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Biden really, really doesn’t want China to flood the US with cheap EVs (www.theverge.com)

submitted 5 months ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 82 points 5 months ago

American car companies honestly deserve to get obliterated here, sorry it is capitalism shrugs.

If you make shitty cars that are totally out of sync with what the world needs and that makes you massively lose against a country that is willing to actually make practical EVs... then your company deserves to go out of business.

[-] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 43 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The last time this happened it was Japanese cars, and the US auto industry failed and got bailed out. I expect that to happen again with Chinese EVs.

The ability to make cars involves a lot of skills that can have military applications. There's a reason car factories were converted to build basically everything in WWII, and the US won't give up that ability for national security reasons. So our auto industry can't fail, and will be propped up by the government.

[-] Uranium3006@kbin.social 18 points 5 months ago

nationalize them and force EV product lines and then spin off as a worker co-op

[-] DdCno1@kbin.social 5 points 5 months ago

I have to wonder if people are serious with these absurd suggestions or what on Earth you are trying to achieve by writing this. This is about as realistic at demanding that America should build a second moon entirely out of cheese.

[-] jonne@infosec.pub 23 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yeah, it's so much better to just write checks to failing companies. Obama bailed out GM without any preconditions.

What if instead the government took the equivalent amount of ownership and put them on the path to building EVs? GM could've been Tesla without the Musk issue. And the public shares could've either been kept by the government, sold on the market later on or turned over to the workers so they could have someone on the board.

None of this is an outlandish phantasy, other countries did similar.

[-] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

What if instead the government took the equivalent amount of ownership and put them on the path to building EVs? GM could’ve been Tesla without the Musk issue.

In 2009, $/kwh prices were astronomical. There is a reason the Model 3 didn't exist until 2017. Trying to make that car back in 2009 would have been a catastrophically awful idea.

You guys have to stop with these suicidal ideas.

[-] jonne@infosec.pub 6 points 5 months ago

The Tesla roadster was released in 2008, and electricity has always been cheaper than the equivalent in petrol.

[-] DdCno1@kbin.social 5 points 5 months ago

This user meant the price per kWh of battery capacity. The Tesla Roadster was little more than an expensive proof of concept that was vastly inferior compared to the Lotus Elise it was based on.

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[-] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The US government forcing GM to make a $100,000 luxury EV in 2008/9 would have been so laughably bad I can't put it into words. And yes, the $/kwh of batteries was terrible then, why do you think EVs were so damn expensive in 2009?

[-] Uranium3006@kbin.social 3 points 5 months ago

Neoliberal brain can't allow anything good to actually happen

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[-] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yeah, that suggestion is hysterically nonviable for a plethora of reasons. Even joking about that would eviscerate the average politician. Not even just the average American politician, the average European politician would get wrecked for such a nonviable idea.

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

What kind of cheese? Are private citizens allowed to go there and fill our pockets? Or is it government cheese and we wouldn’t want to

[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 months ago

Absolutely they'll get bailed out. They know they're "too big to fail" and will make stupid short term decisions based on the fact that they won't have to deal with their own nonsense further down the road.

[-] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago

All of these comments about CCP subsidies and flooding the market with cheap goods are hilarious, considering fossil fuels have received several trillion (with a capital T) in subsidies every year for generations, and the fact that most of the products you buy are already manufactured in China.

If we didn't want this to happen our governments should have invested in clean tech R&D and industries decades ago, and prevented "globalization" from offshoring everything to China. This is our governments and corporations fault... They've already had their cake, now they want to eat it too.

[-] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

All of these comments about CCP subsidies and flooding the market with cheap goods are hilarious, considering fossil fuels have received several trillion (with a capital T) in subsidies every year for generations, and the fact that most of the products you buy are already manufactured in China.

Great point especially because the biggest way the US has subsidized fossil fuels isn’t even the trillions of dollars, it is the subsidization of fossil fuels through the foreclosure of young people’s future and every single generation after that running for thousands of years out into the indefinite future.

[-] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago

I just worry that, as always, we the customers will bear brunt of this. Cheap EVs flooding the market is what American car companies deserve but if it's all garbage wish . Com versions of Teslas then American consumers don't deserve to have yet another disposable commodity forced on them. If the course of action follows we'll have shit overpriced EVs and almost no real selection.

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[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago

Tell me you don’t understand the geopolitical context without telling me you don’t understand the geopolitical context

[-] Zehzin@lemmy.world 30 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The new tariffs are also expected to apply to other clean energy goods, like solar panels and critical minerals

This is the worse news. Cheap consumer level solar panels have been a game changer

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago

To an extent absolutely. The problem on both fronts however is that China's government heavily subsidizing both. Makes it impossible good or bad for others to compete. Being overprotective of anti-competitive capitalists is definitely the wrong move however.

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 16 points 5 months ago

Massive subsidies to destroy competition is also anti competitive. I have no love of the US auto industry and their many failings but maybe a tarrif tied to the amount the good was subsidized might help prevent that practise.

I haven't really thought it through though so I'm sure there are many nuances I haven't considered.

[-] Eldritch@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

Yes that was the greater point I was getting at. China isn't some big fuzzy good guy. I'm no fan of the major American Auto manufacturers. But there is good reason that they're doing this. Even if I think they would do better trying to become more competitive. There's only so much they can do without similar subsidy from local governments.

[-] Shiggles@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 months ago

The first one that comes to mind is China absolutely does not tell anyone else the level of subsidization.

[-] DdCno1@kbin.social 8 points 5 months ago

Which is why the EU is also starting to clamp down on this (finally).

[-] Uranium3006@kbin.social 6 points 5 months ago

panels are important. if the US doesn't like it we should open solar panel factories here

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 22 points 5 months ago

This is an interesting situation where I disagree personally but agree geopolitically. It's strong for the domestic economic to keep US automakers competitive.

But damn, cheap EVs would be really fucking nice.

[-] madcaesar@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

My biggest problem with China is that they want to sell to us, but won't allow us to sell to them and they are stealing IPs left and right.

I'm all for lowering prices for consumers, but not at the expense of enriching the tyrannical CCP.

We need to improve and encourage trade with governments that believe in democracy.

Russia and China ain't it.

[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 11 points 5 months ago

The thing with China imo is that part of the reason they've been so attractive for manufacturing has been that it's cheaper there, and the reason that it's cheaper there has been lower wages and lower safety standards. That's bad for pretty much everyone except for companies making stuff in China, and consumers getting stuff cheaper than is probably viable with more ethical labor practices (and even then it's not really much of a benefit to them, because those people need jobs too and so the negative impact there offsets that). It is sadly ironic that a country who's stated ideology originally claimed to be in the interests of labor (not that it actually was, but they talked that way), has made it's competitive advantage in the global economy pretty much be being a way around labor protections and unions.

Something I could see being potentially useful, then, would be a tariff policy that was roughly "if you make stuff using labor that's significantly lower paid than our wages, or with worse safety standards, we raise the price to be around what it would be if it had been made to our labor standards, so that there is no advantage in not keeping things fair for our workforce and yours". I've never really been a fan of things like tariffs, because I know that they mainly just make things more expensive and can reduce pressure to compete by domestic companies, but at the same time, the current system both makes the US dependent on goods made by exploited foreign workers as most people don't have good enough jobs to afford much better than that which is made cheap by that exploitation, and incentives those foreign countries to keep their people trapped in those conditions and not raise standards, to avoid losing that competitive advantage to another country that does not.

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Yeah that is something that bothers me. A lot of the affordability isn't necessarily because of lower quality imo, but because they pay shit wages. It's why labor is cheaper in China and companies want to outsource there. They don't pay their workers adequately or have the and level of workplace protections.

[-] bquintb@midwest.social 16 points 5 months ago

Well I don't want to pay 30k dollars for a freaking car

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[-] mechoman444@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago

The thing is ev's are as affordable as how much you're paying for your current car PLUS GAS.

I drive 30 to 40k a year due to work. My previous car was a regular gas powered 2021 Kia Sportage. It got 26 to 28 mpg. I paid 500 a month for it plus around 800 for gas a month. That's 1300 dollars a month for my gas which doesn't include maintenance, tires, repairs and insurance.

I bought a 2023 VW ID4 and pay 800 a month for it and don't pay for gas. It's about an additional 100 for charging exclusively at home aside from an occasional charge at the fast charger here and there.

I'm saving 400 a month because I don't have to buy gas. So even though my payment is way more and the car is double the cost of my previous car I'm still saving money.

I would suspect this could be an option for many people. We have to stop looking at EVs as just cars in and of themselves and start taking into account that we don't have to put gas in them.

[-] BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

$800/mo in GASOLINE. You spend half what I make in a month to drive.

[-] mechoman444@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Dude. I'm sorry man. 1600 bucks a month in my opinion is working for free. I don't know what country you live in but disability pays better than that in America.

Also, did spend. I no longer buy gas and it's a kind of freedom I can't even begin to describe.

[-] AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

Please be electric trains, please be electric trains, please be electric trains

[-] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 months ago

So long as they are grid based and not using batteries I will agree. The incessant want to shove fucking batteries into everything is real stupid sometimes.

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[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 9 points 5 months ago

This is what you should expect when your businesses and government not only refuse to adapt to new technology, but actually go out of their way to hinder it. You don't want to embrace change and adapt? Fine. You'll be replaced by those who do.

[-] cooljacob204@kbin.social 10 points 5 months ago

You mean all the tech they quiet literally stole from Tesla and others?

China isn't innovating here. It's cheaper because they use extremely cheap parts and labor.

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[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Holy christ the media is overall doing a completely shit job of clearly presenting what’s actually going on here. I’ll help:

The PRC is engaging in economic warfare by heavily subsidizing export EV production costs for basically all of their car manufacturers, in the interest of pushing literally everyone else out of the market.

That’s it. That’s the story.

It is entirely rational and justified to enact trade protections to combat those tactics.

And before anyone tries to gatcha me on being pro-American car manufacturer or whatever: again, no. The split is China/not-China. They’re undercutting EVERYONE else intentionally.

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[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 5 points 5 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Chinese auto industry is the largest in the world, and roughly 30 percent of the country’s vehicle sales are electric.

Most of the world’s EV batteries are manufactured in China, and many of the country’s most popular models have been praised for their design, functionality, and price.

Earlier this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who sells most of his cars in China — warned that Chinese manufacturers would “demolish” domestic rivals without trade barriers.

The concern is that Chinese EVs are so cheap — BYD’s Seagull sells for around $10,000 — that domestic automakers couldn’t possibly compete.

And earlier this year, the administration launched an investigation into the potential security risks posed by smart car technology produced in China.

The new tariffs are also expected to apply to other clean energy goods, like solar panels and critical minerals, the Journal reports.

The original article contains 480 words, the summary contains 138 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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this post was submitted on 10 May 2024

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