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this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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So basically American cars are 2x overpriced rn
And lots and lots of government subsidies.
Yea, it's the subsidies. The government of China funds questionably profitable companies such that they can sell their products at what would be a loss by any other company, undermining the values of competition in Europe/States.
What does China get out of it? Chinese products distributed globally running Chinese software and sensors which are beholden to the whims of the Chinese Government. They also get to weaken the economies of the target countries.
The United States does similar things with intelligence, but citizens of that country can at least condemn, research, and publish findings against it's own government. What can a Chinese citizen do? Very little except obey.
The United States is also massively flawed when it comes to competition but at least there are theoretical methods for the citizens of that country to change things. If they can destroy the corporate plutocracy currently strangling democracy.
Communist country figures out how to exploit capitalism better than capitalist country, how poetic.
China isn't a communist country, it's a totalitarian country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism
Communism is defined as:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
It calls itself communist just like a big chunk of the world calls itself capitalist but doesn't let the market regulate itself
North Korea calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Do you also refer to North Korea as a Democratic country?
If I was making a similar comment using North Korea and in relation to democracy I would 100% exploit the fact that it calls itself a democracy.
Being an open country has upsides and downsides certainly. The same could be said for Russia/China's information war exploiting freedom of speech on those not educated in critical thought.
As if the US doesn't also subsidize and funnel money into specific companies/industries for questionable reasons.
Did you read their whole comment? They addressed that and pointed it out several times themselves.
All they said is that you are allowed to call it out. Whoopdeedoo. Still happens.
Every car manufacturer receives massive subsidies no matter where they are located.
This is oil money, nothing more, nothing less.
You might want to look at some of the loosening child labor laws here in the US. Hyundai's plants have been caught several times using child labor.
I'm not defending China's practices by any means because many are truly horrific but the US is pretty far from perfect in many states.
Yeah, at least the US uses only their own prisoners as slave labor.
What-aboutism is amazing, isn't it? There's a response for everything.
A direct comparison in a direct comparison conversation is not a whataboutism.
Source ?
Child labour? Care to back up that claim?
Do provide a source that shows Chinese cars are made with child labour.
What child labor? There are no kids in China, they have some of the lowest fertility in the world and the most intense school hours for the rest
You're like 40 years out of date
Yes, and it's poor Americans who need a vehicle to buy groceries and get to work everyday who are getting shafted while the automakers rake in the profits. Not to mention the environmental costs of driving on fossil fuels.
Maybe we should get our politicians to invest in, say, mass transit. Seems pretty obvious
Why would they do that when they get bribes from automakers.
Allowing China to sell these vehicles here at well below cost is only going to shaft poor Americans even further. They're trying to do what Walmart does to small-town economies.
You give a great example because the US has no problem with shafting poor Americans if it's American companies (i.e. big donors to American politicians) doing the shafting. At least we'd get affordable vehicles from these Chinese companies. Meanwhile the complacent American auto companies have engorged themselves on profits from overpriced vehicles, announcing record-breaking profits, and refusing to reduce prices even when supply chain issues have been worked out. This is after American auto companies sat around with their thumbs up their asses, dragging their heels on developing electric vehicles, and even working against the development of them. Now they're claiming that demand for EVs isn't actually all that great, but for some reason they're afraid of Chinese EVs (probably because the Chinese are giving customers what they actually want -- affordable practical EVs).
These leeches needed to be bailed out and they will forever need to be bailed out because instead of running a business that gives people what they want, they just do whatever can extract the most money out of people while squandering the profits on stock buybacks and fat bonuses for their executives. They're considered too big to fail, but really they're too big to exist.
You can make up dastardly schemes to explain the prices all you want but this isn't borne out in reality. The bigger EV manufacturers here, outside of Tesla, aren't even American companies, they're South Korean and European and they're all selling their vehicles for similar prices to American companies. Tesla seems to be doing pretty well with sales, which means plenty of people are willing to pay these prices.
Additionally, apart from Tesla, there are only two American auto companies, GM and Ford, so I don't know why you think they're controlling the entire auto industry in the US.
If I'm just making things up, then why are car prices so damn high and car companies are posting record profits? Tesla is only doing fine because it was the first big EV manufacturer to market and it's riding on that momentum. People willing to go with the least worst option available doesn't mean the option isn't bad. If it was a good option, then the ones offering those options wouldn't be afraid of the competition. Tesla cancelled development of a $25k model shortly before these tariffs would be announced. This is not a mere coincidence. They know that there is high demand for cheap EVs, but auto companies here much prefer fatter profit margins and the government is all too happy to protect those fatter profit margins.
Chinese companies focused on development of better and cheaper batteries and the result is that they're able to offer much cheaper EVs. Why should that be punished while the other car companies get rewarded for dragging their heels on EVs due to their comfort in selling petrol cars?
Chinese EV companies are rather profitable, with BYD making billions of yuan profit last year. On the other hand, Rivian is losing, what was it, just about $40,000 per car?
And that profit is coming straight from the government as there is no way they're making billions in profit by selling brand new cars for $10k in 2024. There is zero margin there.
They have cars from $10k to $200+k. BYD includes a bunch of brands, including the Yangwang brand which builds the $150k U8 and the $230k U9. Not to mention their busses which are used around the world.
Cool but I don't see how that's relevant to the discussion of them trying to sell $10k EVs in the US.
Nobody here is arguing to buy a $230,000 Chinese EV.
They wouldn’t only sell $10k vehicles, and they wouldn’t only target the bottom of the market. If their actions in other countries are to be repeated, they wouldn’t sell $10k vehicles in the US, because the market isn’t nearly as competitive. It’s very likely, given the prices they’re charging elsewhere, that the lowest prices we’d see for a BYD would be $20k.
BYD currently makes ~$1,500 per vehicle, compared to Ford at $3,000, and Tesla at $5,300/vehicle. They’re lower margin, certainly, but they’re not just dumping cars at bargain bin prices.
US manufacturers received 4x the subsidy that Chinese manufacturers did last year. If anyone is trying to artificially manipulate the market, it’s the place that’s blockading their competitors vehicles while pumping dozens of billions of dollars into them every year.
You would be the person complaining about Japanese cars in the 80s, to be honest, and if we listened to them, we’d all still be getting 12mpg driving V6 and V8 2 ton monstrosities that break down every 5000 miles. Many of us still do, the F-150 is the most popular car in the US after all, but the rest of us at least have the option to get high mileage, high reliability vehicles.
I’m not working in the conditions the Chinese have decided is ok. They can be poor and live in barracks at factories, I like free time and money.
So youre saying American cars dont import any parts? They dont preassemble overseas? Everything is 100% made by american Union labor?