this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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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.
It's really just a matter of time till Chinese manufacturers set up in Mexico and the US will have to accept Chinese EVs because of NAFTA. The US also has lots of range anxiety about EVs that I don't see as much in other markets. Being 120v and sprawling with limited government willingness to build infrastructure, with no requirements for rentals to add chargers makes a perfect storm for that fear.
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.
Li-ion cells, computers, solar panels... all of these are american inventions that capitalist entities moved to China to maximize profits.
Japan did it. Korea did it. China is doing it.