Capitalism is all about competition unless it’s not.
Why Americans Can’t Buy the World’s Best Electric Car
Submitted 2 days ago by Davriellelouna@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Wolf@lemmy.today 9 hours ago
Capitalism isn’t about anything other than keeping the ruling class rich and in power. How it chooses to do that has varied throughout time. During the 20th Century the lie was that “American Style” capitalism was fair because the capitalists would promote Laissez-faire style economics (“Free Trade”) out of their mouths, while actually building monopolies.
With the rise of Trump-style ‘conservatives’ Republicans have adopted a new strategy, Mercantilism. Mercantilism doesn’t even pretend to be fair or free. The word ‘Competition’ doesn’t even appear anywhere in that article because competition is bad for Capitalists and they see no reason to continue to lie about that. They actively oppose free trade.
Even if ‘Capitalists’ possessed the ability to feel shame for being hypocrites (which they certainly do not), calling them out for not following along with the principles of ‘the free market’ does no good since they have abandoned advocating for that a while ago.
kebab@endlesstalk.org 9 hours ago
Would be great if the competition was not about stealing others’ technologies
Zetta@mander.xyz 9 hours ago
I’d argue that a critical piece of competition for all nations has always been stealing knowledge and technology.
thatradomguy@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Bill Gates has entered the chat.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
<Page Not Found> on your link. But yeah it sounds like that would be great.
gizmonicus@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
Good. Fuckem. They make shitty, oversized trucks that are a danger to pedestrians and people who drive reasonably sized cars anyway.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 21 hours ago
My boss in the UK got one. In bright red. It looks like he’s driving a fucking fire engine.
GingerGoodness@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
My old boss was a huge man who went around in a little yellow convertible. We called him Noddy.
May I suggest calling him Fireman Sam?
Unrelated@feddit.nl 14 hours ago
The Chinese too know how to make unnecessary large cars, unfortunately.
Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
So free markets are a terrible idea now and countries practicing import substitution weren’t impoverishing their people.
US hypocrisy at it’s finest.
latenightnoir@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Our free market’s good, yours is the problem!
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2 days ago
„Free market“? Speaking of hypocrisy. Chinese car brands are so heavily subsidized they probably cost the Chinese economy more than they make selling them at the moment. China is clearly trying to drown the global market with cheap cars so they can ramp up prices immensely once they have killed the competition and have become a monopoly. China hasn‘t been the extreme low income country to produce super cheaply for a long time and they couldn‘t produce cars this cheap in a free market situation.
Many countries and the EU have measures against such practices because state run operations with the sole purpose to destroy an industry (which this is) undermine the very idea of the free market or even trade relationships.
Alternatively we could start subsiding local car makers and play the same little game China is playing but more cars is honestly the last thing we need right now. Tariffs are a much smoother option to deal with this even when they have a bad rep.
Ideally we use that generated money from tariffs to subsidize public transport so we don‘t get cheaper cars but cheaper alternatives but that‘s still just a dream I‘m afraid.
Whatever the case, one should look at super cheap cars and what that means in the long run more critically.
wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Alternatively we could start subsiding local car makers
We have been. Bailout after bailout. For the longest fucking time, and have had insane trade rules and tarrigs in place for decades and decades. I’d argue this is what another country finally being able to play on a level playing field.
Tiger666@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
We have subsidized the big three many times, and they return nothing back. At this point, they should be nationalized.
You have a very simple way of looking at things and are part of the problem that is going on.
Your ignorance is showing. Tuck it in.
BB84@mander.xyz 1 day ago
If something is being so heavily subsidized, the correct market response is to buy as much as possible, and resell once the prices ramp up.
Setting up tariffs and complaining about subsidies? 100% not the “free market” response. It’s cope.
IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s not a free market.
BYD is heavily subsidized .
FireRetardant@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Pretty sure big oil and car companies have been bailed out by the US government in the past. Plus america designs most of its cities so that you need to own a car. Seems like both markets are equally “free” at the end of the day.
Akasazh@feddit.nl 2 days ago
American car makers famously unsubsidized and holding up their own pants.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Free markets were always a terrible idea, the USA economic system was basically founded on principles of regulation of goods like tea, tobacco, and alcohol.
sturmblast@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Good, let’s do it. I’m tired of our tax money keeping shitty car companies floating.
phx@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
And no competition. I’m pretty sure that they can shave some of the price off from that massive jump that came with COVID due to [checks list] “supply chain issues” and yet never went back down after…
network_switch@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
Tariffs be damned, I will not buy an American brand car. They’ve been mediocre my whole life and it’s always been easier to source parts for Hondas and Toyotas. I’m not sure how repairable any EV is, but I doubt American brands will top the charts of value in repairability in my lifetime
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I’m not sure how repairable EVs are either, since my 2013 Leaf never needed repairs in 12 years. Just tires and wiper blades.
ThePrivacyPolicy@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
Yeah that’s a good point in a sense. Mechanically I think they’re a lot less repairable (or at least a lot less at home repairable), but from the angle of needing repairs, they also need less repairs because most of what tends to fail on ICE vehicles is all the mechanical stuff attached to the engine. Even on my hybrid I repair a ton less and my mechanic said that because all the accessories are electronic since they can’t be belt/chain driven because the engine is off half the time that they’re ultimately more reliable in the end - it’s the mechanical aspects of them that fail on ICE vehicles.
kfox@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Got a subaru as my first non-american car. The old CVT torque converter is wearing out after 120k miles, but she survived being lightly t-boned with just a door repair
Psythik@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Manual swap time
sturmblast@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
After 25 years of other brands I finally went Honda and I can’t believe how happy I am with it. I never have problems.
network_switch@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
Over the years I think Honda and Toyota are the two brands I most commonly see an old guy managing to keep running well for 30+ years and hyper focused on wanting to break 500k miles or dreaming of hitting 1 million miles someday
sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
American made car? Ya, I own a Toyota Sienna. And ya, I don’t think I’d buy an American brand again.
BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org 11 hours ago
How do you like it? It’s on my short list for my next car.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
But it would also help american people. Which is more important, I wonder.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 13 hours ago
Stop giving them more reasons not to allow it
halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 2 days ago
They have never considered actually competing have they?
dinckelman@lemmy.world 1 day ago
They’ve actually done the exact opposite. The lobbying, the import laws, the absence of a foreign export market, and the manufacturing of cars that would never pass safety laws anywhere else, all resulted in the kind of dogshit that Americans have to experience now. Why improve if you’re the only player
ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 1 day ago
They have an export market, its the handful of douchebags in Australia that want compensator trucks
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 1 day ago
Big corporations know very well how competition works and would like to avoid it at all costs.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Former big corporation*
Who also worked primarily in Chinese Automotive industry*
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
They saw what happened in the 70s and said never again will they have to actually compete with better products
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 1 day ago
They do. For example here. Just not in your country.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 day ago
They don’t compete here either.
They’ve stopped producing passenger cars, and the Chicken Tax means they don’t have to compete on trucks.
nucleative@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Couldn’t have a thought further from his mind
NotBillMurray@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Nah man, that’s not the purpose of unrestrained capitalism. The point is to get big enough that you can buy out all the competition, then make your product cheaper and cheaper once there’s no one to compete against. It’s a bit like an economical algae bloom.
scarabic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Detroit is easy to hate but there’s more wrong here than how much can-do energy they wake up in the morning with. If they competed on features and quality they could never compete on price. Everything we do to keep the dollar strong makes it impossible to manufacture here.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Michael Dunne has been competing the entire time, for the Chinese. His statements here aren’t fear, they’re shillery.
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
They saw what happened in the 70s and said never again will they have to actually compete with better products
funkyfarmington@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Maybe GM could, I don’t know, innovate?
drmoose@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
As an European living in Asia and can’t help but cringe at American cars. They’re so far behind.
fishy@lemmy.today 19 hours ago
Agreed. I’m American and think American manufacturers make the ugliest and worst cars. Outside of the Corvette, which remains the best spots car in it’s price range.
outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
They have some wonderful new finamcial products released just this quarter!
AA5B@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Targeted tariffs and protectionism can help a situation like this, combined with subsidies like the ones Trump cancelled, to give legacy manufacturers a temporary respite to retool and innovate. However backtracking on your transition, reverting to the tried and true short term profits is just hiding your head in the sand. GM will find itself increasingly marginalized and more years behind. You can’t hide behind trumps skirt forever
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Dam maybe some of the American automakers who took billions in subsidies should have built cheaper cars instead of the largest trucks possible to skirt regulations.
lightnegative@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I can afford neither, but if I had to save up for one it would be the BYD.
American cars are just large, stupid and inefficient. Also the parts are very expensive here in New Zealand
jaykrown@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I bought a used Chevrolet Bolt '23 which is the closest I could get, they’re still relatively cheap and mine has been working great.
carl_dungeon@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I mean, didn’t Japanese and Korean automakers already do that?
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Yes. They did. That’s called competition. It forces companies to improve by destroying them, except they don’t want that. And politicians don’t want that, cause it makes corruption unstable.
Killed Detroit too, though. But, eh, helped other parts. It’s life.
Thus already in the 90s with the TRON OS a different approach was chosen by US regulators - threaten Japan with sanctions if it’s allowed to compete with Windows inside Japan .
They can’t threaten China, but they can prevent Chinese competitive goods from entering US market and improving its economy again.
Bad economy - poor and stressed people, poor and stressed people - worse political decisions, worse political decisions - good for middlemen which in our age shouldn’t exist frankly. We have the technologies for direct democracy, it’s not 1920s.
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Newsflash: American car manufacturer says “Our cars are crap and overpriced”
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The same thing happened in the 80s with Japan. The Japanese were no longer making crappy cars but small and very reliable, affordable cars. Detroit was still making rust buckets, obsessing over powerful engines with bodies that rotted out and defects galore. Detroit got beaten up badly (Chrysler had to get a gov bailout) until they cleaned up their act and improved their products. Protecting Detroit from competition would’ve just saddled US consumers with decades more of crappy, overpriced, low quality, cars.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
If you’re one of the largest and oldest car manufacturers in the world and the most “innovative” thing you’ve managed to do in the last 20 years is rebrand Buick into a young family brand, then you probably need some good competition.
sommerset@thelemmy.club 1 day ago
So here is the thing.
U lost. The moment I need American people to bail you out, you need to treat American people way way the fuck better.Worker rights, mandatory vacations, work protections, pensions, guaranteed healthcare etc.
thann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
So they dont care about making cars for the world market, they just want regulations to allow them to milk the american market…
RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Six months ago I moved from the US to a country where BYD and other Chinese brands are available. In the past I owned GM cars. The former GM executive is correct. After trying Chinese cars I find it extremely difficult to justify paying 40-60% more for a car made by GM or anyone else.
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Where free market? It will regulate itself /s
markovs_gun@lemmy.world 1 day ago
American cars have sucked compared to Asian cars since the 1970s. I don’t understand why people are acting all surprised that this is true in respect to BYD. Sure in the past products designed in China were stereotyped as poor quality knock offs of western designed goods, but in the past decade Chinese engineers have increasingly proven themselves as perfectly capable of making solid, innovative designs that improve upon those of their competitors. I think it’s kind of fucked up that everyone is so suddenly upset about China’s role in the world economy since everyone was completely fine using them for cheap labor over the past several decades and are just mad that Chinese companies are beating them at high skill labor and technology. Chinese companies do have an “unfair advantage” given how much they are backed by the Chinese government but American companies receive all sorts of money from the government for all sorts of things as well.
Fedditor385@lemmy.world 1 day ago
American manufacturing seems very incapable of change. If things worked this way for decades, why change it? Meanwhile the world moved on and they ask themselves why doesn’t anyone wanna buy american…?
CameronDev@programming.dev 2 days ago
I am pretty sure there is some financial fuckery going on with BYD. My parents own two, and they are very nice, but way under priced compared to every other EV manufacturer.
Can’t prove anything of course, but there is something odd going on when everyone else is 20-30k more expensive.
Hard to feel sorry for GM though, they suckled at our governments (Australia) teet for decades before giving up and leaving entirely. At least if BYD is being propped up we are at least getting good cheap cars from it.
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 21 hours ago
BYD?
zeca@lemmy.eco.br 1 day ago
So when can we stop with this “free markets” nonsense in the third world aswell??
qyron@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
I don’t give two cents for the american auto brands but spare me the drama: try and make a proper car.
Looking at Ford: try importing a few models from the european line and offer it in the states. Small, economic, somewhat reliable, fuel efficient cars.
Stellantis has a slew of models that could be brought into the american market. They make good cars.
And I’m willing to bet GM as a few models they build and market overseas that would be guaranteed sucesses.
MrSilkworm@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Former GM Executive: BYD cars are better and cheaper than American. If we let BYD into the U.S. Market, we wouldn’t be able to be greedy and enshitify our products any more, which would end up destroying american car manufacturers. FTFY.
P.S. Actually the average american would be benefited from that
wosat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t disagree with the criticisms of American cars – overpriced, uninspired, unreliable, over-engineered, etc. – but to everyone saying “we should just compete”, do you realize the realities that Chinese workers experience? Have you heard of 996? It’s shorthand for a common work schedule in China: 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. Benefits that are common in the U.S., even in non-union shops, like retirement plans, PTO, worker’s comp, and overtime pay are rare. So, yeah, things can be made much cheaper if you are willing to feed your workforce into the grinder.
PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 1 day ago
First the enshittified the food
Then the health care
Then every consumer product
Finally they enshittified the nation itself
kemsat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Maybe the USA should heavily invest in the industry of the USA, just like China does, in order to keep up? No, then USian companies would have oversight & have to meet expectations, and we all know that they wouldn’t want that.
Deflated0ne@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Domestic US cars can’t compete with foreign cars. We’ve known that forever. Or at least since the 90s.
Look no further than Kei trucks being illegal.
Our overengineered, over priced, unnecessarily complicated crap just can’t compete with simple transport vehicles because they aren’t made as a tool to serve a purpose. Everyone wants to make a Corolla into a Cadillac and sell it for Cadillac prices.
UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Meanwhile, instead of trying to compete they cripple all EV advancement to make a quick buck on fossil fuel.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 21 hours ago
Oh no! The type of capitalism where we have to compete!
Make it go away, Daddy Trump!
drmoose@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Tbf notoriously China subsidizes BYD to net loss so its not exactly capitalism.
BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Did you forget all the bailouts US car manufacturers received?
bstix@feddit.dk 20 hours ago
All car manufacturers world wide are subsidized.
subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent-totals
Of course China can make cheaper cars, because most car manufacturers get their parts produced in China anyway.
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
What do you think Walmart does when they enter a new market, the eat losses till the local competition folds and they are the only option left
stoly@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
The US subsidizes farms and petroleum.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 20 hours ago
[They phased out their subsidies in 2022]news.cgtn.com/news/2023-11-18/…/index.html)
They still have a trade in program to get ICE vehicles off the road.
theonetruedroid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 hours ago
It’s state sponsored capitalism and China has pumped a ton of money into BYD to get them to where they are.
I can see them giving larger tax breaks to companies in the US, but current administration is all in on tariffs as the way to increase our domestic production. It doesn’t make ours any better or cheaper, just everything else more expensive.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 19 hours ago
So do a lot of other governments, to be fair. It’s one of those industries that employs a lot of people, and it’s always bad press to close it when a bit of money could have kept it. Certainly cheaper than putting thousands of people on benefits.
Plus there’s subsidies for domestic sales as well. The UK at least had a grant for plug in cars that they ended a few years ago, presumably just to get the infrastructure up and running.
But then the new vehicle price is neither here nor there in the long term, since most people drive used vehicles anyway. What matters is how many vehicles trickle down to the masses, and whether wear on the battery is a concern. Some of the early smaller models didn’t have great batteries to start with, but as a daily driver to the shops and work it’d probably be fine. For some reason the conversation always drifts over to “but what about that one time you drove across the state” or “remember that time you transported a fridge”, as if that’s something people can’t work around for the once a year they do it.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 16 hours ago
fair game IMHO. if you look at china as one big agent, then they can indeed act like that.
LMurch@thelemmy.club 16 hours ago
Sadly, I think it was Biden that put a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. Fuck Trump, but come on, Biden, don’t do this shit for them. I really like that new Xiaomi YU7.
III@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
The issue is not so simple. Blocking BYD has a lot to do with protecting American manufacturing jobs. That’s not to say Biden’s tariff was the right answer. But it is a more complicated problem to solve than it appears from the perspective of a single car buyer.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
But the Chinese government could be spying on you if you bought a Chinese manufactured car!!
P.S. for bonus points, does anyone know where most GM automobiles are currently being manufactured?