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US set to impose 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicle imports
- krasin 2y agoIt's more important to require no connectivity, or only limit connectivity to the servers controlled by domestic companies and ensure that they have sources for all firmware within the car, than to tax the car imports. Modern cars are designed like smartphones with mandatory cloud connectivity and updates, but they are cars: a faulty / hacked car is far more dangerous to the public than a faulty / hacked smartphone.
- thevagrant 2y agoThose are two separate issues. A tariff helps balance the playing field for US manufacturing and does not try to solve the hacked car scenario US needs manufacturing and tariffs unfortunately are in part necessary
- Nifty3929 2y agoAt the expense of the Americans who are not in the automotive business.
- wholemodern 2y agoshort sightedness. when your fellow citizens lose their jobs to foreign invaders, you will feel it eventually.
- geysersam 2y agoHow can a tariff 'balance' the playing field? Isn't that slightly double speak a la 1984? I think the US has every right to impose the tariffs they want, but let's call it what it is: anti-competetive protectionism.
- bobthepanda 2y agoThe Chinese government is accused of subsidizing electric car manufacturing in which case it’s just two protectionist players. China has the capability to support double the car manufacturing of its current domestic market, and plants have already been mothballed due to the glut https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/business/china-auto-factories-price-cuts.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/business/china-auto-facto...
- datavirtue 2y agoWhen we subsidize industry everyone throws a party.
- bobthepanda 2y agoThe current US policy is less than four years old. China has been known to do this for decades. At this point the US is doing it to even the field since getting China to liberalize its economy further seems to be a dead topic.
- robocat 2y ago> US policy is less than four years old Example of US vehicle manufacturing protectionism since 1964 called the Chicken tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
- wmf 2y agoLet's have privacy for all cars. The amount of snitching going on is ridiculous.
- _lvbh 2y agoGiving me “nobody is allowed to make the world a better place more than I do” vibes > amid mounting concern that China could flood the US market with cheap EVs As a consumer, isn’t that a good thing?
- nyokodo 2y ago> As a consumer, isn’t that a good thing? A foreign nation dumping massive volumes of their heavily subsidized production onto your local market and putting your domestic producers out of business is not a good thing for any nation. If China could produce EVs far cheaper than the United States without using vast amounts of coal, and without those heavy subsidies on the whole supply chain let alone on manufacturers directly, then there's a free market argument for going tariff free, but as it stands going tariff free would be just letting dirty, unfair competition to go unchecked. It'd be political suicide let alone national industrial suicide.
- anigbrowl 2y agoYour comment makes me wonder if you read the article at all. Several of your concerns were addressed therein. One a more general note, even accepting your arguments about subsidies and production conditions doesn't overcome the fact that a lot of the vehicles depicted here are just better designed and more interesting-looking than western (and Japanese) offerings.
- maxglute 2y agoYeah people conveniently ignores US directly waterhoses their auto manufactures with subsidies and bail out money ontop of consumer tax credits to drive consumption. More in aggregate than the few years PRC have been focusing on EV. Different is PRC subsidies focused on trying to find actual winners who increases efficieny and brings costs down, instead of senators trying to keep their voter base happy. Or lame excuse that PRC products made with dirty coal vs that sweet clean US LNG (unproven with evidence to contrary). TLDR US decades of unfair US subsidies with USD money printer still can't compete against a few years of PRC subsidies. I wonder if these folks would accept a PRC plant built in US on JV model like they did in PRC, chances are no, because deep down they know PRC is simply just better at volume manufacturing than US.
- fargle 2y agohttps://archive.is/P91pA https://archive.is/P91pA please if you are going to post a paywalled article, have the decency to post an archive link
- x86x87 2y agoDecency? Why the attack here?
- fargle 2y agoit's not an attack. i just find it rude to post a paywalled article. why not take two seconds to post an archive link if you really need to? because someone else will do it for you? is that really a decent attitude?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- x86x87 2y agoThat is fine. Post the archive link (as you did) and gently let the poster know. You don't know who the poster is. It may be their first time trying to engage here. They may not know about archive. Many things can happen here. Don't just assume the worse and start throwing words around. We are all trying to have fun, learn and have a conversation here.
- viewtransform 2y agoThe unspoken etiquette here is to just post the archive link for the benefit of others, as you have done. Then move on, knowing you have contributed a small act of kindness to the world today.
- fargle 2y agoif you post an interesting link, that nobody else can read, then someone else posts the archive link to fix that, it isn't a "kindness". it's cleanup for someone else. should we never speak of it?
- zhengiszen 2y agoIt happened with Samsung/Huawei against Apple and now with EV coming from China... When competition is to much to bear there's still propaganda disguised as law to protect the consumer (from who ?). In the long run it will just accelerate the inevitable demise. How much percentage of import are we talking about here ?
- Sabinus 2y agoChina protects their chosen domestic industries, why is it wrong for the US to do it?
- DaveExeter 2y ago[flagged]
- james_chu 2y agoWhy are Chinese electric cars seen as a threat to U.S. jobs and national security?
- xwowsersx 2y agoJob losses in US automotive industry, supply chain dependence which could pose a risk to nat sec if geopolitical tensions arise or China decides to restrict exports, technological dominance threatening to undermine US competitiveness, data security concerns if they collect sensitive data through their vehicles. Not saying I agree with any of these reasons, but just thinking out loud and trying to steelman.
- james_chu 2y agoI really appreciate your perspective that the United States could address these challenges by investing in domestic electric vehicle manufacturing, diversifying the supply chain, promoting innovation, and establishing a robust data privacy and cybersecurity framework. Unfortunately, it seems that the Biden administration has not considered this approach. Why might that be? Is it because imposing tariffs is the least costly option compared to making investments?
- SauciestGNU 2y agoThere are only a few levers the American government has to pull to encourage the behavior they want. They can't at this point order companies to eliminate China from their supply chains. They can instead make it more painful to use China via tariffs and other trade barriers. I also think there has been some domestic investment via the IRA, and I've seen government officials soliciting the construction of battery factories. I think the problem is that as long as a Chinese supply chain is cheaper, any rational capitalist actor will choose that.
- navigate8310 2y ago[flagged]
- james_chu 2y agoChinese electric cars are viewed as a threat to U.S. jobs and national security primarily due to the risks associated with data security and the potential economic impact on the American auto industry. The fear of sensitive information being collected and transmitted back to China, coupled with the possibility of undercutting domestic manufacturers and causing job losses, underlies the concerns raised by the Biden administration and experts regarding the implications of Chinese electric vehicles on U.S. national interests. ---- Can Tesla collect the same amount of data in China? Does the Chinese government not worry about this?
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoChina tried xenophobia and protectionism for 1000 years, and Japan also for almost that amount of time. It didn't work out well for either when Europe and American ironclads dropped by for a visit. Market isolationism and protectionism is a clear signal of weakness.
- defrost 2y ago> It didn't work out well for either when Europe and American ironclads dropped by for a visit. To be clear, you're advocating for the rights of profit driven armed drug dealers to addict citizens of foreign countries? https://asiapacificcurriculum.ca/learning-module/opium-wars-china https://asiapacificcurriculum.ca/learning-module/opium-wars-...
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoSMH. Be reasonable. Colonialism was and is shitty.
- defrost 2y agoSure, colonialism whether direct or indirect is shitty. Consider your argument though: > Market isolationism and protectionism is a clear signal of weakness. In the case of China, it was too weak to fight off unwanted trade, it would have been a clear signal of strength if it had maintained isolationalism. Being forced into trade demonstrated weakness.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoThere aren't many Chinese or any other foreign EVs in the US because they fail to invest in the homologation process that other manufacturers are required to undertake. All this sort of pointless protectionism really accomplishes is deny US customers from having more choices.
- nielsbot 2y agoWhy is this pointless?
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoThere aren't zillions of Chinese EVs on American roads, but this just makes it impossible for Americans to buy a Chinese EV even if it attains homologation and it allows American EV makers to keep prices artificially high. It screws American consumers.
- Sabinus 2y agoMore of the opening rounds of The Great Decoupling. It'll be interesting to see the effects of this as we go on. What will the authoritarians do when the markets of rich consumers go away?
- 1attice 2y agocontext [also from HN]: https://insideevs.com/features/719015/china-is-ahead-of-west/amp/ https://insideevs.com/features/719015/china-is-ahead-of-west... "I Went To China And Drove A Dozen Electric Cars. Western Automakers Are Cooked"
- seo-speedwagon 2y agoIn the US, average transaction price for new cars is a bit north of $47k, and the average loan duration something like 67 months. It’s no wonder the US is throwing up anti-competitive protectionist policies. https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/kbb-atp-february-2024/ https://www.coxautoinc.com/market-insights/kbb-atp-february-...
- noashavit 2y agoMakes sense to me. Many countries impose tariffs on importing cars. Especially when they expect a mass influx of those vehicles to flood the market. Within china, they are incentivizing ppl to buy electric by imposing high registration fees for non EVs. They have stated clearly that they want to dominate the EVa market, so makes sense we will impose tariffs to try and protect domestic car manufacturers
- HDThoreaun 2y agoYou protect domestic car manufacturers by forcing them to compete with a decent product. Banning foreign products, which is what this effectively does, just makes the domestic products worse as they face less competition.