Is it a level playing field? In China workers rights are pretty non-existent and there’s no OSHA equivalent, at least not to the degree we have in the US. Then add in government subsidies, lower worker pay, reduced R&D costs because they pilfered the engineering from a US company, and you end up with a very lopsided market.
To be clear, I am in no way defending the US auto industry. They have little customer loyalty for a reason – low quality, overpriced, subscription dependent vehicles with terrible warranties, expensive service requirements, and invasive telemetry. They need more competition to force them to make more consumer-friendly decisions, but China is hardly a fair competitor.
BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
GM received more than $7 billions of subsidies and around $50 billions of “Federal loans, loan guarantees and bailout assistance”.
US auto manufacturers are getting their fair share of subsidies.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
To be fair GM sold or closed a lot of its brands and foreign subsidiaries, and paid back the loan.
I fucking hate what the IS auto industry has historically and is currently doing (making constantly bigger and more expensive trucks in a time we need smaller lighter EVs), but it’s actually a bit different from the SpaceX or EV credit subsidies and more of a low interest loan.
The US has far too many dispersed rural towns for public transit to cover. Yes we need more high speed rail and light rail, but we’re gonna need personal cars because of distances, weather and employment practices for a long time still. And there’s no reason they need to be 3 ton high soeed blind spots.