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this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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It does sadly. On the flip side, China seems to be trying to capture car manufacturing markets by subsidizing their producers. This would probably be a bad thing in the future if allowed. Hopefully the US government does more work on making it easier to purchase electric cars in the US(specifically the price) while also reducing the need for driving.
What exactly is wrong with a country subsidizing green energy products? Not only that, but making them available cheaply to other countries?
The US Government doesn't want US automakers to lose market share so that they have plenty of manufacturing capacity that could be retooled to make weapons in case of war.
Makes sense. Also petro-profits.
When a trillion dollars a year doesn't commit enough warcrimes :(
I’m not precisely sure where I stand on this, but I understand the primary policy arguments for this decision would be something like this:
The problem comes later, when a specific actor has an outsized market share and then exploits their trade advantage for other concessions.
It also prohibits domestic competition for those products, especially in countries with high standards of living and wages. This negates competition and innovation, since most corporations don’t have the ability to compete with an entity with the capacity to eat cost like the Chinese government.
The point of trade decisions, is to import products you don't have enough domestic production to cover the demand for.
We know that the US auto and oil industries have no sincere desire to build EVs anyway (or any green industry whatsoever), because they did their best to kill their domestic production of EVs in the 90s, and there's no US industry for solar panels.
This is all just part of the US's trade war with China, that is prioritizing the profits of its auto and oil industries over the wellbeing of the environment, and the desires of its citizens for electric vehicles.
I can’t say I disagree with anything you’ve said. It really is silly, given the US auto manufacturer industry’s continuous fuck ups, and pulling out of EVs. But hopefully this makes risk taking more likely in other countries’ car industries to move into the US market. Tesla seemed close to really catching on, but then again EVs have always been seen as “elite” here.
But I suppose the question is whether there is that much demand for EVs? This could protect what demand there is, to at least make an even playing field for US or US ally made EVs.
Speaking to your first point: users of Lemmy aside, I don’t think there’s that much demand for pure electric vehicle yet across the US. We so routinely travel such long distances here, and charging infrastructure just isn’t quite there outside of urban corridors to facilitate the easy usage of fully electric vehicles.
So hopefully this can protect domestic or other countries’ industries until the idiots that comprise the US consumer market catch up to global realities.
Remove the tariffs / open up the market and you'll find out. I suspect that there wouldn't be a need for these tariffs if the demand wasn't there.
it undermines any less subsidized green energy industry which can lead to monopolies in the long run.
They're oversaturating the market with low-quality products. This can be a significant problem when there are safety implications.
I'm sorry but this argument doesn't make sense. Don't you have safety rules in the US? If the Chinese cars aren't safe to drive nobody should be authorized to drive them in the first place. If they are safe, no need for tariffs then.
This decision has absolutely nothing to do with alleged poor manufacturing quality. It's protectionism, pure and simple.
Why can’t they just certify cars based on safety and ban unsafe ones instead of blanket ban the entire segment of them. It certainly helps the adoption of EV among masses.
This is what the NHTSA has done since its formation in 1970.
It sounds you’re still stuck in the 1990s. Where do our iPhones and other smartphones and our laptops come from? Where do many of the parts in our cars come from? What country has more high speed rail than every other combined? What country has its own space station?
The Chinese cars are probably much safer on the road then the huge pedestrian killing machines built by US manufacturers.
Truck SUV moment:
Also no US auto-manufacturer is going all in on EVs, they're all mostly building gas-guzzling oversized trucks and SUVs. US automakers intentionally killed EVs in the 90s, and hoped no other country would start building them.
Tesla? Rivian? Lucid? Faraday? Fisker?
To be clear, yes, of course I understand that those are all luxury brands, but that doesn't make your statement any less false.
No, the major auto manufacturers aren't going all-in on EVs, but that are all getting deeper every year. There's no reason to expect that progress to slow down, as they're all quite entrenched in the technology at this point.
Average new car cost is $55,821, and average cost of ownership is $12,182.
The American manufacturers do not want lower prices. Dealerships don't like electrics because there's less maintenance.
I mean, of course the explicitly EV-making startups are going to be all-in on EVs. The distinguishing feature that makes them not count compared to [established] US auto manufacturers isn't that their stuff is luxury, it's that they didn't exist before and have no previous internal-combustion product line to pivot away from.
What companies have gone all in on EV making that isn't a relatively new company/startup?
A US automotive reviewer goes to a Beijing EV expo, and compares the state of US and Chinese EV production.
While true, the cost differentials go much deeper, and they affect all products & services.
Michael Hudson: America’s Neoliberal Financialization Policy vs. China’s Industrial Socialism