Ford Chairman & CEO Jim Farley Wakes After Decade-long Nap, Shocked By China's EVs - CleanTechnica
Ford Chairman & CEO Jim Farley Wakes After Decade-long Nap, Shocked By China's EVs - CleanTechnica
Closing in on 15 years in global marketing and sales roles for Ford, Farley goes to China and is shocked because its cars are better and cheaper.
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/42676060
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China makes everything better & cheaper, not just cars.
The secret is heavy subsidy, very little worker protections/safety, very little environmental protection, and slave labour from a demographic they're currently genociding.
Don't forget the hundreds of billions that global capitalism funneled into China by "outsourcing" absolutely everything they possibly could over the last 30-40 years — devaluing developed world labour markets and environmental regulations, and winding back the clock to an unregulated slave labour market is what made it so attractive.
That was my first thought, but is that much different for say Tesla. They get tax breaks and pay as low as they can. Don’t get me wrong I not protecting China’s way, I’m rather against both. But it would be interesting to see numbers from both sides
Yes it's very different. Tesla certainly overworks their employees by basically expecting them to do overtime, and engages in anti-union shadiness, but that pales in comparison to utilising slave labour from a religious minority group they subjugate and have even been known to sterilise, as well as harm family members of those who aren't behaving as the CCP wants them to.
Tesla still has to abide by US environmental regulations, which while not as strict as you'd find in Europe, are a hell of a lot stricter than China.
Tesla still has to follow construction and safety laws that, again while not super strict like in much of Europe, is a hell of a lot stricter than China.
The US also doesn't subsidise exported Teslas in a move to exterminate foreign car companies before ramping up prices.
Did you just seriously try to compare China factories to Tesla? This place really is just an absurd bubble.
For reference in Mexico they are making 5k a year vs 50k. I'm sure it's rainbows and kittens over at byd.
It's lemmy.ml. They're always like this.
Not just subsidies the CCP decides how much the car makers have to produce. They are overproducing and the Chinese market is saturated, there are graveyards full of unused EVs because nobody wants to buy last year’s lower range versions. And now they dumping that over production onto the rest of the world.
I think you got something mixed up there. The saying does not go:
If you want it to last, buy made in China!
It goes:
Buying cheap is buying twice
And China really sells the cheapest crap there is. It isn't even a competition.
That's not how you spell "Xinjang camps" ...
America has more prisoners than China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
I don't see what this has to do with the fact that China utilises slave labour from a religious minority group they are currently genociding to aid in their construction and manufacturing sector.
To my knowledge, you go to prison in the US when you commit a crime, as opposed to a labour camp where you are sterilised then made to build Fords under threat of death.
you go to prison in the US when you commit a crime
Gotta keep'em prisons profitable...
America also uses slave prison labour
And America has more incarcerated people than China, despite China having way more people.
No...just no. China's prison population is not counted correctly, just from their forced reeducation camps, its estimated they have 1-2 million people in them. The usa has around 1.2 million in prison. So no china does not have less prisoners. I don't know where this bullshit lie showed up but it's been repeated way to long.
Does the USA have a problem with incarcerating people for non-violent offenses, hell yes, but that's a whole different argument.
China is also much larger than US. Even with your fantasy numbers US has more prisoners per capita.
America is a authoritarian nation. You guys just killed a guy and several bystanders over a 2.9 dollar fare ffs.
Lol @ fantasy numbers...only a tankie would think that.
Yea we have problems, but acting like china is better is hilariously wrong.
Ok, putting aside for a moment China's totally honest and not at all fudged number of incarcerated people...
The US allowing prison labour is something I'm disgusted by.
But it's still a far cry from abducting people based on their religion, sometimes sterilising them so they can't have kids, threatening them with their life, threatening their family, and forcing them to work in factories or in construction, then using that slave labour to undercut and kill foreign competition.
Don't try to twist this into a "you're complaining about China therefore you think the US is great". I'm saying China is far worse. Because they are, and only a complete muppet would think otherwise.
Maybe you're ok with what China does (slavery and genocide), but I am not.
Everything you accuse China of, the US is guilty of the same or worse. How many people in the US are in jail for the crime of being black?
I never said China is great. They are horrible. The US is just worse.
I don't want what you're smoking.
this is how most americans react to being told that they are an authoritarian country.
Not American. You'd think my spelling would've made that obvious.
And lmao at thinking China isn't hugely more authoritarian.
Stop with this tankie nonsense. Genocide is bad. Stop defending it.
Thank you for the reference link.
China has one hell of a note on that page:
b. See info about additional detainees, and alleged detainees, at Re-education through labor, Laogai, and Xinjiang internment camps.
There's no way in Hell a country with a population in the billions has lower incarnation numbers than one with a few hundred million. That is just statistically impossible. It all comes down to what you count as incarnated. This is like the US "solving" its unemployment crisis by not counting people who think about maybe looking for work sometime as not unemployed. These numbers are self reported, so they should be taken with a big grain of salt.
Because China executes at a rate 100x the US, that we know of, believed to be 1000x.
No person, no prisoner. --Stalin
Also, Tibet and Xinjiang.
They also have 100x we many executions as we have, probably closer to 1000x.
you just executed an innocent man: https://lemmy.ml/post/20527494
Yeah, so we're still what, 10k behind China this year?
You mean cheaper and worse, there are little to no regulations and if there are any, inspectors are paid off as China is corrupt AF. and the cheaper part is because the general factory workers are kept extremity poor to uphold the cheap labor, next to the Uyghurs in concentration camps who are forced to work for free. There are no rights or regulations for factory workers, so no protective clothing or gear, no safe work environment, while working with extremity toxic materials as those are cheaper then the safer alternatives. Working 12 to 16 hours per day, as young as 8 years old, 6 to 7 days a week, no sick days, no holidays. There is no quality control. There is media control, so every online post of a spontaneously combusted EV, which are maaaaany, is removed.
So you confuse quality with quantity. Yeah, it's cheaper. But at what cost. Not just the lives of the Chinese workers, those toxins are also in the products we use.
Not necessarily. China makes all the fancy stuff Americans are super proud of.
If safety were a real issue, the gov wouldn't have attempted to ban them based on tariffs
Ps: your entire first paragraph could have been about American meat processors and I wouldn't have noticed
Lol their entire comment reads like a mishmash fever-dream of state department prop. I can't even in this thread mannn ill leave these folks to to you.
Chinese government has entered chat
Hang on, lemme make a phone call
"president xi? i've been compromised... yes, again"
If safety wouldn't be a real issue those products wouldn't be banned in the EU. Regulations in the US are often very weird, loose and corrupt as well.
Nice Americans are proud of stuff. That doesn't make it safe. Remember, there are Americans proud of Trump, guns, the cybertruck, racism, etc. "Proud" isn't a safety standard.
Ps: Nice American meat processors are fucked up as well. The entire country is fucked up. Nice. Let's be proud of it and everything becomes safe again
Ok without devolving to ridicule every message, the point it that just because stuff is made in China, it is not necessarily cheap (as in crappy, low quality or unsafe).
I'd like to know what is unsafe about these cars and whether or not this is a real consideration. So far, all I seem to get is protectionism and platitudes.
This is a nice video which sums it up pretty well, concerning EV's. Many are coming to the US and EU market too, like BYD is doing now for example. They are growing faster then Tesla, threatening to surpass Tesla sales soon.
There are many articles about Chinese EV's spontaneously combusting or exploding. And that's just the EV's.
There are many products containing extremity toxic materials which are imported anmass through Chinese digital market places like alibaba etc, but also as parts for American produced products. Products like cheap 3D printer filament, children toys, car parts, metals, food (with pesticides), etc. It's hard to check everything, it's hard to regulate everything, especially when loads of it is produced in a country where there is little to no regulations but instead loads of corruption. It's imported by hundreds of thousands of shipping containers per day. Sure, some products are fine. But there are many which are toxic and sometimes deadly and we often find out about it way too late. Regulating takes time. China finds loopholes. It's standard operating procedures.
Yea I agree with so much of what you are saying, China gets a pass to distribute cheap dangerous crap cause at least it was cheaper for the middle man selling it.
But also:anmass
Enmasse its another French loan word.
But then, how tariffs make all those dangers OK?
PS: sorry but the video is just some Vlogger rant with no evidence presented.
Tariffs don't make them ok, but invisible. For instance, phones are produced in China for 95%. Then they are shipped to Vietnam, finished to 100% and shipped to the US without the China tariffs. Whatever happened in China during the 95% is unregulated and unregistered. Whenever it is shipped from China directly there are regulations for the construction of parts and the materials used. But already finished parts without this info which are imported from somewhere else can miss this info, like the 95% phones shipped to Vietnam have. Vietnam needs to declare whatever they used for the 5% for the regulations and the other 95% is declared as a pre-made product. This is how toxic materials are able to enter the western markets without anyone knowing it and how China tariffs only help covering up the use of toxins by shipping goods through hubs in other countries and the production of products without any safety regulation resulting in exploding batteries for example. And for food products to be unknowingly covered with highly toxic pesticides. Don't underestimate the corruption in China, it's like the US x2.
Oh and the video is just a yt vid, I know, but he has a lot of Chinese sources as he lived there for several years and he nicely sums up all the articles I've read about this all so far. He uncovers a lot of corruption which the Chinese government desperately tries to hide. I've seen different sources backing him up.
Ok but then we accept anything Chinese made with all the likely human rights abuse, environmental issues, corruption, as long as some American company can act as middle man and take a piece of the pie?
Cheapest production, biggest profits. Yeah. But it's not necessarily the American company responsible for buying cheap junk. Chinese companies love to get the profits by cheaping out on build material while upselling it as quality products. It's hard to Check the entire production line and it's resources as they often come from many different places and there's barily any quality control within the Chinese factories and it's supply routes. You don't know whether they may have cheaped out on one expensive resource by replacing it with a cheap toxic alternative.
There's a European quality check for products, the CE logo which stands for "conformité européenne" meaning "European conformity"on commercial products indicates that the manufacturer or importer affirms the goods' conformity with European health, safety, and environmental protection standards.
China created an identical looking logo meaning Chinese Exports so they can bypass the EU regulations and use toxins instead of safe resources. It has the logo so people believe it went through the EU checks required to be allowed to use the logo on the product. Instead they add the logo without any quality control as it's basically a different, yet identical looking logo. This is how China operates.
I believe everything you claim but my question remains... how does American companies, whose entire (or practically entire) production is manufactured in China, avoid those pitfalls?
Most American companies are not known for reinforcing and over engineering their products, the same cheapening out in materials and corner cutting strategies are applied in North America all the time.
Until the brand goes poof because China didn't like something they did and poof; now you have a ghost car. Good luck finding repair parts for your car; and fixing the server connection required features
You are correct, but that has happened with American brands (even cars) before
At half the price of other EVs, I bet an entire new class of service stores, half mechanic shop, half third party parts, half mods, would spring into existence if these cars are allowed in the market
Instead, we protect the horrible local brands
American manufacturers need to provide parts for 10 years after the last of the same model car rolled off the assembly line. Good luck forcing Chinese brands to respect that.
Why? doesn't Toyota, Kia, Hyundai, SaaB and all the non-American brands already do this? why would China not be able to do it?
A ton of the parts for the American cars actually come from China, why would it be harder for China to do what they already do on behalf of the American manufacturers?
It's not about whether they can, it's about whether they will.
Spoiler: they won't.
Edit: saw an article talking about some of the issues that happen when one of these companies goes away: https://www.thedrive.com/news/chinas-connected-car-collapse-is-a-warning-for-the-american-market
Again, not sure why you are so certain about that when China is already manufacturing the parts for the companies you trust to have them
Because it's standard practice in China to just close a company and restart it under a new name. The government can decide to shut down everything overnight.
Look at parts availability for stuff sold by Chinese brands.
I can find parts for Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Mazda, etc all made in China. Why does it work for American and foreign companies making every part they sell in China but it wouldn't work for a Chinese company
And, if that is the case, wouldn't it make more sense to just force them to establish some corporate headquarters in the USA (as they rest of the brands do)?
That's established and stable brands that manufacture things in China which is completely different from Chinese brands building things in China and that can just close their doors tomorrow morning and leave the owners without any source for parts.
If an established manufacturer closes their doors tomorrow morning the same issue arises, the difference is that Chinese companies are known to do that and the Chinese government sometimes is responsible for closing them or simply doesn't care about the effect on customers. They can reopen the following day and produce the same items as before but they won't send you parts for the thing they were producing the day prior because it's not the same company anymore.
Well, that's kind of what is happening today with brands started in the USA as well (Henrik Fisker pulled this stunt twice with Karma and the Fisker Automotive)
I do get your point, I just have a hard time dismissing any and all Chinese cars when the collective "we" have no issue dealing with China as long as there is some middle man charging a premium. I also have a hard time understanding how tariffs address any of these issues.
China is stable enough, or so it seems, to supply most of our electronics, electrical components, plastics, tools, mechanical parts, etc etc etc... There is certainly a way to work with them in a stable way.
Buying a Fisker has always been gamble, so is buying anything from any startup honestly... Buying a Tesla Roadster was a gamble as well!
The middlemen you're talking about are established brands. I have no problem buying an Indian made motorcycle from KTM because I know they have a real presence in North America, a dealership network and so on, they have something to back themselves with, but I wouldn't buy a motorcycle built in India by a brand that has no presence outside of India and that, for all I know, could just fold tomorrow leaving me with the problem of having to find parts when needed... (just using an examine with another country)
They supply most of our electronics, tools and so on, but you'll notice that you're not buying the Chinese brands of these things, or if you are you're not expecting to be able to get any after sale service in 5 years...
The middlemen you’re talking about are established brands.
In this case, with the auto industry, yes you are correct. However this same exact thing happens with almost any industry. Just a quick example, I home brew, every single device/machine/vessel I have every purchased from my "local" distributors were all made in China. All of it.
I am not saying your concerns are invalid. I am just trying to see how would it ever be different by just applying tariffs to them. Wouldn't it make better sense to demand certain guarantees before they are allowed to sell in the USA? How would any Chinese company ever make it to the KTM status you mention?
And to clarify, I am only "defending" China here because something crazy like 90% of what we use today was made totally or partially in China, so to me it makes no sense they are only good when making money for American companies while we pay the middle man
Our tariffs aren't there to protect local brands they protect every foreign brand in the US too which make up 2/3 of the market.
never had this experience before.
But I had exactly this issue many times with Google cancelling stuff I like.