[Dormant] Electric Vehicles

There are some situations where imports being cheaper is due to foreign government subsidies undercutting local production and tarrifs are the wat to level the field. Frequently this gets warped into protectionism, allowing local production to have a leg up while continuing their crappy business practices, like most US auto manufacturers.

In this case the 100% tariffs is mostly the latter. It was not a thought out rate based on any kind of logic, just an emotional overreaction.

We do not need someone in office proposing reactionary, emotionally based tax policies.

The point of tariffs like that is to allow us made vehicles be the option of choice to buy.

The $25,000 ev means it's a cheaply made car at what would have been an awesome price at $12,500, but not so great at $25,000.

American manufacturers could/would never be able to compete against a $12,500 ev sedan. So the tarriff keeps American evs bloated prices from looking too unreasonable. They can still compete against a $12,500 car being sold for $25,000

Fuck yeah! But I don't want to pay $12000 for that.

A Bluetooth speaker set would be nice too. That's not very expensive. Nor is the tablet in the dashboard. You could get both for less than a thousand dollars.

The features really aren't the problem. They just refuse to stop price gouging.

Okay fair point. What about regular old prison labour?

It's the Walmart business model. Move into a new area and undercut your competitors just long enough to put them out of business. Once this happens you have the market over a barrel and can charge however much you like.

I seriously don't understand how people keep falling for this rhetoric and claiming this is all about protecting US companies when there are only 3 US companies left and they barely makeup 1/3 of the US auto market.

The Chinese are able to sell cars into the EU so I am sure they could come up with something they could sell here.

BYDs cars seem to be pretty good. They pass the EUs safety tests.

https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/byd/atto+3/46635

https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/byd/dolphin/50011

We talking about the same “rules” that allow regular Class D license holders to drive a 40 ft RV with no additional training? Or perhaps the same rules that allow Cybertrucks to even exist on public roads?

Americans love to talk shit about safety standards when they don’t even exist at home

It's the same cycle we had from back in 2002, under the Bush Hummer tax cut. Government subsidized light trucks and made gasoline artificially cheap, so people went out and bought these enormous vehicles and dumped millions of gallons into them for power.

Then 2008 hits, gas prices go vertical, car loans go bust, and the Big 3 are out begging for bailouts. Obama delivers (while Mitt Romney signs his own death warrant in Michigan by telling Detroit to go bankrupt) and rides a popular wave of support for saving the American auto industry from itself. But he doesn't bother to do any kind of regulation or curb the consumption of fossil fuels, because that would make soccer moms still driving their 10 ton vehicles sad.

Then the bubble pops in 2020 thanks to COVID and everyone runs into receivership again and we've got to flood the zone with taxpayer bailout money.

But that's okay, because COVID actually gave us cheap gasoline again! So we get another era of cheap gasoline and big cars and a brand new automotive industry bubble.

Gee, I hope history doesn't repeat itself.

If there is no demand, then there is nothing to worry about. Remove the tariffs and let China offer 15k cars here in America.

The bolt was insanely popular. Chevy made a claim that wasn't backed by data and it turned out they were trying to phase it out for the new platform. It was so unpopular that they're bringing it back.

Car companies have had more than enough time to build these cars and they already have a $7500 or larger advantage they can use to compete with Chinese made cars. They refuse to make cars that will come in under 25K. I say fuck them.

because the auto industry is a huge part of the American retail market and they're afraid this will give China a huge edge on taking over the global economy, which it totally will, but it is the fault of the USA for not supporting their domestic industries.

They make almost everything you use. They have massive access already. Most of your current car electronics are made there.

Why are we ok with domestic manufacturers doing this though

The Chinese subsidies artificially bring down the prices of their cars so that other companies can't compete with their prices. The point of the tariffs is to inflate the price of Chinese EVs to make them too expensive to undercut American competition.

The only people benefiting are American businesses and maybe their factory worker, but the American consumer just ends up paying more for everything.

Tariffs are essentially fees paid to government applying the tariff by the customer paying the tariff. So if you're American, you'd be paying the additional cost to the American government