4 ms·

Keep in mind that the US auto industry is also very much a Canadian one. A lot of Big Three stuff happens across the border in Ontario. But all the policy supp

Keep in mind that the US auto industry is also very much a Canadian one. A lot of Big Three stuff happens across the border in Ontario. But all the policy support that would have let North American automakers build up a competitive position with China is gone, so this is more about just acknowledging reality now.

justonceokay 9mo ago
Yeah there was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car. It’s tough to convince most price-inelastic people they shouldn’t buy a car that is 1/2 price, even if it has fewer features. Edit: to be clear I meant that the US did not compete, not that they could not compete
- toomuchtodo 9mo ago
  > Yeah thee was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car. This is patently false. The US could have competed with China if it had maintained investments spinning up battery manufacturing and downstream systems to build EVs at scale, while subsidizing EVs (fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per year [1]) and increasing taxes on combustion mobility. The US picked legacy automaker profits and fossil fuel interests instead, simply out of lack of will and short term optimization over long term success. China is building under the same rules of physics as everyone else. You can choose not to, but that is a choice. (I believe in climate change, so I am thrilled China is going to steamroll fossil fuel incumbents out of self interest [2] [3], regardless of negative second order effects; every 24 months of Chinese EV production destroys 1M barrels/day of global oil consumption at current production rates, as of this comment) [1] https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidie... [2] https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
  - brianwawok 9mo ago
    Chinese autoworker makes what, 5k USD a year? Vs 50k+ for union autoworker in the US? How can you win that battle?
    - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
      China buys and deploys more robotics for manufacturing than any other country in the world. Automate or die as a business [1] [2]. It's not "cheap China labor" vs "expensive union labor"; it's labor vs automation. And, to be clear, that does not mean you need to get rid of union US labor. It just means the existing folks can do more with the same number of folks they have today, and the pipeline for new workers can shrink while maintaining productivity (and we're going to need those folks for other jobs automation cannot do; trades, electrical grid and renewables infra, nursing and care, etc). This does require both unions and corporations to partner in good faith and share in the gains from this operating model, versus the traditional "squeeze labor as hard as you can for shareholder gains and management comp." If we get to the point where a just transition is needed (like coal mining and generation), that is a policy problem; make good policy, be humane to the human, package them out appropriately if we scale automation faster than expected. This is simply smart policy as the world reaches peak working age population and heads towards depopulation over the next century [3] [4]. Labor will only get more expensive over time as demand exceeds supply [5]. The capital is there, simply look at annual legacy auto profits; they choose profits over investing in the business, and that is a choice. [1] Inside China's 'dark factories' where robots run the production lines [video] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftY-MH5mdbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftY-MH5mdbw - December 4th, 2025 [2] Chinese EV makers accelerate robotics drive for ‘game-changing’ edge over US - https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3333310/chinese-ev-makers-accelerate-robotics-drive-game-changing-edge-over-us https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3333310/chin... | https://archive.today/sJKKv https://archive.today/sJKKv - November 19th, 2025 [3] The Demographic Future of Humanity: Facts and Consequences - https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf - May 31st, 2025 [4] Mapped: Every Country by Total Fertility Rate - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-countries-by-fertility-rate/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-countries-by-fert... - December 22nd, 2025 [5] HN Search: labor shortages - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=labor%20shortages&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (TLDR Increase productivity with automation to compete with others who already have, buy robots, not share buybacks)
- bluGill 9mo ago
  The expensive cars sell well in the us - customers are not that price inelastic. Those who are prefer a used car with all the high priced features of 5 years ago to a new car with no options
  - justonceokay 9mo ago
    Agreed, that’s exactly what i did. But I wonder how much of that culture is because the new cheap Chinese cars aren’t here. If all you have in town is a target, that’s where people will shop. If you open up a goodwill there might be some handwringing and “I would never” rhetoric. But many people will go to the goodwill even if they don’t admit it.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - bluGill 9mo ago
      Is the cheap car better? I don't mind an old car, and luxury cars bought today are likely to last decades.
    - coredog64 9mo ago
      Having previously owned a Chinese car (Great Wall H5, bought new), I'm on the fence about buying Chinese cars. Initially it was a great car -- lots of features and they used high quality OEM parts (e.g. a Mitsubishi engine). However, I found that it didn't hold up well* and was missing some of the touches that come from engineering not coming from a car culture. As one example, the tensioner for the accessory belt was a single 14mm bolt. Technically it worked, but it was not fun. Meanwhile, even my '85 Ford Escort had a half-inch square opening in the belt bracketry that accepted a half-inch socket driver/breaker bar for setting the tension. I don't think this is uniquely a Chinese problem, as I heard similar complaints from owners of early Nissan/Toyota full-size trucks. Toyota was able to eventually improve, but Nissan had to pack it in on the Titan. *To roughly quantify, I'd say mid-to-late 80s Ford/GM car, not 70s Ford/GM car. It never stranded me, but it did break a few times in inconvenient fashion.
- windowpains 9mo ago
  I remember how popular the Yugo was, and then the Geo metro. Nobody wants good cars, they want cheap transportation.
boringg 9mo ago
I think that was true up until last year. Clearly the new administration wants nothing to do with Canada except extract.
FractalParadigm 9mo ago
> Keep in mind that the US auto industry is also very much a Canadian one. As someone who's worked in the auto industry (in Canada) I have to 'hard disagree.' The big three have proven time and time again that we (Canadians) are second-class citizens when it comes to how they operate the facilities built here. Even before any of this nonsensical tariff nonsense, billions in government money has been given to the likes of Stellantis and GM over the years in an effort to keep jobs in Canada, with them putting in the bare-minimum effort to satisfy people in the short-term and thanking us by continuing their movement of production out of the country. Instead of trying to talk the president down from his pointlessly harmful tariffs, or doing what Toyota/Honda have done in pivoting to building worldwide models beside the domestic ones, the big three are gleefully taking the opportunity to expedite the closure or downsizing of facilities here. Outside of the chuds who 'need' a pickup truck to satisfy their fragile ego, sales of "American" vehicles are starting to drop, with buyers choosing domestically-produced where possible (like the Toyota Rav4, Lexus NX/RX, or Honda Civic/CR-V).[0] [0]: https://ca.investing.com/news/economy-news/market-share-of-usmade-cars-hits-record-low-in-canada-4406117 https://ca.investing.com/news/economy-news/market-share-of-u...
- Marsymars 9mo ago
  Hey now, I bought a Mexican-made pickup.
  - jp191919 9mo ago
    Me too.
- coryrc 9mo ago
  > billions in government money has been given to the likes of Stellantis and GM over the years in an effort to keep jobs in Canada, with them putting in the bare-minimum effort You could replace "Canada" with the "United States" and it's equally true. They aren't treating you any different than us.
  - adastra22 9mo ago
Waterluvian 9mo ago
It was. Then the U.S. turned into whatever the hell you call all that. Now we have U.S. automakers who are derefential to the current regime's leader and are pulling out. The Federal and Ontario government both tried to somehow make them happy, but you can't make that kind of monster happy. So it's time to move on.
heresie-dabord 9mo ago
> the US auto industry is also very much a Canadian one Trump's message is loud and clear. The Canadian Prime Minister has said, "the past relationship with the US is over." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y41z4351qo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y41z4351qo The US President: "US does not need cars made in Canada; free trade deal is irrelevant" https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/we-dont-need-cars-made-in-canada-trump-says-calls-cusma-irrelevant/ US Ambassador: "US does not need Canada": https://www.pressreader.com/canada/sentinel-review-woodstock/20260116/281629606665800
rangestransform 9mo ago
Big auto style auto manufacturing, with American-style union relations and a messy web of parts suppliers was never going to be globally competitive. GM and Ford deserve to go bankrupt with their current backwards practices.

justonceokay 9mo ago

Yeah there was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car. It’s tough to convince most price-inelastic people they shouldn’t buy a car that is 1/2 price, even if it has fewer features. Edit: to be clear I meant that the US did not compete, not that they could not compete

toomuchtodo 9mo ago
> Yeah thee was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car. This is patently false. The US could have competed with China if it had maintained investments spinning up battery manufacturing and downstream systems to build EVs at scale, while subsidizing EVs (fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per year [1]) and increasing taxes on combustion mobility. The US picked legacy automaker profits and fossil fuel interests instead, simply out of lack of will and short term optimization over long term success. China is building under the same rules of physics as everyone else. You can choose not to, but that is a choice. (I believe in climate change, so I am thrilled China is going to steamroll fossil fuel incumbents out of self interest [2] [3], regardless of negative second order effects; every 24 months of Chinese EV production destroys 1M barrels/day of global oil consumption at current production rates, as of this comment) [1] https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidie... [2] https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
- brianwawok 9mo ago
  Chinese autoworker makes what, 5k USD a year? Vs 50k+ for union autoworker in the US? How can you win that battle?
  - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
    China buys and deploys more robotics for manufacturing than any other country in the world. Automate or die as a business [1] [2]. It's not "cheap China labor" vs "expensive union labor"; it's labor vs automation. And, to be clear, that does not mean you need to get rid of union US labor. It just means the existing folks can do more with the same number of folks they have today, and the pipeline for new workers can shrink while maintaining productivity (and we're going to need those folks for other jobs automation cannot do; trades, electrical grid and renewables infra, nursing and care, etc). This does require both unions and corporations to partner in good faith and share in the gains from this operating model, versus the traditional "squeeze labor as hard as you can for shareholder gains and management comp." If we get to the point where a just transition is needed (like coal mining and generation), that is a policy problem; make good policy, be humane to the human, package them out appropriately if we scale automation faster than expected. This is simply smart policy as the world reaches peak working age population and heads towards depopulation over the next century [3] [4]. Labor will only get more expensive over time as demand exceeds supply [5]. The capital is there, simply look at annual legacy auto profits; they choose profits over investing in the business, and that is a choice. [1] Inside China's 'dark factories' where robots run the production lines [video] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftY-MH5mdbw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftY-MH5mdbw - December 4th, 2025 [2] Chinese EV makers accelerate robotics drive for ‘game-changing’ edge over US - https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3333310/chinese-ev-makers-accelerate-robotics-drive-game-changing-edge-over-us https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3333310/chin... | https://archive.today/sJKKv https://archive.today/sJKKv - November 19th, 2025 [3] The Demographic Future of Humanity: Facts and Consequences - https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf - May 31st, 2025 [4] Mapped: Every Country by Total Fertility Rate - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-countries-by-fertility-rate/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-countries-by-fert... - December 22nd, 2025 [5] HN Search: labor shortages - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=labor%20shortages&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... (TLDR Increase productivity with automation to compete with others who already have, buy robots, not share buybacks)
bluGill 9mo ago
The expensive cars sell well in the us - customers are not that price inelastic. Those who are prefer a used car with all the high priced features of 5 years ago to a new car with no options
- justonceokay 9mo ago
  Agreed, that’s exactly what i did. But I wonder how much of that culture is because the new cheap Chinese cars aren’t here. If all you have in town is a target, that’s where people will shop. If you open up a goodwill there might be some handwringing and “I would never” rhetoric. But many people will go to the goodwill even if they don’t admit it.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - bluGill 9mo ago
    Is the cheap car better? I don't mind an old car, and luxury cars bought today are likely to last decades.
  - coredog64 9mo ago
    Having previously owned a Chinese car (Great Wall H5, bought new), I'm on the fence about buying Chinese cars. Initially it was a great car -- lots of features and they used high quality OEM parts (e.g. a Mitsubishi engine). However, I found that it didn't hold up well* and was missing some of the touches that come from engineering not coming from a car culture. As one example, the tensioner for the accessory belt was a single 14mm bolt. Technically it worked, but it was not fun. Meanwhile, even my '85 Ford Escort had a half-inch square opening in the belt bracketry that accepted a half-inch socket driver/breaker bar for setting the tension. I don't think this is uniquely a Chinese problem, as I heard similar complaints from owners of early Nissan/Toyota full-size trucks. Toyota was able to eventually improve, but Nissan had to pack it in on the Titan. *To roughly quantify, I'd say mid-to-late 80s Ford/GM car, not 70s Ford/GM car. It never stranded me, but it did break a few times in inconvenient fashion.
windowpains 9mo ago
I remember how popular the Yugo was, and then the Geo metro. Nobody wants good cars, they want cheap transportation.

boringg 9mo ago

I think that was true up until last year. Clearly the new administration wants nothing to do with Canada except extract.

FractalParadigm 9mo ago

> Keep in mind that the US auto industry is also very much a Canadian one. As someone who's worked in the auto industry (in Canada) I have to 'hard disagree.' The big three have proven time and time again that we (Canadians) are second-class citizens when it comes to how they operate the facilities built here. Even before any of this nonsensical tariff nonsense, billions in government money has been given to the likes of Stellantis and GM over the years in an effort to keep jobs in Canada, with them putting in the bare-minimum effort to satisfy people in the short-term and thanking us by continuing their movement of production out of the country. Instead of trying to talk the president down from his pointlessly harmful tariffs, or doing what Toyota/Honda have done in pivoting to building worldwide models beside the domestic ones, the big three are gleefully taking the opportunity to expedite the closure or downsizing of facilities here. Outside of the chuds who 'need' a pickup truck to satisfy their fragile ego, sales of "American" vehicles are starting to drop, with buyers choosing domestically-produced where possible (like the Toyota Rav4, Lexus NX/RX, or Honda Civic/CR-V).[0] [0]: https://ca.investing.com/news/economy-news/market-share-of-usmade-cars-hits-record-low-in-canada-4406117 https://ca.investing.com/news/economy-news/market-share-of-u...

Marsymars 9mo ago
Hey now, I bought a Mexican-made pickup.
- jp191919 9mo ago
  Me too.
coryrc 9mo ago
> billions in government money has been given to the likes of Stellantis and GM over the years in an effort to keep jobs in Canada, with them putting in the bare-minimum effort You could replace "Canada" with the "United States" and it's equally true. They aren't treating you any different than us.
- adastra22 9mo ago

Waterluvian 9mo ago

It was. Then the U.S. turned into whatever the hell you call all that. Now we have U.S. automakers who are derefential to the current regime's leader and are pulling out. The Federal and Ontario government both tried to somehow make them happy, but you can't make that kind of monster happy. So it's time to move on.

heresie-dabord 9mo ago

> the US auto industry is also very much a Canadian one Trump's message is loud and clear. The Canadian Prime Minister has said, "the past relationship with the US is over." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y41z4351qo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y41z4351qo The US President: "US does not need cars made in Canada; free trade deal is irrelevant" https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/we-dont-need-cars-made-in-canada-trump-says-calls-cusma-irrelevant/ US Ambassador: "US does not need Canada": https://www.pressreader.com/canada/sentinel-review-woodstock/20260116/281629606665800

rangestransform 9mo ago

Big auto style auto manufacturing, with American-style union relations and a messy web of parts suppliers was never going to be globally competitive. GM and Ford deserve to go bankrupt with their current backwards practices.