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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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They are too expensive. But only because auto manufacturers are only making midsized and larger suvs or luxury cars. The average price of an EV has dropped over 50% in China since 2015. That would have been tough for us to match, mostly because of batteries, but we could have made much more progress than we have.
The electric grid isn't nearly as unprepared as people say. Sure, we need to build out more charging stations, but the grid as a whole far exceeds current needs. In fact, nationwide electrical usage is actually trending down in the US because of efficiency gains. Better building codes, heat pumps, LED lighting, if it uses electricity newer stuff is more efficient. If we had sold 8 times as many EVs in 2023 than we did, electricity usage would have stayed about flat.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/02/02/the-us-added-1-2-million-evs-to-the-grid-last-year-electricity-use-went-down/
Here's the story as I understand it. US automakers want to make expensive premium cars because those sell for high margins. The big breakthrough in the EV market over the past few years has been China EV makers figuring out how to make cheap and "good-enough" EVs, which are catching on in many places across the world. This is clearly the direction in which the market has to move (whether via Chinese or non-Chinese automakers) to spur mass EV adoption. In the US, however, the established automakers can rely on protectionism to block imports, this keeping the US market limited to big expensive cars that remain using ICEs.
They just announced that's the plan actually
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas-byd-plans-new-electric-vehicle-plant-mexico-says-nikkei-2024-02-13/
it sounds like maybe they should, idk? work on making their own garbage cheaper then? that soley sounds like a competition problem not a consumer problem. As long as the cars meet US safety standards for manufactoror I embrace the competition
Billionaires love laissez-faire capitalism until it comes to bite them in the ass
The geopolitical calculus here is about manufacturing.
If China owns EV production lines, that gives them the drone advantage in the next war, as the Li-ion battery is the hard thing to make in a drone.
If USA has EV lines, even if it's more expensive, we have the resources to make drones as well. (Or Li-ion batteries in other useful weapons).
Ceeding the military advantage to the Chinese for some cheap consumer goods is a bad tradeoff, especially as China is building a Navy to fight us in Taiwan.
Japan did it. Korea did it. China is doing it.