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Calling it now: Safe for any potential major conflicts or crises creating full isolation and destroying all trade with China (e.g. a Taiwan escalation), traditi
by sigmoid10 2y ago
Calling it now: Safe for any potential major conflicts or crises creating full isolation and destroying all trade with China (e.g. a Taiwan escalation), traditional western vehicle makers are gonna get completely wrecked. Their shift to electric is far too slow and too far behind already. And it's also too late for another industry disrupting startup like Tesla.
- rafaelmn 2y agoEurope is already talking heavy tariffs to protect it's automakers, with Trump winning and his stance on the issue - doubtful they will let this happen.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoThat ignores the rest of the world though. Trump can’t prevent China from selling to Africa, South America, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, … many of those countries (Aus) don’t even have domestic auto producers to worry about. Yes, the USA, South Korea, Japan, and Western Europe can protect their own markets, but the world is huge and China can easily dominate EVs everywhere else.
- tooltalk 2y agoWhat EV markets outside the US/EU? Australia and maybe Thailand? Otherwise, it's difficult to find infrastructure that supports EVs elsewhere. BYD is already in Japan, but it's quite limited. China has shadow-banned Korean automaker Hyundai/Kia since 2017 (THAAD) and battery makers LG, Samsung, SK since 2016 -- not sure if China would be warmly received there.
- chii 2y ago> What EV markets outside the US/EU? south americans, the african continent, just to name a few. > it's difficult to find infrastructure to support EVs. sure, but it doesn't mean it won't get built. What if china goes all in, and do the belt-and-road initiative v2, and build out those countries' infrastructure (and conveniently eliminate the soft power that the US would have there, such as financial power)? China has no real "defense" against financial power of the US (vis a vi sanctions), but they're surely doing something about it. And given the CCP's long term planning (for which they can, since they're authoritarian and don't need to cater for an election every few years), they can press for policies that play out long term.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoThere is a huge market outside of the US/EU. Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Russia, etc…all they need is to provide a better value and they’ll own the market, nothing the US can do about it. EV infra and is a lot easier to realize than importing/refining oil. Electricity can be generated in a variety of ways and, oh, hey, China is exporting that also.
- MrHamburger 2y agoEV infra is also lot more fragile as we can see first hand in developed countries, while for ICE you essentially need a jerry can to fill it up.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoI don’t know. There are plenty of places where you don’t have gasoline to fill up a plastic bottle (which is how they do it in most of the developing world), but a water wheel generating electricity from glacier run off.
- hggigg 2y agoDon’t think it’s going to work. Even with 100% tariff on EV imports they will still be financially competitive with locally produced vehicles. Or they build local.
- chii 2y agothey go thru the soft underbelly of mexico. And with that method, entrench mexico's economic interests with chinese manufacturers, and by indirection, give the CCP soft power over them.
- hggigg 2y agoYeah. Well it's CCP or USA and as an outside observer I'm not sure which one is worse at the moment.
- chii 2y agotake comfort in the fact that with the USA, even the worst politicians gets removed from office after 2 consecutive terms.
- defrost 2y agoYou might be thinking of "POTUS" rather than "politician". eg: Mitch McConnell, senior United States senator from Kentucky since 1985, the longest serving senator in his state's history. McConnell has been the leader of the Senate Republican Conference since 2007, including as majority leader from 2015 to 2021, making him the longest serving Senate party leader in U.S. history. > after 2 consecutive terms. Even for POTUS it's a two term, under ten year total limit, doesn't have to be consectutive terms.
- chii 2y agoI stand corrected - it is indeed only the POTUS that has a term limit.
- 2y ago
- xnx 2y agoSeems plausible that Trump/Elon could make many imports from China effectively illegal.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- modeless 2y agoBiden already put a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs
- te_chris 2y agoElon is in the CCP pocket tho.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoPlease explain. I highly doubt musk is devoted to any other entity other than the companies he owns. Even his own many children.
- peutetre 2y agoWell, there's what he does. For example, Musk pledged his commitment to China's core socialist values: https://www.mediaite.com/news/elon-musk-signs-letter-pledging-teslas-commitment-to-chinas-core-socialist-values/ https://www.mediaite.com/news/elon-musk-signs-letter-pledgin... Musk advocates for Taiwan's submission to China: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/08/elon-musk-taiwan-china-special-administrative-zone-hong-kong https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/08/elon-musk... Musk decried California's covid measures as "fascist": https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/29/21242102/elon-musk-coronavirus-fascist-shelter-in-place-tesla-covid-19-safety-science https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/29/21242102/elon-musk-corona... But praised China because "Shanghai's COVID-19 measures helped lay the foundation for the city's future development" even though they were stricter than California's: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-suspends-production-shanghai-factory-4-days-comply-with-covid-curbs-2022-03-28/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-... And there's also what he doesn't do. Musk is very keen on criticizing the US and other governments. But can you find for me a single criticism of the Chinese government from Musk? I'd like to see one.
- bsder 2y agoThe biggest hindrance to EV cars in the US is the lack of public charging. Until every WalMart, Target, 7-11, and government agency have charging stations on 1/3 of their parking lot, public EV vehicles are a pipe dream. Detroit is, sadly, calling this 100% correctly. There is no point in doing heavy public EV rollouts until there is a demonstrated political will to roll out the charging infrastructure.
- seb1204 2y agoFor large parts of suburban areas with single or dual family homes this is just wrong. Even a wall socket charger (no wall box) will keep most commuters charged. Yes, charging infrastructure needs to develop but for many this is a no issue to adopt.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoPrice point matters many orders of magnitude more than public charging imo
- ashoeafoot 2y agoThat is only partially correct. The charging infrastructure can become self rolling out. As in a robot driven cabledrum comes feom a central place to your car. The whole "it has to mimick a petrol station" idea is evaporating fast.
- tzs 2y agoOver 60% of US families live in single family detached houses and would be able to charge an EV at home to cover all their normal day to day driving. They'd only need to use public charges on the occasional long trip.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- moooo99 2y ago> Their shift to electric is far too slow and too far behind already. And it's also too late for another industry disrupting startup like Tesla. Is it? At this point I’ve driven electric Audis and BMWs, VWs, Kia’s and also BYDs. While the BYDs are certainly cars and are also relatively affordable compared to other options (of course it’s impossible to compare a BYD car to a BMW), it is not a very nice car in my experience. Wether or not that is enough of a difference to sway consumer sentiment remains to be seen, but I don’t think it is as over as you make it out to be.
- riobard 2y agoWhat are the price ranges of the different cars you're comparing?
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoWho gives a shit about "nice"? I want good value. I just need to get from point a to point b without getting hurt
- Ekaros 2y agoI take thousands cheaper over nice... I think there is lot of value in value.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lukan 2y ago"I just need to get from point a to point b without getting hurt" I also enjoy being comfortable while doing so. Meaning sitting nice, good climate control, no bad smells, good sound isolation, ... being able to use the trunk. Also a "nice" car also drives nice. If I like driving a car, it means I can handle it better - which is critical in critical situations - to not get hurt.
- mplewis 2y ago
- chii 2y ago> Their shift to electric is far too slow and too far behind already. when a push comes to a shove, the goal of electrification of cars can be merely postponed. climate change is a far-off future problem, where as geopolitical rivalry and such are close-by problems.
- jillesvangurp 2y agoI think you are right. BYD and other companies won't stay in China either. They'll be opening up factories in Turkey, Mexico, etc. This will start creating issues for incumbents in most markets. The US and EU might protect their domestic markets with tariffs for a while. But their exports are going to suffer. And short of imposing tariffs on lots of other countries and suspending related trade agreements, cars will still come into domestic markets via those new factories. And inevitably, some companies will start falling over and might fall in the hands of foreign investors or disappear completely. It's a repeat of the emergence of Japanese car manufacturers in the eighties. The same dynamics are at play here: the Chinese products are simply better and cheaper. And contrary to the popular believe that's not just subsidies. Those foreign factories in Turkey, Mexico, and elsewhere will be producing low cost vehicles. The cost difference is the competitive advantage Chinese companies now have. They might have gotten there via subsidies but now that they have this cost advantage, it's there to stay. To compete, other companies will have to address their cost issues and their R&D deficit. There's no way around it. Producing more costly vehicles is just going to continue to price them out of the market. Delay tactics don't work. Tariffs don't work. Delaying investments, doesn't work either. That about sums up the current attitude of a lot of the legacy companies. Dragging their feet, reducing investments, and lobbying for tariffs to protect their businesses. To survive, they would need to reverse their strategy and shift all effort towards producing low cost EVs. There's plenty of demand. But not for overpriced products.
- Tier3r 2y agoSomething interesting I heard from a chip company that's huge in the space and work intimately with many automotive companies - why Chinese companies grow so fast is because their development cycle for a car is ~2-3 years, compared to traditional manufacturers who take 5-7 years. This is a massive edge in pushing out new features and exploiting the very rapid new tech - batteries, self driving, etc.
- tarsinge 2y agoStellantis is the perfect illustration: they kept putting all efforts into pushing their flawed ICE engine (PureTech) because they wanted to make profits from it for at least 10 years. And now the efforts are still not on making a good affordable car but on lobbying to revoke the EU ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars.
- MrHamburger 2y agoOnly problem with this statement is that unless BEVs are subsidized they don't sell that well.
- nanliu 2y agoThat’s only true in western markets because legacy auto are treating EVs as luxury goods and don’t offer any model <30k. The Chinese car market is already over 50% BEV, NEV. It’s clearly the future.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoThere have been cheap EVs in the US. Nissan Leaf and chevy bolt were comparably priced to other econ sedans. No one bought them.
- grecy 2y agoThe writing has been on the wall for a while now. Traditional automakers have tens of billions of R&D sunk in ICE vehicles they were planning to payback in decades. Now they have to spend that again on EVs and they just have no desire. They’re also extremely slow to react, and can’t fathom that people don’t really want what they’ve been selling the last couple of decades, they just didn’t have an alternative. Now they do.
- beardyw 2y ago> major conflicts or crises creating full isolation and destroying all trade with China (e.g. a Taiwan escalation) The loss of the USA as a market would would be harmful, but is it assumed that all western countries would follow?