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The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

(www.wsj.com)
152 points voisin | 1 comments | 17 Nov 24 23:52 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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worik ◴[18 Nov 24 00:39 UTC] No.42168656[source]▶
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

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preommr ◴[18 Nov 24 00:49 UTC] No.42168700[source]▶
> 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.

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1. deskamess ◴[18 Nov 24 15:54 UTC] No.42173552[source]▶
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.