How China's new auto giants left General Motors, Volkswagen and Tesla in the dust

I was going to say "because they're probably state subsidized" but your suggestion is better

Edit: looks like you're right lol

The urgent pace is baked into BYD’s structure. Taking advantage of China’s lower labor costs, BYD deploys about 900,000 employees, nearly as many as the combined workforces of Toyota and Volkswagen, to accelerate design and manufacturing. At its headquarters, BYD promotes a work-focused life through company-subsidized housing, transportation and schools.

They also combine that with skimping on quality ( admittedly a low bar these days, when even daimler uses cheap chinese interior plastic ):

Chinese engineers have essentially concluded that global industry-standard vetting processes are a wasteful pursuit of “excessive quality,” Han said.

Instead, Chinese automakers release good-enough vehicles quickly, with far fewer prototypes and a fail-fast philosophy mirroring Silicon Valley tech startups, industry executives and experts said.

This sentence makes no sense though:

The problem: The car had been designed for China’s smooth streets and slower speeds. Now, it had to withstand Europe’s winding, bumpy roads.

It's almost as if this was a propaganda article.

Wang spends many nights in Shenzhen employee housing, eats simple meals and works long days, sometimes in a BYD uniform, two BYD investors and others who know him told Reuters. Unlike many Chinese executives, who are chauffeured around, he often drives himself

I got it - they're quoting directly, that's why it reads like propaganda.

At this point, Tesla needs to steal IP from them, not the other way round.