Chinese vehicles suck. Here in mexico they’re all over the place, and their quality is questionable. MGs are a joke now. Good for the US to block these imports.
Comment on US to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs next week
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 1 month ago
God forbid anyone get a cheap EV before US car companies sort out which $50,000+ car brand can position itself as the “luxury” one before accepting that they need to build cheaper models.
MadBigote@lemmy.world 1 month ago
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m more annoyed that basically every western car company tried to make a $70,000 luxury EV to upscale their brand instead of making a sensible one that people will actually buy. If we want widespread adoption, we need more EVs that aren’t priced based on some pipe dream that people will wake up one day and think Ford is a luxury brand.
MadBigote@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The tech for EVs is not quite there yet. Most technologies/services star as a luxury ok this cases where the manufacturing costs are still too high. For example Uber, which started as a luxury service before being widespread with the shitty service they became.
That’s one of the reasons why I hope my country sets restrictions on these Chinese EVs, as there is not enough infrastructure in Mexico for EVs to even existe, and we can’t produce enough energy for them to be a viable solution for transportation. Heck, I’m even with Toyota and believe EVs are not a tech we should be investing in, and the world will not move to EVs as a widespread mode of transportation. i certainly hope so, because people buying EVs thinking they are the most green solution are not seeing the elephant in the room.
ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I mean, we need to stop taking carbon out of the ground and lighting it on fire so it becomes atmospheric carbon. I’m not expecting middle income countries to carry the load but it’s way easier in a rich country like the U.S. or E.U. to switch to electric and switch power generation to renewables or nuclear than it is to (for instance) convince everyone to stop eating beef.
In no way do I think electric cars by themselves to solve the problem. It’s gotta be a comprehensive strategy. I live in a place that’s prone to hurricanes (New Orleans) and I added solar+batter to my house and got a plugin hybrid. It’s actually better because every few years, a storm knocks out the power grid for a few days and I can still juice up my car an bit and air condition at least one room. So, oil/gas power is unreliable for me when I need it most. But we’re on the front lines, being below sea level, and everyone is going to get there if we keep lighting carbon on fire and making carbon dioxide.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Bullshit. The EX30 is here and selling for 35,000. The tech is mature, they just don’t want to serve the average consumer.
hark@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If these Chinese vehicles suck so much, why are US car companies so afraid of them?
MadBigote@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Cuz China is well known for subsidizing production (well the US kinda does it too for some productos anyway). I personally wouldn’t buy a Chinese vehicle out of security and quality concerns, regardless of it being Ev or not.
hark@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If the vehicles are so low quality and dangerous, then it wouldn’t be the job of tariffs but of bans, since there are minimum safety standards that still apply.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 month ago
MGs were already a joke though.
31337@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I think part of the problem is that new cars are bought mostly by fairly well-off individuals; with other people buying used cars. Economy cars sell poorly in the U.S.
miridius@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The Chinese ones are cheap because they’re being subsidised by the Chinese govt to be sold that cheaply overseas as a deliberate economic attack tho
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The Chinese state isn’t selling cars under the cost of construction. The subsidies come in the form of cheap (increasingly nuclear) energy, publicly funded STEM/trade schools, and public health care. These socialized benefits reduce the real cost of living in China and grow the domestic consumer car market, along with lowering the per-unit production costs.
American car companies have long been hobbled by the obscene cost of employment benefits - high salaries to cover housing costs and student debts, high private insurance premiums, high administration overhead, the constant need to fund stock buybacks in order to keep the value of their stock-incentives up. The deal with the devil they cut with Truman - to make medical insurance a private tax write-off rather than a public good - combined with the enormous Reagan Era tax cuts and rapidly metasticizing private health industry administrative overhead, drives up the cost of each vehicle by thousands of dollars.
This sucks for the car companies, but is fucking awesome for the FIRE sector. And since 30% of the US GDP is tied up in financing, insurance, and real estate growth, our private automotive industry is effectively forced to subsidize their profits. That’s what makes American cars so expensive relative to their East Asian peers.
hark@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Meanwhile the US doesn’t subsidize (or even bail out) its too-big-to-fail auto companies, right? If you consider affordable products a deliberate economic attack, what do you call the extreme price gouging that the American auto companies are carrying out?