[justonceokay]

Yeah there was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car.

It’s tough to convince most price-inelastic people they shouldn’t buy a car that is 1/2 price, even if it has fewer features.

Edit: to be clear I meant that the US did not compete, not that they could not compete

[toomuchtodo]

> Yeah thee was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car.

This is patently false. The US could have competed with China if it had maintained investments spinning up battery manufacturing and downstream systems to build EVs at scale, while subsidizing EVs (fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per year [1]) and increasing taxes on combustion mobility. The US picked legacy automaker profits and fossil fuel interests instead, simply out of lack of will and short term optimization over long term success.

China is building under the same rules of physics as everyone else. You can choose not to, but that is a choice.

(I believe in climate change, so I am thrilled China is going to steamroll fossil fuel incumbents out of self interest [2] [3], regardless of negative second order effects; every 24 months of Chinese EV production destroys 1M barrels/day of global oil consumption at current production rates, as of this comment)

[1] https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidie...

[2] https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e...

[3] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales

[brianwawok]

Chinese autoworker makes what, 5k USD a year? Vs 50k+ for union autoworker in the US? How can you win that battle?

[Marsymars]

You're off by a notable amount I think, but that doesn't account for the meat of the price difference anyway.

Chinese manufacturers have an average labour cost per vehicle of $585. American manufacturers have an average cost of $1341.

You can't buy an equivalent American EV for an extra $756.

Source: https://afia.pt/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/labor-cost-per-ve...

[seanmcdirmid]

Your salary information is out of date. Average Annual Salary for a Chinese working in an auto factory: ¥102,173 CNY (approx. $14,000–$15,000 USD based on projected exchange rates).

Also, Chinese auto factories are heavily automated now, even when compared to American auto factories.

[orwin]

Around 9? years ago, Chinese salaries without qualification in coastal city industries were between 600 and 800€/month + lodging (that caused issues in the countryside and less affluent areas that can't offer salaries as competitive), so at worst 7k, at best 10k. Auto workers should be somewhat qualified, so it should be a bit higher. Also the salaries might have grown since

[bluedino]

Workers at the General Motors factories in Mexico make between $3-7 an hour. So half to a third of what starting wages are in the USA.

[toomuchtodo]

China buys and deploys more robotics for manufacturing than any other country in the world. Automate or die as a business [1] [2]. It's not "cheap China labor" vs "expensive union labor"; it's labor vs automation.

And, to be clear, that does not mean you need to get rid of union US labor. It just means the existing folks can do more with the same number of folks they have today, and the pipeline for new workers can shrink while maintaining productivity (and we're going to need those folks for other jobs automation cannot do; trades, electrical grid and renewables infra, nursing and care, etc). This does require both unions and corporations to partner in good faith and share in the gains from this operating model, versus the traditional "squeeze labor as hard as you can for shareholder gains and management comp." If we get to the point where a just transition is needed (like coal mining and generation), that is a policy problem; make good policy, be humane to the human, package them out appropriately if we scale automation faster than expected.

This is simply smart policy as the world reaches peak working age population and heads towards depopulation over the next century [3] [4]. Labor will only get more expensive over time as demand exceeds supply [5]. The capital is there, simply look at annual legacy auto profits; they choose profits over investing in the business, and that is a choice.

[1] Inside China's 'dark factories' where robots run the production lines [video] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftY-MH5mdbw - December 4th, 2025

[2] Chinese EV makers accelerate robotics drive for ‘game-changing’ edge over US - https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3333310/chin... | https://archive.today/sJKKv - November 19th, 2025

[3] The Demographic Future of Humanity: Facts and Consequences - https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf - May 31st, 2025

[4] Mapped: Every Country by Total Fertility Rate - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-countries-by-fert... - December 22nd, 2025

[5] HN Search: labor shortages - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

(TLDR Increase productivity with automation to compete with others who already have, buy robots, not share buybacks)

[pixl97]

This is one half of it that's correct, but the other half is the US is in a late stage capitalism death spiral.

On a huge number of products in the US there is little to no US competition. Instead of using product means (build it better) they use capital means (use your size to get loans to buy up anyone that looks like they could compete in the future).

Lots of US companies minimize actual competition via civil contracts. Cola companies are a great domestic example of this. You give them all the space they want and crowd out competition or you get 'standard pricing', which is way more.

A sizeable portion of the large US companies moved away from making products to printing money via becoming a financial institution. Car companies are a notorious example.

Simply put making products is a side gig, rent seeking is the primary goal. Until we kill that off, we're in for a worsening level of hurt.

[Sohcahtoa82]

I've always gotten the impression that China is becoming a technological manufacturing powerhouse because of massive investment by the Chinese government, whereas America is falling behind because the government giving grants to corporations is incredibly unpopular because of the belief that the investment is just going to get pocketed by the CEO and board of directors and spent on stock buybacks rather than the development the people and the government wanted to see.

Even if the money is spent properly, it's still highly criticized. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people complain that Tesla was only successful because of massive government grants.

Am I off base here?

[owenversteeg]

In fairness to the US system, it’s certainly better than the European system or pretty much all but a few around the world. Yes, there is corruption, inefficiency and the largest subsidies are often for huge corporations that obtained them by buying politicians, but! The US government still manages to fund the cutting edge in 2026 in countless fields, to fund real American manufacturing, if you want to get grants you have a real shot at real money regardless of who you are, etc. In China you’re not getting a dime without the right political opinions. In Europe you have to be part of a very specific academic-professional class. In the US you can be anyone.

The thing about China is that they’re more strategic with their money and have longer timelines and clear, achievable visions. If you read the Wikipedia page for Made in China 2025 you’ll get the wrong impression that their success is due to more recent pushes; the vision is far more universal and has existed for far longer. You don’t get to the forefront of advanced manufacturing from nothing in ten years. Look at the 5th and 6th Five-Year Plans, into the seventh… you see the groundwork laid for present day China. The US rarely does that sort of long term thinking or planning these days, and it’s not even about the political winds changing or short-termism as much as that we lack one unified vision. Without that unified vision you can’t plan long term and you also can’t correct glaring problems. For example, if we had a unified vision on manufacturing, an obvious issue would be the lack of an American JLCPCB. You could create one with a stick and carrot approach, tariff assembled PCBs, new rule that any imported assembled PCB has to prominently display “electronics made in China”, smart subsidies for US board houses that encourage scaling and cost reduction. But that level of cohesion and vision rarely happens in the US and so we get a chaotic hodgepodge.

[toomuchtodo]

Nope, you are spot on. The broad argument is "Engineers are in power in China, lawyers in America." I see the US as no different as when Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged; everything about making and building takes a back seat to line go up. Well, you can't eat, live in, build with, or go to war with line go up. The stock market is not the economy, nor your industrial and manufacturing base. But it keeps going up, so everything must be fine, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_Assets_Supervision...

Dan Wang: 2025 Letter - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46454413 - January 2026 (323 comments)

(Dan Wang’s book, Breakneck [https://danwang.co/breakneck/], is excellent and I highly recommend on this topic as others do in the above thread)

[butisaidsudo]

That book has been on my list since I heard him on this podcast: https://hiddenforces.io/podcasts/chinas-quest-to-engineer-th...

[FuriouslyAdrift]

Where do you think that money came from... American consumers. It was a race to the bottom and for the last few decades, the bottom was China.

The new bottom has been moving to Vietnam, etc.

[adamiscool8]

The offset is not positive when you factor in the externalities that go into escalating Chinese EV production.

[dalyons]

Wrong, unless you can prove otherwise. EVs cost a little more emissions to build but are widely regarded as breaking even with a gas car in 1-2years after production. And even shorter as grids decarbonize.

[golem14]

I would love to see a thorough, agreed upon study comparing ICEs and EVs. If you have hard data (say, from a reputable journal, not just the news), please post.

[collinmcnulty]

https://theicct.org/publication/electric-cars-life-cycle-ana...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09596... (paywall)

https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-transport/no-doubt-abo... is a writeup of https://www.bnef.com/insights/33557 which is paywalled.

[golem14]

the first and last link seem less trustworthy as they seem to be affiliated with industry orgs that benefit from EVs.

But link #2 seems solid, and a related search on Google Scholar points at a lot of interesting papers.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:B47EWn6YcDUJ:sc...

I looked at a few, and the overall consensus seems to be that at least EVs are not worse than ICEVs (and I suppose EVs will get efficient faster than ICEVs(.

Thanks!

[ericmay]

This is a bad argument because you're assuming that the US needs to compete with China on EVs or that not competing results in somehow "losing". A car is a car, at the end of the day. Frankly, the best car is no car, but I'll leave that for some other discussion around transit.

China has gone all-in on EVs because over the years they smartly built up the world's best rare earth refining capabilities and immense manufacturing prowess while the United States has undoubtedly secured the global oil supply (remember tanks and fighter jets to fight wars aren't running on batteries) which, even amongst the doomiest of doomers will last quite a while.

China was never going to be an oil-producing powerhouse, but it did have the ability to leverage alternative energy sources so that it wasn't quite as beholden to the petrodollar institution, so that is what they did. And of course running cars on batteries and doing so at a very cheap cost makes sense there.

Meanwhile, the US can obviously produce good cars at a good enough price and with cheap oil for the foreseeable future it's hard to argue in favor of EVs as a national policy. What, we're going to switch to EVs? Who is going to build them? Tesla? We don't have access to the rare earth refining capabilities to meet demand. It's just physics. And if China is using less oil, that means more for the United States and others.

As you said, China has taken these actions out of self interest, but the self interest isn't "clean environment" or anything like that, it's just down to being not as reliant on the US for energy. Though that's a nice benefit. I do own an EV and I think the driving experience is superior but geopolitically things seem to be trending in a different direction.

[themaninthedark]

>China has gone all-in on EVs because over the years they smartly built up the world's best rare earth refining capabilities

If by that you mean they propped up their industry and undercut everyone else until they went out of business, then increased prices to a point just below where it would be profitable for someone else to try again?

Then use their monopoly position to further their interests in other sectors?

Edit: Which I may note is probably the same strategy being applied here as well.

[ericmay]

Yes, that’s mostly what I mean. I think it was a smart strategy. The world is addicted and dependent on their manufactured goods, and while the US tariff regime has been a bit haphazardly implemented, it’s ultimately the right move if you want to protect domestic industry.

Mexico recently applied 50% tariffs on Chinese imports. Of course other countries without a trade deal also were slapped with tariffs, but they were broadly targeted at China because Mexico’s president is handling Trump much better than, say, Carney.

[toomuchtodo]

> Meanwhile, the US can obviously produce good cars at a good enough price and with cheap oil for the foreseeable future it's hard to argue in favor of EVs as a national policy. What, we're going to switch to EVs? Who is going to build them? Tesla? We don't have access to the rare earth refining capabilities to meet demand. It's just physics. And if China is using less oil, that means more for the United States and others.

This is false. The US has chosen to produce expensive (average new vehicle price is $50k), fossil combustion vehicles to the detriment of its population. I want a cheap EV. I will buy a cheap EV from a US automaker. They do not want to sell cheap EVs. The US won't allow me to buy excellent, cheap Chinese EVs. The US population is being held economically hostage for legacy automaker profits and the fossil fuel industry. Why should the US consumer collectively have to pay more for these low quality decisions? I am incentivized to root for the destruction of US legacy auto so that I can eventually get a high quality, inexpensive Chinese EV, because that will be all who is left building them. China sells more EVs than the US sells entirely. It is only a matter of time as they continue to spin up manufacturing.

Whatever it takes to get cheap EVs with the sharpest deployment trajectory possible, I am not particular, regardless of the harm it incurs on US automakers or the US itself (if unwilling to build EVs, which appears to be the case). Climate change does not care about nation state boundaries. Certainly, if you don't believe in climate change, or don't believe it to be pressing, there is no discussion to be had.

New data: EVs grew more in ’25 than ’24, despite constant lies saying otherwise - https://electrek.co/2026/01/14/contrary-to-popular-belief-ev... - January 14th, 2026

The World Hit ‘Peak’ Gas-Powered Vehicle Sales — in 2017 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-30/world-hit... | https://archive.today/p2hl1 - January 30th, 2024

[ericmay]

> This is false.

It's not false. See Honda, Toyota, &c. many models are made in the US by Americans even if they're Japanese companies.

> The US has chosen to produce expensive (average new vehicle price is $50k), fossil combustion vehicles to the detriment of its population.

The US industry regardless of reason isn't going to be able to make a cheap, high-quality EV because it doesn't have access to affordable refining capabilities due to various reasons. So the actual situation is, sure the US could let China ship in a bunch of awesome EVs, but then the US automakers will suffer and some will go out of business and then the US just won't be making cars and those union autoworker jobs will be gone. Some people are fine with that I guess, but strategically it doesn't make a lot of sense for the US to allow the domestic auto industry to be crushed. Same thing with Germany. The EU is already starting to roll back EV mandates [1] for the same reason the US is focusing back on oil and natural gas.

> Whatever it takes to get cheap EVs with the sharpest deployment trajectory possible, I am not particular, regardless of the harm it incurs on US automakers or the US itself

On the other hand, as an American voter and even an EV driver, I disagree with these actions. EVs at all cost isn't a goal that makes sense or that I'm interested in. A better argument is to just do away with cars entirely. EVs still create c02, require toxic processing of materials and components, and while they're better for the environment, they're not as good as walking or transit.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-rel...

[toomuchtodo]

> On the other hand, as an American voter and even an EV driver, I disagree with these actions. EVs at all cost isn't a goal that makes sense or that I'm interested in. A better argument is to just do away with cars entirely. EVs still create c02, require toxic processing of materials and components, and while they're better for the environment, they're not as good as walking or transit.

Well, you're arguing this in the wrong country. You might check your priors. I regret to inform you that only about 5% of Americans use public transit [1] [2] [3], and that is unlikely to change unless there is a sea change of migration towards urban areas from the suburbs and rural areas.

A majority of US miles are driven in rural areas or areas without mass transit [4], and the sun belt, where there is limited to no public transit, holds roughly half of the US population. I certainly agree to destroy demand for light vehicle passenger miles in urban areas with robust public transit and other non vehicle options, but the rest of the US will require EVs of some sort. Most of the US does not have mass transit infrastructure, and won't for the remainder of most of our lives (as of this comment).

[1] https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/public-tran...

[2] https://vividmaps.com/public-transportation-in-the-united-st...

[3] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/public-t...

[4] https://www.bts.gov/geography/geospatial-2/daily-vehicle-mil...

[ericmay]

> Well, you're arguing this in the wrong country. You might check your priors. I regret to inform you that only about 5% of Americans use public transit [1] [2] [3], and that is unlikely to change unless there is a sea change of migration towards urban areas from the suburbs and rural areas.

Yes… I’m aware. I’m arguing for change in that figure. Part of the reason American cars are so expensive is because as an industry manufacturers can raise prices because there are no alternatives to car ownership.

The US won’t require EVs for any purpose anytime in our lives. We don’t have the processing and manufacturing capacity to build them here, and we won’t allow our auto industry to go defunct either. It’ll be gasoline for the foreseeable future. Not necessarily a future I like as an EV owner but that’s how things look today. Winning a war is more important than the climate, unfortunately.

[windowpains]

I remember how popular the Yugo was, and then the Geo metro. Nobody wants good cars, they want cheap transportation.

[bluGill]

The expensive cars sell well in the us - customers are not that price inelastic. Those who are prefer a used car with all the high priced features of 5 years ago to a new car with no options

[justonceokay]

Agreed, that’s exactly what i did. But I wonder how much of that culture is because the new cheap Chinese cars aren’t here.

If all you have in town is a target, that’s where people will shop. If you open up a goodwill there might be some handwringing and “I would never” rhetoric. But many people will go to the goodwill even if they don’t admit it.

[coredog64]

Having previously owned a Chinese car (Great Wall H5, bought new), I'm on the fence about buying Chinese cars. Initially it was a great car -- lots of features and they used high quality OEM parts (e.g. a Mitsubishi engine). However, I found that it didn't hold up well* and was missing some of the touches that come from engineering not coming from a car culture. As one example, the tensioner for the accessory belt was a single 14mm bolt. Technically it worked, but it was not fun. Meanwhile, even my '85 Ford Escort had a half-inch square opening in the belt bracketry that accepted a half-inch socket driver/breaker bar for setting the tension. I don't think this is uniquely a Chinese problem, as I heard similar complaints from owners of early Nissan/Toyota full-size trucks. Toyota was able to eventually improve, but Nissan had to pack it in on the Titan.

*To roughly quantify, I'd say mid-to-late 80s Ford/GM car, not 70s Ford/GM car. It never stranded me, but it did break a few times in inconvenient fashion.

[seanmcdirmid]

I don't think Chinese cars ever came into their own until two things happened:

- A move to automate auto factory lines in Chinese auto factories. Up until about a decade ago the emphasis was still on using human labor, and quality took a hit accordingly. Robots are much more precise and consistent, the quality difference between a Chinese-made cars and the same kind of car made in Japan was huge.

- EVs. EV motors are just more reliable in general, and are easier to replace when they wear out or are defective. You don't have so many moving parts any more, and the Chinese became world leaders in battery tech.

If I ever live in China again and need to buy a car, it will definitely be an EV. Heck, I would never buy a BMW ICE (maintenance sucks) but I bought a BMW EV...

[csomar]

Chinese non-EVs never had a good reputation. The take-off really happened only with EVs as China had the edge in batteries which is the thing that matters most on an EV.

[bluGill]

Is the cheap car better? I don't mind an old car, and luxury cars bought today are likely to last decades.