China is mass-producing hypersonic missiles for $99,000

srean

What seems to be the problem with their S300 clones? Anyone knows ? Easy to jam I suppose.

code_biologist

Chat, is this real? I've seen this guy pop up on youtube. I assume he's a Chinese state mouthpiece as he's a westerner in the mainland with a very pro-China spin (substack recommended the other posts below), but I'm curious how strong the factual basis for this reporting is. China's factories are in another world - Mar 23, 2025 Chinese factories build fire trucks for under $400,000 in six weeks. In the US, it's $2 million in 4 years - Apr 19, 2025 Iran is blowing up $500 million radars. China's export bans mean they are gone forever. - Mar 16, 2026

creantum

If they’re half as good as the robot I saw today in china slapping that kid id get a few

exabrial

Real or not, this is probably the future. Lockheed execs want combat to be a distant exchange of multi-million dollar missiles. As shown in Ukraine, people actually fighting for their lives will wreck a $300million weapon with a slingshot.

ranger_danger

If they're that cheap they can probably afford to cry wolf with them. Get people used to seeing unarmed missles flown in to random places, where the possible damage doesn't justify trying to shoot them down, then suddenly start putting explosives onboard.

sailfast

Do they hit their targets? Eventually with enough of them it’s not super important but… it does matter a bit.

0x4e

Amazing! Yet another life destroying invention. What could go wrong?

ck2

when China take Taiwan there's not a single thing the world is going to be able to do about it they use thousands of fishing boats to practice blockades they are building massive oil reserves and getting most of population into electric vehicles let's just hope they wait to next decade and not like 2028

joe_mamba

Damn, can you imagine how quickly Aliexpress orders are gonna arrive now?

FpUser

>"A Chinese company is in production of a hypersonic missile, with a sticker price comparable to that of a luxury sedan" Well they've perfected manufacturing at scale. I see no surprise here.

janalsncm

This is what people should keep in mind when the statistic about US defense spending being higher than the next N nations combined or whatever it is now. If I buy a 30k Prius, and you spend 300k on a different car, 1) that doesn’t mean you can drive 10x as fast and 2) maybe you just bought an overpriced Prius, perhaps a gold plated one This is a more general problem in politics, where the overall budget being allocated is reported rather than the practical result.

magicalist

This is blogspam based on a tweet of the company's promo video[1] in November and some speculation by a guy on Chinese state TV[2]. As far as I can find there's no evidence since then that these have entered production, mass or otherwise. It was doubted at the time they could hit these costs in production, and there hasn't been any news since. [1] https://xcancel.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1993158707056984359 [2] https://archive.is/VLO7U

indubioprorubik

Pakistan invests in chinese air -defenses- gets steamrolled by india. Iran buys chinese air-defenses- gets steamrolled by Israel and the Us. Russia claimed the s400 was all the rage- and its going nowhere in ukraine. If propaganda claims where a currency, could you buy anything with all this?

mpweiher

I see your $99,000 missile and I raise you a $10 intercept. Time for those laser-defenses to come up to speed.

beloch

Whether these claims are real or not, they do illustrate one of the crazy things about technological progress. Capabilities that are difficult for states to develop eventually become something corporations can easily implement, and from there they become affordable for private citizens, first to buy, and then to DIY. Two obvious and concerning corollaries are that state capabilities eventually become easy to obtain for non-state terrorist groups and, later on, unbalanced individuals. Consider what ISIS would have done with these, and then think about what the unabomber would have done. I'd fully expect this particular company to face multiple hurdles in actually exporting any of these missiles. They might not be able to actually deliver at the quoted price-point. China might not permit it, due to the political blow-back. Israel and the U.S. obviously have an interest in making sure none of these missiles wind up in Iranian hands. The execs of this company are probably feeling a bit like a target has been painted on their heads right now. However, controlling technology like this is ultimately a game of whack-a-mole. If this company fails, gets regulated, decapitated, sucked up by the Chinese military, etc., ten other companies will pop up all over the place that can produce the same thing or better, cheaper . There's also a supply chain of components behind this company that can now export critical parts to those building their own. We've simply reached (or are about to reach) the point where missiles of this sort can be made very cheaply. Here's hoping missile defence gets better and cheaper fast .

carabiner

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41305736 No idea why a story about a YC company was flagged.

londons_explore

The future of almost all industries is smart software (costing billions to make, but infinitely copyable) and cheap hardware.

givemeethekeys

Perhaps this will be a larger peace between hypersonic powers than the one we've had between nuclear powers.

blipvert

If it’s not five nines then I’m not interested.

LorenPechtel

Hypersonic has a big weakness--good luck building a seeker that can function hypersonic. And most of that flight will be effectively outside the atmosphere--no midcourse adjustments. If you're standing still that's irrelevant, but if you can move that's a big issue. And how many Chinesium rocket motors will explode on ignition, blowing up whatever is doing the shooting.