Chinese Electric Cars are Already Surging in Popularity in Mexico, Europe, Asia, and Africa (msn.com) 164
"The Chinese government has long subsidized carmakers with the goal of becoming a major auto exporter," notes the New York Times. But this week they reported on dozens of dealerships around Mexico that are now selling China-made electric vehicles, saying it could be "a potentially grave threat to the North American auto industry."
One employee said their dealership "was selling cars as fast as they arrived from China," including "a small but capable four-door electric compact that costs about $18,000." Chinese carmakers are effectively barred from the United States by tariffs that double the sticker price of vehicles imported from China, and they are not yet manufacturing significant numbers of vehicles in Mexico that could be exported across the border. But their ambition to expand overseas is on vivid display in Mexico and across Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Ads for Chinese brands are in airports and soccer stadiums and loom above Mexico City streets on large billboards. Chinese cars, both gasoline and electric models, are an increasingly common sight. BYD and others are also looking for places to build factories in Mexico, although none have announced firm plans. Initially, the plants would serve Latin America, part of a campaign by Chinese automakers to erode the dominance of Japanese, American and European carmakers in places like Brazil and Thailand.
But there is little doubt that, eventually, Chinese carmakers hope to use Mexico as an on-ramp to the United States.
One of Mexico's EV dealers suggested to the Times that "maybe next year BYD can enter the United States." And he added with a smile, "If not, I can deliver." It is very unlikely that the Dolphin or any other Chinese car brand will be available in the United States soon. Because of the high tariffs, Chinese carmakers have not tried to establish dealerships or get approval from federal regulators to sell in the United States. (BYD does make electric buses in California.) And someone buying a BYD from a Mexican dealer like Mr. Alegría would have a hard time registering and insuring it in the United States because the cars have not demonstrated that they meet safety standards... But in the years to come it may be difficult to explain to consumers in the United States why they're not allowed to buy inexpensive electric vehicles that are readily available across the border, especially if they're made in Mexico, which already manufactures millions of cars for the United States.
Less than 20 years ago, Chinese cars were widely seen as inferior, even by many Chinese drivers. But in recent years, the country's manufacturers have pulled even with foreign rivals in mechanical quality, analysts say, and often surpass U.S., Japanese and European carmakers in battery technology, autonomous driving and entertainment software. (Think in-car karaoke and rotating touch screens)... [T]he auto industry does not appear to have seen anything like the current wave of Chinese brands, which have quickly overtaken Japanese companies as the world's largest auto exporters. Chinese carmakers have made deep inroads in countries where they have local production or face few significant trade barriers. In Brazil, Chinese brands have a 9 percent share of car sales, up from 1 percent in 2019. In Thailand, they have 18 percent of the market, up from 5 percent in 2019, according to JATO.
The article notes that for the world's largest car market — China itself — General Motors just announced "a more than $5 billion hit to its profit" to restructure China operations that have been losing money in recent years. And the article includes this quote from Felipe Munoz, global analyst at the research firm JATO Dynamics.
"Before the pandemic, the rules were set down by the Western carmakers. Now it's the opposite."
One employee said their dealership "was selling cars as fast as they arrived from China," including "a small but capable four-door electric compact that costs about $18,000." Chinese carmakers are effectively barred from the United States by tariffs that double the sticker price of vehicles imported from China, and they are not yet manufacturing significant numbers of vehicles in Mexico that could be exported across the border. But their ambition to expand overseas is on vivid display in Mexico and across Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Ads for Chinese brands are in airports and soccer stadiums and loom above Mexico City streets on large billboards. Chinese cars, both gasoline and electric models, are an increasingly common sight. BYD and others are also looking for places to build factories in Mexico, although none have announced firm plans. Initially, the plants would serve Latin America, part of a campaign by Chinese automakers to erode the dominance of Japanese, American and European carmakers in places like Brazil and Thailand.
But there is little doubt that, eventually, Chinese carmakers hope to use Mexico as an on-ramp to the United States.
One of Mexico's EV dealers suggested to the Times that "maybe next year BYD can enter the United States." And he added with a smile, "If not, I can deliver." It is very unlikely that the Dolphin or any other Chinese car brand will be available in the United States soon. Because of the high tariffs, Chinese carmakers have not tried to establish dealerships or get approval from federal regulators to sell in the United States. (BYD does make electric buses in California.) And someone buying a BYD from a Mexican dealer like Mr. Alegría would have a hard time registering and insuring it in the United States because the cars have not demonstrated that they meet safety standards... But in the years to come it may be difficult to explain to consumers in the United States why they're not allowed to buy inexpensive electric vehicles that are readily available across the border, especially if they're made in Mexico, which already manufactures millions of cars for the United States.
Less than 20 years ago, Chinese cars were widely seen as inferior, even by many Chinese drivers. But in recent years, the country's manufacturers have pulled even with foreign rivals in mechanical quality, analysts say, and often surpass U.S., Japanese and European carmakers in battery technology, autonomous driving and entertainment software. (Think in-car karaoke and rotating touch screens)... [T]he auto industry does not appear to have seen anything like the current wave of Chinese brands, which have quickly overtaken Japanese companies as the world's largest auto exporters. Chinese carmakers have made deep inroads in countries where they have local production or face few significant trade barriers. In Brazil, Chinese brands have a 9 percent share of car sales, up from 1 percent in 2019. In Thailand, they have 18 percent of the market, up from 5 percent in 2019, according to JATO.
The article notes that for the world's largest car market — China itself — General Motors just announced "a more than $5 billion hit to its profit" to restructure China operations that have been losing money in recent years. And the article includes this quote from Felipe Munoz, global analyst at the research firm JATO Dynamics.
"Before the pandemic, the rules were set down by the Western carmakers. Now it's the opposite."
So the reason we're not going to see BYD cars (Score:2)
That said in Europe where giant American SUVs are less common the Chinese cars can do just fine. Same goes from Mexico and Africa. From a practical standp
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I think the other car companies will be fine but I think it's going to absolutely kill Tesla. Tesla's tech is pushing 5 years and the CEO is planning on a absolutely enormous pay package that's going to deprive the company of the money it needs to start seriously updating tech. Now that they are facing real competition from companies like Kia and Hyundai and even BMW that's going to be a problem.
It's not going to kill Tesla. Haven't you heard, tariffs will solve all our problems. Also, Leo will just pay Trump to make it illegal to drive non-tesla cars, who will then get brib....political donations from other manufactures to make their cars legal again in the US.
American Corruption so great, Putin is drooling. Make America Corrupt Again
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It's worse than that. Musk didn't confidently push idiotic ideas at the beginning like he did with that fugly weak ass truck; the more he can stay away from Tesla the better their chances. As if often the case, people accredit successful businesses with flawless decision making without considering tons of good luck. Like when they used to say everything IBM did was smart; then Microsoft, then Google... Once successful and large, they can afford to survive massive errors.
A lot of bitching we hear about Chi
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Not true. Many chinese cars (including some BYD and Dolphin) are acing european crash tests:
https://carnewschina.com/2023/... [carnewschina.com]
https://carnewschina.com/2024/... [carnewschina.com]
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European safety standards are higher than US ones, and they meet those while still being cheap.
I'm aware it's paid in shares (Score:2)
I'm simplifying things, but either way Tesla will be cash starved when it's all said and done. Meanwhile they're likely to lose 15-20% of their customers because of the CEO's negative press and they're bein
Re: I'm aware it's paid in shares (Score:2)
but the problem with that is having that much ownership of shares in one man's hands makes raising further capital basically impossible
It's 1% of the total shares. It's not going to make anything impossible.
Besides, you've been making these claims about Tesla and SpaceX for over 6 years now, and none of this has ever happened. In fact SpaceX is more profitable now than it has ever been. Tesla isn't doing its greatest ever, but it's not performing badly either. It's even likely that the model y refresh is going to improve things quite a bit.
Low pricing (Score:4, Interesting)
If the quality is as good as they say, how is the price that low? Subsidized dumping? Uyghur slave labor? Lack of union bureaucracy? Lack of government bureaucracy? Or just good ol' efficient manufacturing?
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If the quality is as good as they say, how is the price that low? Subsidized dumping? Uyghur slave labor? Lack of union bureaucracy? Lack of government bureaucracy? Or just good ol' efficient manufacturing?
Pundits in the West make a lot of noises about subsidies and the Chinese government does subsidies its car industry but so does the US and the EU nations. Once you strip away the subsidies the Chinese are still just better at making cars more efficiently. One reason is that EVs are just far simpler mechanically than an ICE vehicle making them quicker and easier to design. For example, according to Tesla their drivetrain has 17 moving parts, the engine basically has one major moving part meaning that the ent
Re: Low pricing (Score:3)
Pundits in the West make a lot of noises about subsidies and the Chinese government does subsidies its car industry but so does the US and the EU nations.
There's a difference between subsidized dumping and incentives to buy. Dumping is where you use government funds to sell at below cost in foreign markets in order to knock out foreign competitors. Basically what the robber barons of old used to do to shut down competitors. China has already done this with solar panels.
All manufacturers, foreign and domestic, are eligible for EV incentives in the US.
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Basically what the robber barons of old used to do to shut down competitors.
And what Amazon. Tesla and virtually every other tech startup does to build "market share".
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Most useful slashdot post in years. thank you
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If the quality is as good as they say, how is the price that low? Subsidized dumping? Uyghur slave labor? Lack of union bureaucracy? Lack of government bureaucracy? Or just good ol' efficient manufacturing?
Well, when they talked about pulling even in "quality", one might notice they didn't list the most expensive line item when it comes to matching western vehicles - safety:
Re:Low pricing (Score:4, Informative)
Six out of the 10 cars assessed as the safest on Europe's roads are from Chinese manufacturers
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If the quality is as good as they say
What other Made In China products have good quality and why EV cars would be any different?
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Products where the foreign purchaser doesn't say make it as cheap a possible.
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If the quality is as good as they say, how is the price that low? Subsidized dumping? Uyghur slave labor? Lack of union bureaucracy? Lack of government bureaucracy? Or just good ol' efficient manufacturing?
Or maybe: your salary is too high [worlddata.info]? Americans fall behind [nikkei.com] in innovation? Or some of your accusations are given by Nayirah [wikipedia.org]?
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https://english.news.cn/202407... [english.news.cn]
This actually worse for us than cheap labor would have been. It means China's upcoming population bust won't destroy their manufacturing capability.
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Efficient manufacturing and supply chains, and better technology. They got ahead on batteries and are using that advantage to offer lower prices AND longer warranties. SAIC has lifetime battery warranties in some markets.
BYD sucks (Score:2)
They missed the opportunity to have ADAS/autonomous features.
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Mercedes is the only brand delivering any autonomous driving at all and it's a shitty follow the duckling mode for traffic jams. BYD is hardly special by not having any autonomous (ie. level 3+) driving features.
Everything else is just toys for suicidal idiots if you try to use them for autonomous control.
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Robotaxis are geofenced low speed traffic blockers with an army of people doing on demand remote control when they get confused, that has little to do with autonomous personal cars.
Re: BYD sucks (Score:2)
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Wonder how they do on dirt roads, or even crappy paved roads with no line markers?
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Good autonomous driving is still science fiction
I have a Tesla. They turned on FSD for a month to let me test it
I tried it and turned it off after a short while
It drives like a not very talented teenager with bad eyes trying to pass a driving test with a very critical instructor
Very skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
Their battery tech is better? That’s a tall claim. Gonna need real proof. A slick website and a pdf spec sheet won’t convince me.
If I buy a Toyota, I can reasonably expect 150-200k miles over a solid 15 years or more. I know the warranty will be honored. If I need replacement parts, the car shop down the street can order them and get them the next day. I know that any safety issues will be addressed by a recall. The Chinese auto industry has a history of iterating models super fast. That’s great but they abandon previous model to the trash heap. Your $18,000 EV isn’t a good deal if it breaks in year 3, the company won’t return your calls and no shop can get replacement parts.
Sure, it’s possible, maybe China managed to replicate and surpass the 50 years that Japan invested into polishing their cars to today’s level of near-perfection, and it only took them 5-10 years to do it. Eyeroll.
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itâ(TM)s possible, maybe China managed to replicate and surpass the 50 years that Japan invested into polishing their cars to todayâ(TM)s level of near-perfection, and it only took them 5-10 years to do it. Eyeroll.
There's definitely some wisdom in your comment, but not in this part. China has been making cars for a lot longer than that, and more importantly, their manufacturers produce a bunch of cars designed by other nations under license. They can learn from those designs, they're not stupid. Yeah those are mostly older vehicles, but guess what? The peak of Japanese reliability was the better examples from the nineties. Obviously there were some big messes like the 3000GT or Z32 300ZX but there were also out-of-th
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Japanese cars from the 90s most definitely did not regularly make it to 200k miles
Hondas, Toyotas, and Nissans with four bangers all did. Even Subarus commonly would, if you stayed up on your coolant changes. (Most people still don't, and it's still a major cause of failures.)
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Reliability from that era is legendary. I bought a 1996 Acura Integra with 100k miles in the early 00s and drove it for 10 years. Finally had to scrap it at 250k miles because of rust. The engine and interior were still in perfect shape. I never even had to replace the clutch.
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If I buy a Toyota, I can reasonably expect 150-200k miles over a solid 15 years or more. I know the warranty will be honored. If I need replacement parts, the car shop down the street can order them and get them the next day. I know that any safety issues will be addressed by a recall. The Chinese auto industry has a history of iterating models super fast. .... That's great but they abandon previous model to the trash heap. Your $18,000 EV isn't a good deal if it breaks in year 3, the company won't return your calls and no shop can get replacement parts.
What you are saying about Toyota is what people said about US and EU car companies when the first Japanese cars arrived in the US and Europe. Now you are talking about the 'polish' and 'near-perfection' of Japanes cars. I just bought a BYD Seal. BYD is one of the biggest car makers in China and showing every sign that it will reman one the biggest, I'm not worried about my car being abandoned to the trash heap. If anything I expect that BYD has the potential to eat Toyota's lunch.
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Parts are a big problem
I have a Tesla and was shocked and more than a bit angry when I discovered that they don't sell parts
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Check Bjorn Nyland's channel on YouTube where he reviews some Chinese luxury cars. They are up to German standards of quality. Having sat in a few I can confirm that, and that the cheaper models are well made too but with different materials.
As for battery tech, Tesla uses them so we can compare directly between US made Japanese batteries and Chinese ones in the same car. The Chinese ones are better. Faster charging, more power output, less degradation. Some Chinese manufacturers offer a lifetime warranty n
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That's not very high praise. German cars are full of issues that cost a lot of money to fix. Fine if you're in Europe, painful everywhere else.
Mercedes are always throwing codes over even the most minor things as they are so complex they are hard to fix. BMWs, well, just hand over the cash as things are always breaking as well.
Of course, most of those parts used in those German vehicles are made in China, so ...
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Toyota maybe an exception in its almost religious-like pursuit of quality. However, I had nothing but trouble with not just one but two current Honda vehicles, with the engines requiring expensive and frequent engine maintenance and repairs. And the V6 in Pilot literally died without reaching even 100,000 miles. I am really disappointed and won't be a repeat Honda customer again.
The Mexico prices aren't the Chinese prices (Score:2)
AFAICS the BYD cars in Mexico aren't priced much differently from the cheap cars finally coming out of non Chinese manufacturers in the EU (Hyundai Inster, Citroen e-C3, Fiat Grande Panda, Renault 5-etech and Twingo). Sure if BYD would sell their cars at the same price as in China they would be unbeatable, but they don't by a long shot.
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There are shipping, handling, and regulatory compliance costs to consider with importing cars into a different country. Those costs need to be made up.
For example, they need to pay for local dealers, pay local taxes, do local paperwork involving local lawyers, prove regulatory compliance, etc...
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AFAICS the BYD cars in Mexico aren't priced much differently from the cheap cars finally coming out of non Chinese manufacturers in the EU (Hyundai Inster, Citroen e-C3, Fiat Grande Panda, Renault 5-etech and Twingo). Sure if BYD would sell their cars at the same price as in China they would be unbeatable, but they don't by a long shot.
Not really, the Chinese cars are generally at least 10% cheaper, and better value because they are higher quality, have better tech and this at even in entry level variant of the entry level model. Since you mentioned them specifically, the main difference between the BYD variants is generally just the number and power of motors, battery size, more colours and a choice of nicer rims. For example, to get Hyundai with a 360 parking cam I have to buy the Style or Premium variant at a huge price increase over t
I hope so (Score:2)
"now selling China-made electric vehicles, saying it could be "a potentially grave threat to the North American auto industry."
One can only dream. Has the US auto industry considered selling affordable cars? They're not supposed to cost more than a cheap house.
Re:I hope so (Score:4, Funny)
Good news, houses have become expensive even faster than cars! /s
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Has the US auto industry considered selling affordable cars? They're not supposed to cost more than a cheap house.
Where I live, a cheap shitty moldy house in a subsidence zone is more than $100k. And yeah I'm in California, but this is one the cheaper parts of the state that actually has good weather (despite some beliefs to the contrary, pretty much all of the good weather in CA is on the coast.)
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Yup... (Score:5, Interesting)
But in the years to come it may be difficult to explain to consumers in the United States why they're not allowed to buy inexpensive electric vehicles that are readily available across the border, especially if they're made in Mexico, which already manufactures millions of cars for the United States.
In the YEAR to come it may be difficult to explain to US purchasers why cars are even more "too expensive" to purchase than they currently are.
Twenty-five percent tariffs will bring US domestic car production to its knees both on the manufacturing side and on the selling side. Canadian raw materials and parts that go into US-made cars will be hit with 25% tariffs, while cars going from the US to Canada and Mexico will be hit with 25% retaliatory tariffs. US vehicles will be even more unaffordable than they currently are, both at home and abroad.
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You'd think people would stop thinking about what Trump says because it's always some part LIE and childishly simplistic if not imbecilic and always at least moronic (because he's an actual moron. look it up.) Trumps words are never actually followed because it's so incredibly stupid; it becomes the marketing cover for what is going to happen, similar to his "high quality American bibles" etc.
Last time Trump would try ignorant insanity and his staff, party, and propaganda channels would correct and sanitiz
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Chinese subsidies (Score:3)
"The Chinese government has long subsidized carmakers with the goal of becoming a major auto exporter," notes the New York Times
And conveniently avoid mentioning what the US governments have accomplished:
* In the competition between [US] states and localities for new automotive jobs and investment, economic development incentives often play an integral role in influencing corporate location decisions. Incentives -- which can take the form of cash grants; tax credits, exemptions or abatements; free or discounted land and buildings; and employment training assistance (among others) -- are able to materially offset the large upfront investments required by many production facilities, mitigate risks, and/or reduce projected operating costs. To provide direct financial assistance to win highly competitive projects, some state legislatures have set aside large sums of money -- often called “deal closing funds” or “governor’s funds” -- for the purpose of attracting new jobs and investment [blsstrategies.com]. Stipulations such as pay-for-performance measures (under which job creation and investment milestones must be achieved before cash payments are received) are commonplace for these programs. Cash grant awards can range from several hundred thousand dollars to $10 million (or more) depending on the state and the project.
* Example 1: Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) [texaswideo...siness.com], with typical awards ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 per job depending on the number of jobs created, average annual wage, capital investment and availability of funds.
* Example 2: The Michigan Business Development Program (MBDP) [michiganbusiness.org] is another discretionary cash grant program that has been used by the automotive industry quite frequently.
* Example 3: Kentucky offers a discretionary refund of sales and use taxes (currently 6%) paid on building and construction materials through its Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act (KEIA) [thinkkentucky.com].
At the federal level, "In May 2009, Treasury provided $1.9 billion to Chrysler [google.com] (Old Chrysler) under a debtorinpossession financing agreement for assistance during its bankruptcy proceeding. Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy in June 2009 as a newly formed entity, Chrysler Group LLC (New Chrysler)" as part of the 2008 auto industry bail out [wikipedia.org], while "Tesla empire separately benefited from about $4.9 billion in government subsidies [usatoday.com]."
So somehow in the mind of American media, government, and people, it is entirely OK for the US governments to subside its industry but not OK for Chinese? And don't even mention those American programmes when bashing China. This is not about "what-aboutism"; this is about hypocrisy and hate. (Oh by the way, it is actually a lot more reasonable for China to do these programmes because China has been and still is a developing country, as measured in per capita GDP.)
Americans should look at the mirror.
Obviously (Score:2)
The rest of the car-making world has been asleep or pushing crappy futuristic designs only (Tesla). So for actual value-for-money China rules in that space and will continue to do so for a long time. And no, I do not find that a good state of affairs. But denying reality does not change it.
Buy in Mexico and drive to the US? (Score:2)
I'm wondering if I could buy a Chinese car in Mexico, register it there and then drive it to the US?
Technically, I wouldn't be "importing" it, just traveling to the US to "sight see".
I could return to my "home country" of Mexico regularly.
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If you have residency there, and spend more of your time there, yes. If you spend most of your time here, and the feds notice (or if you are spending most of the rest of your time in CA, the state as well) then they will want you to start paying taxes on everything here and register your car here but won't let you register it, bummer.
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Probably. Cops rarely pull people over anymore.
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Until you are in an accident, doesn't matter who's at fault. The insurance companies will be motivated to decide where you are resident, deny your claim and perhaps get you charged with using an illegally registered car, $500+ fine here.
Disposal (Score:2)
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Outright Ban (Score:2)
American car makers will lobby for i and will probably be successful.
The problem is everything in the USA costs more than the rest of the world. Until this changes (It will eventually, but it won't be pretty), large corporations will fight tooth and nail to protect their business models.tooth
Supply and demand (Score:2)
Chinese increase supply (cheaper), rest of the countries increase demand (more expensive) by giving tax breaks and such. Guess which is better.
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I've been really looking into a lightly used Kia Niro EV. 2022 models are bottoming out at $20k. There aren't many good cheap used cars these days. In the past I would always spend maybe $5k and buy the car outright and have it for years.
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If you can't afford a used car you're probably in the target audience for the city bus.
Used car prices have gone up a lot, but the practicality of taking the bus hasn't. I need a car to get to work, the bus will not get me there at a useful time. Even if I could take the bus it would take an extra hour and a half of my day versus driving. But let them eat cake, amirite?
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Obviously, if that's a problem you haven't pulled yourself up by own bootstraps enough, you slacker! </sarcasm>
Personally, I'm a bit torn between allowing Chinese EVs because if China is subsidizing them that much, let them give us money, on the other hand, need to keep a domestic manufacturer going so that they can't just jack prices up later.
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We should subsidize absolutely 100% of our businesses all the way down to the Mom and Pop outfits by one simple stroke, abolishing the income taxes. Trump has spoken favorably of that, pointing out that the country's most wild, insane economic growth occurred from 1865 to 1900, was called the gilded age, and was done with no income taxes impacting any such growth.
We would all have much higher take-home pay, and about 18% - 22% of the price of any US manufactured item is composed of the income tax expenses
Re:Maybe here too (Score:5, Informative)
Trump has spoken favorably of that, pointing out that the country's most wild, insane economic growth occurred from 1865 to 1900, was called the gilded age, and was done with no income taxes impacting any such growth.
We would all have much higher take-home pay
We had the highest average take home pay when the rich paid taxes at a much higher rate.
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We had the highest average take home pay when the rich paid taxes at a much higher rate.
If taxes had remained the same as they were in the 1970's there not only would be no deficit today, there would be no federal debt.
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No, we didn't, not even if you limit the figure to production / nonsupervisory workers:
https://www.aei.org/articles/h... [aei.org]
So, yeah, workers have only recently exceeded the purchasing power of 1973, which is a joke considering how much GDP growth there has been. So, inequality has certainly increased a lot. (I'm also wondering if there is a surprise built into your metric for "take-home" pay.)
Looking at that grap
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No, we didn't, not even if you limit the figure to production / nonsupervisory workers:
Uh, weren't the rich paying much higher rates back in the '70s? That would have his statement as "true until very recently", with only the shocks/after-effects of covid raising incomes enough to exceed that point.
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I don't think we can do these things at all except all at once.
The conventional wisdom is one thing at a time, but that doesn't work when everything is interconnected.
The wealthy want us to waste money on pointless wars because they get a piece of that. If we want to stop wasting money on pointless wars, eating the rich is how we do that. It's not either-or, it's all or nothing.
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Agreed. https://apnews.com/article/isr... [apnews.com]
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"Eat the rich" is a distraction from a fundamental problem of government overspending. If you tax the rich only to waste more Billions on pointless wars, then you are not ahead. Step 1 is getting spending under control.
Spending is under control. The problem is that all the spending cuts have gone to the wealthy in lower taxes. So the rest of us are paying the same or higher taxes for fewer services. Sure, we all have our favorite examples of "wasteful spending" and pointless wars should be on the top of the list. But when they finally pull the trigger the "savings" will all end up in the pocket of the upper 10%.
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EITC and such would add a *1.1 or so to it.
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If you used to be able to afford a car and now can't, that's a reduction in standard of living and a failure of your country's politics. In ideal circumstances, wages keep pace with inflation.
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I don’t like being in debt.
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Except tariffs are going to make those battery plants expensive. Perhaps China will give us a better deal on minerals then America's 25% tariffs which will mean retaliatory tariffs.
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maybe Canada will open the doors to these cars too
Do you understand that these Chinese cars are a) connected b) can collect all kinds of information c) can be remotely disabled (and maybe even controlled if equipped with self-driving features).
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They really have reached feature parity with American cars hey?
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A) All of the things they lease already are.
B) All of the things they lease already do.
C) All of the things they lease already can be.
They own nothing, and don't care.
If China wants into the US market it simply do what the drug cartels do: Have Americans take it across the border themselves.
Re: Maybe here too (Score:2)
Why so complicated with Mexico? Tariff laws are so stupid. China could bring a partly assembled car in, overseas, as raw parts. And, do some final assembly in the USA. That's essentially what others like GM already do! Subsidizing American "jobs" of turning a final wrench, so Americans can feel good about themselves or pat themselves on the back or something...
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Re: Maybe here too (Score:4, Informative)
They wonâ(TM)t pass inspection in any civilized country. The EU had to craft specialized exceptions for these $20k EVs that specify things like airbags, ABS and rear view cameras are not required. These things are hurtling down the autobahn without any modern safety features.
their cheapest model (the $18k dolphin mini mentioned in tfa) has 6 airbags in the base version, abs (as part of ipb, aswell as crbs and ebd) and rear view camera. specs here:
https://www.byd.com/mx/car/dol... [byd.com]
https://www.byd.com/content/da... [byd.com] (pdf)
btw, they claim "Euro NCAP 5 stars". what "specialized exceptions" are you talking about? afaik the only thing that the eu has done is slamming a 35% tariff on them, which is why i expect to be hurtling an used diesel engine car down the autobahn for the time being (which is much more polluting and has apparently much less security features than current byds, but then again the eu seems to have a weird set of priorities lately).
Re: Maybe here too (Score:2)
If it's $18k MSRP, technically you should be able to stack a $7,500 federal EV credit on top of that, and any state credit. That's why they are tariffed to death. Because EV cars should be this dirt cheap, but instead are held to high luxury prices so that way Elon Musk can get richer, and Americans can feel better about themselves working in an essentially upside down job.
Re: US Automakers and Musk? (Score:2)
Against subsidies as well. As he says, if they're there, then it's stupid not to take them.
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On one hand, a lot of them are made in MX now. On the other...
https://motorlease.com/article... [motorlease.com]
Re: US Automakers and Musk? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Oh it is sooo rich to hear all this "bodily autonomy" screeching for the very same crowd who 4 years ago wanted to put anyone who refused "the shot" into camps.
Quit lying and playing the victim. No one cares about your high school dropout opinion on medical science.
Normally I wouldn't care about what people want to do with their bodies
You're obviously a Trump voter. You want abortion illegal and criminalized. You 100% care what people do with their bodies. Again, quit lying.
Plus where do you stand on raw milk and people consuming it? Just want to make sure you are consistent with your beliefs
If they can make abortion illegal, why not make consuming raw milk illegal? You're killing cells, asshole.
Re: US Automakers and Musk? (Score:2)
If I'm transexual and stand next to, you won't "catch transexualism".
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That's what happens when someone takes your money. They have it, you don't. Why is it so hard for you to understand the concerns of crime victims?
Re: Non-Chinese automakers need to step up (Score:3)
All the US, Japan, Korea, and Europe need to compete on the low end with China is to massively subsidize car manufactures.
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We need to develop battery technology and supply chains.
Toyota might be able to get ahead if their solid state battery tech pans out.
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If a non-Chinese automaker made a "small but capable four-door electric compact" for $18K, I'd buy one.
But so long as they try to push over-priced, over-sized SUVs and other stupidly large and expensive vehicles on us... no thanks.
They already have, the BYD Seagull [electrifying.com] is just one example. The EU version is expected to cost less than EUR 20.000, a hypothetical US variant might be a little cheaper.
BYD is Chinese, he specified non-Chinese (Score:2)
BYD is Chinese though...
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Another advantage. At least with China you know where you stand and they'll stab you in the front instead of the back and you have a chance of dodging.
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The Dongfeng EV EX1 is distributed outside China since 2021 as Renault Kwid E-Tech (Latin America) or Dacia Spring (Europe). Checking the Dacia website, the base model is currently sold 16,900 € (Germany), 17,900 € (Spain, Italy) 18,900 € (France).
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What would be nice is a relatively low tech vehicle, with modern safety features. Yes, it take a number of items to do auto-braking and such, but a vehicle doesn't have to be so needlessly complicated that a board failure somewhere among the hundreds of modules can render a vehicle into scrap.
If a car maker could do things like have a straight windshield, so replacements can be made by any glass shop, body on frame construction (EVs already get a pass on weight, might as well add a bit more for repairabili