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The $25k car is going extinct?

(media.hubspot.com)
319 points pseudolus | 3 comments | 29 Jun 25 15:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.406s | source
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1970-01-01 ◴[30 Jun 25 12:10 UTC] No.44422276[source]▶
Completely unmentioned: Chinese EVs are $10k worldwide except USA.

https://gmauthority.com/blog/2024/08/2025-byd-seagull-ev-sta...

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infecto ◴[30 Jun 25 12:23 UTC] No.44422395[source]▶
Completely untrue. Maybe in China or SEA but not for the rest of the world.

Chinese manufacturers have come a long way and I wish I could buy one in the US but they are also pricing at razor thin margins to starve out competition.

Even in Vietnam the Dolphin is $25k

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immibis ◴[30 Jun 25 12:26 UTC] No.44422417[source]▶
That's just competition doing its job. The rate of profit, just like every other price, is supposed to fall to the minimum sustsinable level in capitalism.
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mattmaroon ◴[30 Jun 25 12:34 UTC] No.44422484[source]▶
But it’s well below the minimum sustainable level due to Chinese government subsidies.
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NickC25 ◴[30 Jun 25 12:58 UTC] No.44422737[source]▶
And that's a bad thing?

A country's government sees an opportunity to invest into a promising new technology that could reap tremendous economic benefits. Such benefits include new jobs, new income, the ability to increase social/political capital worldwide, and help usher in a world that is that much less reliant on oil.

That's what countries in the first world are supposed to do.

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1. bityard ◴[30 Jun 25 13:38 UTC] No.44423137[source]▶
When we say Chinese government subsides, we are not talking about tax reductions or interest free business loans, we are talking about the Chinese government itself operating the business and selling the products at a steep loss in order to undercut and wipe out incumbent global competition in the world market so that China becomes the primary worldwide supplier of those particular goods.

This has already happened to consumer electronics, power tools, manufacturing equipment, solar panels, and batteries.

The strategy is especially effective on products with a high startup cost in markets that have to deal with high amounts of regulation and labor unions because being government-owned means you get to skip all that. There's no reason to expect that cars won't be next.

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2. lossolo ◴[30 Jun 25 15:33 UTC] No.44424549[source]▶
> When we say Chinese government subsides, we are not talking about tax reductions or interest free business loans, we are talking about the Chinese government itself operating the business and selling the products at a steep loss in order to undercut and wipe out incumbent global competition in the world market so that China becomes the primary worldwide supplier of those particular goods.

Where did you get that information? There were previous investigations by the EU Commission about Chinese government subsides, and "tax reductions or interest-free business loans" were the main allegations.

3. NickC25 ◴[30 Jun 25 15:33 UTC] No.44424557[source]▶
We've done similar things when it comes to military and military-adjacent technology.

If a government believes in the potential and promise of a given technology and wants to dominate in that sector, it should be allowed to. That's the premise of worldwide capitalism and markets. Capital is allocated to where the owners of said capital wish to allocate it to, and that's the free market at work.

Is it an unfair advantage? Define "fair".