Americans Are Open To Cheap Chinese Cars. That’s 'Scary' For The Rest Of The Auto Industry
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15089465
Americans Are Open To Cheap Chinese Cars. That’s 'Scary' For The Rest Of The Auto Industry
"American companies are scared of the open market when it works against them, yet refuse to make better products"
There is a good reason why American companies are scared. It almost never works out for them. Sony vs Zenith TVs is a great example about how a foreign company improved on a technology (color tv) and made zenith look like a stingy dinosaur overnight. Instead of selling color TV's zenith just doubled down and sold cheaper shittier TV's. By the time color was standard, their reputation was ruined and no one wanted a Zenith when Sony was the best. Sony however wouldn't have been able to get into the market without help from zenith in the first place.
The issue was that Chinese EVs are ahead of Western EVs due to aggressive subsidy and investment by the Chinese government to get ahead. So the market has been distorted which is what was "scary" according to the quite in the article that spawned the headline.
Having said that, I'm not sure I believe that Chinese EVs will be better quality. They may be cheaper and they may even have technically advanced but from experience of other Chinese products, quality is not a word I'd associate with them.
The US government can do the same, and they do bailouts for companies often too. Isn't that also meddling in the free market? Why didn't the US government incentivize EV then?
BYD is so ahead because they were making batteries for a long time before going into ev business. Also I would not say tesla quality is high either
Look into Harley Davidson, they should have gone bankrupt multiple times but were saved by high tarrifs placed on imported bikes.
due to aggressive subsidy and investment by the Chinese government
yes. similar to a lot of western products.
All the best and worst shit you own is made in China. If you don't want cheap shit don't buy cheap shit, but these cars are really nice and inexpensive.
These cars are in tons of countries outside of China and they are very well received.
Americans aren't going to care about quality that much if their monthly payment is only $200. As long as a Chinese EV is reliable long enough to make it's total cost of ownership much lower than American EVs or ICEs they will line up to buy them.
The American market has been desperate for a cheap and reliable car, a role Japanese automakers used to fill, and both US and Japanese makers know it.
American cars have their own subsidies as well. I mean the government bailed them out of dying several years ago.
We shouldn't have bailed them out. We should have bought a public controlling interest in them.
I don’t know about other countries but US has both pretty strong incentives and protectionist barriers. However they’re meant to be temporary. This is legacy automaker’s chance. A few years for the government to help them transition, but they need to be willing to come out of the closet. They’re throwing that opportunity away
American Cars look like relics from the last century when compared to Chinese design and capabilities, that is why the American car companies do not want Chinese brands in their market because there is no way they can compete with them.
Chinese brands just arrived in Mexico and it has been a massacre for american and European brands, a lot of car dealers have been closing lately and you can see in the streets that most new cars are Chinese. The Chinese dealers have impeccable service and the architecture is impressive. Prices are 1/3 of the European cars and 1/2 of the American Cars. The only ones that might be able to compete are japanese and Korean car companies.
Every country does this that is a red herring. Does your country have public schools that produce people who work in the automotive sector? Congrats you live in a country that has an agressive subsidy and investment in the automotive sector.
Cheap labour under a command economy is hard to beat, I'll grant you that. But the best counter to that is to focus on high quality construction, like Toyota does, for example
People were saying the same thing on quality about Japanese car when they first arrived on the market.
"Americans Are Open To Cheap Chinese Cars"
"People don’t have money. That’s scary for companies selling expensive products."
Best to make being poor illegal. That'll light a fire under the lazy asses of the working class! /$
The issue is that there aren't low cost cars anymore. Everything is over 25k and the used cars market is insane.
So yeah, no shit we want cheaper cars.
Yeah, it's wild to me. I was looking to replace a vehicle and cheapest ev was just over $30k. But none have been in stock, only $45k+.
People will be Open to affordable cars from anyone if the traditional makers don't start offering affordable vehicles.
Shocker. People don’t want to pay $40k + to commute to work.
A lot of people want a reasonably priced car that can commute, have enough range for something fun on the weekend, and have a stereo that isn’t total shit.
But the rub here is that it'll be like a new Walmart opening in your town. Before too long everyone is shopping at Walmart and all the small local businesses shut down because they can't compete with the prices and purchasing power of one of the largest corporations in the world.
Once that happens, all those workers get jobs at Walmart and then spend 80% of their paycheck buying products from Walmart. This leaves the town poor as a majority of the money circulating around gets sent out to Bentonville Arkansas where it goes into the Walton's bank accounts to be used to hire more lawyers to get them out of yet another vehicular manslaughter charge.
This shit is how the US wound up like we are today with rampant homelessness and shit wages, but all people care about are seeing those low prices on the store shelves.
But for the most part are American cars bringing that much more value for the price? If the average American car lasted 250,000 miles with little maintenance, maybe that would be worth the price.
The cost of cars went up dramatically during this last period of greedflation. I'm not going to cry for the domestic car makers. They'll get a bunch of government money to continue being shitty.
No it's more like Aldi and Lidl coming and opening up next to the big supermarket of the town. The local shops have already been killed by Walmart or in my country Tesco. Aldi and Lidl come in and undercut the giant and skim off a portion of the trade, and a portion of the people work there instead. The big supermarket can't muscle them out because they're far bigger companies than they look.
Sounds like capitalism isn't the most stable way to structure civilization.
I think we ended up with rampant homelessness because banks turned housing into an investment instead of asset and your local Karen made zoning laws to keep POC. Shit wages are also pretty simple to explain stock buybacks were allowed and encouraged allowing.
Also your comment feels like it is from 2003 you have to update your propaganda periodically.
Whose fault is it?
Chinese EV manufacturers, on the other hand, are already five to 10 years ahead of their American and European rivals, Kumar said. A lot of that is thanks to aggressive investments in the EV industry from the Chinese government.
It's amazing what kind of leaps you can make with government funding research.
Yet US has incentives, mandates, and protectionism. Why aren’t US manufacturers 5-10 years ahead?
I assume lobbying
From the average American’s perspective? Probably still China. China always bad. Always.
Americans are also so lacking in moral consistency that they’ll throw their racism and xenophobia to the side just to save $1.
On the other hand, so many things in America have become so expensive many people are priced out of the market. Perhaps they will save the $1.00 because if they don't, it doesn't happen. The average price of a new car in America is more than $47k. That's a lot of money.
Have you ever handled anything made in China? It'll be something invented somewhere else, implemented worse.
I’ll pay extra for three things: efficiency/electrification, longevity/repairability, and a UAW sticker. What I won’t pay extra for is a giant car, executive bonuses, and car salespeople.
So instead of expensive cars that suck and break down, we'd have cheap cars that suck and break down. Which is technically better, I guess.
"Foreign oligarchs are taking over!" - domestic oligarchs probably
destroyed the reputation of American cars being the best made vehicles in the world.
This was always pure propaganda and if that argument were being made, that downfall would've happened way before the '70s. Like, beginning of the 20th century, at latest.
This! This! This! Goliaths like GM could make competitive affordable cars tomorrow if they decided they're were going to make money off building good cars instead of ripping off consumers, financialization and oligopolistic tactics.
Is it possible that Americans just don't have any good domestic options for an adorable EV....
Hey, the Eggasus is plenty adorable.
Still waiting for someone to make a Catbus EV though.
If I hadn't made a spelling error I would have never heard of the Eggasus, which looks terrible but definitely adorable.
Pretty sure you mean affordable, but I think adorable fits because the cars are smaller for which we also don't have good options!
I'm just going to leave the typo in because it's funny
Apparently when everything's made in China, it gives China a bit of an advantage...
.... who'd have thought, except everyone who said so when the west started outsourcing all their manufacturing work there.
Fyi, the US is the second biggest manufacturer after China. And per capita the US is a bigger manufacturer.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/manufacturing-by-country
Also having a government which invests heavily in its infrastructure
Silly Clinton!
Make small trucks you stupid pieces of shit! Make them SMALL.
Fuck the chicken tax, I want my Toyota helix.
Capitalists hate competition.
Aside from the chicken tax, Trump also slapped another 25% tariff on Chinese cars specifically because fuck you if you want a small cheap EV.
And it's not only about tariffs. Many regulations benefit big cars. There's CAFE, which ties emissions limits to a car's footprint: the larger the car, the less stringent the emission standard is. General Motors average fuel economy has actually gotten worse in the past 5 years. And, there's a $30k tax break for small businesses that buy a vehicle for work that weighs over 6,000 lbs. fully loaded.
Did you know the US has had a "gas guzzler tax" since 1978? It applies to every car that gets less than 22.5 mpg. Except for SUVs and pickups, those are for some reason exempt. The US also has some of the lowest gasoline taxes among rich nations, giving very little incentive to buy a car that consumes less fuel.
US federal safety regulations and crash tests, contrary to European ones, do not consider anything other than the occupant of the car. The risks to pedestrians or cyclists are not a consideration at all when evaluating the safety of the car.
Consider that car makers make substantially bigger margins on the large vehicle segment, and the reasons for all these nonsensical regulations start becoming clear.
Yes! I hate how the 'small' trucks nowdays are still full fucking size.
I used to have an old ass ford ranger and that beast was great.
Fairly fuel efficient considering it's age. Fitted perfectly on the road.
It wasn't 17 feet off the ground for no reason. You could easily load and unload the bed.
I got so excited when I heard they were bringing it back.
Then of course it's a full size (aka oversized) pickup that got worse mileage than the 30 year old version.
The Ford Maverick gives me hope. If something like that came out in a full EV format my Model 3 will know its days are numbered.
I have a 1998 toyota tacoma that I use daily only because there is no other new vehicle on the market that's like it. It's built on a car frame, and its tiny, and handles just like a car - it's amazing.
https://minitrucks.net/collections/vehicles
I don't see any hiluxs, but there are some good deals there
the U.S industry has up to the time when BYD finishes its factory in Mexico to design more sub 20k vehicles.
They won't because they know they don't need to. The auto industry just got a huge PR boost through the whole UAW affair. They'll leverage that position to lobby the government to continue the same protectionist policies that are already in place and if you don't like it you can eat shit. Everyone wins, but you and the rich get richer selling you $42,999 MSRP (plus dealer tip) crossovers loaded with features that nobody asked for!
Don't forget the features that people do want for safety and such are locked behind premium tiers too. But we can have Sirius XM ads and OnStar giving our data to insurance companies without consent.
Is it weird that I'm considering a Mexican citizenship? I mean it cones with a small truck that is actually useful for $15k, AND I can get more first world EV.
LoL at the dealer tip. Even if the used market sucks, it'll always be a better experience then buying at a stealership. The entire process is trash start to finish.
Beginning of covid was probably the best time to buy new through my entire life and I don't ever see that situation ever coming back throughout the rest of my life.
People seem to but them tho...
They could be buying coroals or accords
i mean, there are already cmpanies making ones at a lower price down the line (Rivian's R3 target price is 35000) so saying 42999 is already being sort of dishonest.
If our domestic market won't give us the cheap EV we have been begging for, then I'll take a cheap Chinese car.
Sounds like Ford might be the answer here if they release a cheap car.
Tesla all but cancelled their cheap EV by firing the whole new car development teams yesterday.
We will eventually have a golden age for cheap EVs, it's just too bad the domestic market is going to be so far behind.
I'll buy a new electric car from anyone. It just needs:
My longest regular drive (few times a year) is around 75 miles each way. I just want to be able to do that without worrying about charging.
I could afford something that's $45K, but I don't want to, I don't need that much car.
And not data-mining everything I do to sell to my insurance company, is really a standard thing that should never happen.
Just about anything else I'm flexible with. And from what I've seen, it should be relatively easy to build that car.
Bonus point if I can get an actual color!
Something that's not black, white, or grey.
Bonus point if I can get an actual color!
Something that's not black, white, or grey.
Best we can do is wet putty gray
I believe the data mining for insurance is opt in for most if not all EVs at least currently. As for collecting your data in general? Most do that but you could always just unplug the cell modem.
The problem is opt in isn't actually opt in because they're depending on the integrity of the scummiest industry in America. They're supposed to sell you on it and they get a bonus for everyone that signs up. So what actually happens is that page gets clicked through before you know what it is.
Never, ever trust an opt in/out at all unless it's open source and audited. Otherwise, you have to trust that they'll do the right thing.
Or, hope that unplugging is not only possible, but doesn't break anything else.
At least Hyundai might be collecting and sharing data without consent, and I wouldn't be surprised if others do it too. Based on just this anecdote from Security Now, but still. https://piped.video/watch?v=GR28LQbIiAY&t=3471
The difficult part of this is that you'd have to have a car with 30% + 15% more range than your minimum, because your daily usage will be between 80% at full charge and 10% at lowest charge, and you will lose 15% efficiency in cold weather, snow, rain, headwinds.
So for a minimum of 175 miles of range you really have to shop for a car with ~250 miles of range to be usable for you. I strongly believe we will see cars in the 30k price bracket with 250 miles of EPA range, but they are going to come with tech.
75mi x2 ways, is 150mi.
150mi x1.15 (15%), is 172.5mi.
This also isn't daily driving. It's a few times a year at most. So the 150mi trips would pre-aranged 100% charge days.
Daily driving is less than 50mi. Closer to 30 really.
So yah, I really only need the 175 miles of range.
The rare road trip that's longer, would be once every 2-3 years at most. I'd just rent something for those trips.
And when I say less than $30K I mean less. Not the in $30K price bracket. The $20K+ bracket. Maybe $28 or 29K tops, if it had some killer feature I really liked.
This reminds me a lot of how American car companies built giant land yachts until the Gas Crisis, and then had to compete with cheaper, more efficient, and more reliable Japanese car brands. Car companies know that we need to maintain a certain level of industrial output to stay competitive geopolitically, so they know they'll get bailed out if they fail. So they're gonna keep making these mistakes.
Is there a Chinese electric hot hatch or roadster that doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles?
Plenty. None that I would trust to save me in a road accident, though.
Outside of the USA, those giant pickup truck are outright illegal, or would have an annual road tax of USD 2000. That's how tiny cheap EVs are made safer elsewhere
Most Americans are open to cheap anything without caring about quality, or slave labor, or giving their money to people who will use it against them. See also WalMart and Dollar General.
You say that like Ford, Stellantis, and GM aren't building their cars out of the same slave-built components as BYD, just with a +80% price increase because they're Amerikkkan.
I wanted my car made in America. So, I bought a Toyota.
Joking aside, even if someone goes through all the "effort" to buy an "American Made" car, a lot of the components are probably made in China anyway. With the very long tail of logistical chains these days, it's almost impossible to know the providence of all the pieces of anything. And even the suppliers have no clue about all the places their parts are ending up.
The big three are asking for the least amount of "made in China" as possible. Sure, some chips are impossible to get elsewhere but they are moving to near shoring and SE Asia as much as possible
No, they don't. They say it as though it's a universal regardless of country of origin.
They should do what meta did and lobby for a competition ban. Oh wait I am positive they are already.
Yes I want a cheap EV. I don't need all that infotainment garbage, I don't need to have a machine too big to park. I want a small fuel efficient car that just works and just works off electricity instead of gas. Not freaken hard
There are already huge arbitrary tariffs on these. That's why you can't get one in the US. The manufacturers don't even bother with our bullshit market.
Cheap doesn’t have to mean stripped of all features. That’s just the way that American automakers have done market segmentation. The cheap Chinese cars will certainly not be luxury models, but they will have infotainment and a few bells and whistles (or, gimmicks).
For many chinese devices you get infotainment cheaper, and other extra things. But from my experience they lack in the steel quality compared to Möre refined auto makers. This is just my observation so it isn't necessarily always true.
Old auto makers are slow to roll out changes that actually are cheap and easy to implement, status quo and all that
Cheap EV coupe.... gimme! Anyone? Bueller?
DOT approved....? Maybe. We need to beef up regulators ability to screen out deathtraps.
What ever happened to the whole competition thing, ya commies?
They should be scared. Its their policies that drive the shift. Stop giving outrageous monetary rewards to management and put that money into r&d and try to actually produce things people want
It’s my understanding that they’re approved for sale in Europe, who I assume are fairly competent in testing things like cars. If I could get a dirt cheap electric as a city only runabout (which is 95% of my driving) I’d probably jump on that.
To play devil's advocate, it's not the slightest bit hard to see why. I'd almost be curious to see it happen.
The concerns of data collection and privacy are 110% valid, but it's not like domestic cars are any better. It's a Facebook/TikTok situation, do you want American companies doing super shady shit with your data, or do you want Chinese companies doing super shady shit with your data?
Do you want GM doing shady shit with your data or do you want BYD doing shady shit with your data? Either way, one data leak is all it takes for everyone to have access to your data.
The difference between the two scenarios is that you don't need to use social media. Many Americans need a car due to our garbage public transport and non-walkable cities.
If actual competition is what it takes to make the American auto industry give a shit, then fuck it, let's see what happens. If they can't compete on price, then compete on privacy. Sell a dumb EV with physical dials and switches. I'd buy the more expensive car that doesn't track everything I do.
Is this an irresponsible take that ignores long term consequences? Probably, but that's the strategy for most companies nowadays and we need more EVs on the road ASAP (among a million other things to slow climate change).
What can foreign adversaries do shady shit with towards you who lives overseas and low probability of going into the mainland versus your local government?
often all the companies doing shady data shit are selling your data to the same people.
Digital bill of rights when?
Oh wait, positive rights legislation would take a thing to fundraise with away from these dip shit representatives.
I am curious about how the QA is going to be. When Chinese companies decide to do QA, it's awesome. When they don't, its beyond bad.
This'll be fun to watch, actually.
Depends on the company, Volvo is well... Volvo. And BYD actually scores pretty good according to consumer complaints.
Made in China Tesla's are better build then US made ones.
https://electrek.co/2020/08/03/tesla-made-in-china-cars-lead-market-quality/
Also there are already many Chinese EVs sold around the world for quite some time with no known major recalls.
Big bada boom
Americans, like most people, are open to just about anything if you hit them with enough marketing or propaganda.
You don't need a lot of marketing to prefer a basic but decent car for a third (or less) of the price of the average American car (read: truck). American cars are bloating like crazy, and even if the tracking is insane on a chinese car, it's no better on a domestic car. The American (and European) auto industry needs to get its act together and stop blaming consumers for not happily donating them stupid amounts of money and data
I have yet to see a single ad for a Chinese EV I am constantly seeing ads for trucks. I don't own a truck, I highly doubt I will ever own a truck. So either I am special (very doubtful) or no amount of effort will convince me that black is white and white is black.
Now sell me a low cost EV already and not some penis compensation device that guzzles fuel.
You mean TikTok. He means TikTok.
If they can pass the crash tests and get over other regulatory issues then sure make them available and let the market decide. I recall when Hyundai first entered the US market and the Yugo. One was able to change to meet US market demands but it took a decade and the other died.
Chinese brands compete in other markets against US, Japanese, EU, and Korean brands. In my experience, most folks are choosing non-Chinese brands because the quality, performance and features are not competitive.
Sounds like boot kissing, nobody I know doesn't give a fuck about features other than air conditioning and maybe a sunroof if they're fancy. They certainly don't give a fuck about performance we aren't a bunch of teenagers trying to wave our dicks around with a sports car anymore.
I'm honestly quite confident if Chinese cars were allowed to compete and drag the prices down they would actually be quite popular. I know a lot of people that would love one of those little Japanese tiny trucks if they could get their hands on one without all the bullshit of importing it
Performance isn't "high performance racing stuff", it is ride comfort, normal cornering stability, stopping stability, general safety, etc.
I lived in China for 12 years. Folks there bought foreign brands even though they cost more because they were just better.
Now I live in Vietnam, as people here transition from motorcycles to cars, they have plenty of choices and most choose non-Chinese brands. Toyota and Hyundai are the biggest sellers for sedans, they and Ford are the biggest sellers for SUVs, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Ford are the biggest sellers for the light trucks (Ranger, Hilux, etc).
If they can pass the crash tests and get over other regulatory issues
Including labor conditions.
I dunno, maybe put out not stupid bloated trash?
No thank you. Made in fucking CCP run China is not the same as the 1980's high quality Japanese cars and motorcycles. Furthermore, the Chinese will face patent infringements that will block importation to the 1st World, with exception to Volvo.
Japanese made products used to be bad too. They even make a joke about in the "Back to the Future" movie.
Whoever sells the EV version of a Toyota Corolla or Camry in the US will get filthy fucking rich.
Right now, I'm guessing it will be Volvo: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/how-volvo-landed-cheap-chinese-ev-us-shores-trade-war-2024-04-24/
Volvo Chads stay winning. I've owned 30+ years of Volvo cars and hope to make it 50+ with a EX30 sometime within the next few years.
Volvo, please, in our darkest hour, save us with an affordable EV station wagon
*Geely Geometry C
The EX30 is currently manufactured at parent company Geely's facility in Zhangjiakou, China
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a45723828/2025-volvo-ex30-drive/
The clowns at Toyota already make an EV Corolla called the BZ3
I mean I'd take a cheap chinese car the only thing stopping me is that importing cars from other countries sucks.
25 year rule; no amount of hoops-jumping will get one of these on the road anytime soon.
Perfect example of unnecessary quotation marks.
OK, now I have to.
"Perfect" example of unnecessary quotation marks.
Perfect "example" of unnecessary quotation marks.
Perfect example of "unnecessary" quotation marks.
Perfect example of unnecessary "quotation marks".
I believe it's indicating that the use of the word scary is a quote, and not a summary like the rest of the headline.
But at the end of the day, he told InsideEVs, “if you have a compelling product and it’s cheaper, it’s tough from an economic sense to keep those vehicles out.”
"hold my beer!"
at this point I'm open to chinese world hegemony if it means I get a house, a union, and a carbon neutral economy
That's a pretty big "if"...
Union? In China unions are rare.
yeah I'd much rather see Europe do something cool
at this point I’m open to chinese world hegemony if it means I get a house, a union, and a carbon neutral economy
Have you looked at China today to see what each of those things looks like in China? Hint, its surprisingly worse in those 3 things than the USA, which is already a low bar.
It's okay because they'll never have to know about the slave labor because it's illegal to report on once you're under their rule.
The average car sale price in the US is almost $50K.
US automakers have decided to relegate a large chunk of the population to the used market while also ensuring with all the electric extra bits that the used market will be entirely unreliable in 10 years.
Just something to note: used car sales have had significantly more volume than new car sales for at least 30 years (possibly longer) so that particular point isn't as relevant to the new car pricing.
Whatever their quality, which seem to be below American but above European in terms of reliability, they're still going to be cheaper and better then a chewed up Altima on it's 12th owner at a usurious 15% APR being sold at predatory "buy here, pay here" lot that plague low income American neighborhoods like a herpes infection.
All current automakers selling cars in the use including Koreans, have been happy to screw over American customers with oligopolistic pricing for decades.
To quote a great philosopher "There's not a damn thing funny. You gotta have a car in the land of milk and honey.". An automobile is a critical tool for economic mobility in the states and the US has been happy leave a auto underclass forced to buy garbage used cars at eye watering APRs. Loans all backed by Wall Street criminals.
A car maker like BYD could not come soon enough.
Has anyone released an electric car which came with an extra battery for trip replacements, and gave you the ability to buy more batteries for longer trips?
The batteries weigh a few hundred pounds I think so it would be like replacing your motor mid roadtrip.
Yes. Chaina even: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w
There's trucks with swappable batteries but it all lacks a universal format.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=hNZy603as5w
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Crazy how all those attempts to modernize or educate our workforce to compete gets treated as goverment overreach, they're teaching us the woke mind virus, socialism, blah blah. Then it's the dirty immigrants are taking our jobs.
Americans deserve what's coming to them because they fucking chose it while waving flags.
That's the least on topic rant I've seen today. Pretty impressive considering some of the emails my family passes around.
No, I see the same thing. There’s all this kerfluffle about Chinese companies taking over another industry, and healthy doses of Sinophobia, and all I see is everyone else throwing the opportunity away.
We’ve needed and been able to produce affordable useful EVs for over a decade now. Did they come from legacy manufacturers? No. Tesla burst on the scene and proved it could be done: did legacy manufacturers jump on that bandwagon? No. Tesla stock valuation skyrocketed above the stock of all legacy manufacturers combined: did they see the future? Lip service, announcements, misinformation. Legacy manufacturers finally get started, with huge PR machines and precious few products, all way overpriced, US government throws in big incentives, but still: way too few, way too expensive, way too much resistance. Now Chinese companies are flooding out affordable practical products, us legacy manufacturers hide behind their protectionist barriers, but instead of taking advantage of the reprieve, just backtrack, hide, run back into the closet. In four years the incentives and protectionism will disappear and we’ll be left with legacy manufacturers holding onto their last few customers for ICE pickups while companies like BYD will have carpeted the world with affordable practical EVs
I guess you need 'america is willfully losing competitive ground in big industries' spelled out for you.
My thing is, I don't trust a Chinese car company to remember to install the air bags. Or the brake pads. I don't trust the batteries to not catch on fire or the seats to not give me herpes.
Meanwhile, in the real world we have Cybertrucks that can slice off fingers, have gas pedals that can get stuck in full acceleration, steering that breaks, and get bricked by a car wash or a small puddle. And that’s all without mentioning the pedophile Neo-Nazi CEO.
pedophile Neo-Nazi CEO
For fuck's sake. What did I miss?
Yeah, Teslas are also complete garbage that should all be confiscated and scrapped, the company shut down and the CEO, board of directors and all shareholders should die penniless and cold.
This doesn't negate the core tenet of Chinese culture: Negligence.
GM let a woman rot in prison on murder charges for years rather than admit in court it knew about the fault ignition locks.
