By "European" you mean "made in China"?
this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Came to day this :D
European! (Built in China)
As an electronics designer professionally I just want to chime in.
With current infrastructure, it is very very very difficult to not go bankrupt and making consumer products in the EU the price for these sort of small products would be double to triple and of the same quality (I.e. shit products would also be shit, just much more expensive).
We need to be investing in automation infrastructure in low cost of living areas to get anywhere near competitive. Even current PCB manufacturers in Italy, Portugal, and Hungary are useful for B2B industrial, medical, and aerospace products mostly because the cost to assemble the PCBs is simply too high for consumers to consider buying.
Look at fairphone. They are designed in NL, software written in the EU, and still produced in China (searching for better conditions though) and like 90% of consumers that consider them won't buy them specifically because of price point.
Designed in the EU, produced in china (and software in the EU) is already a large step up because development costs and profits go to EU companies, even if produced in China. Small companies have no other choice.
I'll bite the top voted post - this is not the right mentality to have. OP just bought from an EU company and wanted to post to our community, shouldn't we be a bit more encouraging? The EU consumer electronics industry simply isn't there yet for the charger case - see my other post
In my opinion it does not belong here. I appreciate the hype and effort of trying to buy European ,but there is no reason calling this European simply because the distributor is European or they have put their name on the product
We have the same issue here in Denmark. Super markets have started marking European products with a star on the price tag. They do mark Californian raisins as European, simply because a European brand buys them from the US and distributes them.
@cosmicrookie @BenchpressMuyDebil
Most of the world's manufacturing is in Asia. Not just electronics, but textiles, clothing, shoes, tools, decorations and thousands of other things.
But if we use the same logic, we shouldn't say an iPhone is American since it's made in China.
I agree. My point though is, that this is not relevant. For me, it's not about changing all purchases to somethingt that is European. I see it as much more valuable to choose European over other brands when you have the choice. In this case I don't see it as a choice. You buy Chinese, or Chinese distributed by a European company. It's the same in the end, besides you having paid much more for the same product. If you do buy European wine over American though, or meat, or services, it makes a lot more sense
Friendly reminder IKEA sell some top notch USB chargers and cables.
Good on you for at least using an European company. Finding the manufacturer making everything from start to finish in Europe can be exhausting. I was interested and I've found https://en.recable.eu/products/usb-a-usb-c-30-watt-charger - still made in China but the company is German. This is also the first foldable EU plug charger I've seen. The cables they make are handmade thus expensive, but I like the message: moving the production burden from overseas to back home.
For others, there is also the probaby-made-in-china-but-at-least-by-a-eu-bcorp Fairphone Dual-port 30W charger or the Pinepower - sadly with NA adapter
Good on you for at least using an European company.
This is from someone elseโs post from r/buyfromeu.
A foldable EU plug!? Me likely :)
EDIT: Also https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/USB-C-wall-mount-100-Watt-EU-Power-Plug_1.tuxedo#gallery says assembled in Germany
Thanks good tip, based in Sweden I see. And from their about page: "We do not believe in generic products manufactured under marginalized conditions." Cool.
In the video you can see the plug body is not flush with the rest of the charger when it's folded, but still pretty interesting. I'm on the fence whether I should get it - it's pretty big - the chinesium Baseus charger I have is smaller still I think
Yeah flat is also not necessarily the most portable, if I carry a charger it's not always the only tech so wide and long can also be annoying. I'm fine with what I have so I'll stick to it as longs as it works. But if it breaks I might consider both.
Didn't know they where German. My main association with them is that their stuff is kinda ass.
Same. I worked in an electronics store. This was one of the manufacturers where products broke so often we had a separate bin for their broken products.
But it was also one of the "refund anytime, no questions asked" manufacturers where we could just say how many value of products we got returned and they would just refund the amount to us. No pesky RMA process, no repairs, just take it back whenever the customer is unhappy and throw it away.
How are manufacturers like this even allowed to exist. The amount of environmental pollution by generating e-waste is just insane.
I was surprised to find that a lot of the things in the middle aisle at Lidl (think small kitchen appliances and such), which I expected to be Chinese, claim to have been manufactured in Germany (often by small firms in regional cities). As such, itโs plausible that they could make, say, USB cables or chargers in the EU without each commanding a luxury-goods price tag.
I appreciate, that the company in German, but lets be honest.. If a German company bought Coca Cola, or Pepsi and sold it, to you would it be European too?
I understand the hype and i am also very excited about the move towards more European trade, but let's not fool ourselves with this being European. It is a fact that very few electronics are made in EU, and this is something that we have to accept. This is indeed something that USA has failed to realize and are now making products more expensive to themselves, because production will not more to them. Asia makes electronics for the whole world. You can't move products for USA to USA, or for EU to EU without the final product getting way more expensive
Your point is valid but as long as Asia creates all our electronics you can order companies from least to most European and base your decision on this.
Also you can order the Asian countries that manufacture electronics from least to most following European values and standards. Not al non-eu countries are equally bad.
The real problem in my eyes is the lack of transparency by companies with international production lines.
I agree you need to take into account how much money, time and effort you are able or willing to spend on eu-alternarives. I think you are right in allowing yourself to make choice based on your circumstances and being ok that.
But it's also fair to let others make their own choices and letting them choose which purchase they want to make according to whatever scale they please.
You wrote in another post about Californian raisins being labeled as a European product because they were sold by a European company, I agree this is a bit misleading. But my point is, that a European company buying something from US can be seen as a better alternative to a US company selling the same product.
Personally I don't see a point on documenting all our purchases and rating them according to some pro-eu scale.
We do need to accept that not all our purchases can be morally solid or based on EU and that is ok!
Its just the way I see it.
Fighting the good fight, keep it up
Are you sure you bought the right one? Doesn't that look a little... intenso?