If this can’t compete head to head (no tariffs or other import restrictions) with BYD and the like, then I don’t know why one would get excited. Feels like an expensive consolation prize with tons of compromises. I want competition.
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Would you prefer our roads flooded with cheap Chinese EVs that are the automotive equivalent of Shein hauls? Protectionism has its place in certain areas, and I would say building a thriving domestic EV industry that isn't beholden to a single weirdo is one of them.
If it were a stated policy goal of said country to develop their own indigenous EV production at scale, then yes. The same the US did for 30 years after WWII to develop its own auto industry.
The era of dumping mass amounts of cheap "good enough" products on the global market, made entirely possible by the ignored and externalized costs of dumping trillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere via oceanic shipping, is coming to a close.