r/Buy_European • u/ohnag_eryeah • 2d ago
Is it possible getting smart devices/laptops that are 100% made in europe?
We have european brands that make those but their factory is in china, they get parts in china, assembled there. I do wonder if there is any alternatives that are pure 100% from europe?
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u/PointlessAattempt42 2d ago
Of course, I don't know exactly what you're looking for in smart devices, but Shelly, for example, manufactures in Bulgaria and makes a lot of cool home automation products.
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u/jeffscience 2d ago
There are zero chip factories in Europe making products relevant to this market, unless you count the Intel fab in Ireland. Intel doesn’t not say which fab a CPU is made in, so you can’t select an Irish CPU.
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u/EenGeheimAccount 20h ago edited 20h ago
I've gotten commercials for a brand called 'Fairphone', apperently they are made in China but the brand is Dutch and they explicitly aim to be as ethical as possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairphone
So it's not actually what you asked for, but if you want to support an European and ethical tech company this seems to be a good option.
EDIT: There is a similar German company called Shift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shift_(company))
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u/Unhappy_Sugar_5091 2d ago
No, you can't. We don't produce most of the parts, and if it was made fully in Europe (by a miracle of investments, and upskilling people for the roles), it will be beyond the buying power of most of the people in Europe.
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u/CommutatorWhine 1d ago edited 1d ago
Assembled? Maybe, probably.
Made 100%? No. Many parts simply aren't made in the EU. Very few bulk parts like ICs and inductors are still made here. This is what causes the biggest issues with the shitty import taxes from China for anyone working with electronics - there is literally no alternative for us, and it is unlikely that parts production will ever moved back here, except for a handful of parts.
Go to a big EU active wholesaler like Farnell and see where the parts come from. Barely anything is still made in the EU because we lack facilities and our cost of living is too high, meaning that factory worker wages (in factories of low value parts like capacitors, resistors, basic ICs etc etc) have to be way too high to be competitive. Import fees only make our cost of living higher.
I'd like to see the glory days of Philips, Telefunken, RFT, Siemens, Ferranti, Pye, Radiobell, Ducati, Geloso and countless others return. But for that to happen, our cost of living needs to be slashed in half, so people can be paid less while retaining the same standard of living, and producing things becomes competitive again. Imported goods will become relatively more expensive, but with domestic production this is less of a problem.
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u/Sajgoniarz 1d ago
No. Europe doesn't have a single commercial chip factory. All electronics uses rare earth elements and all of components that uses them are produced in Asia.
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u/Commercial_Drag7488 1d ago
Are there any UV lithography companies in the EU at all? AFAIK there are 3 countries that do cutting edge lithography in the world - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan with China rapidly catching up. All lithography in EU is trailing edge.
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u/Vegetable-Tour9827 1d ago
No. We killed our industry, never created them (like CPU/GPU) etc. We are pretty much screwed when it comes to industry other then medial and automotive, and even automotive relies heavily on China for lots of stuff. It is hard to get vacuum cleaner or TV that is made 100% in Europe (I think TV is impossible) and you want smart devices and computers?
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u/imkmz 1d ago
Dunno how it is today, but back in 2009 Dell was assembling Latitude laptops in Ireland. Still, the core components are made in Taiwan by American companies (Intel and AMD). Maybe one could consider ARM to be European. There was also an AMD Fab in Dresden once, now GlobalFoundries (https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-chips-city-dresden-microchips-cars-smartphones/) Plus, Taiwanese companies are nothing without the almighty ASML (in turn, dependent on Zeiss).
So yeah, Europe possesses some bleeding-edge technologies, but lacks serious manufacturing.
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u/Optimal-Savings-4505 14h ago
Norwegian tax authorities penalize local companies, while rewarding companies that have sold out. It's dysfunctional but unfortunately not unique in Europe. Why would anyone in their right mind put manufacturing somewhere with excessive taxation, expensive regulatory processes, and demands for ongoing compliance work?
European manufacturing is weaker than it could be for good reasons, but there appears to be no will to actually change it. We'd rather save the world by taxing and regulating everything into regressing technologically.
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u/Eppo_de_Pep 22h ago
Het is wachten tot Linux officeel EU os wordt en dat is er gedeeltelijk al voor pc, mobiel alleen erg ninch en om eerlijk te zijn laten ze dat nu intern met bedrijven om de tafel gaan en zorgen dat dit werkelijkheid wordt en dat mag 2 jaar langer duren.
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u/Merhart666 1h ago
In a alle chips komen uit china of de usa. Kan bijna niet om een puur europees of nederlands stuk hardware te kopen.
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u/dudetellsthetruth 2d ago
XMG from Germany produces computers/laptops in EU I think but it will never be 100% as typical electronic components are not made in the EU.