BYD would still have the cheapest EV in the US, even with a 100% tariff

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

The higher price point caused by passing on the tariffs to consumers hurts the manufacturer through reduced sales.

Tariffs do hurt companies by driving potential sales elsewhere.

Or they would, if the product wasn't still the cheapest available by 10-30% after the tariffs.

it’s not the manufacturer that bears the cost of tarriffs, it’s the customers.

And the locals that lose their means of providing for themselves.

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

Fiat Microlino

edit: not that affordable actually for what you get.

Citroen Ami

Mitsubishi i-MiEV

Damn... Same. I was always excited for Elio which was supposed to be American made and use a moped engine that got insane gas mileage and cost 7 grand. Before their factory was bought from underneath them and they scammed everyone out of their money.
I will also take a glorified golf cart at this point.

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.

I really want an OPEC (one person electric car)

Backup cameras are required by law for safety reasons. Same with ABS, seatbelts, airbags etc, but a LOT of things can be ripped out.

Heat/AC are really required as well in most places.

I’d be happy if an Android or iPhone was a REQUIREMENT. It’d run the car as an app, be a nav system, entertainment and everything, plus keep the cost down even further.

Crank window (note only one!) on the ONE door with an emergency push out window on the other side. Speakers? No. A mono, Bluetooth connected one in the headrest is plenty.

It would need to be able to cruise at 70mph, but all the other little changes would mean huge weight savings and a single person “bubble shape” would be real aerodynamic. A standard 120v plug would be all that would be even offered. Keeps coat and weight down.

BYD cars are actually more feature rich than US cars from what I see. One of their big selling points locally was karaoke from the infotainment system.

Okay fair point. What about regular old prison labour?

And these Chinese vehicle prices are artificially deflated.

They're trying to pocket as much of our money as possible and they know if competition is introduced they'll be forced to cut into those sweet sweet greedflation profits.

I'm honestly never going to buy another US made vehicle if I can help it. My next vehicle will more than likely be foreign electric

I don't really follow this line of logic. You state that companies here are artificially inflating their prices but then state that you'll buy a foreign brand electric, which is going to be one of the exact same companies that you accuse of inflating prices. There are only a handful of US car makers, GM, Ford, and Tesla, and only 1 of those 3 put out EVs in any meaningful quantity.

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.

At some point though the benefit of moving away from fossil fuels infrastructure outweighs the labor and strategic protection afforded by tariffs. IMO we are at that point- if we keep on doing what we're doing for another 30-50 years union jobs probably won't matter when vast parts of the world become uninhabitable

They also make better cars. That also helps.

For example Volkswagen has no EV that even comes close to a BYD in terms of quality.

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.

The funny thing is y'all in the US still have a better selection of vehicles available than we do in Europe, it's just mostly not from American marques.

I recently got my hands on a USDM Subaru. It has more options than the EU spec one so I figured I'd look at the US Subaru website and yup, even for current model years, they have WAY more options available in terms of both models and trims. Y'all still get the WRX sedan, we only get the Impreza hatchback with a naturally aspirated engine. We don't get the Ascent either.

You guys also get things like the Toyota 4-runner, Volkswagen Atlas, etc in terms of SUVs that are pretty big, but not gigantic.

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.

Because China is not fairly competing with other countries. They are subsidizing BYD manufacturing and supply chain with the goal of making BYD the largest electric car company in the world. Yes, their vehicles would probably still be cheaper than other manufactures even before subsidies (Lower cost of living in china, ignoring of fair wages, ignoring of environmental concerns all reduce costs), but they are unfairly trying to make the world reliant on their products.

That being said, i do agree with your sentiments that we should be making it easier to purchase electric cars. Providing additional discounts or high turn in credit for returning your current gas car would be appreciated so that we can actually make progress on reducing global warming.

Please oh please just let me buy a BYD without hassel Canadian government, even In Alberta I will daily it

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.

I don't think the Bolt was a practical vehicle? You can't take road trips with it, even across the charger-dense East Coast USA - it won't get you from Miami to Orlando, or from New York to DC.

Driving it from 80% to 20% charge gives a range of 155 miles, which is decent, but then a fast charging station would need 1.4 hours to charge it back up from 20% to 80%.

We miss out on so much from the rest of the world but we have so many pridefully ignorant people that will die on any hill that might improve our lives.

I'd personally love to have more than 0 weeks of government required paid time off, sick days, the top reason for bankruptcy not be medical bills, and no more mass shootings but I will most likely be dead before any of that happens.

I really want the Dolphin but I definitely am in no way near being able to afford it yet.

Oh yeah? Wheres your carrier battle group, bub?

I'll take interest when their labor practices are closer to humane and further from indentured servitude.

The pathetically ginormous “trucks”

Are due to absurd incentives in NHTSA standards, which tighten economy and emission standards more on smaller cars than larger ones. Rather than try to reach the implausible requirements set on small cars, they just lengthen and widen them until the are large enough to qualify for a looser standard.

Correct the perverse incentives, and cars will get smaller again.

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

Mercedes, Audi and BMW?

I'm sure they're right around the corner, pretty close to the top 10.

Oh, you meant Ford, GM and Chryslerdaimlerfiatstellantis?

Yeah nah, as true patriots, they produce in other countries so Americans would pay for the cars, but not be paid to build them.

For better or worse, there are multiple ways of measuring "American Made". An alternate measure, which probably matters more in this conversation, is "how many people that worked on <product> are American residents". Here's a study that tries to rank each model by how much it contributes to the US economy

The vast majority of the development (engineering, planning, purchasing/supply chain, quality, after sales, etc) effort for Honda and VW is overseas, along with most other non-domestic brands. This extends beyond their own employees to their tier 1s. Many OEMs use suppliers that are located geographically close to their development centers.

None of this excuses the domestic OEMs for their abandonment of cars, their endless march to higher and higher average transaction price, or their quality records.

all the custom cars?

What do you mean by putting Honda and VW in the list?

Why are we ok with domestic manufacturers doing this though

Tariffs were literally lobbied for and implemented by Unions back in anno tobak

The counterpoints are about local US employment and thinking comparative advantage is bullshit.

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

The Chinese supply chain benefits from government money increasing demand by lowering prices of finished goods, without having to lower prices of supply chain inputs.

Tariffs negate the increase in demand by increasing the price of finished goods. If the prices are brought in line with what the goods would have cost without the subsidies, then the Chinese government has spent that money for no gain, and the US government collects that much money by taxing its citizens instead of letting them have cheaper cars. If the tariffs are even higher than the subsidies, the Chinese government's loss is greater, but the US government's gain is smaller - lower demand leads to less revenue for the Chinese supply chain and fewer taxes collected by the US government.

If you buy a Chinese car that has American tariffs placed on it, the only loser is you. China and USA both benefit.

Also potential slave labour

How many decades into waiting for Aptera are you now?

Almost everything is shipped around the world. Including the parts for most cars Gas or EVs.

Little back of the envelope math based on some quick google numbers that I didn't fact check, and making some assumptions that I probably shouldn't make.

Cargo ships emit around 10-40 grams of co2 per kilometer

It's something like 11000km from the port of Shanghai to the port of Los Angeles (I don't know the exact shipping routes, or which ports they'd actually be using, but those are the largest ports in China and the US west coast.

It takes about 14-40 days to sail, and another 1-3 days to load/unload the ship. So let's call that around a month round trip and 22000km, so up to about 12 trips a year max.

The biggest car carrier ships can carry up to about 8500 cars, I'm having a harder time finding what a more average load of cars is, but I saw an article about a Canadian record in 2005 being 5214 cars in a single shipment so let's say 5000 to keep the math easy

Typical passenger cars emit around 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year

Gonna round some of the numbers up to be pessimistic, make the math easy, and account for some of the other emissions besides CO2, emissions from manufacturing, etc. so let's say 50g/km for ships, 25000km round trip, and that cars emit 5 metric tons/year

So at 12 trips a year, 25000km round trip, emitting 50g of co2 per km, a ship emits 15,000,000g or 15 metric tons of CO2, as much as 3 passenger cars do a year.

Assuming that all of those cars are EVs and sold to replace ICE cars, that those old cars are then taken off the road and not resold, and that the new cars are being charged with green energy from renewable sources or nuclear that aren't emitting carbon

5000 new cars per shipment × 12 shipments per year × 5 tons of CO2 per old car - 15 tons of co2 emitted by the ships = potentially 299,985 metric tons less emissions per year

Now that's probably an insanely high estimate, I'm sure there are about 2000 other things I didn't even try to account for on top of what I mentioned, and some of my rounding probably wasn't entirely appropriate.

But even if all of my assumptions are way off and the actual emissions savings are only 1% of that, that's still almost 3000 metric tons of CO2 saved per year. I think it's definitely within the realm of possibility that shipping EVs from China could reduce carbon emissions.

I doubt that

When an American car is sold in China the software is replaced with their own. No reason to use their software here