court" and "law" in any discussion of Chinese business practices is automatically +5 Funny.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Doing business in China is fine if you know what you're doing. Doing business with China without being in China and you're likely to be screwed. Ordering small things online from a big company always carries a risk. You're too small fry for them to care, and you're not there to oversee the manufacturing/shipping, which is to these companies, your own fault. This is why so many smarter foreigners still prefer to pay more to go through a Hong Kong company. QC is immensely better when the 3rd party company has someone who can actually go to China, and cheaply too, for a minor, per unit, price increase.
The good news is that, eventually, this will probably get sorted out. Producers and installers with brands and reputations (not to mention business contracts) to defend will eventually get fed up with dealing with shitty suppliers, who will either clean up their act, go out of business, or retreat to the purgatory of "known to be poor quality", where there's still plenty of business to be had (see again the desktop PC market), but not much money to be made.
Yah. That's the downside of "The Market Will Work It Out". You have to wait until the market works it out. Which means waiting for enough people with enough influence to go elsewhere. Which can be a very, very long time in some cases. Sometimes never.