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Wow, you're right. I read the article quickly and did not catch the fact that those were two related, but not totally causally linked statements. My bad. I stil

by tharne 2y ago

Wow, you're right. I read the article quickly and did not catch the fact that those were two related, but not totally causally linked statements. My bad. I still find it odd that Europe and others are reacting to bad behavior on the part of the U.S. by drawing closer to even less trustworthy business partners.

dgacmu 2y ago
I think Tesla is a special case given Musk's close relationship / enabling of Trump. The chairman of BYD does not appear to have succumbed to billionaire brain yet. Shifting from Tesla to BYD, were it to happen, is fairly different from shifting from, say, Cisco to Huawei, as the CEO of Cisco isn't literally dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the US president's campaigns. And in general, I think we're seeing "less tesla" and "more of all of the alternatives", whether those alternatives are EU-based or elsewhere. Finally, most of what we're seeing with Tesla sales is _individual_ purchasing decisions, not strategic moves by governments... yet. We'll see, of course.
Symbiote 2y ago
Europeans are buying not-Tesla, with the reduction in Tesla sales becoming an increase spread across all other EV manufacturers. EVs are not only produced in the USA and China, but in the EU, UK, Korea and Japan.
rsynnott 2y ago
> by drawing closer to even less trustworthy business partners. _Is_ China less trustworthy, though? I mean, it hasn’t threatened to invade bits of Europe, so there’s that. FWIW, I don’t think that US brands other than Tesla are seeing hits of the same size (though, with the exception of Ford, they’re kind of rounding errors anyway, and Ford isn’t relevant in the EV market). Tesla has special problems; no other US car manufacturer CEO, or for that matter Chinese car manufacturer CEO, has recently been prancing around on TV doing Nazi salutes, and no other US car manufacturer CEO is part of Trump’s government. I’m not sure that Americans understand the degree to which Trump is disliked in Europe, particularly in Western Europe where most of the market for electric cars is.

by tharne 2y ago

dgacmu 2y ago

I think Tesla is a special case given Musk's close relationship / enabling of Trump. The chairman of BYD does not appear to have succumbed to billionaire brain yet. Shifting from Tesla to BYD, were it to happen, is fairly different from shifting from, say, Cisco to Huawei, as the CEO of Cisco isn't literally dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the US president's campaigns. And in general, I think we're seeing "less tesla" and "more of all of the alternatives", whether those alternatives are EU-based or elsewhere. Finally, most of what we're seeing with Tesla sales is _individual_ purchasing decisions, not strategic moves by governments... yet. We'll see, of course.

Symbiote 2y ago

Europeans are buying not-Tesla, with the reduction in Tesla sales becoming an increase spread across all other EV manufacturers. EVs are not only produced in the USA and China, but in the EU, UK, Korea and Japan.

rsynnott 2y ago

> by drawing closer to even less trustworthy business partners. _Is_ China less trustworthy, though? I mean, it hasn’t threatened to invade bits of Europe, so there’s that. FWIW, I don’t think that US brands other than Tesla are seeing hits of the same size (though, with the exception of Ford, they’re kind of rounding errors anyway, and Ford isn’t relevant in the EV market). Tesla has special problems; no other US car manufacturer CEO, or for that matter Chinese car manufacturer CEO, has recently been prancing around on TV doing Nazi salutes, and no other US car manufacturer CEO is part of Trump’s government. I’m not sure that Americans understand the degree to which Trump is disliked in Europe, particularly in Western Europe where most of the market for electric cars is.