China has sharply ramped up its production of cheap electric vehicles, solar panels, and batteries just as the Biden administration has pushed through legislation supporting many of those same industries in the United States. ⠀
Chinese automaker BYD had recently introduced an electric SUV at the “astonishingly low” price of $14,000. China’s auto industry poses an “existential threat” to U.S. carmakers, the report argued. ⠀
After more than a decade of subsidizing its automakers, China has built a substantial car industry that accounts for 60% of global electric vehicle sales, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. ⠀
Yellen highlighted the Biden administration’s concerns by recalling a visit a week earlier to Suniva, a solar cell manufacturer in Norcross, Georgia.
The company “was once forced to close down, like other companies across a number of industries, because it could not compete against large quantities of goods that China was exporting at artificially depressed prices,” Yellen said. ⠀
China hasn’t committed to any steps to address American concerns, arguing that its cheap solar panels and other green products are helping the world wage the costly battle against climate change.
I don’t think it’s about EVs. My understanding is that it’s about protecting American auto manufacturers from “unfair” overseas competitors. There is a history here.
:: incoming semi-coherent rant::
Volkswagen was one of the first auto manufacturers to come to the US back in the 1950s. The us government set up a framework that allowed foreign manufacturers to establish themselves in the states. This was supposed to help the economy by making sure the cars sold here were manufactured here and abused by a set of standards the governing bodies set up.
Well eventually the Japanese got into the game and when brands like Toyota established themselves as cheaper and better than anything you could buy in America, the American car companies lobbied against it and won. This put a soft limit on how many cars could be imported from Japan (which in turn hurt Japan’s economy). At the time there was a lot of sentiment going around that the Japanese were taking people’s jobs so it actually was a very popular decision at the time (which seems weird because everyone was driving their cars).
Furthermore in the 1980s, people started importing and selling used cars from Europe. This hurt the auto manufacturers deeply as they could not compete with used luxury cars like Mercedes imported from Europe at those low used price points. This is why the auto manufacturers lobbied for a 25 year ban on the import and sale of cars (though they claim it was for safety, it was really to kill the grey market for imports).
The Truth is that a lot of other countries also followed the US in these Bans. Canada has the 20 year import ban and Europe has their own set of regulations.
Chinese cars and EVs will come to the West Eventually but first they’ll come under the names of brands that are already here like Volvo. You won’t see a Geely branded vehicle for a while unless they open up a Geely of America branch and begin shipping their parts here for assembly. This however will prevent them from having as much as a competitive edge in the US because labor is more expensive in the states than China and South East Asia.
Do they want you to transition to EVs? Yes. Do they want it to be cheap? No.
so what? western manufacturing crushed us and we were forced to hear that was the “free market” in action.
china is the only indistrialized country pushing new tech affordably and its now suddenly unfair you cant compete?
It is unfair, it’s just not “suddenly”.
i dont see you guys having that much of a problem with it when the “free” market is being unfair to us.