The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

The Chinese are going to clean this market up.

The British made the same mistake back in the day with motorcycles. "Who cares about the market for 125 cc machines?" they said.

The Japanese did, and now they have the market, the British used to have, for luxury and high powered motor cycles. As well as most of the 125cc market

> The Chinese are going to clean this market up.

Not if our governments start putting tariffs on everything.

I am Canadian, but it also applies to other governments (including the US). The politicians know that it's not going to be easy to do the actual right thing and build up a competitive industry. Instead, it's much easier to just slap some tariffs and make lagging productivity the next generation's problem.

There are some externalities that may prevent that, such as large tariffs. Countries are wary of the effects on employment.

Honestly that analogy feels like a stretch. I like my Nortons, BSAs and Triumphs, but the Japanese honestly just built better bikes at the end of the day (que joke about Lucas electrics and all of the other shit that seems to go wrong on British vehicles of that era). The British built really beautiful bikes and sports cars, but their reliability and general aggravation of ownership was kind of abhorrent. A good Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, etc. even from that era, I've come to expect will be cheaper to maintain, not come with half a dozen headaches out of the box, and will "Just Run" when you turn the key.

I've yet to see good evidence that the Chinese cars are actually built in a way that they're more reliable or a better value than counterparts from other countries, they're just cheaper.

That would only apply to markets with tariffs, and not the rest of the world. China can sell their EVs to Central Asia, Russia, Africa, south east Asia, Australia, and still dominate the world wide market. America, Canada, Japan, Western Europe, and Korea can protect their markets, but they can’t really protect their market share.

Yes, the lack of discussion of tariffs in the article and even in these threads is a bit odd to me. The US has tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in part specifically to keep cheap Chinese EVs off the market.

The complexities of this are outside my wheelhouse, but it's easy to see how keeping cheaper EVs out of the market would carve out a major source of cheaper vehicles period, leaving other manufacturers able to push higher priced cars. My guess is the tariffs are directly contributing to the process described in the article. Even if manufacturers were to "leave that market to China", eventually it would come to bite them as a certain proportion of people would start buying those cars instead.

Monopolies, monopsonies, and tariffs are playing a huge role throughout the US economy and it gets such little attention. Or at least it seems that way to me.

The benefit of EVs comparatively is that the drivetrain is much simpler than an ICE vehicle. If a motor dies, unbolt it and swap in a new one. Same thing for the battery pack. Sure, it's inconvenient, but if these Chinese companies are willing to offer the same warranties as American manufacturers, then what's the problem?

Let's face it, the Canadian reaction is purely out of US friendship. There is no end-to-end EV car manufacturing in Canada. There is an EV battery setup in Ontario (and perhaps Quebec?) but that's about it. We are a decade or more away from having an end-to-end manufacturing pipeline. So... we implement tariffs that hurt the majority of the population? For the govt's lack of investment across decades. If you want to, put a tariff on EV batteries or any other part that is manufactured in Canada - not the whole car. There is no good reason for us to take this tariff.

At the same time, politicians will talk about the dangers of climate change and how we should all try hard to mitigate it. I guess some solutions just don't have the right story to it.

I do agree that the situation we are in now is due to lack of investment in EV/associated tech starting 1.5-2 decades ago. China has invested over 200 billion in EV+Solar and are reaping the rewards.

North Americans can have their Auto Galapagos. Even Aussies and the UK aren't listening to the White House's histrionics (for now).

if your cheap Chinese EV starts on fire and burns down your house, it might not have been such a good deal

Once they have the volume of the global market they definitely will, if not sooner.

if your expensive Tesla starts on fire and burns down your house, it might not have been such a good idea