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By not aligning economically to other country's markets, US companies are in a real pickle. Imagine you're a US car manufacturer. You see EVs growing around th

By not aligning economically to other country's markets, US companies are in a real pickle. Imagine you're a US car manufacturer. You see EVs growing around the world, and stagnating in the US. Do you: (a) Double-down on investments in EVs (billions of USD!), even with a soft US market for EVs, hoping you might compete globally. (b) Become a parochial, US-only, business hoping to squeeze what you can out of a gradually shrinking industry When other countries subsidize consumers to buy EVs, and the US does not, it effectively creates a self-own trade barrier for domestic companies.

forgotoldacc 1y ago
The US seems to be at risk of becoming a Japanese style economy in the coming years. As in they focus on tech that sells well locally, but is of no interest outside the country. And that can work for their economy and is a nice way to package protectionism. But eventually, people years down the road see how much better tech is in the outside world and jump to it and never look back. Then your own industry starts to drown and is only held up by a class of elderly people afraid of change. Examples are the strange Japanese flip phones and the computers with CF card and floppy drives with a 1.5 ghz single core CPU selling for twice the price of a MacBook Pro. With BYD selling globally now, and Boeing losing its reputation, American vehicles of all sorts are at risk.
- softwaredoug 1y ago
  And the sad thing this will just lead to a vicious cycle of protectionism for these companies. Their quality will decline. They’ll be more expensive than global products. US consumers will be the ones that suffer
- adventured 1y ago
  The primary risk that China's auto industry poses is to Japan, South Korea, and the few parts of Europe with large scale auto manufacturing. The US domestic auto industry was hollowed out decades ago. Germany's domestic auto industry is just starting to be hollowed out, that process is in the early days. China's auto rise will ravage European manufacturing, not US manufacturing. Auto manufacturing is a small share of the US industrial base, it's a large share of the German industrial base for example. Boeing and Airbus will both lose large chunks of their global airplane business to cheaper Chinese competition over the coming decades. It's definitely not exclusive to Boeing. The US airline market is far more lucrative than the European airline market, US carriers like Delta are very profitable and can more or less be forced to not buy from China.
- supportengineer 1y ago
  On the other hand if I can buy a house for $75k, it might be worth it.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    As long as you already have $75k, but I think it would make it harder for those that don't to ever accumulate that much.
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  Well, in order to compete, they'd have to cut costs. You can't cut costs infinitely. You still need to pay people, suppliers, and above all, people who had nothing to do with the company but hold a piece of paper saying they're entitled to profits. It's probably the case that you cannot do that enough to compete with the Chinese if you're in the US, so they won't try. We're in a post-"what about the long term economic outlook of our country"-era and have been since the 1970s. John Q. Public in the US and Helga Öffentlich in Germany don't care that their purchase of a Chinese EV hollows out their country's industrial base, they just care that they spent less on the EV. And why shouldn't they? The countries themselves are lead by people who do the exact same thing on a massive scale.
- downrightmike 1y ago
  Yes, they've been using the Japanese model since 2020, and Japan only got there by making many huge mistakes. But essentially growth is dead and the entrenched businesses aren't going anywhere, they won't innovate and they won't be allowed to die, zombies.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  Wow why do Japanese consumers buy those computers over the cheaper MacBooks and foreign PCs?
- corimaith 1y ago
  The USA is a services based country, not manufacturing. Call me when Big Finance, Big Law, Consulting and Big Tech are threatened. Right they're doing quite splendid with cash rich piles.
Sevii 1y ago
Do US car companies compete globally anywhere? Chinese people aren't buying GM cars. The US car industry hasn't been competitive globally since Toyota started making cars.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- kevstev 1y ago
  GM sold 4M cars in China in 2017, its peak year. While BYD is indeed eating their lunch, they still sold 1.8M cars in China last year: https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto-manufacturers/gm-china-financial-results/ https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto-manufacturers/gm-chin... American brands were considered prestigious as I understand it.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    > American brands were considered prestigious as I understand it. For automotive, kind of but not really (excluding Tesla). Volkswagen Group was the primary foreign manufacturer that was also a status symbol in China.
- bpt3 1y ago
  Chinese people bought about 1.8 million GM cars last year, which is down significantly from about 10 years ago before BYD and other domestic brands started putting out competitive alternatives but far from 0. Tesla is a US company?
- mr_toad 1y ago
  Some Ford models still compete with Asian cars in foreign markets. Smaller Ford models mainly, but the Falcon was popular with a certain demographic.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Both Ford and GM _used_ to, in Europe. GM got out a while back, with its remaining brands becoming part of Stellantis, the Dutch company who makes all the car brands that you can't quite believe still exist. Ford seems to have... faded out in the consumer space the last decade; they still make vans, and I think they still theoretically make a car or two, but you never see them anymore.
somerandomqaguy 1y ago
There's always option 3. Keep product lines and factories semi targetted for their individual markets. Ford discontinued the Fiesta in North America but they are still being built in the EU AFAIK. Major car markets product their domestic auto industry anyways so you're probably going to have to setup local production in any case.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  Doesn't change your overall point, but just to comment on the Fiesta case (of interest to me since I drove one of the first model year's return to North America - 2011 - until earlier this year) - it only survived 4 extra years outside of NA - it's discontinued worldwide as of 2023. The surviving vehicle(s) on the platform are the Ford Puma and Puma Gen-E, which are subcompact crossovers not sold in North America.
  - somerandomqaguy 1y ago
    Ah, I wasn't aware the Fiesta discontinued outside as well. AFAIK Ford did so to retool Cuautitlán Assembly plant in Mexico from the Fiesta to the Mach-E. Looks like Cologne Body & Assembly is going to be producing Ford's EU electric CUV's instead of the Fiesta.
cool_man_bob 1y ago
Easy. (b) I can continue to milk a specific market while my competitors do other things. Yeah eventually that will be dried up, but by than point enough wealth has been accumulated for generations of me and my family. Plus if the worst comes too quickly there’s a fair chance I’ll get bailed out by my long time buddies in the government.
fpoling 1y ago
Well, EV with a good range still costs more then a plugin hybrid with a small battery. Why US government should spent money on technology that is presently inferior to plugin hybrids? In few years this will change when the latest battery technology will be scaled up, but then EV will be able to compete against ICE or hybrids cars on its own without subsidies. And in retrospect subsidizing EV by governments around the world could be a bad decision. If instead fuel taxes were raised or at least the subsidies went to development of more economical cars, then total CO2 emissions could be lower at this point.
- dalyons 1y ago
  plugin hybrids are essentially a lie. Data shows only ~19% less emissions than a gas car in real world driving [1]. For something twice as complicated as an EV, that will shortly lose any range advantage as EVs advance. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...
AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> (a) Double-down on investments in EVs (billions of USD!), even with a soft US market for EVs, hoping you might compete globally. > (b) Become a parochial, US-only, business hoping to squeeze what you can out of a gradually shrinking industry It's (c) invest in plug-in hybrids that work everywhere. US customers demand something that can do a road trip without stopping to charge? No problem, and on top of that it will get 40+ MPG. European customers paying high gas prices? No problem, it has a 150 km all-electric range so if you keep it charged you never have to put gas in it.
- dalyons 1y ago
  hybrids are option (b), a dead end parochial technology. Pure evs will strand that technology very quickly. BYD already has 1000v / 5min charge.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    Plug-in hybrids are EVs that have a gas engine in place of a larger battery. It means you're acquiring the knowhow and manufacturing capacity to build electric motors and batteries. If the market shifts you just take the engine out and put more batteries in its place, or offer that as a trim level in the places that want it.
    - dalyons 1y ago
      PHEVs are universally bad EVs. Terrible capacity, slow / low power charging infrastructure, minimal use of electric engines at higher speeds. They are essentially a lie to get green subsidies & tax breaks, achieving only ~19% less emissions than their gas equivalents in the real world [1] They don't have to be bad EVs, you could theoretically make one with a good EV powertrain, but then it would likely be more expensive than a pure EV. And battery prices drop substantially every year, and ranges are increasing fast. They're a dead end. (1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

forgotoldacc 1y ago

The US seems to be at risk of becoming a Japanese style economy in the coming years. As in they focus on tech that sells well locally, but is of no interest outside the country. And that can work for their economy and is a nice way to package protectionism. But eventually, people years down the road see how much better tech is in the outside world and jump to it and never look back. Then your own industry starts to drown and is only held up by a class of elderly people afraid of change. Examples are the strange Japanese flip phones and the computers with CF card and floppy drives with a 1.5 ghz single core CPU selling for twice the price of a MacBook Pro. With BYD selling globally now, and Boeing losing its reputation, American vehicles of all sorts are at risk.

softwaredoug 1y ago
And the sad thing this will just lead to a vicious cycle of protectionism for these companies. Their quality will decline. They’ll be more expensive than global products. US consumers will be the ones that suffer
adventured 1y ago
The primary risk that China's auto industry poses is to Japan, South Korea, and the few parts of Europe with large scale auto manufacturing. The US domestic auto industry was hollowed out decades ago. Germany's domestic auto industry is just starting to be hollowed out, that process is in the early days. China's auto rise will ravage European manufacturing, not US manufacturing. Auto manufacturing is a small share of the US industrial base, it's a large share of the German industrial base for example. Boeing and Airbus will both lose large chunks of their global airplane business to cheaper Chinese competition over the coming decades. It's definitely not exclusive to Boeing. The US airline market is far more lucrative than the European airline market, US carriers like Delta are very profitable and can more or less be forced to not buy from China.
supportengineer 1y ago
On the other hand if I can buy a house for $75k, it might be worth it.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  As long as you already have $75k, but I think it would make it harder for those that don't to ever accumulate that much.
lenerdenator 1y ago
Well, in order to compete, they'd have to cut costs. You can't cut costs infinitely. You still need to pay people, suppliers, and above all, people who had nothing to do with the company but hold a piece of paper saying they're entitled to profits. It's probably the case that you cannot do that enough to compete with the Chinese if you're in the US, so they won't try. We're in a post-"what about the long term economic outlook of our country"-era and have been since the 1970s. John Q. Public in the US and Helga Öffentlich in Germany don't care that their purchase of a Chinese EV hollows out their country's industrial base, they just care that they spent less on the EV. And why shouldn't they? The countries themselves are lead by people who do the exact same thing on a massive scale.
downrightmike 1y ago
Yes, they've been using the Japanese model since 2020, and Japan only got there by making many huge mistakes. But essentially growth is dead and the entrenched businesses aren't going anywhere, they won't innovate and they won't be allowed to die, zombies.
jimbokun 1y ago
Wow why do Japanese consumers buy those computers over the cheaper MacBooks and foreign PCs?
corimaith 1y ago
The USA is a services based country, not manufacturing. Call me when Big Finance, Big Law, Consulting and Big Tech are threatened. Right they're doing quite splendid with cash rich piles.

Sevii 1y ago

Do US car companies compete globally anywhere? Chinese people aren't buying GM cars. The US car industry hasn't been competitive globally since Toyota started making cars.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
kevstev 1y ago
GM sold 4M cars in China in 2017, its peak year. While BYD is indeed eating their lunch, they still sold 1.8M cars in China last year: https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto-manufacturers/gm-china-financial-results/ https://stockdividendscreener.com/auto-manufacturers/gm-chin... American brands were considered prestigious as I understand it.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > American brands were considered prestigious as I understand it. For automotive, kind of but not really (excluding Tesla). Volkswagen Group was the primary foreign manufacturer that was also a status symbol in China.
bpt3 1y ago
Chinese people bought about 1.8 million GM cars last year, which is down significantly from about 10 years ago before BYD and other domestic brands started putting out competitive alternatives but far from 0. Tesla is a US company?
mr_toad 1y ago
Some Ford models still compete with Asian cars in foreign markets. Smaller Ford models mainly, but the Falcon was popular with a certain demographic.
rsynnott 1y ago
Both Ford and GM _used_ to, in Europe. GM got out a while back, with its remaining brands becoming part of Stellantis, the Dutch company who makes all the car brands that you can't quite believe still exist. Ford seems to have... faded out in the consumer space the last decade; they still make vans, and I think they still theoretically make a car or two, but you never see them anymore.

somerandomqaguy 1y ago

There's always option 3. Keep product lines and factories semi targetted for their individual markets. Ford discontinued the Fiesta in North America but they are still being built in the EU AFAIK. Major car markets product their domestic auto industry anyways so you're probably going to have to setup local production in any case.

Marsymars 1y ago
Doesn't change your overall point, but just to comment on the Fiesta case (of interest to me since I drove one of the first model year's return to North America - 2011 - until earlier this year) - it only survived 4 extra years outside of NA - it's discontinued worldwide as of 2023. The surviving vehicle(s) on the platform are the Ford Puma and Puma Gen-E, which are subcompact crossovers not sold in North America.
- somerandomqaguy 1y ago
  Ah, I wasn't aware the Fiesta discontinued outside as well. AFAIK Ford did so to retool Cuautitlán Assembly plant in Mexico from the Fiesta to the Mach-E. Looks like Cologne Body & Assembly is going to be producing Ford's EU electric CUV's instead of the Fiesta.

cool_man_bob 1y ago

Easy. (b) I can continue to milk a specific market while my competitors do other things. Yeah eventually that will be dried up, but by than point enough wealth has been accumulated for generations of me and my family. Plus if the worst comes too quickly there’s a fair chance I’ll get bailed out by my long time buddies in the government.

fpoling 1y ago

Well, EV with a good range still costs more then a plugin hybrid with a small battery. Why US government should spent money on technology that is presently inferior to plugin hybrids? In few years this will change when the latest battery technology will be scaled up, but then EV will be able to compete against ICE or hybrids cars on its own without subsidies. And in retrospect subsidizing EV by governments around the world could be a bad decision. If instead fuel taxes were raised or at least the subsidies went to development of more economical cars, then total CO2 emissions could be lower at this point.

dalyons 1y ago
plugin hybrids are essentially a lie. Data shows only ~19% less emissions than a gas car in real world driving [1]. For something twice as complicated as an EV, that will shortly lose any range advantage as EVs advance. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...

AnthonyMouse 1y ago

> (a) Double-down on investments in EVs (billions of USD!), even with a soft US market for EVs, hoping you might compete globally. > (b) Become a parochial, US-only, business hoping to squeeze what you can out of a gradually shrinking industry It's (c) invest in plug-in hybrids that work everywhere. US customers demand something that can do a road trip without stopping to charge? No problem, and on top of that it will get 40+ MPG. European customers paying high gas prices? No problem, it has a 150 km all-electric range so if you keep it charged you never have to put gas in it.

dalyons 1y ago
hybrids are option (b), a dead end parochial technology. Pure evs will strand that technology very quickly. BYD already has 1000v / 5min charge.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  Plug-in hybrids are EVs that have a gas engine in place of a larger battery. It means you're acquiring the knowhow and manufacturing capacity to build electric motors and batteries. If the market shifts you just take the engine out and put more batteries in its place, or offer that as a trim level in the places that want it.
  - dalyons 1y ago
    PHEVs are universally bad EVs. Terrible capacity, slow / low power charging infrastructure, minimal use of electric engines at higher speeds. They are essentially a lie to get green subsidies & tax breaks, achieving only ~19% less emissions than their gas equivalents in the real world [1] They don't have to be bad EVs, you could theoretically make one with a good EV powertrain, but then it would likely be more expensive than a pure EV. And battery prices drop substantially every year, and ranges are increasing fast. They're a dead end. (1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-hybrids-pollute-almost-as-much-as-petrol-cars-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/16/plug-in-...