4 ms·

It is unfortunate that all this innovation is happening in China, and subject to all sorts of protective tariffs to protect the absurdly dumb and backwards thin

by jgeada 2y ago

It is unfortunate that all this innovation is happening in China, and subject to all sorts of protective tariffs to protect the absurdly dumb and backwards thinking US automotive industry. If they can't adapt to the modern world and what customers want, they should be allowed to go bankrupt. But no, we have to keep subsidizing and protecting the ability to make yet more gargantuan SUVs.

MattGaiser 2y ago
American auto industry has had several reset chances since Japanese automakers began wiping the floor with them and each time they have found themselves behind within 5-10 years. It’s pretty incredible.
- Krasnol 2y ago
  Germany goes the same way and instead of supporting EVs and infrastructure drastically, they discuss how to roll back the phase out of combustion engine cars. Sad to see how a country, which is so proud of their car industry, fails so spectacularly.
  - MattGaiser 2y ago
    Is their main horse in the race capable of changing? Volkswagen's innovative drive systems turned out to be fraudulent.
    - Krasnol 2y ago
      They are so huge, they should all try at least. The race is lost for now, though. Volkswagen announced they want to produce a cheap model (20k€) it'll be there....2027. I guess by that time, people will already accept Chinese cars. I see them quite often here in a big German city.
- OtherShrezzing 2y ago
  The British car show Top Gear had a joke about this phenomenon when discussing the size of their American car's engines: > How big's your engine? 5.7 litre Buick and a 7 litre v8 motor! > It's 160HP in the Buick > It's 200HP in the 7.0l [other American car] > How do [American car companies] get so few horsepower from these engines? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RKai81eBRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RKai81eBRE
azinman2 2y ago
So let’s play this out. Say China floods the US market and the US players go out of business as you suggest. What then happens to the US’s industrial base? What happens if there’s a major war (maybe even against china!) and no car factories to retool? You think a new crop of auto companies come up and then are able to compete against lower wage workers combined with gov financing?
- torginus 2y ago
  Why would China flood the US market? Their advantage is that they can make stuff cheaper. The USA is the wealthiest country in the world, and has one of the highest median selling prices for new cars. I don't think an $10-$15k basic small car would be a bestseller there. If you are implying that the Chinese can make cars that can satisfy the upmarket needs of US consumers, and do it significantly cheaper, then that implies the US automakers are gouging their customers or are simply incompetent. In both cases, protecting them amounts to putting shareholder interest before the interest of the common people.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >Why would China flood the US market? To kill off American industries. A lot of what China does makes sense when you consider that their goal is not to make a financial profit, at least not in the near-term. No, their real goal is to go in and replace the local industries with their own; choking them out with Chinese goods so cheap yet still good enough that competition is impossible. The end result is the locals end up relying on China for industrial production, research and development, at which point China just won a war without firing a single shot. Look at what happened with solar panels, lithium batteries, and indeed EVs. Most if not all industrial bases outside China were destroyed and replaced thanks to a flooding of Chinese goods. The red ink is no doubt immense, but the payout in sheer geopolitical power far exceeds it. The Rust Belt and the collapse of American steel manufacturing is another example. Cheap steel from China and elsewhere led to the collapse of American steel, and we're now looking at it getting bought out by foreign interests (fortunately Japan rather than China, but the damage to American ego is beyond critical mass) as the final nail in the coffin.
resters 2y ago
Some may recall before the fall of the Soviet union when Soviet citizens were forced to buy Soviet-made cars that were laughably unreliable compared to vehicles manufactured elsewhere. The US is entering this territory of absurd protectionism that benefits the few at the expense of everyone else. We now have 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs and surely with the rate of innovation we are seeing, they will be 200% before long. Tesla is bizarrely focused on gigapress and making the EV high-end when the economics of a vehicle with many fewer moving parts and a simpler design should be leading us toward sub-$10K cars and trucks. As usual, Chinese firms seem to have better engineering chops and much better practical understanding of what the market wants.
- rasz 2y ago
  >before the fall of the Soviet union when Soviet citizens were forced to buy Soviet-made cars Anyone could buy imported car, the only problem was lack of $$$ hard currency.
simonbarker87 2y ago
China massively subsides its automotive OEMS. To the point that the whole thing might as well be considered a public sector endeavour. The only way the US can counter this is with tariffs or subsidising way beyond what they currently are. If US customers stopped buying SUVs OEMs would stop making them.
- VerminOctopus1 2y ago
  The US does this as well. They’ve dumped billions into Tesla alone.
  - simonbarker87 2y ago
    Sure, as well they should … and then do it for every other company one or two orders of magnitude more - then it’s a reasonable comparison.
    - asadotzler 2y ago
      Tesla gets two to three times more in US and California subsidy cash than BYD gets from China. You don't seem to know what you're talking about.
- maicro 2y ago
  Wouldn't that be an argument for Americans (and others) to buy _as many_ Chinese cars as possible? Unless China is imposing export tariffs/taxes/etc. on them, this would basically be draining the subsidized money from their economy - every purchase is a chunk of that subsidized money escaping.
  - simonbarker87 2y ago
    That’s fair but China will get that money back in the future when they’ve removed the local market competition and start cranking up the prices. They want these cars exported so that’s the subsidies working as far as they are concerned. They’ve done this in other, less consumer facing markets, like steel and magnets.
markus_zhang 2y ago
I think geopolitics plays a heavy hand here. I don't see how the US government could negotiate or even allow Chinese EV to be sold on US soil -- and even allowing them to open factories is not a popular move -- not to say that opening factories in the US is expensive. The more likely outcome is that the US government would seek ways to force the EU governments to remove Chinese brands from the EU market, or at least imposing a very heavy import tax, like 200%. This, of course, will deal a heavy blow to the EU car makers themselves too, but I believe the US does have enough strings to pull.
- AnotherGoodName 2y ago
  That just means the US and EU are in collective isolationism. Will they force third party countries into this agreement to spend more on EU/US cars over Chinese ones? 80%+ of EVs in Australia are Chinese made. Will the US/EU accept they just can't make competitive cars or will they force other countries to buy their cars? https://www.drive.com.au/news/china-builds-80-per-cent-of-new-ev-sales-australia/ https://www.drive.com.au/news/china-builds-80-per-cent-of-ne...
  - markus_zhang 2y ago
    They can also push other Five Eyes countries to follow up, and Japan too. Korea might be difficult to persuade but hey we have a military existence over there. After all, Five Eyes + EU + JK is pretty much THE non-China market out there. The others are not rich enough.
    - rstuart4133 2y ago
      Since Australia was mentioned, let an Australian tell you something about the history behind Australia economic policies. Australia experienced boom times after WW2. It has a strong manufacturing industry. It's not well remembered now, but back them agricultural machinery designed and made here was regarded as some of the best. But we aren't a big country, so economy of scale did not work in our favour. We responded by raising tariffs. It saved the manufacturing base, but that's the only good thing that could be said for it. Every other economic indicator was going backwards. After a few decades of that a politician named Paul Keating famously (well, it was famous here anyway) said the policy was turning us into a banana republic [0]. We made him Treasurer, and later Prime Minister. During that time he tore down tariffs, and removed other non-tariffs barriers such as the one our bank system hid behind. The policy had a rocky start, climaxing in the recession in 1991 Keating said we "had to have" and interest rates hitting 18%. Unlike the USA where fixed interest rates are common, in Australia that means everyone is paying 18%. I remember it well. The memory still hurts. It's 33 years later now. We have not had another recession. 33 years of continuous growth. The free trade policy is pretty much set in stone now. We dismantled what was left of our car manufacturing industry a few years ago. Everything we do have to be world competitive, or it goes. Did you know Google maps is Australian? There were do satellite mapping companies at the time. Google bought one. The other one, Near Map, is still turning out better satellite maps than Google. Anyway, the point is if someone pushed Australia to close it's economic borders they would get one mother of a push back. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keating#Macroeconomic_reforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keating#Macroeconomic_ref...
nextworddev 2y ago
If you thought Tiktok was spyware, then would you be interested in a BYD EV?
poulpy123 2y ago
protective tariffs are what allowed USA (and all industrial countries) to develop their industry
maicro 2y ago
Hey, that sounds a lot like unbridled free market capitalism to me, which nobody in the US would ever go for. Wait a second...

by jgeada 2y ago

MattGaiser 2y ago

American auto industry has had several reset chances since Japanese automakers began wiping the floor with them and each time they have found themselves behind within 5-10 years. It’s pretty incredible.

Krasnol 2y ago
Germany goes the same way and instead of supporting EVs and infrastructure drastically, they discuss how to roll back the phase out of combustion engine cars. Sad to see how a country, which is so proud of their car industry, fails so spectacularly.
- MattGaiser 2y ago
  Is their main horse in the race capable of changing? Volkswagen's innovative drive systems turned out to be fraudulent.
  - Krasnol 2y ago
    They are so huge, they should all try at least. The race is lost for now, though. Volkswagen announced they want to produce a cheap model (20k€) it'll be there....2027. I guess by that time, people will already accept Chinese cars. I see them quite often here in a big German city.
OtherShrezzing 2y ago
The British car show Top Gear had a joke about this phenomenon when discussing the size of their American car's engines: > How big's your engine? 5.7 litre Buick and a 7 litre v8 motor! > It's 160HP in the Buick > It's 200HP in the 7.0l [other American car] > How do [American car companies] get so few horsepower from these engines? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RKai81eBRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RKai81eBRE

azinman2 2y ago

So let’s play this out. Say China floods the US market and the US players go out of business as you suggest. What then happens to the US’s industrial base? What happens if there’s a major war (maybe even against china!) and no car factories to retool? You think a new crop of auto companies come up and then are able to compete against lower wage workers combined with gov financing?

torginus 2y ago
Why would China flood the US market? Their advantage is that they can make stuff cheaper. The USA is the wealthiest country in the world, and has one of the highest median selling prices for new cars. I don't think an $10-$15k basic small car would be a bestseller there. If you are implying that the Chinese can make cars that can satisfy the upmarket needs of US consumers, and do it significantly cheaper, then that implies the US automakers are gouging their customers or are simply incompetent. In both cases, protecting them amounts to putting shareholder interest before the interest of the common people.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >Why would China flood the US market? To kill off American industries. A lot of what China does makes sense when you consider that their goal is not to make a financial profit, at least not in the near-term. No, their real goal is to go in and replace the local industries with their own; choking them out with Chinese goods so cheap yet still good enough that competition is impossible. The end result is the locals end up relying on China for industrial production, research and development, at which point China just won a war without firing a single shot. Look at what happened with solar panels, lithium batteries, and indeed EVs. Most if not all industrial bases outside China were destroyed and replaced thanks to a flooding of Chinese goods. The red ink is no doubt immense, but the payout in sheer geopolitical power far exceeds it. The Rust Belt and the collapse of American steel manufacturing is another example. Cheap steel from China and elsewhere led to the collapse of American steel, and we're now looking at it getting bought out by foreign interests (fortunately Japan rather than China, but the damage to American ego is beyond critical mass) as the final nail in the coffin.

resters 2y ago

Some may recall before the fall of the Soviet union when Soviet citizens were forced to buy Soviet-made cars that were laughably unreliable compared to vehicles manufactured elsewhere. The US is entering this territory of absurd protectionism that benefits the few at the expense of everyone else. We now have 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs and surely with the rate of innovation we are seeing, they will be 200% before long. Tesla is bizarrely focused on gigapress and making the EV high-end when the economics of a vehicle with many fewer moving parts and a simpler design should be leading us toward sub-$10K cars and trucks. As usual, Chinese firms seem to have better engineering chops and much better practical understanding of what the market wants.

rasz 2y ago
>before the fall of the Soviet union when Soviet citizens were forced to buy Soviet-made cars Anyone could buy imported car, the only problem was lack of $$$ hard currency.

simonbarker87 2y ago

China massively subsides its automotive OEMS. To the point that the whole thing might as well be considered a public sector endeavour. The only way the US can counter this is with tariffs or subsidising way beyond what they currently are. If US customers stopped buying SUVs OEMs would stop making them.

VerminOctopus1 2y ago
The US does this as well. They’ve dumped billions into Tesla alone.
- simonbarker87 2y ago
  Sure, as well they should … and then do it for every other company one or two orders of magnitude more - then it’s a reasonable comparison.
  - asadotzler 2y ago
    Tesla gets two to three times more in US and California subsidy cash than BYD gets from China. You don't seem to know what you're talking about.
maicro 2y ago
Wouldn't that be an argument for Americans (and others) to buy _as many_ Chinese cars as possible? Unless China is imposing export tariffs/taxes/etc. on them, this would basically be draining the subsidized money from their economy - every purchase is a chunk of that subsidized money escaping.
- simonbarker87 2y ago
  That’s fair but China will get that money back in the future when they’ve removed the local market competition and start cranking up the prices. They want these cars exported so that’s the subsidies working as far as they are concerned. They’ve done this in other, less consumer facing markets, like steel and magnets.

markus_zhang 2y ago

I think geopolitics plays a heavy hand here. I don't see how the US government could negotiate or even allow Chinese EV to be sold on US soil -- and even allowing them to open factories is not a popular move -- not to say that opening factories in the US is expensive. The more likely outcome is that the US government would seek ways to force the EU governments to remove Chinese brands from the EU market, or at least imposing a very heavy import tax, like 200%. This, of course, will deal a heavy blow to the EU car makers themselves too, but I believe the US does have enough strings to pull.

AnotherGoodName 2y ago
That just means the US and EU are in collective isolationism. Will they force third party countries into this agreement to spend more on EU/US cars over Chinese ones? 80%+ of EVs in Australia are Chinese made. Will the US/EU accept they just can't make competitive cars or will they force other countries to buy their cars? https://www.drive.com.au/news/china-builds-80-per-cent-of-new-ev-sales-australia/ https://www.drive.com.au/news/china-builds-80-per-cent-of-ne...
- markus_zhang 2y ago
  They can also push other Five Eyes countries to follow up, and Japan too. Korea might be difficult to persuade but hey we have a military existence over there. After all, Five Eyes + EU + JK is pretty much THE non-China market out there. The others are not rich enough.
  - rstuart4133 2y ago
    Since Australia was mentioned, let an Australian tell you something about the history behind Australia economic policies. Australia experienced boom times after WW2. It has a strong manufacturing industry. It's not well remembered now, but back them agricultural machinery designed and made here was regarded as some of the best. But we aren't a big country, so economy of scale did not work in our favour. We responded by raising tariffs. It saved the manufacturing base, but that's the only good thing that could be said for it. Every other economic indicator was going backwards. After a few decades of that a politician named Paul Keating famously (well, it was famous here anyway) said the policy was turning us into a banana republic [0]. We made him Treasurer, and later Prime Minister. During that time he tore down tariffs, and removed other non-tariffs barriers such as the one our bank system hid behind. The policy had a rocky start, climaxing in the recession in 1991 Keating said we "had to have" and interest rates hitting 18%. Unlike the USA where fixed interest rates are common, in Australia that means everyone is paying 18%. I remember it well. The memory still hurts. It's 33 years later now. We have not had another recession. 33 years of continuous growth. The free trade policy is pretty much set in stone now. We dismantled what was left of our car manufacturing industry a few years ago. Everything we do have to be world competitive, or it goes. Did you know Google maps is Australian? There were do satellite mapping companies at the time. Google bought one. The other one, Near Map, is still turning out better satellite maps than Google. Anyway, the point is if someone pushed Australia to close it's economic borders they would get one mother of a push back. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keating#Macroeconomic_reforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keating#Macroeconomic_ref...

nextworddev 2y ago

If you thought Tiktok was spyware, then would you be interested in a BYD EV?

poulpy123 2y ago

protective tariffs are what allowed USA (and all industrial countries) to develop their industry

maicro 2y ago

Hey, that sounds a lot like unbridled free market capitalism to me, which nobody in the US would ever go for. Wait a second...