Senate Banking Committee chair called Chinese EVs an “existential threat” to the US motor industry.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/4RY84
US claims to love their capitalism fueled open market. Yet they feel the need to subsidize them anyway and then cry that others are outcompeting them. Pathetic.
Yeah this whole subsidize, too big to fail horseshit was status quo fifteen years ago but Stellantis isn’t even an American company. Let the Jeep factory shutter, stop giving into their demands for government fuel. Dry them up, let them go down. If they can’t survive without the subsidies, better more effective companies will.
International competition is really amazing, it can drive innovation and make governments spend a ton of money on good things for society. It’s probably one of the biggest pros.
But the US banning Chinese products (more than just cars) only delays the inevitable. China is producing cheaper products. Are they better? I can’t really answer that, since I don’t know. But I’d be willing to buy a Chinese EV. US auto industry would collapse if China was allowed to enter and honestly, we deserve it.
The US is going to go through a strange and difficult transition when we are no longer the world leader on R&D.
I mean I don’t fully disagree with you but we have been doing tariffs on cars for like a zillion years. Having grown up in the backyard of the big 3 and had both my great grandfather and grandfather work for them. They have provided their works a decent salary and benefits I will say it’s been worse and worse but that’s America business. You just can’t find a good pension job these days.
These Chinese companies are working off slave labor and really shitty working conditions. Never heard of people jumping off a Jeep building like Foxconn. Let’s just put a net around the building #FoxconnNets
You know what, the US automotive industry has only served to produce useless vehicles with lower quality standards than anything other manufacturers produce. They cost the American taxpayers over $30 billion during the market crash of 2008 and most “US” brand parts aren’t even made in the US anymore. Toyota makes more “American” vehicles than GM or Ford do at this point and Chrysler is owned by Fiat (Stellantis which is a Dutch conglomerate that somehow is actually more of Peugeot than Fiat or Chrysler at this point? It’s a European super-conglomerate).
I see this as less of a China good / China bad thing and more of a regulatory capture issue. The problem is not really that China makes cars that much better because they are doing something magic.
The problem is that:
- due to pressure from the “burn the planet” industry lobbies, cheap compact electric cars are not made in the US
- there is a high demand for cars in the US, and also high demand apparently for cheap, clean, small cars
- China is willing to serve and capture that demand by massively subsidizing their cars and dumping them across the world, in an effort to capture international markets and create dependencies that can be then used for political gain
I expect the US government to again try every possible thing but solve the underlying issue, which is that the market is being manipulated from the supply side to make for ever bigger cars burning ever more fossil fuel. If Tesla et. al. would actually get around to releasing that “$25k car”, this would be less of an issue. If the US - and I mean the majority of the population who live in metropolises and sit in traffic jams, not the people farming in the prairies - wasn’t so car-dependent that you absolutely need a car to exist, this wouldn’t be an issue.
The US car lobby is sucking its citizens dry, and China is taking advantage of the induced but unmet demand.
I saw a review of the $11K BYD car. Part of the way they had reduced costs was by having the company’s own divisions make and sell a lot of the parts, like the motors, battery packs, transmission, headlights, infotainment, etc.
The divisions also sold to other car makers, but they obviously charged less for their own internal brands.
The U.S. AND European car makers are essentially systems integrators, buying parts from vendors like Denso, Magna, Continental, Bosch, etc. then assembling them together.
I imagine it would be impossible for car makers using this model to reduce costs below a certain level. They would have to completely redo their business models.
You heard it here first folks: electric cars that don’t cost the price of a kidney, rust on contact with air, plow themselves into pedestrians or burst into unquenchable lithium flames are an existential threat to the US motor industry.
for the 4th time this week
