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by shiftpgdn 786 days ago
With the economy slowing and a lot of families feeling the inflation crunch I think traditional US and German automakers are going to be in huge trouble when facing Chinese made EVs in the open market. How could BMW sell a 3 series for $30,000-50,000 when you can buy a BYD HAN for half the cost, while it's arguably more luxurious? At least Tesla can fall back on long term subscription revenue from FSD, the rest of the legacy manufacturers are going to be annihilated.
1 comments
radpanda 786 days ago
> I think traditional US and German automakers are going to be in huge trouble when facing Chinese made EVs in the open market

I think it's pretty clear that US automakers won't face Chinese carmakers in an open market.

Joe Biden, a few weeks ago: "China is determined to dominate the future of the auto market, including by using unfair practices. China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security. I’m not going to let that happen on my watch." From https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

Volvo is being clever here and avoiding import tariffs by offsetting them with exports on vehicles made in the US. BYD, Chery, etc won't be able to do that unless they set up production in the US. Even Volvo, who manufactures 2 or 3 models of cars at its single American plant wouldn't be able to import a massive amount of cheap Chinese imports tariff-free via this mechanism, unless they also scaled up their American manufacturing.

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piva00 786 days ago
Couldn't BYD build their cars in Mexico to export to LATAM and the USA at the same time? When I lived in Brazil there were quite a few Mexican made cars from major manufacturers, with the benefit of USMCA (and previously NAFTA) I feel like Mexico is quite well positioned to have Chinese EV manufacturing in its shores.
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ytdytvhxgydvhh 785 days ago
Currently I believe so, although they likely wouldn’t qualify for the $7500 EV tax credit due to the origin of the batteries. Lawmakers have talked about this scenario with concern, to the extent that I’ve heard BYD is reluctant to actually try it because they suspect the US would pass some protectionist legislation that would suddenly ruin the investment.
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