>The problem is that we can't build anything in this country, with a handful of very expensive exceptions. Made-in-America cars are not competitive abroad and

>The problem is that we can't build anything in this country, with a handful of very expensive exceptions. Made-in-America cars are not competitive abroad and would hardly be competitive in the US if it weren't for a series of strange legislative moats. They are also massively subsidized in many ways. Furthermore, Teslas are not really made in the US in the same way that things are made in China. Your average widget off the shelves is one hundred percent made in China using almost entirely Chinese materials. Teslas, on the other hand, are "made in the US of foreign and domestic components." Shut down the ports and you couldn't make a single damned Tesla. If you haven't manufactured anything before you may expect that I'm talking about things like the screen or the cameras. No. I'm talking about nearly every part of the car. Where do you think the tools to make the car parts come from? The thousands of chemicals involved? The myriad plastic clips? Shut down the ports tomorrow and pretty much the only significant car part you could make from scratch is some pretty sheet metal. >You can't mold plastic at scale? Next time you speak to someone who makes plastic products, get an idea of how much it would cost to make new molds and produce XXX items for a random widget, in China vs Europe vs the US. When you get the answer you can drown your tears in a nice bottle of baijiu. In general I find European "manufacturing" to be an even thinner layer of duct tape between Chinese components than its American counterpart. The few things we do well in the US (sheet metal, fancy semiconductors, fancy tooling) are either nonexistent in Europe or American-controlled (see ASML.)