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The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry

The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. There are 4 possible solutions to this problem; a) convince Americans that it's worth paying more for a locally built product. This is the simplest approach, but there's only so much margin here that the consumer will tolerate. At the moment this gap is too large. b) Tariff foreign imports to raise their cost. So the US consumer pays more, whether they like it or not. c) subsidize local production out of the "national interest to support this industry" budget. This has the effect of ramping up demand, hence production, hence production being developed, and eventually getting cheaper. d) improve US products, and prices, so that they compete in price to the import - or at least fall inside the margins such that a) becomes effective. c) can help bridge the gap here until the US companies have caught up. In the long run, not all these strategies win. If you go the tariff route, then it's hard to undo it later. Local products fall behind, and the harder it becomes to catch up. Not impossible, but hard. If Ford wanted tarrifs to help boost EV demand, and so allow Ford to build out infrastructure and lower costs, then fine. But it seems it's more of a short term play to just keep ICE Fords selling in the short term. This is one of those "the internet is a fad, it'll never catch on" moments. EV's are here to stay. They're going to win. That's pretty obvious to anyone paying attention. If the question is "how to maintain the US car production" then they should be all-in on EV development now. It seems to me though that the current strategy seems to be very short term thinking - trying to just hold back the tide.

MadrasThorn 4mo ago
A lot of the underlying EV technology is military applicable too
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Animats 4mo ago
This seems to fill a useful niche, but may be too downscale. Remember the Tata Nano.[1] Tata built a basic car with a price below 1 lahk, but it didn't sell. In the US, there's Slate, which claims to be making a small electric pickup truck. "Preorders will start on June 24, 2026. First deliveries are slated for late 2026." [2] Price in the US$20K range, they claim. Claimed range is 150m with the base model battery. A larger battery is available. It's America's answer to the kei car. If it ships and keeps shipping. Detroit got way too much into the "more car per car" thing. Chevrolet once had the slogan "basic transportation". They lost sight of that market. The giant pickups are just silly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano [2] https://www.slate.auto/en https://www.slate.auto/en
- kelseyfrog 4mo ago
  > Claimed range is 150m with the base model battery. Surely 150km
  - Animats 4mo ago
    Sorry, 150 miles. Not km, Slate is a US company.
    - timbit42 4mo ago
      The abbreviation for miles is mi.
- 1234letshaveatw 4mo ago
  Are we just ignoring data now? Giant pickups have silly sales- silly in the crazy high sense of the word. I love my EV but I have never wished for less range. The Slate is a toy for the wealthy, like kitted up Jeeps that have snorkels
  - toast0 4mo ago
    If it shows up in the suggested price range, it's going to one of the least expensive new vehicles on the market. Yes, it has less utility than many other vehicles in many ways, but the bed length (5 ft) is longer than a lot of trucks I see on the road which enables carrying certain kinds of loads that aren't easy in cars or trucks with very short beds as seems fashionable now. 150 miles isn't a ton of range, but it's 50% more than a first generation Leaf and those sold. The Slate clearly isn't trying to check all the boxes, but every vehicle doesn't need to try to do everything.
    - travisb 4mo ago
      Bed length is a silly metric to use. It's single dimensional and doesn't capture any of the other important metrics. Such as width, air-volume, cubed-volume, or weight capacity. Slate's 5 foot bed is on the shorter end of common bed sizes. Certainly shorter and worse on every other metric than the F-150/Silverado/1500 'short bed' so commonly seen hauling air in the US.
jshier 4mo ago
Like many things, it seems like a combination of all of those would work better than any single one, depending on the actual goal. If the goal is to help drive EV adoption, tariffs that raise foreign prices to the desired price point, rather than simply being more expensive, would provide competition to the America companies, perhaps driving improvements. Subsidies would help with labor and ensure the company keeps driving the right direction. Improvements to products can help sell "American made" as a good thing.
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago
  Part of the point of historical import taxes/tariffs was to get them to build it here, invest in facilities, train the local workforce, etc.
  - bruce511 4mo ago
    But is "it" in this context EV's or just protecting ICE production? That's the real heart of the issue. Building EVs would seem to be a logical goal. But is that what the policies are promoting?
cucumber3732842 4mo ago
>This is one of those "the internet is a fad, it'll never catch on" moments. EV's are here to stay. Not saying you're one of them (there are other people here who fit the bill much better) but like with anything else the people on the internet peddling grand narratives lacking of nuance are delusional fanboys, malevolent liars or some combination of the two. EVs are absolutely going to win certain market segments and take good chunks out of others. Unless the government gets out of the business of regulating the crap out of electrical infrastructure at great cost to us all there will likely be a whole bunch of heavier use cases where they just can't pencil out barring some yet unforeseeable breakthrough in the basic physics of batteries. I think the auto industry is wise to think about the upcoming ~30yr transition period where all that shakes itself out and how to invest the right amount into keeping ICE stuff competitive but without investing to the detriment of winning the EV segment, etc, etc, standard big business stuff.
- triceratops 4mo ago
  > there will likely be a whole bunch of heavier use cases where [EVs] just can't pencil out Do the big Detroit automakers also build a lot of semis, garbage trucks, snow plows, and fire engines? I can see those types of vehicles being ICE holdouts. But certainly not anything you can drive with a regular driver license.
  - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
    I meant more like bog standard 1500-5500 sized trucks and vans. Depending upon the actual fine details of the use case it's gonna be hard to make the math math. Your local DPW with a lot of money for new over spec'd trucks, friendly permitting office approving their permit for charging infra, strict 9-5, etc might make it pencil out for their facility maintenance. But a landscaper who's engaged in fundamentally the same work but out of rented space, a landlord that won't get preferential treatment on the install of charging infra, won't qualify for the same fleet discount, works way harder than 9-5, etc, etc. might not make it pencil out. Local delivery can potentially make great use of EVs, but if you turn up the operational tempo or the range and have drivers slip seating or really racking up the miles it can be a non-starter vs just buying the same thing in non-ev. And of course the fixed infrastructure cost questions still apply. You might get hybrids but you also have to remember weight matters in a lot of these applications. Can't be rolling around over weight as part of normal business. And a lot of these applications are trying to stay under 10k while still having as much cargo capacity as possible.
JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
The playbook to study is South Korea. Protectionism and subsidies for nascent and transitioning industries with a clear ex ante timeline to full liberalization to force international competitiveness. Absent the latter, American car companies’ inefficiencies in design and labour structure have zero incentive to change, and American consumers get stuck with shitty, expensive products. For cars, this would mean federally-guaranteed loans up to the median value of a plant for any manufacturer with any production base worldwide (the plant to be built or retrofitted in America, of course) plus an N-year (N set to the expected payback period for a new or retrofitted plant) tariff schedule starting very high before decreasing to virtually zero. Maybe also pass a special bankruptcy regime to expedite the redistribution of assets for those who fail to really send the message that failure is an option.
- BrenBarn 4mo ago
  I feel like the "clear ex ante timeline" is a big problem for us in the US. A prominent feature of US politics (and indeed culture) is constantly setting such targets and then chickening out and moving the target back as the time approaches. That in turn creates a sort of moral hazard where no one feels an urgency to meet deadlines because they know they'll be loosened up later.
  - JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
    Hmm, maybe a carrot with liberalization? Tax benefits to the car companies come to mind. But I’m almost more of a fan of creating a monetary incentive for the lenders with the federal guarantees—if the liberalization gets delayed or derailed, they lose money.
  - ben_w 4mo ago
    > A prominent feature of US politics (and indeed culture) is constantly setting such targets and then chickening out and moving the target back as the time approaches. I'm not an American, so I want to check with this: this is normal for the broader culture? Not just Musk?
    - 4mo ago
hmm37 4mo ago
The tariff route is what happened in the 1970s under the "chicken tax", which still exists today to protect the US light truck industry, and is pretty much the reason why SUVs reign supreme in the US market. SUVs are classified as "light trucks", which has caused a Galapagozation of the US car industry/market.
- GenerWork 4mo ago
  I see this take on SUVs all the time, and I can't help but think it's wrong. Americans just like bigger vehicles and will downsize if gas gets too expensive. There's a reason almost all electric car companies start off with a CUV/SUV/truck, and it's not because they're allergic to sedans or coupes.
  - adjejmxbdjdn 4mo ago
    - Tesla, the most prominent and successful EV company, didn’t start with a truck. - Neither did all the attempts at EVs from other competitors in the 2010s, like the GM Bolt/Volt or the Nissan Leaf. - But you’re not wrong, that today EV companies usually start with SUVs/CUVs, but that’s because a larger chassis makes it easier to include a large enough battery.
    - formerly_proven 4mo ago
      They're mostly CUVs and above because fitting sedan seating into a CUV-shaped body frees up the height you need for a battery. Western OEM batteries were usually tall because they mostly used large-format pouch cells, because that promised the highest performance and lowest cost (spoiler: recalls are expensive).
    - tmp10423288442 4mo ago
      Back in the 2010s, EVs were primarily sold to customers that were more likely to be averse to SUVs for the perceived environmental impact and, frankly, snobbery (liberals of the time used to mock big SUVs like the Cadillac Escalade and the Hummer, particularly after they got associated with the timespan of the Bush administration before becoming uneconomical after the late 2000s oil price spike). Also the batteries just didn't have enough capacity at a reasonable price to build anything heavier than a sedan. As soon as it was feasible, Tesla released a CUV (the Model Y) which now outsells the Model 3 almost 2-to-1. Arguably Tesla has fumbled by letting Elon pursue the Cybertruck rather than a full-sized SUV or normal pickup truck. You can observe that Rivian went after precisely those missing models.
01100011 4mo ago
Why is decimating our local car industry a problem? Why not build something else with the resources if cars are now a cheap commodity?
- ButterWashed 4mo ago
  You can't really assume the prices will stay low forever and removing local competition exposes you to supply chain issues.
- GLGirty 4mo ago
  This reminds me of a quote from Peter Schiff, circa 2008 housing crash. To paraphrase, “too-big-to-fail eventually becomes too-big-to keep alive"
- hnav 4mo ago
  historically car manufacturing gets redirected into defense for wartime though it's unclear how that would pan out with today's factory specialization
  - bruce511 4mo ago
    Historically being WW2. I'm not sure they've contributed much to the "war effort" since then. A legacy of WW2 was the explosion of the whole defence industry. While a lot of the civilian factories got repurposed in WW2 to build trucks and planes and ships, the tech in all that stuff was very basic. For example the aircraft carrier Yorktown was "fixed" (at least good enough for the Midway battle) in 3 days. I somehow doubt a modern carrier could do that, simply because of the tech required. The US built 150 more carriers in the next 3 years. The defense industry today gets a trillion $ a year. There's no civilian ship-building to speak of, and military vehicles are now highly specialized. So why keep Ford et al afloat? Politically it's sold as "national security." In reality it's like more "they didn't die on my watch." And of course, having the ability to make local affects the supply chain. [1] For example if China invades Taiwan, the US loses pretty much all electronics- especially PCs and Phones. That's a lot of leverage for a foreign country to have. [1] US cars aren't really local - that's a fiction exposed by the proposed tarif on "car parts", which the industry squashed. In reality car parts are made all over the place (including the US) , and then assembled in the US (or anywhere else.)
scythe 4mo ago
None of these strategies seem to address the other technological issue hiding beneath the surface, which is that EVs are fundamentally simpler (electric vs combustion motor) and hence should be cheaper than ICE cars when manufacturing pipelines are mature. This would result in lower profits across the car industry even in the absence of international competition. No US manufacturer so far has actually tried to build EVs cheaper than gas cars at scale (Tesla made a little noise and then got distracted), while Chinese manufacturers have no need to worry about cannibalizing the comparatively small domestic ICE market. Letting the industry guide policymaking seems like it could lead to regulatory capture preventing EVs from reaching the (low!) price points that they should reach. Already the two-track emissions standards and chicken tax make cars too big and the "arms race" of having a bigger car than everyone else to stay safe (at the expense of others) prevents meaningful reform.
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago
  The "secret sauce" of being an OEM is integrating a good set of properties that sells at a price point that sells. Yeah, they have a lot of $$ historically invested in good engines but they don't care that much. They'll buy engines from each other whenever they want. They don't see it as a critical moat.
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xbmcuser 4mo ago
There should be a time limit to protectionism and a scale where tariffs on imports come down overtime. Otherwise you will get what you currently have in the US ie huge cars that cost a lot of money to make and run. US supposedly the free economy is the country where almost every industry is an entrenched virtual monopoly or a duopoly and with it's political finance system they are eating into every industry.
- program_whiz 4mo ago
  Its an inevitable state of any market system (especially if regulated). Eventually it will become more profitable to use the gains of capital to buy protection from regulators, instead of investing in ever smaller business improvements. Using money to defeat competition is ultimately inefficient and generates lower returns for investment. Unless regulators are totally insulated from the market, they will have a stake in selecting winners and will eventually construct moats that others can't cross, as that provides the highest returns to capital, and the greatest rewards to regulators. Monopoly is the most market-efficient vehicle to deliver returns to capital, and the most natural state of the market; one player using advantages and gains eventually destroys all opponents. Smaller players can never gain a foothold due to the incumbents being so efficient and far ahead, and it makes more sense to merge with the front-runner, allies, or be destroyed (hence the competitor pool keeps shrinking). These are features of the system that naturally emerge without counterveiling forces. For example, AI companies will shortly find its cheaper to just get the government to constrain their competition. The alternative is many companies spending trillions to eek out profits, a poor state to be in. Regulators want money and power, so its in their interest to create this protected state, as the "free and open market" isn't buying elections or vacation homes. And of course, any unprotected competitors left behind will die, consolidate, or sell to the victors; so we will eventually have a "winner takes all" system where one or two big players dominate. Any startups will either be quickly destroyed as people ask "why use a worse product", or will sell to the monopoly when they realize they can't afford to spend $1T training models and building data centers, and complying with all the regulations. My point is that protectionism (in any form) isn't something to bring down over time to encourage competition -- the system can't naturally function that way, as it would require each player to go against their own interests. Instead, protectionism is a natural ever-increasing good that will be cultivated for the controlling capital and regulators in the system. We only see the "free market" operations during a time before market / regulator capture, as that's the time when there aren't yet dominant players who can guarantee power and money to the regulators, and there isn't enough consolidation of capital to immediately destroy all competition, but its an unstable market state.
dhosek 4mo ago
What’s interesting is that while most cars imported into Mexico (except for those from the NAFTA region) face stiff tariffs or outright bans (if you move to Mexico from the US you can only bring your car if it was manufactured in Mexico/Canada/US, other cars are not allowed at all), but electric cars have no tariff at all which means that, e.g., Chinese EVs are widely available there. The BYD Seal sells for MXN888000 in its AWD/big battery configuration which translates to USD51,184¹ which is comparable to the Tesla Model 3 price in Mexico (and a bit lower than the equivalent price in the US). Mexico is going at the EV transition with a two-pronged strategy: Building a domestic industry and encouraging imports at the same time. This seems to be the exact opposite of the US strategy. ⸻ 1. Worth noting two key differences between the Mexican and American car buying experience: First, prices are fixed. There’s none of this negotiating with the dealer about the price or upselling you on undercoating stuff. You can look on the website and know what the price is. Second, instead of sales tax, Mexico uses VAT to achieve the same purpose. As a result, the price you see for a product is going to be the actual price you pay walking out the door and not the price before sales tax (at my current residence, the total sales tax is currently 10%). As a consequence, some things that might appear to be slightly more expensive in Mexico, depending on where you live, may actually be slightly cheaper.
iAMkenough 4mo ago
5th possible solution: e) End the socialism that is taxpayer-funded bailouts and subsidies for failing car companies, and let the free market decide. Tired of paying for their losses.
jollyllama 4mo ago
> This is one of those "the internet is a fad, it'll never catch on" moments. EV's are here to stay. They're going to win. That's pretty obvious to anyone paying attention. That's not clear at all from the long-term habits of American consumers. Why did Ford, GM, and Stellantis all cut EV investment and increase ICE investment in the last year then?
- Aromasin 4mo ago
  Short term buyer habits don't necessarily track technological progress - they tend to be resistent, then inertia is broken and consumers buy en-mass. Companies need to brunt to cost of innovation until the cost benefit analysis makes sense for consumers. Mobile phones were a passing fad for niche power users until companies threw so much money at them so they weren't, and we became reliant on carrying one. Same can be said for thousands of other products. Nobody used them until suddenly we all were. We're seeing a moores-law-like improvement in electric cars and their power densities. If the American car manufacturers don't want to be a part of that progress, it's on them, but Asia and Europe will continue to innovate in that area and the US will be playing catch up because they're servicing what consumers want now, not what they will probably want in the future.
- bruce511 4mo ago
  Because they are focused on short term returns, not long-term strategy. In the short term cutting r&d, killing off "not yet profitable" lines etc all lead to improved results this quarter. Who cares about 5 years, or 10 years from now? If you look beyond the US then you see EV market share growing year on year. Yes, the US is resisting hard, but you can't hold back the tide forever. Kodak invented digital photography, but kept going with film. In the end the world moved on, even if they didn't. 50 years from now ICE will be a niche market. And if US producers want to own that niche, well that's great. But it'll be a tiny fraction of what they are now.
  - formerly_proven 4mo ago
    > 50 years from now ICE will be a niche market EVs are roughly at two thirds market share in the largest car market of the world. The third largest market has them at 20%. Funnily enough, India (4th largest market) is slightly ahead of the US for EV adoption in passenger cars. ICE cars will be a niche market much more rapidly than 50 years.
jackb4040 4mo ago
The US didn't go from #1 in global auto manufacturing to nearing extinction on accident. The companies shifted production abroad because they didn't want to pay for US labor. We can't just pray for "development" to spark a chain reaction that gets us back on track - we were the most developed and consciously chose to squander that advantage. Onshoring can be done, but it will have a real cost someone will have to bear. The industry would prefer consumers just pay twice as much for cars, meanwhile consumers are at a breaking point like they've never felt. In the meantime there's a stalemate and nobody can move, as the decline continues.
- petesergeant 4mo ago
  > The companies shifted production abroad because they didn't want to pay for US labor Realistically it’s the consumers who didn’t want to pay for it
  - steveBK123 4mo ago
    Also US cars were genuinely horrendous in the 80s-90s in terms of build quality & reliability vs same price or cheaper Japanese equivalents. It's only rather recent that all the big name car makes from US/Europe/Japan/Korea are pretty good & reliable. There were huge differences 30-40 years ago.
    - coredog64 4mo ago
      I think there's a finer point here: US consumers don't want to pay for local UAW labor. GM&Toyota did fine out of the NUMMI plant, and companies like Nissan and Mercedes are making cars in Alabama.
      - steveBK123 4mo ago
        The problem wasn't assembly alone, the designers carry much blame as well in that era.
      - pjc50 4mo ago
yibg 4mo ago
Isn’t there a e) have investment at the federal level in R&D, specifically for industries that matter (economy, national security etc)? For automotive, China didn’t become the EV leader by accident. It was a deliberate national strategy, with funding to back it up. Yes there is cheaper labor, different regulations etc. But also in no small part to federal funding, investment in R&D etc. why are we surprised then that the US is in general falling behind? The US could invest more in battery tech, manufacturing automation, robotics etc. This both lowers cost and increases product competitiveness.
- tzs 4mo ago
  > The US could invest more in battery tech, manufacturing automation, robotics etc The US is investing in batteries. Domestic production has increased rapidly over the last couple of years and is continuing to do so. The US can now produce domestically all of its battery needs for grid storage, for example. This is due to government incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act.
thelastgallon 4mo ago
> c) subsidize local production out of the "national interest to support this industry" budget. This has the effect of ramping up demand, hence production, hence production being developed, and eventually getting cheaper. We already have a trillionaire from subsidizing local production.
lenerdenator 4mo ago
Tariff is probably the easiest path forward. You'll need to pay workers more to make D) work. That cuts into margins. That means it's DOA.
- formerly_proven 4mo ago
  GM has had like what, 1.5% net profit in 2025?
  - lenerdenator 4mo ago
    It wouldn't matter if it was 50%. Shareholders have the expectation of the number getting bigger every 90 days in perpetuity. If you want better vehicles to increase sales and compete better against international competition, you need to have the rank-and-file feeling like their work will matter not just for the company, but for them too. That's diametrically opposed to the number getting bigger.
yellowapple 4mo ago
> The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. The local car industry in the US is doing that to itself by dragging its feet on EVs in the US market even when the very same companies are selling EVs outside of the US. Ford, for example, has an EV Bronco that's inexplicably only available in China; that'd sell like gangbusters here in the US, but Ford won't sell it here because reasons. In that sense, the Ford CEO is about as dead-wrong as it gets. His company needs to either actually sell competitive products or else move out of the way for other companies to do so. His demands to keep foreign competitors out of the very US market in which his company refuses to offer products are downright insultingly greedy.
- brianfryer 4mo ago
  I’m interested in understanding more about what gives you the impression “that [an EV Bronco would] sell like gangbusters here in the US”.
  - yellowapple 4mo ago
    I see non-EV Broncos everywhere here in Reno, and I also see EVs everywhere here in Reno. I would therefore expect to see EV Broncos everywhere here in Reno if they existed in the US market. I also in particular see Cybertrucks and Rivian R1Ts everywhere here in Reno, so the very specific demand for electric pickup trucks clearly exists.
  - pragma_x 4mo ago
    Not GP, but for starters, the MSRP for that car in China is $32k. https://www.carsdb.com/en/news/1476 https://www.carsdb.com/en/news/1476 I get that's an apples-to-oranges comparison, considering that labor and material costs (not to mention subsidies and regulations) are probably not the same. But even at $40k, it would be cost-competitive with other EVs if nothing else.
thelastgallon 4mo ago
Allowing foreign competition is a forcing function to be more productive and innovative. Japanese/German competition didn't annihilate US car industry, why would Chinese cars do it? Cars are a way to signal status. Americans don't want to buy cheap cars, because cheap cars means low status. They'd rather go into significant debt and keep up with the Joneses. The people buying pickup trucks and SUVs are mostly picking up their kids from elementary school which is half a mile away.
pragma_x 4mo ago
There may be another option. Consider Japan's Kei car initiative, for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Taxation_and_insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Taxation_and_insurance One route is to provide incentives, if not regulations, to force innovation on US automakers. The goal would be to yield products that are head-to-head competitive with imports. > It seems to me though that the current strategy seems to be very short term thinking - trying to just hold back the tide. I'm seeing that too, but from a different angle. The era of big trucks seems to be as much an effort to extract cash from the economy as it is taking advantage of a peculiar set of EPA and DOT regulations. Basically, "gettin' in while the gettin's good." It's not a long-term strategy because, at some point, people can't afford these behemoths and will go for the used car market next for cheaper goods. EVs may get caught up in that too, considering that they're aimed squarely at the sub-luxury tier and above. As we have no good cheap EV options at the moment, I think it's the same story.
- HWR_14 4mo ago
  The main difference between a car like this and a kei car is the ability to drive it, at least for a short while, on the expressway. If this could go a couple miles at 45 or 50 mph that would work in lot more situations where two neighborhoods or urban areas are connected by a short stretch of highway.
  - mc3301 4mo ago
    Kei cars can comfortably go up to about 60mph. Not great for an 8 hour drive, but I regularly do 3-hour-drives with a loaded kei-van. Yep, same 660cc three-cylinder engine that those kei-trucks have. It'll hit 70mph, but not comfortably. 50mph is easy. And on the highway, I see tons of other kei cars, too. Light weight class cars even get a toll discount!
steveBK123 4mo ago
Before deciding on a solution, Governments also need to decide on what problem they are solving. Why do they want to protect domestic automakers specifically? Is it national defense synergy / surge capacity reasons? Is it general manufacturing know how / impact on overall domestic manufacturing supply chain? Is it jobs for current workers? Is it to keep the pensions solvent for retirees? I saw a comment re: this issue in Europe where a Portuguese commenter asked why it was fine for the Eurocrats (lead by Germany) to let all their apparel jobs go overseas, but now he doesn't get the option of buying a Chinese car because German auto jobs need protection. There is something of a point there.
TheCondor 4mo ago
Where do interest rates factor in to your calculus? We've just had really cheap money for a really long time in the US and the car makers seem to have adapted and found ways to sell vehicles for more. A top of the line raptor has a tremendous amount of power and interior amenities. Oddly, they're not uncommon, I see landscapers driving them around. Maybe not the very top line Raptors, but I do see Raptors and that seems like an awful lot of truck to pull some lawnmowers and sprinkler parts around in. Low-interest financing and then we've never had high gas prices for terribly extended periods of time. I don't know that I think the US manufacturers have taken "inexpensive, but good value" cars seriously for decades. The least expensive Ford vehicle, I think is a Maverick which starts around $28k, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Mazda and Honda all have cars under $25000.
tzs 4mo ago
(Is "foreign imports" redundant?) I'd be OK with tariffs if they are not meant to simply keep foreign car companies out of the US, but rather to encourage foreign car companies that want to enter the US market to build factories in the US and build their cars here with US labor. There would probably still have to be tariffs on parts so they can't just ship all the parts here and just assemble in the US, but if they come here and build cars with US labor and with much of the supply chain being here too and are still causing headaches for the US car makers I don't see why American consumers should care.
aaron695 4mo ago
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AngryData 4mo ago
Last time I looked at the total labor costs of producing a car in the US versus China or elsewhere and it was laughably small compared to the sale price. Auto manufacturers did this to themselves thinking they could outsource all the heaviest labor portions and pocket the extra and that either the foreign labor would stay cheap and not foster the development of the industry in those countries or local labor would magically be ready whenever they needed despite being starved for decades. But they were wrong on both counts. And on top of all that they squandered all that extra profit they made so they can't seemingly afford to drop the capital needed to return to the cheaper high-volume low-margin market, atleast not with the massive managerial burden they have built up and sustained.
satvikpendem 4mo ago
5) Force outside companies to partner with local companies in join ventures with IP and knowledge sharing. This strategy seems to work remarkably well when you have a captive market others want to break into.
crossroadsguy 4mo ago
I think the idea of public transport or rather functional public transport is completely omitted in that context of this country, isn't it? That alone can be a huge local competition as there should be.
fsuts 4mo ago
Eu tariffs have had a different effect - Chinese companies are signing deals with European car makers to make the cars at their existing eu factories. Stellantis is in talks for the Chinese to invest in them too.
crusty 4mo ago
One might wonder why the Ford CEO cares about low cost foreign cars when Ford doesn't even make any. They have shifted all of their lineup except one car model to higher- margin compact SUVs, SUVs, pickups, and full size commercial vans. And that one car, the mustang, another one marketing exercise on four wheels with accompanying margin markup - not exactly a practical entry level car. Oh, but the poors but the used cars and competition for their business will lead to greater supply of used cars, diminishing the resale value they can point to to justify purchase of their high-margin vehicles. Can't have that now.

MadrasThorn 4mo ago

A lot of the underlying EV technology is military applicable too

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Animats 4mo ago

This seems to fill a useful niche, but may be too downscale. Remember the Tata Nano.[1] Tata built a basic car with a price below 1 lahk, but it didn't sell. In the US, there's Slate, which claims to be making a small electric pickup truck. "Preorders will start on June 24, 2026. First deliveries are slated for late 2026." [2] Price in the US$20K range, they claim. Claimed range is 150m with the base model battery. A larger battery is available. It's America's answer to the kei car. If it ships and keeps shipping. Detroit got way too much into the "more car per car" thing. Chevrolet once had the slogan "basic transportation". They lost sight of that market. The giant pickups are just silly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano [2] https://www.slate.auto/en https://www.slate.auto/en

kelseyfrog 4mo ago
> Claimed range is 150m with the base model battery. Surely 150km
- Animats 4mo ago
  Sorry, 150 miles. Not km, Slate is a US company.
  - timbit42 4mo ago
    The abbreviation for miles is mi.
1234letshaveatw 4mo ago
Are we just ignoring data now? Giant pickups have silly sales- silly in the crazy high sense of the word. I love my EV but I have never wished for less range. The Slate is a toy for the wealthy, like kitted up Jeeps that have snorkels
- toast0 4mo ago
  If it shows up in the suggested price range, it's going to one of the least expensive new vehicles on the market. Yes, it has less utility than many other vehicles in many ways, but the bed length (5 ft) is longer than a lot of trucks I see on the road which enables carrying certain kinds of loads that aren't easy in cars or trucks with very short beds as seems fashionable now. 150 miles isn't a ton of range, but it's 50% more than a first generation Leaf and those sold. The Slate clearly isn't trying to check all the boxes, but every vehicle doesn't need to try to do everything.
  - travisb 4mo ago
    Bed length is a silly metric to use. It's single dimensional and doesn't capture any of the other important metrics. Such as width, air-volume, cubed-volume, or weight capacity. Slate's 5 foot bed is on the shorter end of common bed sizes. Certainly shorter and worse on every other metric than the F-150/Silverado/1500 'short bed' so commonly seen hauling air in the US.

jshier 4mo ago

Like many things, it seems like a combination of all of those would work better than any single one, depending on the actual goal. If the goal is to help drive EV adoption, tariffs that raise foreign prices to the desired price point, rather than simply being more expensive, would provide competition to the America companies, perhaps driving improvements. Subsidies would help with labor and ensure the company keeps driving the right direction. Improvements to products can help sell "American made" as a good thing.

cucumber3732842 4mo ago
Part of the point of historical import taxes/tariffs was to get them to build it here, invest in facilities, train the local workforce, etc.
- bruce511 4mo ago
  But is "it" in this context EV's or just protecting ICE production? That's the real heart of the issue. Building EVs would seem to be a logical goal. But is that what the policies are promoting?

cucumber3732842 4mo ago

>This is one of those "the internet is a fad, it'll never catch on" moments. EV's are here to stay. Not saying you're one of them (there are other people here who fit the bill much better) but like with anything else the people on the internet peddling grand narratives lacking of nuance are delusional fanboys, malevolent liars or some combination of the two. EVs are absolutely going to win certain market segments and take good chunks out of others. Unless the government gets out of the business of regulating the crap out of electrical infrastructure at great cost to us all there will likely be a whole bunch of heavier use cases where they just can't pencil out barring some yet unforeseeable breakthrough in the basic physics of batteries. I think the auto industry is wise to think about the upcoming ~30yr transition period where all that shakes itself out and how to invest the right amount into keeping ICE stuff competitive but without investing to the detriment of winning the EV segment, etc, etc, standard big business stuff.

triceratops 4mo ago
> there will likely be a whole bunch of heavier use cases where [EVs] just can't pencil out Do the big Detroit automakers also build a lot of semis, garbage trucks, snow plows, and fire engines? I can see those types of vehicles being ICE holdouts. But certainly not anything you can drive with a regular driver license.
- cucumber3732842 4mo ago
  I meant more like bog standard 1500-5500 sized trucks and vans. Depending upon the actual fine details of the use case it's gonna be hard to make the math math. Your local DPW with a lot of money for new over spec'd trucks, friendly permitting office approving their permit for charging infra, strict 9-5, etc might make it pencil out for their facility maintenance. But a landscaper who's engaged in fundamentally the same work but out of rented space, a landlord that won't get preferential treatment on the install of charging infra, won't qualify for the same fleet discount, works way harder than 9-5, etc, etc. might not make it pencil out. Local delivery can potentially make great use of EVs, but if you turn up the operational tempo or the range and have drivers slip seating or really racking up the miles it can be a non-starter vs just buying the same thing in non-ev. And of course the fixed infrastructure cost questions still apply. You might get hybrids but you also have to remember weight matters in a lot of these applications. Can't be rolling around over weight as part of normal business. And a lot of these applications are trying to stay under 10k while still having as much cargo capacity as possible.

JumpCrisscross 4mo ago

The playbook to study is South Korea. Protectionism and subsidies for nascent and transitioning industries with a clear ex ante timeline to full liberalization to force international competitiveness. Absent the latter, American car companies’ inefficiencies in design and labour structure have zero incentive to change, and American consumers get stuck with shitty, expensive products. For cars, this would mean federally-guaranteed loans up to the median value of a plant for any manufacturer with any production base worldwide (the plant to be built or retrofitted in America, of course) plus an N-year (N set to the expected payback period for a new or retrofitted plant) tariff schedule starting very high before decreasing to virtually zero. Maybe also pass a special bankruptcy regime to expedite the redistribution of assets for those who fail to really send the message that failure is an option.

BrenBarn 4mo ago
I feel like the "clear ex ante timeline" is a big problem for us in the US. A prominent feature of US politics (and indeed culture) is constantly setting such targets and then chickening out and moving the target back as the time approaches. That in turn creates a sort of moral hazard where no one feels an urgency to meet deadlines because they know they'll be loosened up later.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago
  Hmm, maybe a carrot with liberalization? Tax benefits to the car companies come to mind. But I’m almost more of a fan of creating a monetary incentive for the lenders with the federal guarantees—if the liberalization gets delayed or derailed, they lose money.
- ben_w 4mo ago
  > A prominent feature of US politics (and indeed culture) is constantly setting such targets and then chickening out and moving the target back as the time approaches. I'm not an American, so I want to check with this: this is normal for the broader culture? Not just Musk?
  - 4mo ago

hmm37 4mo ago

The tariff route is what happened in the 1970s under the "chicken tax", which still exists today to protect the US light truck industry, and is pretty much the reason why SUVs reign supreme in the US market. SUVs are classified as "light trucks", which has caused a Galapagozation of the US car industry/market.

GenerWork 4mo ago
I see this take on SUVs all the time, and I can't help but think it's wrong. Americans just like bigger vehicles and will downsize if gas gets too expensive. There's a reason almost all electric car companies start off with a CUV/SUV/truck, and it's not because they're allergic to sedans or coupes.
- adjejmxbdjdn 4mo ago
  - Tesla, the most prominent and successful EV company, didn’t start with a truck. - Neither did all the attempts at EVs from other competitors in the 2010s, like the GM Bolt/Volt or the Nissan Leaf. - But you’re not wrong, that today EV companies usually start with SUVs/CUVs, but that’s because a larger chassis makes it easier to include a large enough battery.
  - formerly_proven 4mo ago
    They're mostly CUVs and above because fitting sedan seating into a CUV-shaped body frees up the height you need for a battery. Western OEM batteries were usually tall because they mostly used large-format pouch cells, because that promised the highest performance and lowest cost (spoiler: recalls are expensive).
  - tmp10423288442 4mo ago
    Back in the 2010s, EVs were primarily sold to customers that were more likely to be averse to SUVs for the perceived environmental impact and, frankly, snobbery (liberals of the time used to mock big SUVs like the Cadillac Escalade and the Hummer, particularly after they got associated with the timespan of the Bush administration before becoming uneconomical after the late 2000s oil price spike). Also the batteries just didn't have enough capacity at a reasonable price to build anything heavier than a sedan. As soon as it was feasible, Tesla released a CUV (the Model Y) which now outsells the Model 3 almost 2-to-1. Arguably Tesla has fumbled by letting Elon pursue the Cybertruck rather than a full-sized SUV or normal pickup truck. You can observe that Rivian went after precisely those missing models.

01100011 4mo ago

Why is decimating our local car industry a problem? Why not build something else with the resources if cars are now a cheap commodity?

ButterWashed 4mo ago
You can't really assume the prices will stay low forever and removing local competition exposes you to supply chain issues.
GLGirty 4mo ago
This reminds me of a quote from Peter Schiff, circa 2008 housing crash. To paraphrase, “too-big-to-fail eventually becomes too-big-to keep alive"
hnav 4mo ago
historically car manufacturing gets redirected into defense for wartime though it's unclear how that would pan out with today's factory specialization
- bruce511 4mo ago
  Historically being WW2. I'm not sure they've contributed much to the "war effort" since then. A legacy of WW2 was the explosion of the whole defence industry. While a lot of the civilian factories got repurposed in WW2 to build trucks and planes and ships, the tech in all that stuff was very basic. For example the aircraft carrier Yorktown was "fixed" (at least good enough for the Midway battle) in 3 days. I somehow doubt a modern carrier could do that, simply because of the tech required. The US built 150 more carriers in the next 3 years. The defense industry today gets a trillion $ a year. There's no civilian ship-building to speak of, and military vehicles are now highly specialized. So why keep Ford et al afloat? Politically it's sold as "national security." In reality it's like more "they didn't die on my watch." And of course, having the ability to make local affects the supply chain. [1] For example if China invades Taiwan, the US loses pretty much all electronics- especially PCs and Phones. That's a lot of leverage for a foreign country to have. [1] US cars aren't really local - that's a fiction exposed by the proposed tarif on "car parts", which the industry squashed. In reality car parts are made all over the place (including the US) , and then assembled in the US (or anywhere else.)

scythe 4mo ago

None of these strategies seem to address the other technological issue hiding beneath the surface, which is that EVs are fundamentally simpler (electric vs combustion motor) and hence should be cheaper than ICE cars when manufacturing pipelines are mature. This would result in lower profits across the car industry even in the absence of international competition. No US manufacturer so far has actually tried to build EVs cheaper than gas cars at scale (Tesla made a little noise and then got distracted), while Chinese manufacturers have no need to worry about cannibalizing the comparatively small domestic ICE market. Letting the industry guide policymaking seems like it could lead to regulatory capture preventing EVs from reaching the (low!) price points that they should reach. Already the two-track emissions standards and chicken tax make cars too big and the "arms race" of having a bigger car than everyone else to stay safe (at the expense of others) prevents meaningful reform.

cucumber3732842 4mo ago
The "secret sauce" of being an OEM is integrating a good set of properties that sells at a price point that sells. Yeah, they have a lot of $$ historically invested in good engines but they don't care that much. They'll buy engines from each other whenever they want. They don't see it as a critical moat.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

xbmcuser 4mo ago

There should be a time limit to protectionism and a scale where tariffs on imports come down overtime. Otherwise you will get what you currently have in the US ie huge cars that cost a lot of money to make and run. US supposedly the free economy is the country where almost every industry is an entrenched virtual monopoly or a duopoly and with it's political finance system they are eating into every industry.

program_whiz 4mo ago
Its an inevitable state of any market system (especially if regulated). Eventually it will become more profitable to use the gains of capital to buy protection from regulators, instead of investing in ever smaller business improvements. Using money to defeat competition is ultimately inefficient and generates lower returns for investment. Unless regulators are totally insulated from the market, they will have a stake in selecting winners and will eventually construct moats that others can't cross, as that provides the highest returns to capital, and the greatest rewards to regulators. Monopoly is the most market-efficient vehicle to deliver returns to capital, and the most natural state of the market; one player using advantages and gains eventually destroys all opponents. Smaller players can never gain a foothold due to the incumbents being so efficient and far ahead, and it makes more sense to merge with the front-runner, allies, or be destroyed (hence the competitor pool keeps shrinking). These are features of the system that naturally emerge without counterveiling forces. For example, AI companies will shortly find its cheaper to just get the government to constrain their competition. The alternative is many companies spending trillions to eek out profits, a poor state to be in. Regulators want money and power, so its in their interest to create this protected state, as the "free and open market" isn't buying elections or vacation homes. And of course, any unprotected competitors left behind will die, consolidate, or sell to the victors; so we will eventually have a "winner takes all" system where one or two big players dominate. Any startups will either be quickly destroyed as people ask "why use a worse product", or will sell to the monopoly when they realize they can't afford to spend $1T training models and building data centers, and complying with all the regulations. My point is that protectionism (in any form) isn't something to bring down over time to encourage competition -- the system can't naturally function that way, as it would require each player to go against their own interests. Instead, protectionism is a natural ever-increasing good that will be cultivated for the controlling capital and regulators in the system. We only see the "free market" operations during a time before market / regulator capture, as that's the time when there aren't yet dominant players who can guarantee power and money to the regulators, and there isn't enough consolidation of capital to immediately destroy all competition, but its an unstable market state.

dhosek 4mo ago

What’s interesting is that while most cars imported into Mexico (except for those from the NAFTA region) face stiff tariffs or outright bans (if you move to Mexico from the US you can only bring your car if it was manufactured in Mexico/Canada/US, other cars are not allowed at all), but electric cars have no tariff at all which means that, e.g., Chinese EVs are widely available there. The BYD Seal sells for MXN888000 in its AWD/big battery configuration which translates to USD51,184¹ which is comparable to the Tesla Model 3 price in Mexico (and a bit lower than the equivalent price in the US). Mexico is going at the EV transition with a two-pronged strategy: Building a domestic industry and encouraging imports at the same time. This seems to be the exact opposite of the US strategy. ⸻ 1. Worth noting two key differences between the Mexican and American car buying experience: First, prices are fixed. There’s none of this negotiating with the dealer about the price or upselling you on undercoating stuff. You can look on the website and know what the price is. Second, instead of sales tax, Mexico uses VAT to achieve the same purpose. As a result, the price you see for a product is going to be the actual price you pay walking out the door and not the price before sales tax (at my current residence, the total sales tax is currently 10%). As a consequence, some things that might appear to be slightly more expensive in Mexico, depending on where you live, may actually be slightly cheaper.

iAMkenough 4mo ago

5th possible solution: e) End the socialism that is taxpayer-funded bailouts and subsidies for failing car companies, and let the free market decide. Tired of paying for their losses.

jollyllama 4mo ago

> This is one of those "the internet is a fad, it'll never catch on" moments. EV's are here to stay. They're going to win. That's pretty obvious to anyone paying attention. That's not clear at all from the long-term habits of American consumers. Why did Ford, GM, and Stellantis all cut EV investment and increase ICE investment in the last year then?

Aromasin 4mo ago
Short term buyer habits don't necessarily track technological progress - they tend to be resistent, then inertia is broken and consumers buy en-mass. Companies need to brunt to cost of innovation until the cost benefit analysis makes sense for consumers. Mobile phones were a passing fad for niche power users until companies threw so much money at them so they weren't, and we became reliant on carrying one. Same can be said for thousands of other products. Nobody used them until suddenly we all were. We're seeing a moores-law-like improvement in electric cars and their power densities. If the American car manufacturers don't want to be a part of that progress, it's on them, but Asia and Europe will continue to innovate in that area and the US will be playing catch up because they're servicing what consumers want now, not what they will probably want in the future.
bruce511 4mo ago
Because they are focused on short term returns, not long-term strategy. In the short term cutting r&d, killing off "not yet profitable" lines etc all lead to improved results this quarter. Who cares about 5 years, or 10 years from now? If you look beyond the US then you see EV market share growing year on year. Yes, the US is resisting hard, but you can't hold back the tide forever. Kodak invented digital photography, but kept going with film. In the end the world moved on, even if they didn't. 50 years from now ICE will be a niche market. And if US producers want to own that niche, well that's great. But it'll be a tiny fraction of what they are now.
- formerly_proven 4mo ago
  > 50 years from now ICE will be a niche market EVs are roughly at two thirds market share in the largest car market of the world. The third largest market has them at 20%. Funnily enough, India (4th largest market) is slightly ahead of the US for EV adoption in passenger cars. ICE cars will be a niche market much more rapidly than 50 years.

jackb4040 4mo ago

The US didn't go from #1 in global auto manufacturing to nearing extinction on accident. The companies shifted production abroad because they didn't want to pay for US labor. We can't just pray for "development" to spark a chain reaction that gets us back on track - we were the most developed and consciously chose to squander that advantage. Onshoring can be done, but it will have a real cost someone will have to bear. The industry would prefer consumers just pay twice as much for cars, meanwhile consumers are at a breaking point like they've never felt. In the meantime there's a stalemate and nobody can move, as the decline continues.

petesergeant 4mo ago
> The companies shifted production abroad because they didn't want to pay for US labor Realistically it’s the consumers who didn’t want to pay for it
- steveBK123 4mo ago
  Also US cars were genuinely horrendous in the 80s-90s in terms of build quality & reliability vs same price or cheaper Japanese equivalents. It's only rather recent that all the big name car makes from US/Europe/Japan/Korea are pretty good & reliable. There were huge differences 30-40 years ago.
  - coredog64 4mo ago
    I think there's a finer point here: US consumers don't want to pay for local UAW labor. GM&Toyota did fine out of the NUMMI plant, and companies like Nissan and Mercedes are making cars in Alabama.
    - steveBK123 4mo ago
      The problem wasn't assembly alone, the designers carry much blame as well in that era.
    - pjc50 4mo ago

yibg 4mo ago

Isn’t there a e) have investment at the federal level in R&D, specifically for industries that matter (economy, national security etc)? For automotive, China didn’t become the EV leader by accident. It was a deliberate national strategy, with funding to back it up. Yes there is cheaper labor, different regulations etc. But also in no small part to federal funding, investment in R&D etc. why are we surprised then that the US is in general falling behind? The US could invest more in battery tech, manufacturing automation, robotics etc. This both lowers cost and increases product competitiveness.

tzs 4mo ago
> The US could invest more in battery tech, manufacturing automation, robotics etc The US is investing in batteries. Domestic production has increased rapidly over the last couple of years and is continuing to do so. The US can now produce domestically all of its battery needs for grid storage, for example. This is due to government incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act.

thelastgallon 4mo ago

> c) subsidize local production out of the "national interest to support this industry" budget. This has the effect of ramping up demand, hence production, hence production being developed, and eventually getting cheaper. We already have a trillionaire from subsidizing local production.

lenerdenator 4mo ago

Tariff is probably the easiest path forward. You'll need to pay workers more to make D) work. That cuts into margins. That means it's DOA.

formerly_proven 4mo ago
GM has had like what, 1.5% net profit in 2025?
- lenerdenator 4mo ago
  It wouldn't matter if it was 50%. Shareholders have the expectation of the number getting bigger every 90 days in perpetuity. If you want better vehicles to increase sales and compete better against international competition, you need to have the rank-and-file feeling like their work will matter not just for the company, but for them too. That's diametrically opposed to the number getting bigger.

yellowapple 4mo ago

> The Ford CEO is not wrong. Allowing foreign imports into the country at prices far below what US producers are able to make will decimate the local car industry in the US. The local car industry in the US is doing that to itself by dragging its feet on EVs in the US market even when the very same companies are selling EVs outside of the US. Ford, for example, has an EV Bronco that's inexplicably only available in China; that'd sell like gangbusters here in the US, but Ford won't sell it here because reasons. In that sense, the Ford CEO is about as dead-wrong as it gets. His company needs to either actually sell competitive products or else move out of the way for other companies to do so. His demands to keep foreign competitors out of the very US market in which his company refuses to offer products are downright insultingly greedy.

brianfryer 4mo ago
I’m interested in understanding more about what gives you the impression “that [an EV Bronco would] sell like gangbusters here in the US”.
- yellowapple 4mo ago
  I see non-EV Broncos everywhere here in Reno, and I also see EVs everywhere here in Reno. I would therefore expect to see EV Broncos everywhere here in Reno if they existed in the US market. I also in particular see Cybertrucks and Rivian R1Ts everywhere here in Reno, so the very specific demand for electric pickup trucks clearly exists.
- pragma_x 4mo ago
  Not GP, but for starters, the MSRP for that car in China is $32k. https://www.carsdb.com/en/news/1476 https://www.carsdb.com/en/news/1476 I get that's an apples-to-oranges comparison, considering that labor and material costs (not to mention subsidies and regulations) are probably not the same. But even at $40k, it would be cost-competitive with other EVs if nothing else.

thelastgallon 4mo ago

Allowing foreign competition is a forcing function to be more productive and innovative. Japanese/German competition didn't annihilate US car industry, why would Chinese cars do it? Cars are a way to signal status. Americans don't want to buy cheap cars, because cheap cars means low status. They'd rather go into significant debt and keep up with the Joneses. The people buying pickup trucks and SUVs are mostly picking up their kids from elementary school which is half a mile away.

pragma_x 4mo ago

There may be another option. Consider Japan's Kei car initiative, for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Taxation_and_insurance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car#Taxation_and_insurance One route is to provide incentives, if not regulations, to force innovation on US automakers. The goal would be to yield products that are head-to-head competitive with imports. > It seems to me though that the current strategy seems to be very short term thinking - trying to just hold back the tide. I'm seeing that too, but from a different angle. The era of big trucks seems to be as much an effort to extract cash from the economy as it is taking advantage of a peculiar set of EPA and DOT regulations. Basically, "gettin' in while the gettin's good." It's not a long-term strategy because, at some point, people can't afford these behemoths and will go for the used car market next for cheaper goods. EVs may get caught up in that too, considering that they're aimed squarely at the sub-luxury tier and above. As we have no good cheap EV options at the moment, I think it's the same story.

HWR_14 4mo ago
The main difference between a car like this and a kei car is the ability to drive it, at least for a short while, on the expressway. If this could go a couple miles at 45 or 50 mph that would work in lot more situations where two neighborhoods or urban areas are connected by a short stretch of highway.
- mc3301 4mo ago
  Kei cars can comfortably go up to about 60mph. Not great for an 8 hour drive, but I regularly do 3-hour-drives with a loaded kei-van. Yep, same 660cc three-cylinder engine that those kei-trucks have. It'll hit 70mph, but not comfortably. 50mph is easy. And on the highway, I see tons of other kei cars, too. Light weight class cars even get a toll discount!

steveBK123 4mo ago

Before deciding on a solution, Governments also need to decide on what problem they are solving. Why do they want to protect domestic automakers specifically? Is it national defense synergy / surge capacity reasons? Is it general manufacturing know how / impact on overall domestic manufacturing supply chain? Is it jobs for current workers? Is it to keep the pensions solvent for retirees? I saw a comment re: this issue in Europe where a Portuguese commenter asked why it was fine for the Eurocrats (lead by Germany) to let all their apparel jobs go overseas, but now he doesn't get the option of buying a Chinese car because German auto jobs need protection. There is something of a point there.

TheCondor 4mo ago

Where do interest rates factor in to your calculus? We've just had really cheap money for a really long time in the US and the car makers seem to have adapted and found ways to sell vehicles for more. A top of the line raptor has a tremendous amount of power and interior amenities. Oddly, they're not uncommon, I see landscapers driving them around. Maybe not the very top line Raptors, but I do see Raptors and that seems like an awful lot of truck to pull some lawnmowers and sprinkler parts around in. Low-interest financing and then we've never had high gas prices for terribly extended periods of time. I don't know that I think the US manufacturers have taken "inexpensive, but good value" cars seriously for decades. The least expensive Ford vehicle, I think is a Maverick which starts around $28k, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Mazda and Honda all have cars under $25000.

tzs 4mo ago

(Is "foreign imports" redundant?) I'd be OK with tariffs if they are not meant to simply keep foreign car companies out of the US, but rather to encourage foreign car companies that want to enter the US market to build factories in the US and build their cars here with US labor. There would probably still have to be tariffs on parts so they can't just ship all the parts here and just assemble in the US, but if they come here and build cars with US labor and with much of the supply chain being here too and are still causing headaches for the US car makers I don't see why American consumers should care.

aaron695 4mo ago

[dead]

AngryData 4mo ago

Last time I looked at the total labor costs of producing a car in the US versus China or elsewhere and it was laughably small compared to the sale price. Auto manufacturers did this to themselves thinking they could outsource all the heaviest labor portions and pocket the extra and that either the foreign labor would stay cheap and not foster the development of the industry in those countries or local labor would magically be ready whenever they needed despite being starved for decades. But they were wrong on both counts. And on top of all that they squandered all that extra profit they made so they can't seemingly afford to drop the capital needed to return to the cheaper high-volume low-margin market, atleast not with the massive managerial burden they have built up and sustained.

satvikpendem 4mo ago

5) Force outside companies to partner with local companies in join ventures with IP and knowledge sharing. This strategy seems to work remarkably well when you have a captive market others want to break into.

crossroadsguy 4mo ago

I think the idea of public transport or rather functional public transport is completely omitted in that context of this country, isn't it? That alone can be a huge local competition as there should be.

fsuts 4mo ago

Eu tariffs have had a different effect - Chinese companies are signing deals with European car makers to make the cars at their existing eu factories. Stellantis is in talks for the Chinese to invest in them too.

crusty 4mo ago

One might wonder why the Ford CEO cares about low cost foreign cars when Ford doesn't even make any. They have shifted all of their lineup except one car model to higher- margin compact SUVs, SUVs, pickups, and full size commercial vans. And that one car, the mustang, another one marketing exercise on four wheels with accompanying margin markup - not exactly a practical entry level car. Oh, but the poors but the used cars and competition for their business will lead to greater supply of used cars, diminishing the resale value they can point to to justify purchase of their high-margin vehicles. Can't have that now.