US car prices have risen massively over the last few years. Dealers just openly list $5000 markups on the sheet.
things are ripe for disruption so the empire is really going to have to ramp up the protectionism.
Perhaps the Big Three deserve destruction; after all, they hooked us on S.U.V.s in the first place and then fell behind in the E.V. race. But letting them die is not a tenable political option for the Biden administration.
but wait I thought “mArKeT fOrCeS WiLl pRoDuCe tHe bEsT oUtCoMeS”??
capitalism only works on paper
And the paper is a damp bar napkin
Art Laffer’s life story.
The Yard Sale model makes me think it doesn’t even work on paper.
There are already very high walls of protectionism keeping lots of potentially disruptive imports out of the USA, so I don’t expect these to have the impact that NYT thinks they will.
The purpose of this article I didn’t read is probably to manufacture consent to increase the protectionism.
Subsidies likely won’t be enough; Mr. Biden will need to impose new trade restrictions. But here’s where it gets messy. The case for protecting the American auto market from Chinese E.V.s is obvious, politically essential, but also highly troublesome. In the short term, American automakers — even the homegrown electric-only carmakers like Tesla and Rivian — must be shielded from a wave of cheap cars.
yep
We export $55B in automotive cars and parts annually. If China gets a foothold in Mexico or starts dominating markets in Europe or Indonesia or India, the Americans are in for a lot of pain long term.
There’s also a demoralizing effect of foreign countries having better cars than the states. Japan really fucked the American psyche with Toyota’s global dominance.
Do we really want America to become a backwater of bloated, expensive, gas-guzzling cars?
yesIs it not already lol
They mention it in the article, but the big American auto companies are profitable exclusively because of truck and SUV sales. The question is mainly whether they are able to pivot away from that and how much Biden is willing to protect them from Chinese cars while they try.
If Biden protects them, they won’t need to pivot. They can just coast on market manipulation.
I mean they’re already trying, their electric cars are ass but they are making them
They’re ass because they don’t need to try.
Who needs competition when you can just make dubious claims of national security risk and ban BYD et al. like they did with Huawei?
The enemy is both weak and strong
I’m curious to hear all your thoughts but, will protectionism be immediately necessary with the powers that be not building up the refueling infrastructure that is necessary for electric vehicles? I might be wrong on this, though, so it’s always good to hear the input of others.
I can see them doing restrictions on Chinese vehicles for the usual nat-sec justifications or just to score cheap political points through appeals to xenophobia, like with the Tik Tok ban. Maybe they’ll have a whole week of news coverage dedicated to it to rile up the boomers before they do it.
I don’t think they really care if drivers get stranded with no where to refuel. The oil industry is still very powerful and won’t go anywhere until the earth collapses. Any action against these cars or EVs in general will likely be a result of massive donations (or the threat of withholding them) and everything else will be theater or just a parallel goal.
So they’ll just preempt any growth of ev infrastructure by strangling it in the crib. Very ruthless but, not surprising if I think about it a bit.
If it’s any consolation, overproducing EVs and having everyone signing 3 year leases isn’t really much of a mitigation technique.
We need to figure out how to produce less vehicles in general, or at least try to keep old vehicles in circulation longer.
I would be surprised if we see a Chinese EV for sale in the US this decade.
Ok, I want that to happen, but why aren’t Chinese EV already dominating in Europe? BYD has been there since 2021.
why aren’t Chinese EV already dominating in Europe?
Technically they are. Tesla’s Shanghai factory is churning out Model Ys and they make up a quarter of the EV market in Europe in 2023.
