this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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I bet the Europeans and Americans already work on imposing tariffs.
On Korean products?
Exactly. Our government doesn't hate foreign EVs, they just hate China. That's really it.
I mean it is just economic warfare. China substitutes their EV producers to undercut competing countries. They respond with tarrifs. That is business as usual since global trade exists.
It really shouldn't be though. I believe in free trade, and tariffs ain't it.
The tariffs are to compensate for the Chinese government subsidizing production.
Are they? Or is it protectionism?
I'd like to see some actual numbers here, because 100% tariffs seems to be more than just the subsidies, but also includes labor cost disparity.
Completely free trade works as well as unregulated capitalism in that it’s terrible for the consumers. You’ll always end up with a monopoly.
I don't think that's true. There are other mechanisms besides tariffs and direct regulations that can help regulate markets, depending on what you're looking for. For example:
I'm not saying we should flip the switch overnight to free trade, I'm saying we should be moving that direction. The only case I can see for tariffs is to reverse government subsidies. If we can prove China subsidizes EVs by X%, I'm fine with a matching tariff to level the playing field. However, if they're merely able to produce them cheaper because labor there is cheaper, a tariff is merely protectionism and therefore illegitimate, and we should instead compete with automation or quality.
That is all theoretically possible inside your country or trade union but not if countries wage economic war against each other. China will not break up BYD once they have gotten rid of their competition. They want the biggest car manufacturer. So they will try to reach that goal no matter what.
And that's fair. EVs aren't all that complicated, so if China tries to abuse its position, it would be pretty easy to ramp up production, provided we can manufacture the batteries, or at least have multiple friendly alternatives that can manufacture the batteries (e.g. Japan and Korea). Battery production should be something western powers can do efficiently with automation, provided we have a good source for raw materials (and lithium mines are opening up around the world).
So I honestly don't care too much if BYD corners the market, I only care if there's no reasonable competition. Given that Korean, Japanese, European, and American car manufacturers are all still quite competitive with EVs, I don't see many issues. You buy Korean, Japanese, etc if you want quality, you buy Chinese if you want cheap. Both will continue to exist because there will always be demand for luxury cars, which means access to batteries and whatnot will continue to exist.
My only concern is if China is being unfair in its competition. I can understand tariffs to counter artificially lower prices (e.g. through direct subsidies), but not to protect domestic production due to labor price differences. We can always export manufacturing to other countries if we're worried about risk of centralizing all labor in one region, and we already do that with production facilities in Mexico, and there are plenty of other countries we could look at as well (India, SE Asia, S. America, etc).
Won't matter much; Chinese EVs are so inexpensively made, especially with subsidies, while exceeding European and American auto safety standards that tariffs for the last five years haven't stopped them expanding outside of Asia.
In addition, EVs are so much cheaper to produce, run and maintain for auto companies that tariffs aren't going to make much of a difference stemming the continued EV manufacturing explosion.
Capacity and range will just keep going up, any tariffs have so far been and will be footnotes in EV story rather than any sort of relevant market mechanism
Chinese EV sounds terrifying. I am sure the specific cars they sent for safety testing were well made and passed just fine, but I wouldn't get into their production run vehicles.
Who do you think manufactures basically everything at this point? Even frickin food is being imported from China.
That being said I'd love for American competition, heck I'd just like the Elio I always wanted if it wasn't for fricking Hummer. And Teslas have been built like garbage for the past couple years now.
It being manufactured in China does not make it a quality issue unless the profit seeking is maxed out. Otherwise it just makes it like everything else being made over there which is it's own problem.
Nah, these are the exact standards US/euro cars are tested by, tested annually, from regular production, not specially chosen cars.
Besides, it isn't like American or European companies didn't make production line cars that literally blew up if they rear-ended someone.
So far the manufacturing of Chinese EVs is doing very well, and each product is tested upon import anyway to make sure it conforms to the regulations of that country.
Tanking a potential market like this for the Chinese doesn't make any sense right now, at least outside of their country it makes the most corporate and political sense to do what they're doing and exceed European and American auto safety standards.
You should be more concerned about privacy invasion from the smart tech rather than the physical safety of the vehicles.
My point is the the EU ans US are shooting themselves in the foot in a big way with these idiotic tariffs. The Chinese will just clean up in all other markets and if they retaliate, the EU will lose their most important export market, which is China.
I think the US is hoping to buy itself some time while their EV manufacturing catches up, but they being practical about the limited effect of these tariffs and aren't making the necessary domestic investments so far to compete with the level of manufacture the Chinese are at and the level the Japanese and a few other countries will be at in 5 years.
The market is still going to end up with safe, affordable EVs sooner than anyone thought, so I can't get too worked up about the US not jumping into the race.
If they don't want to catch up, then they get left behind.
They let others manufacture their TVs, computers, and toilet paper, it's not unlikely they'll let their national auto industry die as well.