Free market but only until someone overtakes us, then shun them to eliminate cheap merchandise so we can rig up the prices, did i understood that right?
I’m frankly getting pretty goddamn annoyed at all the people who relentlessly fail to understand that the PRC is heavily subsidizing production of basically all of their EVs in the interest of undercutting literally all other countries that are (or are trying to) produce EVs.
By all means, research what I’m saying here to confirm its veracity - in fact I encourage you to. This is economic warfare, plain and simple.
EVE Online taught me this lesson. Those with the resources to do so will take a loss to price you out of the market, because they know you can’t take the losses nearly as long as they can.
And that’s precisely what’s happening here. A car manufacturer with a whole-ass government subsidizing it is going to be able to operate just fine at a loss pretty much indefinitely, whereas a normal car manufacturer would sooner or later simply go bankrupt (pointedly ignoring the whole “too big to fail” idiocy, which to be honest, while similar, isn’t quite the same thing).
Allowing a country's political party to position their industry in a monopolistic way is a bad idea. When one group controls an industry they much more easily exploit their consumers. Encouraging folks to buy ev's in general is different from undercutting prices to create a dominant position in the market that can be exploited once you have no meaningful competitors
That being said, we all know thats not why they're doing it, they're doing it to protect the interests of US auto makers, which also sucks
China is hardly going to be able to under cut the Big 3. Unless they just refuse to come down on their prices. More competition stops monopolistic forces, not the other way around. This narrative has been going around like our auto industry is some mom and pop shop that needs protection from Walmart. In reality they're the monopolistic force in our market and you can see that by the insane prices they are charging.
Bro. The rebates go to the buyer. They don’t go to the corps. It’s specifically targeted to make it cheaper for US residents to buy EVs in America.
Edit: actually, more foundational question: do you understand the difference between production subsidy and purchase rebate? And do you understand that the rebate is not applicable outside of the US?
That is a hilariously myopic and egocentric way of looking at the situation, to the extent that it makes me suspicious that you’re on the conservative spectrum.
Its not just the EV, its every layer of the supply chain. From the lithium they mine, the batteries they make out of it, the circuits and metal fabricating. Their government subsidies the electricity, tools, facilities, labor, etc. I work in the engineering field and I see bits and pieces of this everyday and have seen it for decades because I'm forced to source parts from China.
I know. I’m trying to dumb it down a bit because the dipshits who argue about this stuff don’t seem to understand the incredible level of complexity of modern-day high tech consumer product manufacturing logistics.
…it is bad. It’s particularly bad because the PRC is running the show, and they very certainly do not have the best interest of any group but themselves (as in, the Party, and particularly, the Party Committee) in mind.
The PRC is trying to crush any and all competition. This isn’t them being ecologically friendly or magnanimous in any way. The entire point of this is so they can do the best they can to corner the market, which is easier when the government you operate under just hands you money so you can immediately recoup substantial fraction of your balance sheet liabilities. They are doing this because they want to control the EV market, which will give the PRC a substantial amount of geopolitical power (case in point: look at Taiwan with their chip foundries). And, of course, Party officials and the corporate leadership of their car companies stand to make a fair bit of dosh too.
More broadly, I don’t like when any country does this, including the US. The primary reason I’m singling the PRC out here is because that’s the topic of the post.
Although the BYDs and GWMs and MGs are getting popular in Australia, I have literally never seen a Chinese EV in the States outside of locally built BYD busses, and BYD cars have distinct designs that are fairly easy to spot. So this feels like posturing to me.
I have literally never seen a Chinese EV in the States outside of locally built BYD busses, and BYD cars have distinct designs that are fairly easy to spot. So this feels like posturing to me.
The Chinese business strategy has been to target East Asian, Indian, Russian, and West African car markets. They're not trying to compete with US cars in the United States. They're displacing US export markets in the Third World. You might be able to find them south of the border, however. In the first five months of 2023, Chinese exports to Latin America reached over 330,000 vehicles with a special focus on Mexico and Chile.
These taxation and regulatory provisions are shockingly similar to the Chinese rules that guys like Biden and Trump deride as anti-competitive. And given the quality of US vehicles has long been sketchy at best, with a continued reliance on ICE engines in a market that increasingly favors the cheaper and more reliable electric vehicles, its questionable how long the Big Three domestic brands can even survive.
They've been getting ready to ship to the US for a while. The EX30 arrived this year and is getting pretty good reception. It's 35,000 and the best rated EV SUV at it's price point. It's 7 overall behind vehicles 20,000 more expensive.
Isn't this just a ban on Chinese evs? Just with extra steps? Make it impossible financially to sell it in the US pretty much is a ban without saying it's a ban
I don't know how to use this site. Samsung is a Korean company, so I look there, but I don't see anything about samsung or phones. Clicking on "mach & elec" or "consumer goods" doesn't seem to help either.
Nah, we're cool with Japan eating our lunch. We just don't want a nationstate to artificially make their cars cheaper, even if they are good, to grab marketshare.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sure thing, but most people into EVs feel greener while driving EVs, and think that's all they need to do. A state in Mexico bought electric busses for public transportation and results they charge them with diesel generators, so EVs are now just a gimmick of being environmentally friendly, it's so dumb.
I'm all for changing from fossil fuels to renewable energy, but EVs are in no way a factor for the general public to adopt alternative energies. EVs replacing fossil fuel vehicles won't happen as fast as needed for it to make a change in people's minds that solar or nuclear are needed.
What tech are you talking about? I'm talking about the grid not being able to serve everyone switching to EVs anytime soon. Also people don't factor the batteries needing replacement after some years like any other appliance running on batteries, and those can be quite expensive to replace.
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.
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.
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.
I was just talking to my dad about this the other day and I told him that it was only a matter of time before the US government goes after Chinese EV's at the request of the US auto lobby.
I didn't think it would be this soon, though. Hurray for more garbage EV's for $50,000+
Volvo EX30 compact EV SUV comes out this year with a base price of 35k. I consider that exceptionally reasonable (esp. for a Volvo). I'd buy one myself, but getting my house setup for EVs is a huge can of worms. My electric main is buried, I only have 100a service and my panel is full to the brim.
Isn't 100A considered inside for an all electric home?
Most homes nowadays are 200A. I could probably make it work, or get a smart panel to not have to worry about it...but upgrading service is practically impossible unless I can get someone else to pay for it. We'd have to remove a bunch of trees to trench to where the junction box is, and then trench across our driveway, too. Unless I lucked out and there oversized conduit there already, but I highly doubt it. As much as I've been told, the neighborhood was built with direct-bury service entrances.
Dunno. I've got 3 phase, 400V, 100A service which results in 68kW useable. However, because one of sub junction boxes which, unfortunately the wall boxes are connected to is wired internally with 10mm², I've enabled peer to peer load management across my wallboxes for now so they never pull more than 28A per phase. Most cars here support three phase charging so that's still fine even for two cars. I'll get to rewiring that, for now it works.
The go-e wallboxes I have support a central controller which in turn can measure current on all three phases into the home, e.g. to use a solar system to its maximum, but also to limit absolute load on the house connection. They just use three hall sensors for power measurement as far as I know, so installation is relatively unintrusive.
I went without that and solved the whole solar optimization using EVCC and regarding absolute load I'm just yoloing it, but then again, I do have a neat safety margin.
That makes sense...if the charger is aware of its own load and the load of the whole house, it can slow down or stop charging to let the other stuff catch up.
I don't know where you are but 3-Phase is rather uncommon in US Residential. We use split-phase, where we have two 120v lines that use a common neutral, and we get 240v across the two 120v hots (with no neutral...but some 240V outlets do have a neutral leg for parts of the appliance needing 120V.
A while ago, the YouTuber Technology Connections did a segment on the Span smart panel...and I think there's a handful of others...that measures the load of each circuit and can triage circuits if there's too much demand. This is really where smart appliances should be heading. It's cool that my dryer can tell me how many KWh are consumed by a load, but I'd much rather it be able to cooperate with all my other loads and maybe turn off the heating element for a bit.
Germany, 3-phase, 400V to the home is pretty much the standard here.
We use split-phase, where we have two 120v lines that use a common neutral
Yeah, yeah, I know. It was frustrating in the beginning of electric cars - all the manufacturers put those single phase chargers into their cars because US and Asia just didn't need anything else and we were left bumbling along at 4.2kW charging to avoid too much asymmetric load (most providers here limit you to 20A asymmetry although I've been known not to give a fuck) while two wonderfully capable phases sat around doing nothing and the third was only used half the way at most.
This is really where smart appliances should be heading.
Yeah, that looks interesting, although it's unusual to see any "intelligence" delegated to the panel housing. Usually here, the panel cabinet is something like this:
...which is a mechanical housing and some very basic distribution on the lower left. Everything else is built while the distributor is fitted. Look like this in the end:
Anyway, you can get this functionality right now, for example with a go-e wallbox and the go-e controller and retrofit it without touching the rest. That's not really a reason not to get an electric car.
Until the US government doubles the price to protect our own garbage auto industry.
Though maybe if they take that money and funnel it into subsidies for own promising upstarts like Rivian and Aptera... but no, that would mean our corrupt officials wouldn't be able to plunder it for own big donors. What was I thinking?
