China voiced dissatisfaction on Wednesday at a demand by the European Union to engage within a “very short” time in consultations on the bloc’s inquiry into subsidies for electric vehicles.
The remarks came as the European Commission formally launched the investigation on whether to set tariffs to shield its producers from a “flood” of imports of cheaper Chinese electric vehicles (EV) it says benefit from state subsidies.
However, China was “very much dissatisfied” with the anti-subsidy investigation as it lacked adequate evidence and did not conform with World Trade Organization rules, the country’s commerce ministry said in a statement.
Cheap EVs are good for the transition to clean energy… cheap EVs are good for everyone because they drive adoption.
Cheap EVs that are mass produced and subsidized to dump them on foreign markets and destroy local industries is not good for everyone.
Europes domestic car makers will disappear within 10 years if they do nothing to protect them.
If that’s what it takes to stop climate change, why not?
You should probably look more deeply into the structure of Chinese EV subsidies. Recent incentive programs simply involve waiving the purchase taxes for EVs below a certain cost threshold: this increases domestic demand but doesn’t lower costs to the manufacturer. Direct subsidy programs have been progressively phased out and since 2023 no longer exist.
For what it’s worth, subsidies for EV companies are not uncommon. Notoriously, Tesla collected billions in grants, tax breaks, environmental credits, discounted loans, direct incentives, and factory construction assistance and, even today, effectively sits there collecting government income tax rebate money.
Ohh my sweet summer child. Yes, those are all good little independently owned EV businesses. Definitely not enterprises that are owned, sponsored and answer to the Chinese Communist Party. I’m sure they only have the best interests of the World environment at heart.
I guess you are right it is ok to destroy other people’s livelihoods as long as it isn’t your own job at stake. I’m sure the population will be in favor of outright product dumping that destroys local industries and puts them out of a job as long as it saves the environment. There is absolutely no way that same population would seek to preserve their livelihood…
What the fuck does an EV manufacturer that “answers to the CPC” even mean? That the government can use their industrial capacity in wartime? That if the company flagrantly breaks the law that the CEO will see real consequences like jail time? That the company is subject to import and export laws of the country it operates in?
Europe needs to wake up to the realities of climate change. Their ignorance of the impacts of climate change and their ignorance of the imminent EV transition led them down this path. European policymakers could see this from a mile away, yet of the top-selling cars in Europe how many are EVs?
While the US and China were dumping billions of dollars into EV startups to fuel the transition to cleaner air and reduced GHG emissions, European governments allowed their legacy industries to trundle on with ICEs instead: Peugeot, Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Fiat, Citroen, Renault, Skoda. Now, European carmakers can’t compete.