Prospect of low-priced Chinese EVs reaching US from Mexico poses threat to automakers

Or , hear me out, what if US auto makers stop trying to force overpriced oversized trash on us? Maybe try to compete?

They get a lot of bribes from the oil industry. This is about sabotage, not competition.
You don't want a giant ass pickup truck that drives like a tank, takes up 1.5 times the parking space and goes 8 miles on the gallon?
- No, I want a light pickup from the 80s or 90s but with a warranty and a full size bed and no back seat. Y'know, something kinda utilitarian. A fucking Ranger is bigger now than an F-150 was in 2000. An F-150 is a goddamn SUV with a worthless 4 foot bed. What the hell is that good for?
- https://lemmy.world/post/16986669
BURN THE HERETIC
- Wet blankets don't burn well
It's not due to a lack of will. They can't produce cars as cheaply because they've spent the last 50 years closing factories and buying back their own stock while China invested in their industrial capacity.
they had decades to prepare for this. if the past is any indication they would rather milk that cow to death and act surprised when it isnt a viable long term strategy.
Electric cars in the US are more expensive mostly due to higher costs of overhead. For example, we have a minimum wage, and China uses forced labor.
Good luck buying anything made in the US for less money than on AliExpress.
Edit: Is this really the same group of people that want US businesses to divest from Israel, defending products made with the slave labor of Uyghurs?
In Xinjiang, the government is the trafficker. Authorities use threats of physical violence, forcible drug intake, physical and sexual abuse, and torture to force detainees to work in adjacent or off-site factories or worksites producing garments, footwear, carpets, yarn, food products, holiday decorations, building materials, extractives, materials for solar power equipment and other renewable energy components, consumer electronics, bedding, hair products, cleaning supplies, personal protective equipment, face masks, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other goods—and these goods are finding their way into businesses and homes around the world.
https://www.state.gov/forced-labor-in-chinas-xinjiang-region/
- Dude, there is just no way on earth that automakers are making razor thin margins on $80,000 F250 extended cab super duty pavement princesses that are basically just minivans in a trenchcoat.
- Mention the 6Billion dollar stock buyback plan GM announced this month.
- Electric cars in the US are more expensive mostly due to higher costs of overhead. For example, we have a minimum wage, and China uses forced labor.
  Inside the brutal reality of prison labor where U.S. inmates face injury and lost limbs to fuel major corporations’ supply chains
  In China, men currently can retire at 60 years of age, while women who work in factories can retire as early as 50. Female public-sector workers can retire at 55. Each year 3 million Chinese retire. Many retirees have a lot of time and limited resources. They like to hang out in the streets chatting with their friends or congregate in parks doing tai chi, ballroom dancing or some other activity. One elderly man told the New York Times, “Many old Chinese loving fly kites because it can take up much time, and its cost is free.”
  :-/
  Is this really the same group of people that want US businesses to divest from Israel, defending products made with the slave labor of Uyghurs?
  Americans are just mad that we have a perfectly good exploitable population at home.
- Wow, tell us how indoctrinated you are.

Yeah well, fuck the American auto industry for not joining the 21st century.

It's like when they dragged their feet making fuel efficient cars after the oil crisis
- I remember that time, when American car makers screamed bloody murder because Honda was killing them. Good times.
Ya if they want to survive its time to adapt and compete. This is what complacency sets up and I don't feel bad for them at all. They saw this coming and probably just sat there expecting a bailout.
This is what happens when old fucks hold onto power and don't change with the times.
- This is what happens when the one ring of profits rules them all. US automakers don't give a shit about anything other than their bottom line.

Sounds like US automaker higher prices are the actual threat.

For what it's worth, a government can absolutely subsidized an industry in an attempt to capture a foreign market.
There's a reason Japan and Korea have their own auto industries despite being next door to the largest manufacturing nation on earth, and it isn't because they're somehow making and distributing them for even less than China.
That being said, several automakers have blindfolded themselves about the type of cars people want. I do hope this threat is significant enough that automakers actually shift to mini-electric transportation options.
If not, I'd be happy enough buying a small Chinese electric even if the taxes made it equivalent to a larger "western" vehicle. Because it's what I want to have available to me and it's nice to fuck capitalists with capitalism.
- It'd be nice if instead of putting massive tariffs, we would just subsidise production of comparable, small cars.
June 11th 2024 GM announced that the board approved a 6 Billion dollar stock buyback plan.
That is a direct wealth transfer from the company to the owners.
We have met the enemy, and they are us.
- The next quarter is the only thing that matters.
God forbid these parasites have to compete.
Z HORROR, HORROR, I TELL U
- Are you arguing there's no competition in the US or are you arguing that China should have to compete without the subsisides?

Why is competition for US auto makers a bad thing ?

Because "free markets, competition, being voluntary" are propaganda by capitalists using their owned media and purchased government to make its victims double as its defenders.
The goal of market capitalism is to end competition often by buying out up and coming rivals to kill the threat, manipulate the markets to your advantage using anything from bribery to cost benefit analysis of potential consequences/fines for sociopathic actions to potential profits, and conspire with your economic sector to coerce the workers you need into accepting less.
This is just expanded indentured servitude with a marketing team.
Because we don't like free markets. We like the illusion of choice, but the security of monopoly.
- Thats a new spin to me. The only thing monopolies secure is their own existence.
This isn't competition, it sounds like the CCP heavily subsidises the manufacture, in an attempt to kill the American industry off.
Thinking in decades or centuries is a very powerful tool!
- This isn’t competition, it sounds like the CCP heavily subsidises the manufacture
  China: "Here, have a bunch of cheap electric vehicles to replace your aging fleet of ICE engines. Don't worry, we're picking up a part of the tab."
  Americans: "What a great deal! We'll buy them in droves."
  State Government: "Not so fast! This wouldn't be fair to honest, hard working domestic car companies like Tesla and Volvo and Toyota."
  Thinking in decades or centuries is a very powerful tool!
  Shame we're only capable of thinking about the next quarter's profits.
- The US subsidizes their EV industry twice as much as China. The real why China can do this is because the US has gutted their industrial base in favor of financialization while China built up their industrial base.
On top of the other things people are saying, I guarantee that the U.S. automakers will do a "China will take your jobs" thing if this happens.
- Because they’d send them there… to save a buck.
  Or rather a whole lot of bucks.
Because the US is an authoritarian pseudo democracy being run by cartels. And free market and capitalism is a death sentence for them.
- It’s hilarious to me that you neglect to mention that the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing the vehicles specifically to undermine other automakers.
  Not that the US are the good guys here, but this is just more of the trade war crap between China and basically everyone else.

Yeah, automakers pose a threat to automakers!

I doubt I will ever buy from the Big 3 again. Bailout parasites. Tried of these piece of shit too big too fail corps pulling this crap.

My next car will be a Chinese EV, if I have to drive it over the Mexican border myself.

This opinion is ridiculous as "the big 3" doesn't even exist anymore and hasn't for over a decade. Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep is owned by a Scandanavian company.
Also this isn't written to protect the few remaining American companies, it's to protect the entire auto industry in the US including Kia/Hyundai, VW, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Subaru, etc.
China selling vehicles with massive subsidies that allow them to undercut everyone else in the market isn't good for anybody but China because as soon as they put their competitors out of business, they will jack the price of their cars up as high as they want.
This is the same reason why when Walmart comes to a new town, all the similar local businesses shut down because it's impossible to compete with their deep pockets, but now you're advocating for it on a national scale which will potentially cost hundreds of thousands of domestic manufacturing jobs.
- isn’t good for anybody but China
  It's good for all the Americans who want an EV but can't afford any of the few models that are out there that you can legally purchase in the U.S.
- At this point I believe its the international market that is subsidising Chinese EVs. Take a look at the byd dolphin mini / seagull. It is priced starting at $21,000 in mexico while the price in China is from $9700. You find many other examples of the same car models sold at much higher price overseas than locally in China.

Promise?

China seems to be succeeding in EV vehicles, not just cars, airplanes too. I'm sorta pining for the days when we were talking about a North America Union. These days its all about protectionism and wars. :(

You can thank Trump for gutting NAFTA, making US companies weaker in the bloc as a result
- Weaker than Canada or Mexico? I don't think so.

Have they tried being competitive?

The Earth is 🔥burning🔥, by our own hands, and we'd still rather play team sports for greedy sociopaths than prioritize even doing it a little slower with cheap EVs.

The Earth will heal in a few million years once we've destroyed ourselves. ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

How does buying a cheap new car even if you don't need it going to save humanity or prevent the earth from burning?
- The US is trying to keep these tiny ones out because they want you you buy their big gas vehicles or larger, more expensive electrics. Larger vehicles consume more resources, take more to produce, and even large electric vehicles draw more from the dirty grid than a small personal conveyance like these designed to move you and your groceries.
  And that's a strawman to infer that our self-destruction hinges on this single point. This is yet another example on the heap of the larger problem. "it might hurt short term PROFITS for our greed mongers, so we won't allow something that might begin to mitigate the scale of the problem."
  That said, it sounds like you agree with them, and if that's the case, I have good news, they'll continue to get their way in every economic sector, and yes, cumulatively, our species is paying and will pay an even greater price for allowing blind, insatiable greed to make every decision.
  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/20/mexico-central-america-us-heatwave
  If we cared about having a future for the species at all, Humanity's only mission right now would be to END the global economy's jihad of growth/metastasis, every major nation would institute child limits, and we would work to end consumerism and find homeostasis/equilibrium instead for the sake of our very survival, because this reverse terraforming we've done in decades will take millions of years for the earth to heal from. That's nothing to Earth's 3.8 billion year old story of life, but it might as well be eternity to our short term monkey brains. Our reality, our world will continue to heat, and if we stopped tomorrow entirely, would take many times longer to go back to normal than our species has existed for.
  But as common economic decisions like this demonstrate, we have decided to burn the future so as not to disrupt the reckless party of avarice and gluttony for our owners today. Is what it is.

Capitalism is clearly going to death us first.

Sounds like some healthy competition the caps are always on about

I'm super conflicted about this. I want cheap EVs, but at the same time, China is intentionally dumping their prices to kill competition so they can later jack it up.

It won't matter how fair things were if we are all dead.
- I mean, EVs are not going to save the earth. Investments/innovations into our infrastructures will.
  Nuclear power is the only thing currently that can save us. Unfortunately, we have ill-informed people not understanding what nuclear is.
- Everyone buying cheap new cars isn't going to be the thing that saves us.
The opposite of dumping is happening. For example the Kia EV5 is sold at $20k in China]https//electrek.co/2023/11/17/kia-launches-20k-ev5-electric-suv-china-rival-tesla-model-y/) while the same made in China model is sold overseas Starting at $46k]https//electrek.co/2024/04/04/kia-set-to-export-this-all-electric-suv-at-a-price-that-undercuts-tesla/)
- KIA is also dumping. Those prices are not sustainable. Doesn't make it right if others are doing it.

They should be very concerned. However they have the advantage of time, place, protectionism. They already have factories and employees. The technology is known. They’re admitting they are aware of the market. The only way they can lose is if they don’t even try ….

We’ve spent years saying how short sighted they are to not be able to look ahead of the immediate term, now they’re admitting they can’t even look ahead 2-3 years

What? A full body crumple zone vehicle!? Where do I sign up!?

Oh no! Won't someone think of the poor automakers!

Good, maybe GM will have the follow through to make an electric car successful now.

Good

I'm not pro US but I don't trust anything made in China.

We have byd in Australia, and Australia has extremely high standard car safety regulations. The byd cars pass those, so China can't be that terrible at making stuff. Like iphones for example, i bet you have one of those.
- Really? Because a simple Google proves your wrong. https://www.wionews.com/business-economy/byd-to-recall-over-16000-seagull-evs-in-china-over-faulty-software-717035