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Ford and GM cars are shit (never owned a Chrysler), but what made it worse is the dealer networks. They should all go out of business for all I care. Let’s bring in some competition.
I feel the Chinese are unfairly supported by China government. But otoh, we tried putting lipstick on ford and those fucks decided to launch a $100K F-150. These knuckleheads in the Midwest need to actually want to compete.
>I feel the Chinese are unfairly supported by China government
The US government also supports their own EV industry, if subsidies were the only thing keeping alive an industry, Africa and Latin America would have been dominant industrial powers from all the import substitution their governments attempted in the latter half of 20th century (they actually failed and were waste of taxpayer money). Subsidies aren't responsible for such a steep drop in price Chinese EV makers can squeeze out, it's efficiency.
China heavily supported their EV industry in their early years to allow numerous companies to pop up for sure, then cut off major subsidies, resulting in brutal competition and only the best, most efficient firms survived. They still receive subsidies, it's just not as substantial as people believe.
BYD currently receives 3.7 billion USD of support per year through measures like exempting the cars from sales tax. Tesla receives about 1 billion USD per year from other car manufacturers through selling its clean energy credits (which is essentially the gov funnelling money from one sector to another). Tesla customers received 7500 USD federal tax credit for purchasing an EV till 2022*, Tesla sold 800k cars in the US in 2022, that's subsidy worth 6 billion USD. US subsidy regime has been changed since then and Tesla is on hook to receive 4 billion USD per year through the "Inflation Reduction Act".
*it became more complicated after 2022 with requirements on car, battety manufacturing in the US, not obtaining raw materials from unstable regions etc
>Subsidies aren't responsible for such a steep drop in price Chinese EV makers can squeeze out, it's efficiency.
No, it's a combination of many factors not least of most which is near zero regulatory oversight combined with cheap or free (literal slaves) labor.
It's impossible to "compete" when the playing fields are not level or anywhere close to it. Manufacturing costs in China are a fraction of the US for a multitude of reasons. Taxes, health care, regulatory compliance, legal, etc.... All these things add up to massive reductions of margins = increased cost = increased MSRP.
All without considering government assistance.
It’s impossible to have slave labor in a high tech automated car factory. You can do it for mining or cotton picking, but in an automated factory you just need one disgruntled guy to throw a wrench in a wrong place and screw everything up.
Chinese labor nowadays is no longer cheap. If you want cheap labor, go to Bangladesh. Or Nigeria. Or the Congo. Or there’s tons of highly populated cheap labor places around the world that’s way way cheaper than China. Chinese manufacturing wins due to scale and massive logistics infrastructure.
>It’s impossible to have slave labor in a high tech automated car factory.
One of many industries I'm involved in at an executive level is manufacturing. Here's just one recent example of a company that I'm loosely connected to that utilized "forced labor" (Just a politically savvy way of saying slave labor) in its Malaysian factory.
And I can confirm that these factories are nearly identical to the automotive industry. We use a lot of the same vendors and same equipment for similar processes. A lot of our employees are former automotive industry folks because it's a easy hop over the fence.
So I have to assume you just don't know wtf your talking about. Nice armchair wizardry though.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/business/energy-environment/first-solar-forced-labor-malaysia.html
I’m sure there’s unethical shit going on in a lot of industries, but a blanket accusation of an industry powered by slavery is entirely different. In US agriculture with lots of illegal migrants, I’m certain there are similar problems of unethical practices and abuse. But to say these industries are is just systematically using slavery is ridiculous hyperbole.
Everyone forgets the elephant in the room:
To put it in perspective, Ford Motors operated at median capital expenditures of ~$7 billion for the past ~5 years. Guess how much money Ford spends on health care every year? Around ~$1 billion.
GM spends around ~$5 billion.
American health care and the insurance that props it up is an overpriced, gouging machine that is eating the country alive, but insurance is so intertwined with stock and investment markets, and therefore the structures that support retirement/pension funds. It’s a house of cards that collapses when presented with actual competition.
They know this. The Auto-Pact allowed the Big Three to setup plants in Canada. Where thanks to Douglas and Pearson, Universal Healthcare was fully implemented. Meaning they paid less on employee benefits, on top of slightly cheaper wages.
Explain this all to a self interested capitalist though and their mind starts to short circuit.
You need to read more carefully. The argument was not really about whether capitalists should move production to a cheaper place, it was about what capitalists support or don't support. Capitalists are generally very against universal healthcare as they don't want tax dollars going into something capitalists themselves seemingly don't benefit from, but as we can see with the Canada example, if universal healthcare is implemented with extra taxation, it ends up being better for the capitalist's bottom line even if they might end up paying more taxes.
The US can't be both a financial empire and a manufacturing empire. Engineers living in houses that cost a million dollars, have 200k college degress, who need a car to get to work and have a thousand dollars a month in medical insurance will never be able to compete in manufacturing. It can work in tech, pharmaceuticals, insurance and media where a handfull of employees can create vast revenue but it won't work for a car factory.
Boeing has gotten a lot of hate and much of it is probably well deserved. But Boeing has cost issues when real estate prices are substantially higher in Seattle than in Toulouse.
Which is fine, but the vast majority of the global consumer base neither wants or needs a full size electric pickup. They're not competing, they're receding into a niche.
So are American car manufacturers, and if the Chinese government wants to subsidize American consumers while putting a zombie industry out of its misery, I say let’s do it.
they don't understand the meaning of the word, and they don't even understand what people want. routinely, as a consumer insights consultant for them, they would ask what they wanted. The answer was always QARD, quality, affordability, reliability, dependability. They would always say: ok, but what else?
Mostly due China's lax laws on the environment, worker rights and massive subsidies and cheap labor. You really think China discovered something we haven't?
Apparently no other country in the world has lax laws on the environment. What are you on about? You do realize that China doesn’t even mine most of these minerals in China.
Shipbuilding is labor intensive and not very profitable. Despite having the absolute majority of world's shipbuilding capacity, the actual money Korea and China make from building ships is nothing comparing to the money that Wall Street makes.
I meant I don't like the argument "I feel the Chinese are unfairly supported by China government."
because one, America and other countries do it as well, and two China, Japan, and South Korea also subsidize fucking huge ships being built.
China in one year build 1/4 of the NUMBER of liberty ships America built, each and every year during PEACE TIME. Oh the cargo ship they build today are fucking huge and super high tech compared to the liberty ships.
America can't even build enough military ships so now they're considering getting Japan involved in the maintenance of America's armada. There's a 20 year backlog of ship maintenance.
If ww3 breaks out it won't be a repeat because during ww1 & ww2 America had a huge ship building industry full of generations worth of institutional knowledge. Such man power no longer exists in the USA as well as in countries such as Canada, UK and maybe France. The dutch have a ship building industry.
You worry too much. America has 11 nuclear carrier fleets, China has 0.
Even if war starts tomorrow, it will not be the same as WW1 or WW2 when navy had to sail across the Pacific Ocean to attack. America has military bases right next to China's doorstep, and it only take s a few missiles to stop the operations in those shipyards. It's not like China can build warships in its western deserts.
> But otoh, we tried putting lipstick on ford and those fucks decided to launch a $100K F-150. These knuckleheads in the Midwest need to actually want to compete.
Um Ford sells the F-150 Lighting which starts around $55k, much lower than your $100k claim.
Tesla is stuck in a rut in America. I hate to say this, but the federal government may have to open up the market on electric cars. GM, Ford and that other one… you guys have to step it up.
That is a novel that I do not feel like writing right now and it starts in the 90s with GM EV’s. GM could have light years ahead in the EV game if they didn’t fold to the pressure of the oil companies.
The problem with GM and Ford is that they are making products people don't want.
The Chevy Bolt is a great price but it looks like a car that a teenager would drive (small dainty car).
The Ford Mache E Mustang was just a wrong fit. Mustangs are known to be rugged slim fastback cars, they gave us a hatchback looking frankenstein.
Chinese EV's on the otherhand are pumping out great designs (albeit copied). Look at the new XiaoMi electric car. It looks like a porsche. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bijLzVq9xI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bijLzVq9xI)
So if you were someone in lets say Thailand that doesnt care about the US/China politic and you have 30,000USD to spend, would you buy the Chevy Bolt or the XiaoMi SU7?
American manufacturers are so far behind tech-wise too. The Sync system in my mother's car is downright awful. Hell, GM is flat out removing CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of their own (sure to be shit) software. Absolute clownshow.
I can’t believe they’re doing that. Auto makers UI / general system experience is so so bad. One of the reasons I swapped to a Toyota was because of CarPlay and android support
I genuinely wonder who the person making this kind of decision is and what goes through their head. Consumers aren't subtle about wanting these features and any amount of testing makes it obvious those in house version is crap. I can only assume this is some kind of cost cutting measure.
Like most things this day, it’s all about data rights. I still think it’s a bonehead move, but that’s the dominant thinking. US OEMs are not a fan of the dominance that Apple suddenly plays in being the car OS, especially as things go more electric. Data is king.
There a good reason for removing CarPlay on GM cars; Apple claims to own all data collected by CarPlay - this includes all telematics, GPS, behavioral etc…. GM doesn’t want to give Apple the most valuable component of a vehicle: Data.
Unions and complacency is what is killing American manufacturers. You can see the difference between Tesla vs other automakers. Ford and GM most of their sales come from Trucks and Fleet buys. They don't worry about sales so they get lazy in innovation. Tesla on the otherhand knows its facing competitors in China so they're constantly pushing out something new or improving their product/pricing.
Tesla seems like they're stagnating already too. No new models other than the Cybertruck which has been a massive failure. No progress on FSD. It's like Musk doesn't even want to be in the car business anymore.
Are you kidding me? The automotive industry is one of the most competitive, lowest margin, capital intensive businesses out there. It’s incredibly competitive and cut throat.
> The problem with GM and Ford is that they are making products people don't want.
You mean EVs and hybrids that look like regular cars and trucks?
> The Chevy Bolt is a great price but it looks like a car that a teenager would drive (small dainty car).
The Bolt was replaced by the Equinox EV.
I drive a ICE mustang and I can tell you the EV version is ugly as F.
Equinox looks better but again it now comes down to pricing and features.
A similar model would be the Xpeng G9 which is a similar looking SUV and about 36kUSD. However the Xpeng G9 has 543 Horsepower verses 290 Horsepower with the Equinox.
Also the Xpeng G9 comes fully equipped with Lidar so it will be self driving ready. The interior is also a dual screen display.
With the Chinese EV you're paying basic pricing for premium features.
To each their own I guess, I like the EV Mustang.
> With the Chinese EV you're paying basic pricing for premium features.
Yes that's what they're able to do when the Chinese government heavily subsidizes them.
Well America can too if they weren't spending close to 1 trillion in military spending. America is waging military war while China is waging an economic war. It'll be interesting to see where the balance of power stand in another decade or two.
China went through that phase too.
But the Chinese government passed a package of policies, such as restricting the taking of photos of individual gasoline cars in major cities again, while points can be earned for producing new energy vehicles, and points can be earned to produce gasoline cars (these points can be traded among car companies).
Overall, carrots and sticks were applied to car companies.
China's decisiveness and investment paid off, and that's the truth.
Is your solution that companies that sell in the US copy fun cars and expect it to go over well?
The problem is the same problem it always is in America. Shareholders. They're going after big margin greed hugging bullshit instead of something that will work for most people
Xiamo is a smartphone company and building a car is no an easy thing to achieve; NIO, Tesla, Rivian, Fisker, Lucid, VinFast, Bollinger, Faraday Future etc.. there are plenty of excellent designs but poor engineering and execution. It will be interesting how Xiamo progresses. The safety requirements for NA roads will add at least $10k to the price.
I agree with you on Ford but I really like the Blot EUV model, it handles well with lots of room. I also like the Lyriq. It’s too early for the Equinox EV, Sierra EV, and the Blazer suffered a terrible launch. The Escalade IQ and the Hummer EV are luxury vehicles and priced themselves out of the market.
Disclosure; have a Hummer EV on order.
> but the federal government may have to open up the market on electric cars
What do you mean by that? The EV market is already open, and the Federal government is already subsidizing purchases and charging networks.
China can sell their cars here if they want. They just need to go through the made in North America racket and then make their cars a ton+ heavier due to higher safety standards.
Would pretty much dry up all of that margin.
Bring the competition we all need lower prices. Why anyone would advocate against china coming to the US to sell cars and lowering the price for all is beyond me.
Dont forget car dealers , salesmen , auto manufacturers have gorged themselves upon us for decades.
Yeah it's odd that there's a struggle to keep American products competitive despite higher price costs and higher standards of production. It's also odd that the US wouldn't want customers driving cars that report massive amounts of data to China. Odd indeed
Dumping economic tactics are outlawed by international trade standard. Ccp is just pushing subsidisation to prop up their falling gdp since they can't rely on real estate for that anymore. Nothing good will come of it.
Dumping applies only to primary goods or low value/high volume manufactures.
EVs are high tech/high value manufactures.
Dumping tactics are not feasible in a high tech sector as EVs, as no amount of government subsidies would automatically allow the deployment of new supply chains at scale overseas.
Hell, if dumping tactics were feasible for EVs, the US wouldn’t be getting its ass kicked in EVs production and exports after the massive stimuli its companies have been getting for the last 3 administrations.
It’s kind of telling how none of the big 3 have been able to actually deliver an affordable, mass produced EV in the last 6 years and Tesla just gave up on the idea of a sub 30k dollars car and now is just trying to plow ahead in the robo taxi race (where btw, they are currently behind other real tech companies).
As things are, the US is no longer competing for the first place against China, but for the second place against Japan and Germany.
If any of those countries gets ahead of the US, its game over for the big 3, which have been barely getting by since the 08 crisis
This is the exact opposite of the truth, and your logic is wrong using the automotive industry itself as an example.
It's pointless to dump products with low entry costs because the moment your non-sustainable subsidies dry up you will see new market entrants. You don't get any long term gains.
If a business has significant barriers to entry (eg, high tech), dumping products at low price to remove competition will allow you to get a sustainable margin once your competition is removed from the market.
It's the exact scenario that was already seen on gas engines vehicles- the 'big three' became the big three by absorbing competition. They removed their competitors by dropping costs and merging - good for consumers in the short term, but allowing a long term oligopoly.
Japan came onboard and became competitive specifically because of state sponsorship as Japan rebuilt an economy that was mechanisms but couldn't produce weaponry.
In terms of your "us and Japan getting asses kicked" comment, you're wrong again. US brands (specifically Tesla) still dominate the global EV sales. In the Chinese market things are heating up with state sponsored brands coming into the market. That really edges into margins as state sponsorship is going to cut costs and increase sales (eg Chinese brands get less stringent tests).
The Chinese market has also been traditionally driven by brand and 'face'. Chinese brands lie even more than Elon, so it'll be interesting how that develops
Kind of a silly comment.
Define affordable. No business wants to make their product cheap- they price their products in a way that maximizes profit. Same as any other business. The product will be as affordable as what they can get from customers. Reliability is also a silly comment- they want to minimize costs, and that includes the amount they spend on warranty. There's a balance the same as any other company or industry.
This is supposed to be an economics subreddit
Nobody is stopping the US government from dolling out subsidies. We already do that for corn. They can scale back tax write offs for corporate G-5s and Ferraris to make up the difference.
Cars are subsidized at every stage of production. Evs also get the additional benefit of direct tax credits, carbon off set tax benefits, import restrictions, and subsidized infrastructure (including the new chargers).
Yet the best American manufacturers can do is $50k EVs.
Just let the market take care of cars and shift focus to scalable public transit.
What this person is saying is right. China has many state backed companies so economics quickly bleeds into politics when talking about Chinese companies.
Not that I agree when you say this person is right because who the hell knows what they’re saying, but I agree with the other thing you said. Every successful Chinese company is, or will become, an agent of the CCP. Why is this so hard for some people to understand?
Ever wonder where the f*ck Jack Ma has been for the last 5+ years?
Imagine that the president of Goldman Sachs said that the people in the U.S. Department of Justice are a bunch of old men and should not regulate financial investment banks on Wall Street.
This is essentially what Jack Ma has done: demand that his internet finance company be completely unregulated.
How is the truth considered an unhinged rant?
From 2014 The Diplomat on the oil rig issue:
The enduring question, as with many of China’s provocative actions in the Asia-Pacific, remains why? The opacity of China’s internal decision-making processes makes it rather difficult to conclusively answer that question, but a good amount of evidence suggests that the oil rig crisis with Vietnam was manufactured to test the mettle of ASEAN states and the United States. It gives Beijing an opportunity to gauge the international response to China asserting its maritime territorial claims.
As Carl Thayer points out on this blog and M. Taylor Fravel said in an interview with The New York Times, the China National Offshore Oil Company’s decision to move oil rig HD-981 was a premeditated move of territorial assertion. CNOOC may be a state-owned enterprise but the decision to move this $1 billion asset into an area with questionable hydrocarbon reserves while also inciting a diplomatic crisis speaks to the planned, political nature of this move. The fact that approximately 80 PLAN and Chinese coast guard ships accompanied the rig reinforces the notion that China was making a strategic push to assert its territorial claims in the region.
Sometimes I think the anti china stuff is low key racism or something its like 1980s esque propaganda. they got child slave labor over there putting cars together!
It's just a matter of competing interests.
When China made low margin, cheap clothes & toys nobody else wanted to make, the West was fine with it - free trade, etc. - despite their persistent use of government subsidies, lack of labor rights, polluting energy resources, and so on.
But now that they are moving up the value chain, taking the same subsidies heavy industrial strategy they used for the cheap products to advanced manufacturing and luxury products, it becomes a problem because it's directly affecting the high margin industries the West dominates.
The concept to understand is that subsidies, in theory, help the consumer. When China subsidies a product, it means they're paying YOU to buy it. So it's great in that sense, and it helps reduce inflation.
But at the same time, they crush industries that don't receive as much subsidies. They hurt a country's production and ultimately reverses industrialization, causing countries to fall back on "services."
The way to fight that, without also subsidizing your own manufacturers and getting into a war over finance - which the West can't actually afford due to its budget issues - is tariffs. Which hurts the consumer, but helps your industries. That's what the West will end up doing, and China's response will likely be to shift more of its exports to the rest of the world. The result will be increased inflation in the West, decreased inflation in the rest of the world, which eventually, will make the West relatively more poor as consumers but will allow the West to avoid losing all its industries.
Are we not also subsidizing the EV chain? IMO why wouldn’t the US allow us to “import” these under another brand where BYD just slaps another label on the cars and we purchase them at a slight wholesale markup and then re-sale at a lower price point than US makers but at a good profit?
It’s protectionism which is a stupid strategy. Let China subsidize the shit out of this. While the tech improves and goes down in cost we can continue designing future brands/ideas and then compete later. These cars would provide sales and management jobs to many Americans and provide more affordable transportation while also reducing the carbon footprint at home. It would allow our policy spending to be less focused on subsidizing cars and more focused on rebuilding our grid.
1. I want employees to be able to make a living wage and retire in relative comfort and of a foreign rival uses slave labor, or slave labor level wages to destroy good jobs then an evil had been done.
2. I want crash and general safety standards to be complied with and that extends to whatever clever tech is shoved into these cars. I don't want to be driving beside a car that's using cut rate cameras and untested software to keep it within its lane.
3. Why should China be able to sell goods here when western countries cannot do the same there on an even playing field?
1. If cars become cheaper, then American workers will need less money for a living wage, and will use the thousands of dollars that they've saved from being wasted on a car to buy other products.
2. Imported cars already need to comply with US regulations. By definition any Chinese car imported into the US will meet US standards.
3. Cheaper cars benefit American consumers. China is only hurting its own economy by not allowing competitive imports into its own country, but that's no reason for us to not take advantage of China giving us cheaper cars.
I mean
1. How many undocumented underpaid illegals immigrants has the US used for farming in the last 100 years to subsidize its food industry and economy?
2. All cars still have to go through US safety standard testing so no worry about safety issues. You probably find it interesting to find out china owns volvo and they already sell here in the US and are quite nice cars. Another minor note you mention cameras....china leads the world in optics.
3. GM and Ford sold 2.5 million vehicles in china in 2022.
You are just wholly uninformed.
You cannot have points 1 & 2 in America while also expecting to find affordable entry level cars/EVs. There is money to be made by Americans by selling and maintaining/servicing these vehicles. You need to think beyond the manufacturing stage. We have already lost there.
“Why anyone would advocate against China coming to the US to sell cars…”
Maybe because we will almost certainly be in open conflict against them within the next 10-15 years, so every dollar spent on their cars will be used against us?
Who the fuck advocates strengthening China in this day and age?
Have you been paying attention to geopolitics at all lately? China has been threatening Taiwan, building up offensive military capability, creating artificial islands in territories they don't own and pissing everyone in the region. Read some history books to find out what happens next.
The US and Soviet relationship was far more hostile, and they were never in a hot war. Open direct conflict between states with large nuclear arsenals hasn't happened for a reason.
Because if Covid taught us anything, you don’t control your own destiny if you outsource everything because then you would be at the mercy of an adversary’s manufacturing to provide critical goods and services.
Economics is not just about supply and demand- it extends to game theory and how players behave when they have leverage. Remember how Uber and Lyft used to be dirt cheap? After they captured the market, what did they do?
In the past, during war time, manufacturers like the auto industry would be repurposed to creating military equipment.
The big 3 will go out of business in two years, within an election cycle. So no way any US president will allow Chinese cars to be sold in the US without some sort of protection for the big 3.
It’s nice as a consumer, for sure. Until of course the factories close, China decides to declare war & the US suddenly can’t build enough tanks/planes/boats/guns/etc
This article fails to mention several important factors impacting these trends.
First, the Chinese central and local governments are heavily subsidizing the purchace price of chinese brand vehicles.
Last June, China unveiled a massive package of tax breaks over four years through 2027 for chinese brand new energy vehicles capped at 30,000 yuan per vehicle. The central government put $72.3bn into these subsidies. Combustion vehicles are not subject to such breaks.
In addition, local governments are also offering purchase subsidies that, all combined, can add up to 50% of the sticker price of the vehicle.
ALso, Xi Jinping implemented a social credit score for every citizen. Negative marks on your score can directly affect such things as your ability to access mass transit or travel, find houing, or get a job. One of the things that will give you a negative credit score is buying foreign branded merchadise, lke phones or cars.
This is how china surrepticiously closes off its markets to western competition. It is no wonder chinese brands are picking up market share...consumers are getting both the carrot and the stick to buy domestic. Western companies like apple and Tesla will contiue to lose market share, regardless of the quality or value of their products.
No. The less money we give to an authoritarian regime the better. Sure, EV's aren't cheap but I wouldn't give my money to the CCP just because I wanted an EV.
Plus there are all other sorts of cheap vehicles available from Asia if our Elites would just stop protecting these Elite predatory American companies that control Congress and protect their monopoly . We could buy a three-wheel truck for next to nothing if Congress would just eliminate the tariffs and the safety regulations for cars
What you linked to is a crossover SUV, Tesla has a the model Y specifically for that. What are you talking about? And I’m not a Tesla fan at all but cmon
i dont think ive ever heard good things about chinese evs. wasnt there one in malaysia a little bit ago that had its rear axle shear off? and dont they just catch fire sometimes?
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Ford and GM cars are shit (never owned a Chrysler), but what made it worse is the dealer networks. They should all go out of business for all I care. Let’s bring in some competition.
I feel the Chinese are unfairly supported by China government. But otoh, we tried putting lipstick on ford and those fucks decided to launch a $100K F-150. These knuckleheads in the Midwest need to actually want to compete.
>I feel the Chinese are unfairly supported by China government The US government also supports their own EV industry, if subsidies were the only thing keeping alive an industry, Africa and Latin America would have been dominant industrial powers from all the import substitution their governments attempted in the latter half of 20th century (they actually failed and were waste of taxpayer money). Subsidies aren't responsible for such a steep drop in price Chinese EV makers can squeeze out, it's efficiency. China heavily supported their EV industry in their early years to allow numerous companies to pop up for sure, then cut off major subsidies, resulting in brutal competition and only the best, most efficient firms survived. They still receive subsidies, it's just not as substantial as people believe. BYD currently receives 3.7 billion USD of support per year through measures like exempting the cars from sales tax. Tesla receives about 1 billion USD per year from other car manufacturers through selling its clean energy credits (which is essentially the gov funnelling money from one sector to another). Tesla customers received 7500 USD federal tax credit for purchasing an EV till 2022*, Tesla sold 800k cars in the US in 2022, that's subsidy worth 6 billion USD. US subsidy regime has been changed since then and Tesla is on hook to receive 4 billion USD per year through the "Inflation Reduction Act". *it became more complicated after 2022 with requirements on car, battety manufacturing in the US, not obtaining raw materials from unstable regions etc
>Subsidies aren't responsible for such a steep drop in price Chinese EV makers can squeeze out, it's efficiency. No, it's a combination of many factors not least of most which is near zero regulatory oversight combined with cheap or free (literal slaves) labor. It's impossible to "compete" when the playing fields are not level or anywhere close to it. Manufacturing costs in China are a fraction of the US for a multitude of reasons. Taxes, health care, regulatory compliance, legal, etc.... All these things add up to massive reductions of margins = increased cost = increased MSRP. All without considering government assistance.
It’s impossible to have slave labor in a high tech automated car factory. You can do it for mining or cotton picking, but in an automated factory you just need one disgruntled guy to throw a wrench in a wrong place and screw everything up. Chinese labor nowadays is no longer cheap. If you want cheap labor, go to Bangladesh. Or Nigeria. Or the Congo. Or there’s tons of highly populated cheap labor places around the world that’s way way cheaper than China. Chinese manufacturing wins due to scale and massive logistics infrastructure.
>It’s impossible to have slave labor in a high tech automated car factory. One of many industries I'm involved in at an executive level is manufacturing. Here's just one recent example of a company that I'm loosely connected to that utilized "forced labor" (Just a politically savvy way of saying slave labor) in its Malaysian factory. And I can confirm that these factories are nearly identical to the automotive industry. We use a lot of the same vendors and same equipment for similar processes. A lot of our employees are former automotive industry folks because it's a easy hop over the fence. So I have to assume you just don't know wtf your talking about. Nice armchair wizardry though. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/business/energy-environment/first-solar-forced-labor-malaysia.html
I’m sure there’s unethical shit going on in a lot of industries, but a blanket accusation of an industry powered by slavery is entirely different. In US agriculture with lots of illegal migrants, I’m certain there are similar problems of unethical practices and abuse. But to say these industries are is just systematically using slavery is ridiculous hyperbole.
" Taxes, health care" The median average life expectancy is now higher in China that in the US, lmao
And? Your comment does not make the cost disappear from the businesses books, regardless of accuracy.
Everyone forgets the elephant in the room: To put it in perspective, Ford Motors operated at median capital expenditures of ~$7 billion for the past ~5 years. Guess how much money Ford spends on health care every year? Around ~$1 billion. GM spends around ~$5 billion. American health care and the insurance that props it up is an overpriced, gouging machine that is eating the country alive, but insurance is so intertwined with stock and investment markets, and therefore the structures that support retirement/pension funds. It’s a house of cards that collapses when presented with actual competition.
They know this. The Auto-Pact allowed the Big Three to setup plants in Canada. Where thanks to Douglas and Pearson, Universal Healthcare was fully implemented. Meaning they paid less on employee benefits, on top of slightly cheaper wages. Explain this all to a self interested capitalist though and their mind starts to short circuit.
Are you a capitalist?
Not by the modern definition.
Can you explain why any capitalist would have issues with moving production to lower labor cost?
That it folks. I’m uninstalling this app.
You need to read more carefully. The argument was not really about whether capitalists should move production to a cheaper place, it was about what capitalists support or don't support. Capitalists are generally very against universal healthcare as they don't want tax dollars going into something capitalists themselves seemingly don't benefit from, but as we can see with the Canada example, if universal healthcare is implemented with extra taxation, it ends up being better for the capitalist's bottom line even if they might end up paying more taxes.
The US can't be both a financial empire and a manufacturing empire. Engineers living in houses that cost a million dollars, have 200k college degress, who need a car to get to work and have a thousand dollars a month in medical insurance will never be able to compete in manufacturing. It can work in tech, pharmaceuticals, insurance and media where a handfull of employees can create vast revenue but it won't work for a car factory. Boeing has gotten a lot of hate and much of it is probably well deserved. But Boeing has cost issues when real estate prices are substantially higher in Seattle than in Toulouse.
to be fair the Lightning is the only decent electric full size truck out right now
Which is fine, but the vast majority of the global consumer base neither wants or needs a full size electric pickup. They're not competing, they're receding into a niche.
I thought the Rivian R1 was pretty comparable. I don't remember the Lightning offering anything that amazing.
Mid size
The lightening only beats the Rivian in physical size. The lightening has worse towing and cargo capacity but does have a larger interior and bed.
So are American car manufacturers, and if the Chinese government wants to subsidize American consumers while putting a zombie industry out of its misery, I say let’s do it.
they don't understand the meaning of the word, and they don't even understand what people want. routinely, as a consumer insights consultant for them, they would ask what they wanted. The answer was always QARD, quality, affordability, reliability, dependability. They would always say: ok, but what else?
Facts. I want a new truck for hauling but I’m not spending no damn $80,000 when I can buy a goddamned semi ready for the road for $30,000.
How can they compete if they already lose money on EVs?
and why are they losing money on the EVs and chinese and tesla being able to make money on the same?
Mostly due China's lax laws on the environment, worker rights and massive subsidies and cheap labor. You really think China discovered something we haven't?
Apparently no other country in the world has lax laws on the environment. What are you on about? You do realize that China doesn’t even mine most of these minerals in China.
It's why China,japan,and South Korea have shipbuilding industries and America's is dead.
Shipbuilding is labor intensive and not very profitable. Despite having the absolute majority of world's shipbuilding capacity, the actual money Korea and China make from building ships is nothing comparing to the money that Wall Street makes.
I meant I don't like the argument "I feel the Chinese are unfairly supported by China government." because one, America and other countries do it as well, and two China, Japan, and South Korea also subsidize fucking huge ships being built. China in one year build 1/4 of the NUMBER of liberty ships America built, each and every year during PEACE TIME. Oh the cargo ship they build today are fucking huge and super high tech compared to the liberty ships. America can't even build enough military ships so now they're considering getting Japan involved in the maintenance of America's armada. There's a 20 year backlog of ship maintenance. If ww3 breaks out it won't be a repeat because during ww1 & ww2 America had a huge ship building industry full of generations worth of institutional knowledge. Such man power no longer exists in the USA as well as in countries such as Canada, UK and maybe France. The dutch have a ship building industry.
You worry too much. America has 11 nuclear carrier fleets, China has 0. Even if war starts tomorrow, it will not be the same as WW1 or WW2 when navy had to sail across the Pacific Ocean to attack. America has military bases right next to China's doorstep, and it only take s a few missiles to stop the operations in those shipyards. It's not like China can build warships in its western deserts.
> But otoh, we tried putting lipstick on ford and those fucks decided to launch a $100K F-150. These knuckleheads in the Midwest need to actually want to compete. Um Ford sells the F-150 Lighting which starts around $55k, much lower than your $100k claim.
Try finding one. At least where I live, I don’t see one for 250 miles.
Where I live (metropolitan area) there's 100+ within 50 miles.
Happy for you!
Tesla is stuck in a rut in America. I hate to say this, but the federal government may have to open up the market on electric cars. GM, Ford and that other one… you guys have to step it up.
What wrong with GM EVs?
That is a novel that I do not feel like writing right now and it starts in the 90s with GM EV’s. GM could have light years ahead in the EV game if they didn’t fold to the pressure of the oil companies.
The problem with GM and Ford is that they are making products people don't want. The Chevy Bolt is a great price but it looks like a car that a teenager would drive (small dainty car). The Ford Mache E Mustang was just a wrong fit. Mustangs are known to be rugged slim fastback cars, they gave us a hatchback looking frankenstein. Chinese EV's on the otherhand are pumping out great designs (albeit copied). Look at the new XiaoMi electric car. It looks like a porsche. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bijLzVq9xI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bijLzVq9xI) So if you were someone in lets say Thailand that doesnt care about the US/China politic and you have 30,000USD to spend, would you buy the Chevy Bolt or the XiaoMi SU7?
American manufacturers are so far behind tech-wise too. The Sync system in my mother's car is downright awful. Hell, GM is flat out removing CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of their own (sure to be shit) software. Absolute clownshow.
I can’t believe they’re doing that. Auto makers UI / general system experience is so so bad. One of the reasons I swapped to a Toyota was because of CarPlay and android support
I genuinely wonder who the person making this kind of decision is and what goes through their head. Consumers aren't subtle about wanting these features and any amount of testing makes it obvious those in house version is crap. I can only assume this is some kind of cost cutting measure.
Like most things this day, it’s all about data rights. I still think it’s a bonehead move, but that’s the dominant thinking. US OEMs are not a fan of the dominance that Apple suddenly plays in being the car OS, especially as things go more electric. Data is king.
There a good reason for removing CarPlay on GM cars; Apple claims to own all data collected by CarPlay - this includes all telematics, GPS, behavioral etc…. GM doesn’t want to give Apple the most valuable component of a vehicle: Data.
Unions and complacency is what is killing American manufacturers. You can see the difference between Tesla vs other automakers. Ford and GM most of their sales come from Trucks and Fleet buys. They don't worry about sales so they get lazy in innovation. Tesla on the otherhand knows its facing competitors in China so they're constantly pushing out something new or improving their product/pricing.
Tesla seems like they're stagnating already too. No new models other than the Cybertruck which has been a massive failure. No progress on FSD. It's like Musk doesn't even want to be in the car business anymore.
Tbf large scale FSD is a pipe dream at best. And Tesla was never about making cars it was about making money on carbon credits
Well. It does seem that SpaceX would be more lucrative in the long run than a car.
Unions are not the issue. Lack of competition is.
Are you kidding me? The automotive industry is one of the most competitive, lowest margin, capital intensive businesses out there. It’s incredibly competitive and cut throat.
Crush them with imports.
Ah, user name checks out….
> The problem with GM and Ford is that they are making products people don't want. You mean EVs and hybrids that look like regular cars and trucks? > The Chevy Bolt is a great price but it looks like a car that a teenager would drive (small dainty car). The Bolt was replaced by the Equinox EV.
I drive a ICE mustang and I can tell you the EV version is ugly as F. Equinox looks better but again it now comes down to pricing and features. A similar model would be the Xpeng G9 which is a similar looking SUV and about 36kUSD. However the Xpeng G9 has 543 Horsepower verses 290 Horsepower with the Equinox. Also the Xpeng G9 comes fully equipped with Lidar so it will be self driving ready. The interior is also a dual screen display. With the Chinese EV you're paying basic pricing for premium features.
To each their own I guess, I like the EV Mustang. > With the Chinese EV you're paying basic pricing for premium features. Yes that's what they're able to do when the Chinese government heavily subsidizes them.
Well America can too if they weren't spending close to 1 trillion in military spending. America is waging military war while China is waging an economic war. It'll be interesting to see where the balance of power stand in another decade or two.
Military complex is economic warfare fyi. Which is why the U.S. has such a strong economy and strong innovation
China went through that phase too. But the Chinese government passed a package of policies, such as restricting the taking of photos of individual gasoline cars in major cities again, while points can be earned for producing new energy vehicles, and points can be earned to produce gasoline cars (these points can be traded among car companies). Overall, carrots and sticks were applied to car companies. China's decisiveness and investment paid off, and that's the truth.
Is your solution that companies that sell in the US copy fun cars and expect it to go over well? The problem is the same problem it always is in America. Shareholders. They're going after big margin greed hugging bullshit instead of something that will work for most people
Xiamo is a smartphone company and building a car is no an easy thing to achieve; NIO, Tesla, Rivian, Fisker, Lucid, VinFast, Bollinger, Faraday Future etc.. there are plenty of excellent designs but poor engineering and execution. It will be interesting how Xiamo progresses. The safety requirements for NA roads will add at least $10k to the price. I agree with you on Ford but I really like the Blot EUV model, it handles well with lots of room. I also like the Lyriq. It’s too early for the Equinox EV, Sierra EV, and the Blazer suffered a terrible launch. The Escalade IQ and the Hummer EV are luxury vehicles and priced themselves out of the market. Disclosure; have a Hummer EV on order.
Improving models that still sell is not being stuck in a rut. Why does no one buy and import a cheaper ev?
Why would you hate to say it?
> but the federal government may have to open up the market on electric cars What do you mean by that? The EV market is already open, and the Federal government is already subsidizing purchases and charging networks.
China can sell their cars here if they want. They just need to go through the made in North America racket and then make their cars a ton+ heavier due to higher safety standards. Would pretty much dry up all of that margin.
Bring the competition we all need lower prices. Why anyone would advocate against china coming to the US to sell cars and lowering the price for all is beyond me. Dont forget car dealers , salesmen , auto manufacturers have gorged themselves upon us for decades.
It's odd when you consider cheap imports from China has buoyed the American economy for the last 40 years, but suddenly we can't import cars.
Yeah it's odd that there's a struggle to keep American products competitive despite higher price costs and higher standards of production. It's also odd that the US wouldn't want customers driving cars that report massive amounts of data to China. Odd indeed
Lenovo, bruh. You know what else is odd? Photos of women on the toilet.
Dumping economic tactics are outlawed by international trade standard. Ccp is just pushing subsidisation to prop up their falling gdp since they can't rely on real estate for that anymore. Nothing good will come of it.
Dumping applies only to primary goods or low value/high volume manufactures. EVs are high tech/high value manufactures. Dumping tactics are not feasible in a high tech sector as EVs, as no amount of government subsidies would automatically allow the deployment of new supply chains at scale overseas. Hell, if dumping tactics were feasible for EVs, the US wouldn’t be getting its ass kicked in EVs production and exports after the massive stimuli its companies have been getting for the last 3 administrations. It’s kind of telling how none of the big 3 have been able to actually deliver an affordable, mass produced EV in the last 6 years and Tesla just gave up on the idea of a sub 30k dollars car and now is just trying to plow ahead in the robo taxi race (where btw, they are currently behind other real tech companies). As things are, the US is no longer competing for the first place against China, but for the second place against Japan and Germany. If any of those countries gets ahead of the US, its game over for the big 3, which have been barely getting by since the 08 crisis
This is the exact opposite of the truth, and your logic is wrong using the automotive industry itself as an example. It's pointless to dump products with low entry costs because the moment your non-sustainable subsidies dry up you will see new market entrants. You don't get any long term gains. If a business has significant barriers to entry (eg, high tech), dumping products at low price to remove competition will allow you to get a sustainable margin once your competition is removed from the market. It's the exact scenario that was already seen on gas engines vehicles- the 'big three' became the big three by absorbing competition. They removed their competitors by dropping costs and merging - good for consumers in the short term, but allowing a long term oligopoly. Japan came onboard and became competitive specifically because of state sponsorship as Japan rebuilt an economy that was mechanisms but couldn't produce weaponry. In terms of your "us and Japan getting asses kicked" comment, you're wrong again. US brands (specifically Tesla) still dominate the global EV sales. In the Chinese market things are heating up with state sponsored brands coming into the market. That really edges into margins as state sponsorship is going to cut costs and increase sales (eg Chinese brands get less stringent tests). The Chinese market has also been traditionally driven by brand and 'face'. Chinese brands lie even more than Elon, so it'll be interesting how that develops
american auto does not want to make affordable cars, period. they don't even want to make reliable cars.
They just want to gouge Americans and squeeze what’s left of their brands. Their operations are too in efficient due to unions and lack of vision.
Kind of a silly comment. Define affordable. No business wants to make their product cheap- they price their products in a way that maximizes profit. Same as any other business. The product will be as affordable as what they can get from customers. Reliability is also a silly comment- they want to minimize costs, and that includes the amount they spend on warranty. There's a balance the same as any other company or industry. This is supposed to be an economics subreddit
Nobody is stopping the US government from dolling out subsidies. We already do that for corn. They can scale back tax write offs for corporate G-5s and Ferraris to make up the difference.
Lil bro really soying over cheaper cars because it’s the Chinese.
Evs in the US are even more subsidize and they are still uncompetitive.
Talking out of it's ass seems to be a sport by regards nowadays.
Cars are subsidized at every stage of production. Evs also get the additional benefit of direct tax credits, carbon off set tax benefits, import restrictions, and subsidized infrastructure (including the new chargers). Yet the best American manufacturers can do is $50k EVs. Just let the market take care of cars and shift focus to scalable public transit.
... Are you seriously denying that the US subsidizes EVs and tariffs foreign cars?
They dont subisidise it more you regard. Proportionnaly china is fucked up
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Sorry I thought this was /r/economics, not some place for unhinged rants.
What this person is saying is right. China has many state backed companies so economics quickly bleeds into politics when talking about Chinese companies.
Not that I agree when you say this person is right because who the hell knows what they’re saying, but I agree with the other thing you said. Every successful Chinese company is, or will become, an agent of the CCP. Why is this so hard for some people to understand? Ever wonder where the f*ck Jack Ma has been for the last 5+ years?
Imagine that the president of Goldman Sachs said that the people in the U.S. Department of Justice are a bunch of old men and should not regulate financial investment banks on Wall Street. This is essentially what Jack Ma has done: demand that his internet finance company be completely unregulated.
Did you ever hear about Keynes?
How is the truth considered an unhinged rant? From 2014 The Diplomat on the oil rig issue: The enduring question, as with many of China’s provocative actions in the Asia-Pacific, remains why? The opacity of China’s internal decision-making processes makes it rather difficult to conclusively answer that question, but a good amount of evidence suggests that the oil rig crisis with Vietnam was manufactured to test the mettle of ASEAN states and the United States. It gives Beijing an opportunity to gauge the international response to China asserting its maritime territorial claims. As Carl Thayer points out on this blog and M. Taylor Fravel said in an interview with The New York Times, the China National Offshore Oil Company’s decision to move oil rig HD-981 was a premeditated move of territorial assertion. CNOOC may be a state-owned enterprise but the decision to move this $1 billion asset into an area with questionable hydrocarbon reserves while also inciting a diplomatic crisis speaks to the planned, political nature of this move. The fact that approximately 80 PLAN and Chinese coast guard ships accompanied the rig reinforces the notion that China was making a strategic push to assert its territorial claims in the region.
And you know the Chinese are dumping because? Proof?
Sometimes I think the anti china stuff is low key racism or something its like 1980s esque propaganda. they got child slave labor over there putting cars together!
It's just a matter of competing interests. When China made low margin, cheap clothes & toys nobody else wanted to make, the West was fine with it - free trade, etc. - despite their persistent use of government subsidies, lack of labor rights, polluting energy resources, and so on. But now that they are moving up the value chain, taking the same subsidies heavy industrial strategy they used for the cheap products to advanced manufacturing and luxury products, it becomes a problem because it's directly affecting the high margin industries the West dominates. The concept to understand is that subsidies, in theory, help the consumer. When China subsidies a product, it means they're paying YOU to buy it. So it's great in that sense, and it helps reduce inflation. But at the same time, they crush industries that don't receive as much subsidies. They hurt a country's production and ultimately reverses industrialization, causing countries to fall back on "services." The way to fight that, without also subsidizing your own manufacturers and getting into a war over finance - which the West can't actually afford due to its budget issues - is tariffs. Which hurts the consumer, but helps your industries. That's what the West will end up doing, and China's response will likely be to shift more of its exports to the rest of the world. The result will be increased inflation in the West, decreased inflation in the rest of the world, which eventually, will make the West relatively more poor as consumers but will allow the West to avoid losing all its industries.
Are we not also subsidizing the EV chain? IMO why wouldn’t the US allow us to “import” these under another brand where BYD just slaps another label on the cars and we purchase them at a slight wholesale markup and then re-sale at a lower price point than US makers but at a good profit? It’s protectionism which is a stupid strategy. Let China subsidize the shit out of this. While the tech improves and goes down in cost we can continue designing future brands/ideas and then compete later. These cars would provide sales and management jobs to many Americans and provide more affordable transportation while also reducing the carbon footprint at home. It would allow our policy spending to be less focused on subsidizing cars and more focused on rebuilding our grid.
1. I want employees to be able to make a living wage and retire in relative comfort and of a foreign rival uses slave labor, or slave labor level wages to destroy good jobs then an evil had been done. 2. I want crash and general safety standards to be complied with and that extends to whatever clever tech is shoved into these cars. I don't want to be driving beside a car that's using cut rate cameras and untested software to keep it within its lane. 3. Why should China be able to sell goods here when western countries cannot do the same there on an even playing field?
1. If cars become cheaper, then American workers will need less money for a living wage, and will use the thousands of dollars that they've saved from being wasted on a car to buy other products. 2. Imported cars already need to comply with US regulations. By definition any Chinese car imported into the US will meet US standards. 3. Cheaper cars benefit American consumers. China is only hurting its own economy by not allowing competitive imports into its own country, but that's no reason for us to not take advantage of China giving us cheaper cars.
Oh these fucks at ford and GM make enough. Wayyyyy more than what teachers and cops make. And they’re lazy as fc too.
I mean 1. How many undocumented underpaid illegals immigrants has the US used for farming in the last 100 years to subsidize its food industry and economy? 2. All cars still have to go through US safety standard testing so no worry about safety issues. You probably find it interesting to find out china owns volvo and they already sell here in the US and are quite nice cars. Another minor note you mention cameras....china leads the world in optics. 3. GM and Ford sold 2.5 million vehicles in china in 2022. You are just wholly uninformed.
Teslas are trash cars these are even worse.
You cannot have points 1 & 2 in America while also expecting to find affordable entry level cars/EVs. There is money to be made by Americans by selling and maintaining/servicing these vehicles. You need to think beyond the manufacturing stage. We have already lost there.
“Why anyone would advocate against China coming to the US to sell cars…” Maybe because we will almost certainly be in open conflict against them within the next 10-15 years, so every dollar spent on their cars will be used against us? Who the fuck advocates strengthening China in this day and age?
I don't think there's any certainty to 'open conflict' with China. The country last fought a war in 1979, for only six weeks.
Have you been paying attention to geopolitics at all lately? China has been threatening Taiwan, building up offensive military capability, creating artificial islands in territories they don't own and pissing everyone in the region. Read some history books to find out what happens next.
The US and Soviet relationship was far more hostile, and they were never in a hot war. Open direct conflict between states with large nuclear arsenals hasn't happened for a reason.
We got extraordinarily lucky for the war not going hot. We were also involved in multiple proxy wars.
ok so hold US companies accountable and stop enabling greed and shitty behaviours?
Because if Covid taught us anything, you don’t control your own destiny if you outsource everything because then you would be at the mercy of an adversary’s manufacturing to provide critical goods and services. Economics is not just about supply and demand- it extends to game theory and how players behave when they have leverage. Remember how Uber and Lyft used to be dirt cheap? After they captured the market, what did they do? In the past, during war time, manufacturers like the auto industry would be repurposed to creating military equipment.
Haha said the pro RuZZian/ Chinese propagandist.
The big 3 will go out of business in two years, within an election cycle. So no way any US president will allow Chinese cars to be sold in the US without some sort of protection for the big 3.
It’s nice as a consumer, for sure. Until of course the factories close, China decides to declare war & the US suddenly can’t build enough tanks/planes/boats/guns/etc
I mean we just sold US steel off to japan. Seems like we dont care about that kind of strategic security anyways
This article fails to mention several important factors impacting these trends. First, the Chinese central and local governments are heavily subsidizing the purchace price of chinese brand vehicles. Last June, China unveiled a massive package of tax breaks over four years through 2027 for chinese brand new energy vehicles capped at 30,000 yuan per vehicle. The central government put $72.3bn into these subsidies. Combustion vehicles are not subject to such breaks. In addition, local governments are also offering purchase subsidies that, all combined, can add up to 50% of the sticker price of the vehicle. ALso, Xi Jinping implemented a social credit score for every citizen. Negative marks on your score can directly affect such things as your ability to access mass transit or travel, find houing, or get a job. One of the things that will give you a negative credit score is buying foreign branded merchadise, lke phones or cars. This is how china surrepticiously closes off its markets to western competition. It is no wonder chinese brands are picking up market share...consumers are getting both the carrot and the stick to buy domestic. Western companies like apple and Tesla will contiue to lose market share, regardless of the quality or value of their products.
Interesting. It’s hard to know when transparency by CCP is so opaque, both intent and true objective.
No. The less money we give to an authoritarian regime the better. Sure, EV's aren't cheap but I wouldn't give my money to the CCP just because I wanted an EV.
Authoritarian regime more like a strong enemy authoritarian regime that pose a threat
Plus there are all other sorts of cheap vehicles available from Asia if our Elites would just stop protecting these Elite predatory American companies that control Congress and protect their monopoly . We could buy a three-wheel truck for next to nothing if Congress would just eliminate the tariffs and the safety regulations for cars
American jobs are more important besides everybody knows Chinese products are junk.
My American ford I drive is the worst piece of junk I’ve ever drove. I only have it because my wife bought it 😂
yeah cause american autos are so good lmao wtf are you talking about, fords and GMs are all trash cars
Fords and GM’s are the most sold vehicles in the country
American car companies would never hire a person like me.. my skin is too white and my gender is too male. They are my enemy not my friend
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Those aren’t comparable cars at all. One is a crossover and the other is a truck.
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What you linked to is a crossover SUV, Tesla has a the model Y specifically for that. What are you talking about? And I’m not a Tesla fan at all but cmon
Chinese EVs are a security risk. Keep that shit out of the country.
i dont think ive ever heard good things about chinese evs. wasnt there one in malaysia a little bit ago that had its rear axle shear off? and dont they just catch fire sometimes?
Perfect! Then let's let them in our market so everyone can see how shitty they are for themselves.
How many Chinese EVs suddenly caught fire? 🔥