6 ms·

That’s wild with that range (560 miles) it probably gets atleast 300 miles in the worst case scenario. That’s game over for ICE. What a dream. I wish we could h

That’s wild with that range (560 miles) it probably gets atleast 300 miles in the worst case scenario. That’s game over for ICE. What a dream. I wish we could have them in the US but my patriotism also tells me that would be the death of almost all US auto companies.

hangonhn 8mo ago
I would be OK if we tariff or effectively ban Chinese EVs (as is the case now) for a little while to give our auto industry time to retool and catch up. The current situation with a ban but no long term EV adoption plan in place is just incredibly short sighted. We could end up like certain developing nations that has an indigenous auto industry that are nothing more than glorified assembler of foreign cars or the American consumer continues to buy cars that are more expensive and less performant to use and operate while making all of us vulnerable to oil price shocks.
- torginus 8mo ago
  I wouldn't encourage that and I don't think it will be necessary. In Europe, most Chinese brands aren't selling exactly well, while domestic manufacturers really sped up their timelines and pushed for competitive pricing, so generally I don't think there's much of a demand for Chinese EVs, except for the genuinely nice brands, like XPeng and Nio. There's also the issue, it that in most places in Europe outside of Scandinavia, the charger infrastructure is lacking, and regular people are quite rightly averse of getting an EV if you step out of the tech bubble. I have a friend who's a high-level manager in automotive retail, and he said he thinks Chinese EVs will be like Chinese smartphones - yes they are nice, and cheaper, but still the market looks like 70% of it is controlled by Apple/Samsung, and the rest of the manufacturers fight over what's left
  - tzs 8mo ago
    I don't know about EVs specifically, but there seems to be demand in Europe for Chinese PHEVs: "Chinese automakers nearly double Europe market share to 8% in February as PHEVs drive growth" [1]. [1] https://www.autonews.com/retail/sales/ane-europe-chinese-february-2026-2-months-0318/ https://www.autonews.com/retail/sales/ane-europe-chinese-feb...
  - anonzzzies 8mo ago
    Here in spain i suddenly see a lot of them (chinese brands) and not in a bader meinhof way. They are advertising more and i see a lot more on the streets. I was picked up from the station by a BYD. Not sure about the numbers, but something is definitely happening.
  - t0mas88 8mo ago
    The charging infrastructure has changed a lot in the last few years. You can very comfortably travel all the way across Europe without even thinking about where to charge. There is a Tesla Supercharger every 50 miles or even less all the way from the Netherlands via Germany to Austria. And the same via Belgium to the South of France. And that's only Tesla, you also have Ionity building chargers, and Fastned, and you see more and more chargers at Shell and BP petrol stations.
    - piva00 8mo ago
      It's been pretty great the past 3 years at least, just last summer I drove from Stockholm -> North Italy and had no anxiety about finding chargers on our way.
  - menaerus 8mo ago
    > In Europe, most Chinese brands aren't selling exactly well https://www.carscoops.com/2026/01/chinese-car-sales-europe-2025-record-growth https://www.carscoops.com/2026/01/chinese-car-sales-europe-2... says pretty much the opposite. Maybe more detailed analysis is provided by https://chinaevhome.com/2026/01/20/chinese-automakers-europe-sales-top-100000-in-dec-2025-as-market-share-nears-10 https://chinaevhome.com/2026/01/20/chinese-automakers-europe.... Both of them align what I personally see on the streets, more and more Chinese brands, especially BYD, MG and Geely.
    - torginus 8mo ago
      I mean it's a bit hard to take away hard data from just monthly sales across the whole of Europe. 10% is a lot, but far from overwhelming, and individual popular models can create big changes in overall stats. For example, the Brits love their SUVs, and the Jaecoo undercut the market, so that particular model has been selling very well. I think we should wait and see for stats to stabilize over time. Chinese smartphones did something similar - initially they were way better for way cheaper, but other manufactures adapted, so they failed to grab huge chunks of the market.
      - menaerus 8mo ago
        The report uses the number of newly registered vehicles AFAIU and correlates them to the total % of Chinese vehicles sold, so that's not really the monthly sales but the general trend, no? Market cap amounts to 10% as an absolute figure but that isn't what I find most important from reading that article - it is the trend I find intriguing, which doubles or triples by each year, so if such or similar trend continues, Chinese manufacturers will penetrate into the market substantially more. They innovate at much higher pace at much lower price points and at pretty high quality as the evidence we have so far suggests. So IMO it's going to be hell of a ride for European manufacturers to adapt - they need to start moving faster and deliver at much lower cost. This means complete restructuring which I find hard to believe it will happen any time soon.
        torginus 8mo ago
- cpursley 8mo ago
  The only way to get American auto manufacturers to step up their game is completion. Worked when the Japanese cars came, American car quality improved dramatically in response because it had to.
  - hermanzegerman 8mo ago
    Still no one wants American Cars outside the US, with the exception of Ford and Tesla
    - piva00 8mo ago
      Even Ford has fallen out heavily from just 20 years ago. It used to be much more common to see the Ford badge in Europe when the Ka, Fiesta, Focus line-up was around. Thinking now the only times I see the Ford badge are on work vehicles like vans or the odd Mustang Mach-E (well, not literally the Ford badge but the Mustang one). I haven't seen (or at least noticed) any of the new cars in the Ford line-up in Sweden: Puma, Capri, Kuga, Bronco, etc.
      - hermanzegerman 8mo ago
        I see more and more Douchebags driving with a Pick-Up in Germany. Those cars doesn't fit at all into Europe, but it is what it is Otherwise it's mainly Pumas and Vans, yeah.
  - kotaKat 8mo ago
    And the quality's back through the floor again. How many recalls have the domestic slovenly-built Big Three had to put up with in the last ~6 years? Ford alone is showing just how bad the UAW's building on the factory floor. The amount of trim and garbage I've had to take our domestic-built Ford Escape back in for service and factory bodge fixes for is staggeringly high. Meanwhile, my Mexican-built Fusion? Rock solid.
- 999900000999 8mo ago
  Ok. So instead of being able to buy a 10K BYD car, Americans have to buy 30k cars that are inferior in many aspects. It would be easier to just pay fired American Auto workers directly over protecting inefficient auto companies. I have no sympathy for Ford who keeps making the F-350 or whatever bigger and more expensive every single year. Nobody needs a $90,000 truck
  - breakpointalpha 8mo ago
    Customers keep buying those trucks though. Why wouldn't you sell a product to a market that continues to purchase? There are smaller, cheaper trucks, suvs, sedans, etc. $100k trucks make a lot of money, so Ford keeps building them.
    - 999900000999 8mo ago
      Ford could sell 15k EVs, they just choose not to. Why should ford be protected from Chinese car manufacturers who can make better and cheaper cars.
      - dyauspitr 8mo ago
        A 143 kWh battery pack alone costs around $10k. I don’t think they can realistically sell $15k EV trucks.
- peterfirefly 8mo ago
  The US car companies have been given decades to catch up. That's the problem: they have been shielded from competition.
knownastron 8mo ago
I believe they'd be able to sell their vehicles in the US if they were willing to build it here (or Mexico/Canada due to USMA). If that were the case they wouldn't have the cheap Chinese labor and I doubt the Chinese government would continue to subsidize US build vehicles for the US market. It'd still be a compelling vehicle but it wouldn't be starting at $33k.
- hangonhn 8mo ago
  There's a non-zero possibility of that actually happening. It's already happening in Europe. Trump has mentioned the idea of a JV with Chinese companies. It is possible for this to happen in the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting. Chinese companies have started pursuing more foreign investments as a way to avoid "involution" -- fierce and unprofitable domestic competition. Their profit margins when going aboard is considerably better than at home. Maybe it won't be $33k but it might be $45k, which for a car with those kinds of specs, it would be a steal. China's EV advantage doesn't come just from labor costs but also from vertical integration of the entire supply chain. The mining stage is pretty low margin but China does it because it enables the next stage, which is batteries where profits are better, and then you get to even more profitable stage with cars, etc.
  - cmxch 8mo ago
    Why 45k and not 33k, if we ignore the tariff issue? It being 33k would be a good thing, 45k would miss the point.
    - hangonhn 8mo ago
      Just a dumb estimate. I'm just making an uneducated guess on what the car would cost if it was assembled using American labor with Chinese parts. I honestly don't know what the actual price would be. It's very possible for it to be 33K.
      - cmxch 8mo ago
        Fair enough. I can imagine regulatory hurdles that might increase it, but could imagine a potential light touch partnership to help things along.
Aurornis 8mo ago
The current gen SU7 is already available with an 830km CLTC range but doesn't actually get that range in real world driving. This is about 9% better, so you could take the current real-world range and increase it by 9% and probably get a decent estimate for the normal driving condition range. You will not get 560 miles of range out of this vehicle. The typical use is probably closer to your initial worst case guess at around 350-400 miles if I had to guess. Worst case scenario would be even worse than that. The numbers are good, but they're not in a completely different league
- dyauspitr 8mo ago
  It is in a completely different league as soon as you get 250 miles+ in the worst case scenario. I have an EV and 300 miles per charge is amazing. No American companies offer this right now.
  - trezm 8mo ago
    Rivian's R1* max battery offers an EPA over 400, anecdotal experience has taught me it's actually around 325-350 on the highway with heating/AC, but still.
- xbar 8mo ago
  They are in a completely different league when you account for the other full half of the story you missed: "The company claims 5C supercharging capability, with a 10% to 80% charge completing in about 11 minutes." Assume your worst case of 350 miles, 80% of that is 280 miles. Getting to 280 miles of no-exaggeration-real-world range in 11 minutes is actually game changing. An 11 minute break after each chunk of 280 real miles of continuous driving does not feel like an interruption on a road-trip. 33 minutes every 200 miles definitely does. 11 minutes once per week to cover 5 days of 30 real miles of each-way commute is a forgettable amount of time. The time/mile charge ratio is actually the story.
  - Aurornis 8mo ago
    I‘be been following this space long enough to know that when you see this line: > The company claims You shouldn’t ignore that important detail. The company claims a lot of things. Let’s wait until we actually see what the production models do as measured in real tests.
tzs 8mo ago
> I wish we could have them in the US but my patriotism also tells me that would be the death of almost all US auto companies. As an American it is not clear to me that I should care about US auto companies. I care about US auto workers but if they are working at a factory in the US owned by a non-US company making that company's cars that seems like it can take care of the workers. Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Nissan, Subaru, and Mazda all build cars in the US with US workers. Why not add some Chinese companies? If there is a good reason to keep the big American companies around pass a law that makes any new non-US auto plants here be a joint venture with a big American company, with the American company having a minority ownership and getting a license to make their own version in their own factories of the cars made in the joint venture factory.
- epolanski 8mo ago
  They will scream national security. While kidnapping foreign head of states, threatening allies and launching wars in the middle east.
- jerlam 8mo ago
  My Japanese Toyota has a greater US/Canada parts content percentage than an American Chevrolet, and the former is assembled in the US while the latter is assembled in Mexico. The only advantage US companies seem to have is nostalgia. The only way the US is going to get better at manufacturing is to learn/steal from the best - which is China now. It was Japan a few decades ago and we made a GM/Toyota joint factory (NUMMI).
  - carefree-bob 8mo ago
    Toyota makes a lot of stuff in the US, and US automakers make a lot of stuff overseas. You can't really go by the nationality of the automaker anymore. That said, there are a lot of reasons (environmental, regulatory, govt subsidies) why US companies can't imitate Chinese companies. What a lot of people don't understand is that provincial governments in China do not have the ability to tax their citizens, but they are required to provide a host of social services. So what they do is start for profit companies, and use the profits of these companies to fund the state. This is the giant octopus of state owned companies in China. The same is also true of the central government, which does have the power to tax, but in practice is unable to collect income taxes from the vast majority of the population, which is why China's tax share of GDP is so abnormally low and the government is constantly cash-starved. Here, too, what happens is the government starts for profit companies whose revenue goes to the state. Sometimes a holding company is owned by the central government, but there are satellite ownership structures owned by provincial governments, with portions of these sold off to private investors. Of course many of these state owned companies lose money, but they are subsidized by the central government in a hidden way, which is that state owned banks lend them money which is routinely forgiven, or stealth forgiven via artificially low lending rates and constantly rolling over loans. Effectively it is impossible for these companies to go bankrupt, which is why you ocassionally get huge scandals when the government allowed some real estate companies to go bankrupt in the past. People didn't think such a thing was possible. So due to the quirks of taxation in China -- basically no one pays income tax -- the government is strongly aligned with for-profit businesses, as these are crucial to funding government operations. That could be anything from a cigarette company owned by a province to an airline, beer maker, construction companies, basically everything. Local officials sit on the board and have outsized ownership stakes, and profits go into the coffers of local and central governments as well as the personal bank accounts of officials. As it is illegal to be a member of a non-government controlled union in China, the same officials can ensure harmonious labor relations. They also don't need to worry too much about environmental regulations because when the government inspectors arrive to check on the government steel mill, there is a strong incentive to make sure that this, too, is harmonious. And the state owned banks ensure cheap credit is available without too many questions asked. This is how you can get enormous for profit companies in China that are not in any real danger from market competition, or from government regulation, or from labor strife, or from environmental regulations. Even energy consumption is subsidized. But what you don't get is high levels of efficiency or labor productivity. This is the middle income trap that China is currently in, and it's not really a model that nations in the west can follow. As a single example, let's look at China's largest steel maker, China Baowu Steel Group, since the parent brought up steel production and the need to "learn from the best". Baowu is a holding company 100% owned by the central government, but it owns child companies that are owned mostly by various provinces. In terms of labor productivity, they produce about 550 tons of steel per worker per year (130 million tons of steel and 237,000 workers). Let's compare that to, say, Nucor Steel in the US, which produces about 1000 tons of steep per worker. Or SSAB in Scandinavia which produces about 600 tons of steel per worker using non-fossil fuel processes. And both of these are under much stricter environmental regulations, and have real unions they need to deal with, and do not get the benefit of borrowing unlimited funds at interest rates that are well below the rate of inflation, and whose loans are routinely forgiven.
FridayoLeary 8mo ago
nah. electric is and always was a political fantasy. Perhaps its day will come, electric cars are here to stay and will find their niche, but the car manufacturers are reluctantly admitting that so is ICE. Electric cars can't compete on the figures, electricity is expensive, at service stations it's exorbitant. The electricity infrastructure is woefully inadequete to handle the large numbers needed. Not to mention enviromental benefits are not that huge either.
- cmrdporcupine 8mo ago
  This is mind bogglingly delusional while people are staring at spiking oil prices... and even when oil prices were at record lows it cost 5x to fill up my wife's ICE car as it did to charge my EV.
- thebruce87m 8mo ago
  > Electric cars can't compete on the figures My EV costs 1/4 pence per mile in fuel compared to my diesel - money saved. I charge at home meaning I no longer have to visit a petrol station once a week - time saved. It’s faster than my diesel. It preheats automatically so more time saved scraping ice off my windows every winter. The national grid in the UK is actually running lower demand than it did 20 years ago due to efficiency improvements, and nighttime charging controlled by my power company means they can balance it as they need - so infrastructure is fine. The environmental benefits mean that my car was break-even on carbon emissions after roughly 15k miles. Seems like it competes on figures just fine.

hangonhn 8mo ago

I would be OK if we tariff or effectively ban Chinese EVs (as is the case now) for a little while to give our auto industry time to retool and catch up. The current situation with a ban but no long term EV adoption plan in place is just incredibly short sighted. We could end up like certain developing nations that has an indigenous auto industry that are nothing more than glorified assembler of foreign cars or the American consumer continues to buy cars that are more expensive and less performant to use and operate while making all of us vulnerable to oil price shocks.

torginus 8mo ago
I wouldn't encourage that and I don't think it will be necessary. In Europe, most Chinese brands aren't selling exactly well, while domestic manufacturers really sped up their timelines and pushed for competitive pricing, so generally I don't think there's much of a demand for Chinese EVs, except for the genuinely nice brands, like XPeng and Nio. There's also the issue, it that in most places in Europe outside of Scandinavia, the charger infrastructure is lacking, and regular people are quite rightly averse of getting an EV if you step out of the tech bubble. I have a friend who's a high-level manager in automotive retail, and he said he thinks Chinese EVs will be like Chinese smartphones - yes they are nice, and cheaper, but still the market looks like 70% of it is controlled by Apple/Samsung, and the rest of the manufacturers fight over what's left
- tzs 8mo ago
  I don't know about EVs specifically, but there seems to be demand in Europe for Chinese PHEVs: "Chinese automakers nearly double Europe market share to 8% in February as PHEVs drive growth" [1]. [1] https://www.autonews.com/retail/sales/ane-europe-chinese-february-2026-2-months-0318/ https://www.autonews.com/retail/sales/ane-europe-chinese-feb...
- anonzzzies 8mo ago
  Here in spain i suddenly see a lot of them (chinese brands) and not in a bader meinhof way. They are advertising more and i see a lot more on the streets. I was picked up from the station by a BYD. Not sure about the numbers, but something is definitely happening.
- t0mas88 8mo ago
  The charging infrastructure has changed a lot in the last few years. You can very comfortably travel all the way across Europe without even thinking about where to charge. There is a Tesla Supercharger every 50 miles or even less all the way from the Netherlands via Germany to Austria. And the same via Belgium to the South of France. And that's only Tesla, you also have Ionity building chargers, and Fastned, and you see more and more chargers at Shell and BP petrol stations.
  - piva00 8mo ago
    It's been pretty great the past 3 years at least, just last summer I drove from Stockholm -> North Italy and had no anxiety about finding chargers on our way.
- menaerus 8mo ago
  > In Europe, most Chinese brands aren't selling exactly well https://www.carscoops.com/2026/01/chinese-car-sales-europe-2025-record-growth https://www.carscoops.com/2026/01/chinese-car-sales-europe-2... says pretty much the opposite. Maybe more detailed analysis is provided by https://chinaevhome.com/2026/01/20/chinese-automakers-europe-sales-top-100000-in-dec-2025-as-market-share-nears-10 https://chinaevhome.com/2026/01/20/chinese-automakers-europe.... Both of them align what I personally see on the streets, more and more Chinese brands, especially BYD, MG and Geely.
  - torginus 8mo ago
    I mean it's a bit hard to take away hard data from just monthly sales across the whole of Europe. 10% is a lot, but far from overwhelming, and individual popular models can create big changes in overall stats. For example, the Brits love their SUVs, and the Jaecoo undercut the market, so that particular model has been selling very well. I think we should wait and see for stats to stabilize over time. Chinese smartphones did something similar - initially they were way better for way cheaper, but other manufactures adapted, so they failed to grab huge chunks of the market.
    - menaerus 8mo ago
      The report uses the number of newly registered vehicles AFAIU and correlates them to the total % of Chinese vehicles sold, so that's not really the monthly sales but the general trend, no? Market cap amounts to 10% as an absolute figure but that isn't what I find most important from reading that article - it is the trend I find intriguing, which doubles or triples by each year, so if such or similar trend continues, Chinese manufacturers will penetrate into the market substantially more. They innovate at much higher pace at much lower price points and at pretty high quality as the evidence we have so far suggests. So IMO it's going to be hell of a ride for European manufacturers to adapt - they need to start moving faster and deliver at much lower cost. This means complete restructuring which I find hard to believe it will happen any time soon.
      - torginus 8mo ago
cpursley 8mo ago
The only way to get American auto manufacturers to step up their game is completion. Worked when the Japanese cars came, American car quality improved dramatically in response because it had to.
- hermanzegerman 8mo ago
  Still no one wants American Cars outside the US, with the exception of Ford and Tesla
  - piva00 8mo ago
    Even Ford has fallen out heavily from just 20 years ago. It used to be much more common to see the Ford badge in Europe when the Ka, Fiesta, Focus line-up was around. Thinking now the only times I see the Ford badge are on work vehicles like vans or the odd Mustang Mach-E (well, not literally the Ford badge but the Mustang one). I haven't seen (or at least noticed) any of the new cars in the Ford line-up in Sweden: Puma, Capri, Kuga, Bronco, etc.
    - hermanzegerman 8mo ago
      I see more and more Douchebags driving with a Pick-Up in Germany. Those cars doesn't fit at all into Europe, but it is what it is Otherwise it's mainly Pumas and Vans, yeah.
- kotaKat 8mo ago
  And the quality's back through the floor again. How many recalls have the domestic slovenly-built Big Three had to put up with in the last ~6 years? Ford alone is showing just how bad the UAW's building on the factory floor. The amount of trim and garbage I've had to take our domestic-built Ford Escape back in for service and factory bodge fixes for is staggeringly high. Meanwhile, my Mexican-built Fusion? Rock solid.
999900000999 8mo ago
Ok. So instead of being able to buy a 10K BYD car, Americans have to buy 30k cars that are inferior in many aspects. It would be easier to just pay fired American Auto workers directly over protecting inefficient auto companies. I have no sympathy for Ford who keeps making the F-350 or whatever bigger and more expensive every single year. Nobody needs a $90,000 truck
- breakpointalpha 8mo ago
  Customers keep buying those trucks though. Why wouldn't you sell a product to a market that continues to purchase? There are smaller, cheaper trucks, suvs, sedans, etc. $100k trucks make a lot of money, so Ford keeps building them.
  - 999900000999 8mo ago
    Ford could sell 15k EVs, they just choose not to. Why should ford be protected from Chinese car manufacturers who can make better and cheaper cars.
    - dyauspitr 8mo ago
      A 143 kWh battery pack alone costs around $10k. I don’t think they can realistically sell $15k EV trucks.
peterfirefly 8mo ago
The US car companies have been given decades to catch up. That's the problem: they have been shielded from competition.

knownastron 8mo ago

I believe they'd be able to sell their vehicles in the US if they were willing to build it here (or Mexico/Canada due to USMA). If that were the case they wouldn't have the cheap Chinese labor and I doubt the Chinese government would continue to subsidize US build vehicles for the US market. It'd still be a compelling vehicle but it wouldn't be starting at $33k.

hangonhn 8mo ago
There's a non-zero possibility of that actually happening. It's already happening in Europe. Trump has mentioned the idea of a JV with Chinese companies. It is possible for this to happen in the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting. Chinese companies have started pursuing more foreign investments as a way to avoid "involution" -- fierce and unprofitable domestic competition. Their profit margins when going aboard is considerably better than at home. Maybe it won't be $33k but it might be $45k, which for a car with those kinds of specs, it would be a steal. China's EV advantage doesn't come just from labor costs but also from vertical integration of the entire supply chain. The mining stage is pretty low margin but China does it because it enables the next stage, which is batteries where profits are better, and then you get to even more profitable stage with cars, etc.
- cmxch 8mo ago
  Why 45k and not 33k, if we ignore the tariff issue? It being 33k would be a good thing, 45k would miss the point.
  - hangonhn 8mo ago
    Just a dumb estimate. I'm just making an uneducated guess on what the car would cost if it was assembled using American labor with Chinese parts. I honestly don't know what the actual price would be. It's very possible for it to be 33K.
    - cmxch 8mo ago
      Fair enough. I can imagine regulatory hurdles that might increase it, but could imagine a potential light touch partnership to help things along.

Aurornis 8mo ago

The current gen SU7 is already available with an 830km CLTC range but doesn't actually get that range in real world driving. This is about 9% better, so you could take the current real-world range and increase it by 9% and probably get a decent estimate for the normal driving condition range. You will not get 560 miles of range out of this vehicle. The typical use is probably closer to your initial worst case guess at around 350-400 miles if I had to guess. Worst case scenario would be even worse than that. The numbers are good, but they're not in a completely different league

dyauspitr 8mo ago
It is in a completely different league as soon as you get 250 miles+ in the worst case scenario. I have an EV and 300 miles per charge is amazing. No American companies offer this right now.
- trezm 8mo ago
  Rivian's R1* max battery offers an EPA over 400, anecdotal experience has taught me it's actually around 325-350 on the highway with heating/AC, but still.
xbar 8mo ago
They are in a completely different league when you account for the other full half of the story you missed: "The company claims 5C supercharging capability, with a 10% to 80% charge completing in about 11 minutes." Assume your worst case of 350 miles, 80% of that is 280 miles. Getting to 280 miles of no-exaggeration-real-world range in 11 minutes is actually game changing. An 11 minute break after each chunk of 280 real miles of continuous driving does not feel like an interruption on a road-trip. 33 minutes every 200 miles definitely does. 11 minutes once per week to cover 5 days of 30 real miles of each-way commute is a forgettable amount of time. The time/mile charge ratio is actually the story.
- Aurornis 8mo ago
  I‘be been following this space long enough to know that when you see this line: > The company claims You shouldn’t ignore that important detail. The company claims a lot of things. Let’s wait until we actually see what the production models do as measured in real tests.

tzs 8mo ago

> I wish we could have them in the US but my patriotism also tells me that would be the death of almost all US auto companies. As an American it is not clear to me that I should care about US auto companies. I care about US auto workers but if they are working at a factory in the US owned by a non-US company making that company's cars that seems like it can take care of the workers. Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Nissan, Subaru, and Mazda all build cars in the US with US workers. Why not add some Chinese companies? If there is a good reason to keep the big American companies around pass a law that makes any new non-US auto plants here be a joint venture with a big American company, with the American company having a minority ownership and getting a license to make their own version in their own factories of the cars made in the joint venture factory.

epolanski 8mo ago
They will scream national security. While kidnapping foreign head of states, threatening allies and launching wars in the middle east.
jerlam 8mo ago
My Japanese Toyota has a greater US/Canada parts content percentage than an American Chevrolet, and the former is assembled in the US while the latter is assembled in Mexico. The only advantage US companies seem to have is nostalgia. The only way the US is going to get better at manufacturing is to learn/steal from the best - which is China now. It was Japan a few decades ago and we made a GM/Toyota joint factory (NUMMI).
- carefree-bob 8mo ago
  Toyota makes a lot of stuff in the US, and US automakers make a lot of stuff overseas. You can't really go by the nationality of the automaker anymore. That said, there are a lot of reasons (environmental, regulatory, govt subsidies) why US companies can't imitate Chinese companies. What a lot of people don't understand is that provincial governments in China do not have the ability to tax their citizens, but they are required to provide a host of social services. So what they do is start for profit companies, and use the profits of these companies to fund the state. This is the giant octopus of state owned companies in China. The same is also true of the central government, which does have the power to tax, but in practice is unable to collect income taxes from the vast majority of the population, which is why China's tax share of GDP is so abnormally low and the government is constantly cash-starved. Here, too, what happens is the government starts for profit companies whose revenue goes to the state. Sometimes a holding company is owned by the central government, but there are satellite ownership structures owned by provincial governments, with portions of these sold off to private investors. Of course many of these state owned companies lose money, but they are subsidized by the central government in a hidden way, which is that state owned banks lend them money which is routinely forgiven, or stealth forgiven via artificially low lending rates and constantly rolling over loans. Effectively it is impossible for these companies to go bankrupt, which is why you ocassionally get huge scandals when the government allowed some real estate companies to go bankrupt in the past. People didn't think such a thing was possible. So due to the quirks of taxation in China -- basically no one pays income tax -- the government is strongly aligned with for-profit businesses, as these are crucial to funding government operations. That could be anything from a cigarette company owned by a province to an airline, beer maker, construction companies, basically everything. Local officials sit on the board and have outsized ownership stakes, and profits go into the coffers of local and central governments as well as the personal bank accounts of officials. As it is illegal to be a member of a non-government controlled union in China, the same officials can ensure harmonious labor relations. They also don't need to worry too much about environmental regulations because when the government inspectors arrive to check on the government steel mill, there is a strong incentive to make sure that this, too, is harmonious. And the state owned banks ensure cheap credit is available without too many questions asked. This is how you can get enormous for profit companies in China that are not in any real danger from market competition, or from government regulation, or from labor strife, or from environmental regulations. Even energy consumption is subsidized. But what you don't get is high levels of efficiency or labor productivity. This is the middle income trap that China is currently in, and it's not really a model that nations in the west can follow. As a single example, let's look at China's largest steel maker, China Baowu Steel Group, since the parent brought up steel production and the need to "learn from the best". Baowu is a holding company 100% owned by the central government, but it owns child companies that are owned mostly by various provinces. In terms of labor productivity, they produce about 550 tons of steel per worker per year (130 million tons of steel and 237,000 workers). Let's compare that to, say, Nucor Steel in the US, which produces about 1000 tons of steep per worker. Or SSAB in Scandinavia which produces about 600 tons of steel per worker using non-fossil fuel processes. And both of these are under much stricter environmental regulations, and have real unions they need to deal with, and do not get the benefit of borrowing unlimited funds at interest rates that are well below the rate of inflation, and whose loans are routinely forgiven.

FridayoLeary 8mo ago

nah. electric is and always was a political fantasy. Perhaps its day will come, electric cars are here to stay and will find their niche, but the car manufacturers are reluctantly admitting that so is ICE. Electric cars can't compete on the figures, electricity is expensive, at service stations it's exorbitant. The electricity infrastructure is woefully inadequete to handle the large numbers needed. Not to mention enviromental benefits are not that huge either.

cmrdporcupine 8mo ago
This is mind bogglingly delusional while people are staring at spiking oil prices... and even when oil prices were at record lows it cost 5x to fill up my wife's ICE car as it did to charge my EV.
thebruce87m 8mo ago
> Electric cars can't compete on the figures My EV costs 1/4 pence per mile in fuel compared to my diesel - money saved. I charge at home meaning I no longer have to visit a petrol station once a week - time saved. It’s faster than my diesel. It preheats automatically so more time saved scraping ice off my windows every winter. The national grid in the UK is actually running lower demand than it did 20 years ago due to efficiency improvements, and nighttime charging controlled by my power company means they can balance it as they need - so infrastructure is fine. The environmental benefits mean that my car was break-even on carbon emissions after roughly 15k miles. Seems like it competes on figures just fine.