- cross-posted to:
- automotive@discuss.tchncs.de
- cross-posted to:
- automotive@discuss.tchncs.de
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Or , hear me out, what if US auto makers stop trying to force overpriced oversized trash on us? Maybe try to compete?
They get a lot of bribes from the oil industry. This is about sabotage, not competition.
You don’t want a giant ass pickup truck that drives like a tank, takes up 1.5 times the parking space and goes 8 miles on the gallon?
No, I want a light pickup from the 80s or 90s but with a warranty and a full size bed and no back seat. Y’know, something kinda utilitarian. A fucking Ranger is bigger now than an F-150 was in 2000. An F-150 is a goddamn SUV with a worthless 4 foot bed. What the hell is that good for?
FWIW, you can order a V6 regular cab F150 work truck with an 8-foot bed. Still costs $40k, but it exists.
Ranger and Maverick can both haul plywood sheets with a few 2x4 slats in the stamped slots on the side of the bed and some tiedowns.
I love my maverick but the above comment is correct, 4ft bed is practically useless. Minivan is much more utility than 4ft bed.
It’s not due to a lack of will. They can’t produce cars as cheaply because they’ve spent the last 50 years closing factories and buying back their own stock while China invested in their industrial capacity.
BURN THE HERETIC
Wet blankets don’t burn well
they had decades to prepare for this. if the past is any indication they would rather milk that cow to death and act surprised when it isnt a viable long term strategy.
Electric cars in the US are more expensive mostly due to higher costs of overhead. For example, we have a minimum wage, and China uses forced labor.
Good luck buying anything made in the US for less money than on AliExpress.
Edit: Is this really the same group of people that want US businesses to divest from Israel, defending products made with the slave labor of Uyghurs?
In Xinjiang, the government is the trafficker. Authorities use threats of physical violence, forcible drug intake, physical and sexual abuse, and torture to force detainees to work in adjacent or off-site factories or worksites producing garments, footwear, carpets, yarn, food products, holiday decorations, building materials, extractives, materials for solar power equipment and other renewable energy components, consumer electronics, bedding, hair products, cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment, face masks, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other goods—and these goods are finding their way into businesses and homes around the world.
https://www.state.gov/forced-labor-in-chinas-xinjiang-region/
Dude, there is just no way on earth that automakers are making razor thin margins on $80,000 F250 extended cab super duty pavement princesses that are basically just minivans in a trenchcoat.
You can buy a Nissan Leaf starting at $28k. It’s made in US, Japan, and Mexico.
Past tense. They are ending the production line this year. They just didn’t have the margin.
Next would be the Mini EV. It starts at $30k. Still far less than your $80k example.
Huh what 80k example?
I’m sorry. Same thread, different commenter. My mistake.
Greely’s EX 30 was going to sell for mid 30k. We can absolutely compete, we just would rather not.
Mention the 6Billion dollar stock buyback plan GM announced this month.
Electric cars in the US are more expensive mostly due to higher costs of overhead. For example, we have a minimum wage, and China uses forced labor.
:-/
Is this really the same group of people that want US businesses to divest from Israel, defending products made with the slave labor of Uyghurs?
Americans are just mad that we have a perfectly good exploitable population at home.
I agree. That’s also terrible. They work mostly in farming. If you can avoid these food brands, I suggest you do so.
There are plenty of automobiles manufactured in the US, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and the UK that don’t use forced labor. I also recommend supporting those factories instead of China.
Also, your second link about Chinese retirement has nothing to do with Uyghur slave labor.
There are plenty of automobiles manufactured in the US, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and the UK
And they’re all complicit. BMW, Volkswagon, Jaguar Land Rover all source parts from China.
In fact, the entire US supply chain is reliant on Chinese parts.
Earlier this month, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) said it would be temporarily halting production at a plant in Kragujevac, Serbia due to a lack of parts from China, while Hyundai and Renault have done the same in South Korea.
You can whitewash your supply chain by slapping an western label on Chinese parts. But this isn’t demonstrating any kind of concern for labor rights or ethical insourcing. FFS, we won’t even let Volkswagon plants in Tennessee unionize.
Nevermind Uyghur slave labor. Americans can’t even bargain for better salaries. Its too much for our fragile economy to handle.
That was true of those brands. They’ve since been pulling out of China, leaving abandoned factories that are now being used by the Chinese market. There are still plenty of other ethical options for automobiles.
Many nations are cracking down on imports related to Uyghur labor.
In December 2021, Congress passed, and President Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) – the strongest tool the United States or any other country has forged in the fight against the atrocities of forced labor.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2024/05/23/enforcing-uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-forced-labor-ban-europe-us-uyghur-xinjiang/
They’ve since been pulling out of China
Firstly, no they haven’t. US trade with China has only ever increased year-over-year going back to the 1960s.
Secondly, our hunger for cheap labor is sending us to penal colonies across the rest of the Pacific Rim. This isn’t something that began or ended with a single factory in a single country.
Many nations are cracking down on imports related to Uyghur labor.
They’re not. The business is just being laundered through front companies.
Upon the review of the ASPI report, Skechers said it contacted senior management at Luzhou prior to conducting two additional audits of the factory — none of which revealed any indications of forced labor. Luzhou, however, did confirm that members of the Uyghur ethnic group did comprise a portion of its workforce but were employed under compliant terms and conditions.
Shoving thumbs in my ears and saying “I don’t see the non-compliance, its all fine actually!” and letting the provisions go completely unenforced.
And that’s before you get into direct sales through Ali Baba and Temu
Again, I agree, but my comment was about automobiles. You have the habit of misrepresenting my point.
https://boydcoddingtonwheels.com/car-companies-pulling-out-of-china/
https://www.ft.com/content/d88955d4-2bc8-476e-9cdb-882ca3c3b10d
As for other consumer goods, Biden has expanded Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to include more imports.
https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/enforcement/section-301-investigations/tariff-actions
Tariffs aren’t great solutions, but the only alternative would be outright banning. The latter would have a sudden and financially profound impact on American consumers.
Wow, tell us how indoctrinated you are.
Do you mean informed?
In Xinjiang, the government is the trafficker. Authorities use threats of physical violence, forcible drug intake, physical and sexual abuse, and torture to force detainees to work in adjacent or off-site factories or worksites producing garments, footwear, carpets, yarn, food products, holiday decorations, building materials, extractives, materials for solar power equipment and other renewable energy components, consumer electronics, bedding, hair products, cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment, face masks, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other goods—and these goods are finding their way into businesses and homes around the world.
https://www.state.gov/forced-labor-in-chinas-xinjiang-region/
In other words, the U.S. content of “Made in China” is about 55%. The fact that the U.S. content of Chinese goods is much higher than for imports as a whole is mainly due to higher retail and wholesale margins on consumer electronics and clothing than on most other goods and services.
https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2011/08/us-made-in-china/
It is simply more economical to use forced labor than to pay minimum wage. It results in lower price points on Chinese branded products, and higher margins on US branded products produced in China. This problem is not exclusive to automotive manufacturing, as illustrated in the above research article.
To be clear on my personal opinion, I’m not recommending US industry over foreign. I drive a Hyundai. I’m specifically speaking against Chinese industry, just as Biden’s tariffs are not applicable to imports aside from China.
Sounds like US automaker higher prices are the actual threat.
For what it’s worth, a government can absolutely subsidized an industry in an attempt to capture a foreign market.
There’s a reason Japan and Korea have their own auto industries despite being next door to the largest manufacturing nation on earth, and it isn’t because they’re somehow making and distributing them for even less than China.
That being said, several automakers have blindfolded themselves about the type of cars people want. I do hope this threat is significant enough that automakers actually shift to mini-electric transportation options.
If not, I’d be happy enough buying a small Chinese electric even if the taxes made it equivalent to a larger “western” vehicle. Because it’s what I want to have available to me and it’s nice to fuck capitalists with capitalism.
It’d be nice if instead of putting massive tariffs, we would just subsidise production of comparable, small cars.
its less about the subsidies and more that budget buyers in the U.S in particular are very picky buyers.
while the federal/state EV tax credits, you can get vehicles like the Chevy Bolt for 20-22k. regardless the car still isnt that popular (meaning theres something specific about the car that buyers dont want).
for those buying used cars, theres not mamy reasons why someone would buy a say new 18k-20k EV that had many cuts in design vs an older premium EV. Used 2016 Model S for example can be found near 16k. its a new cheap car vs used premium car debate
this places a burden any any auto maker trying to make a budget car, because in order for it to sell well, they need to have razor thin margins, and sell a lot. failure to do so would spell the end of your compamy due to how many you produced.
I feel you strongly misunderstand the financial position of a lot of americans. They buy what they can afford, and would love a cheap new option in the market.
those who are in the budget state of mind is more likely buying a used vehicle over a brand new one. again, its the situation of a cheap new vehicle with a lot of cuts vs old vehicle that was considered premium. companies dont want to make a new cheap car because they have to compete with old premium ones.
when both the nissan leaf and chevy bolt guaged the market for a cheaper ev, they werent popular to the point where both models were canned, the leaf with no future date of return, and the bolt which chose not to have a new yearly model and will consider a newer one later. Fisker bankrupted itself out of the market, other external conpanies like kia arent importing their 20k evs like thr EV5 nor Ray EV for telling reasons, because the US market is extremely picky about what kind of car theyll buy.
the prices on cars in china are post government subsidies, and its already proven time again that when a BYD car gets moved elsewhere its real price is higher (sits closer to 20k rather than 12k) which would not put it that far from existing budget cars post federal subsidy.
keep in mind the american buyerbase is very politically charged. Conservative opinions have outright said they hate the push towards EVs, of those left, many have the common U.S mindset, that is they will only buy SUVs or Crossovers. then you have the section that will refuse to buy a car without a certain amount of capacity, which is why you can buy cars with 140-150 mi capacity outside of the U.S but its basically non existant within it. Its basically only the U.S market thats extremely picky with these kind of stuff, where drivers heavily value leg room and size over cost/efficiency
June 11th 2024 GM announced that the board approved a 6 Billion dollar stock buyback plan.
That is a direct wealth transfer from the company to the owners.
We have met the enemy, and they are us.
The next quarter is the only thing that matters.
And this is why we will bail them out again.
That 9 billion could have been spent on making a low cost EV to compete. It could have been spent as retention bonuses for their best workers. It could have been spent so many things that would secure their future in a changing world.
I think it’s as true for government as it is for corporations. Nobody is the adult in the room.
God forbid these parasites have to compete.
Z HORROR, HORROR, I TELL U
Are you arguing there’s no competition in the US or are you arguing that China should have to compete without the subsisides?
My thesis is that China’s biz took state aid and made into something…
We provide state aid to our industry and they just sole that money, now that China is caught up, they are crying for more state aid.
Another example Intel, blows 50 billion on stoke buybacks, tax payer gives them 35 billion for fabs in US, Germany gives them 10 for one in Germany.
Clown capitalism right there.
Why is competition for US auto makers a bad thing ?
Because “free markets, competition, being voluntary” are propaganda by capitalists using their owned media and purchased government to make its victims double as its defenders.
The goal of market capitalism is to end competition often by buying out up and coming rivals to kill the threat, manipulate the markets to your advantage using anything from bribery to cost benefit analysis of potential consequences/fines for sociopathic actions to potential profits, and conspire with your economic sector to coerce the workers you need into accepting less.
This is just expanded indentured servitude with a marketing team.
Because we don’t like free markets. We like the illusion of choice, but the security of monopoly.
Thats a new spin to me. The only thing monopolies secure is their own existence.
I do believe that is what they meant
This isn’t competition, it sounds like the CCP heavily subsidises the manufacture, in an attempt to kill the American industry off.
Thinking in decades or centuries is a very powerful tool!
This isn’t competition, it sounds like the CCP heavily subsidises the manufacture
China: “Here, have a bunch of cheap electric vehicles to replace your aging fleet of ICE engines. Don’t worry, we’re picking up a part of the tab.”
Americans: “What a great deal! We’ll buy them in droves.”
State Government: “Not so fast! This wouldn’t be fair to honest, hard working domestic car companies like Tesla and Volvo and Toyota.”
Thinking in decades or centuries is a very powerful tool!
Shame we’re only capable of thinking about the next quarter’s profits.
There’s something very amusing about the nominally communist China beating the capitalist powerhouse USA at its own game.
Large professional centrally planned economies do a better job of managing scarce resources than a pack of ill-informed and uncoordinated Wall Street Lemmings.
Sometimes. And when they dont, there is no one to stop them. It’s the age old problem of a wise despot. Just dressed in different clothes.
It’s the age old problem of a wise despot.
When you’re governing wisely, there is no need to be despotic. Conflicts and contradictions necessitate a large militant police state to keep the lower class in line. But when you’ve got generous surpluses and a rising quality of life, people are generally happy and easy to govern.
Despot means you have absolute power. It doesn’t mean you use it badly. It just means you have the potential to.
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The US subsidizes their EV industry twice as much as China. The real why China can do this is because the US has gutted their industrial base in favor of financialization while China built up their industrial base.
Yeah, sure - that’s still China trying to undercut and ensure the US remains reliant on them long term…
No that’s just the US not being competitive because stock buy backs and layoffs are easier than building good cheap cars.
…or both. Think about it, if what you’ve said is completely true (I don’t disagree, BTW), why would they bother subsidising?
They’re trying to ring fence the market. That the US is helping then is only vaguely related
But it’s not both. How can you produce something for cheaper with less subsidies unless your just better at it.
It’s like saying the winner of a race had an unfair advantage even after giving their opponent a head start.
Because the US is an authoritarian pseudo democracy being run by cartels. And free market and capitalism is a death sentence for them.
It’s hilarious to me that you neglect to mention that the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing the vehicles specifically to undermine other automakers.
Not that the US are the good guys here, but this is just more of the trade war crap between China and basically everyone else.
And a 7500$ rebate isn’t a subsidy?
It is. it’s a bit different in context though.
but the OC was trying to paint China as being innocent victims. which they are far from.
Oh yeah, that’s hilarious. China is not an innocent actor here.
Yeah, automakers pose a threat to automakers!
I doubt I will ever buy from the Big 3 again. Bailout parasites. Tried of these piece of shit too big too fail corps pulling this crap.
My next car will be a Chinese EV, if I have to drive it over the Mexican border myself.
This opinion is ridiculous as “the big 3” doesn’t even exist anymore and hasn’t for over a decade. Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep is owned by a Scandanavian company.
Also this isn’t written to protect the few remaining American companies, it’s to protect the entire auto industry in the US including Kia/Hyundai, VW, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Subaru, etc.
China selling vehicles with massive subsidies that allow them to undercut everyone else in the market isn’t good for anybody but China because as soon as they put their competitors out of business, they will jack the price of their cars up as high as they want.
This is the same reason why when Walmart comes to a new town, all the similar local businesses shut down because it’s impossible to compete with their deep pockets, but now you’re advocating for it on a national scale which will potentially cost hundreds of thousands of domestic manufacturing jobs.
At this point I believe its the international market that is subsidising Chinese EVs. Take a look at the byd dolphin mini / seagull. It is priced starting at $21,000 in mexico while the price in China is from $9700. You find many other examples of the same car models sold at much higher price overseas than locally in China.
for some of the vehicles its due to car saftey regulations, so modifications are needed to legally be sold in some regions. the regulations on vehicles in china are less strict than some other countries.
Promise?
China seems to be succeeding in EV vehicles, not just cars, airplanes too. I’m sorta pining for the days when we were talking about a North America Union. These days its all about protectionism and wars. :(
You can thank Trump for gutting NAFTA, making US companies weaker in the bloc as a result
Weaker than Canada or Mexico? I don’t think so.
Really? O well, that settles it then
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Capitalism is clearly going to death us first.
The Earth is 🔥burning🔥, by our own hands, and we’d still rather play team sports for greedy sociopaths than prioritize even doing it a little slower with cheap EVs.
The Earth will heal in a few million years once we’ve destroyed ourselves. ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
How does buying a cheap new car even if you don’t need it going to save humanity or prevent the earth from burning?
The US is trying to keep these tiny ones out because they want you you buy their big gas vehicles or larger, more expensive electrics. Larger vehicles consume more resources, take more to produce, and even large electric vehicles draw more from the dirty grid than a small personal conveyance like these designed to move you and your groceries.
And that’s a strawman to infer that our self-destruction hinges on this single point. This is yet another example on the heap of the larger problem. “it might hurt short term PROFITS for our greed mongers, so we won’t allow something that might begin to mitigate the scale of the problem.”
That said, it sounds like you agree with them, and if that’s the case, I have good news, they’ll continue to get their way in every economic sector, and yes, cumulatively, our species is paying and will pay an even greater price for allowing blind, insatiable greed to make every decision.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/20/mexico-central-america-us-heatwave
If we cared about having a future for the species at all, Humanity’s only mission right now would be to END the global economy’s jihad of growth/metastasis, every major nation would institute child limits, and we would work to end consumerism and find homeostasis/equilibrium instead for the sake of our very survival, because this reverse terraforming we’ve done in decades will take millions of years for the earth to heal from. That’s nothing to Earth’s 3.8 billion year old story of life, but it might as well be eternity to our short term monkey brains. Our reality, our world will continue to heat, and if we stopped tomorrow entirely, would take many times longer to go back to normal than our species has existed for.
But as common economic decisions like this demonstrate, we have decided to burn the future so as not to disrupt the reckless party of avarice and gluttony for our owners today. Is what it is.
There are numerous small vehicles for sale in the US already but nobody buys them because they want a vehicle that’s good at more than one thing (being small) when forking over tens of thousands of dollars for it. Nobody is legislating to ban small or efficient vehicles they want to ban a foreign country from manipulating our markets by selling vehicles at artificially low prices due to billions in subsidies for their national brands.
This idea that if we simply threw out all 200+ million vehicles in the US and replaced them with new, more efficient ones, global warming would suddenly end is ridiculous. This is just consumer mentality and treating cars like disposable iPhones with the mindset that you’re “being green.” If you want to help curb emissions, go buy a used Prius or EV instead of demanding that a factory build you a new car and do so at an artificially low price. Go buy a bicycle or electric scooter. You’re not reducing emissions by destroying a product that has already been built and is in good condition just to replace it with a newer version.
I didn’t bother reading the rest of your comment since it devolved into unhinged rambling.
Have they tried being competitive?
Sounds like some healthy competition the caps are always on about
I’m super conflicted about this. I want cheap EVs, but at the same time, China is intentionally dumping their prices to kill competition so they can later jack it up.
It won’t matter how fair things were if we are all dead.
I mean, EVs are not going to save the earth. Investments/innovations into our infrastructures will.
Nuclear power is the only thing currently that can save us. Unfortunately, we have ill-informed people not understanding what nuclear is.
I just posted this article separately, but renewables and particularly solar combined with better storage are enough to save us. https://powering-the-planet.ghost.io/untitled-3/
That’s the problem. Storage. Current battery tech just doesn’t scale. Nuclear fills those gaps for night time and cloudy days.
We literally can just run 100% electric right now with zero emissions today if the world went nuclear. We already have the tech today. It’s scalable today.
No need to wait to develop new battery tech. Our future is in our hands right now.
They’ll ignore this because it doesn’t fit their narrative of one capitalist owning all the means of power. Cool article though!
I still want my nuclear car GM!
Nuclear can power hydrogen generators that power a hydrogen car.
Don’t even need to make any nasty batteries from cobalt. Or mine for lithium.
So, what is nuclear?
Everyone buying cheap new cars isn’t going to be the thing that saves us.
No single thing short of abolishing the entire US Military (the singles largest polluter in the world) isn’t going to be the thing to save is. It’s about taking ALL the steps you can to make the world able to be saved. Not a great lens to evaluate personal decisions bases on if it solves the whole problem right away or not.
Arguing for everyone to go out and scrap their current car just to buy a new one isn’t going to do anything for emissions. You realize building a new car creates more pollution than just buying or using one that already exists right?
The commenter above is claiming that we’re all going to die if we can’t all go buy a new Chinese EV for $10k, which is absurd and counterproductive to reducing emissions.
Arguing for everyone to go out and scrap their current car just to buy a new one isn’t going to do anything for emissions.
Literally no one said that everyone should get a new car.
The commenter above is claiming that we’re all going to die if we can’t all go buy a new Chinese EV for $10k
No they’re saying market fairness doesn’t matter if you end up dead from climate change. Like the roughly 250,000 people a year who’s deaths can be attributed to it. Climate change is already on track to kill us, we need to actively stop it, no one thinks not being able to buy a Chinese car is going to kill them. It’s the thing that’s already killing them that we want to stop. A cheaper EV gives those who would otherwise be buying another ICE car a better option. They shouldn’t have to wait for arbitrary reasons to be able to make greener choices.
It won’t matter how fair things were if we are all dead.
What other conclusion can you get from a comment like this? “We’re all dead unless we can all get our hands on these cheap Chinese EVs.” We can’t drive two cars at once meaning we must get rid of our current vehicles, no?
Who’s going to be able to purchase these cars if hundreds of thousands/millions of union workers lose their job due to these Chinese subsidies undercutting everyone else? That has a cascading effect on the rest of the economy if you weren’t familiar with similar scenarios happening in the past like when the housing market was manipulated by banks handing out ARM loans to everyone in 2007. If you think this is all about American protectionism, why is Europe imposing the same tariffs on China for the very same reason? They’re much more accepting of climate change policy and taking steps toward a greener future. Perhaps they also see something that you’re not here.
The opposite of dumping is happening. For example the Kia EV5 is sold at [$20k in China](https://electrek.co/2023/11/17/kia-launches-20k-ev5-electric-suv-china-rival-tesla-model-y/) while the same made in China model is sold overseas [Starting at $46k](https://electrek.co/2024/04/04/kia-set-to-export-this-all-electric-suv-at-a-price-that-undercuts-tesla/)
KIA is also dumping. Those prices are not sustainable. Doesn’t make it right if others are doing it.
Well at least whatever profit Kia can’t make in China due to the low price. They can hopefully gain back from markets outside China thanks to the lack of competition driving prices down.
They should be very concerned. However they have the advantage of time, place, protectionism. They already have factories and employees. The technology is known. They’re admitting they are aware of the market. The only way they can lose is if they don’t even try ….
We’ve spent years saying how short sighted they are to not be able to look ahead of the immediate term, now they’re admitting they can’t even look ahead 2-3 years
What? A full body crumple zone vehicle!? Where do I sign up!?
Good, maybe GM will have the follow through to make an electric car successful now.
