It’s a scenario that terrifies America’s auto industry.

Chinese carmakers set up shop in Mexico to exploit North American trade rules. Once in place, they send ultra-low-priced electric vehicles streaming into the United States.

As the Chinese EVs go on sale across the country, America’s homegrown EVs — costing an average of $55,000, roughly double the price of their Chinese counterparts — struggle to compete. Factories close. Workers lose jobs across America’s industrial heartland.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    If only US automakers had developed the electric car in, say, the early 90’s and then had the infrastructure and knowledge base in 2024 to produce an EV people (who aren’t automotive executives) could afford.

    OR, failing that, it would have been great after US automakers blew their entire savings on gas guzzlers and fucking went bankrupt sixteen years ago so the taxpayers gave them boatloads of free fucking money if they could have set aside some money, say, six billion, to develop an EV people could afford - that’d have been great.

    BUT THEY DIDN’T. Now China’s at the door and they’ve got it. Fuck. Uhhhhh . . Unfair trading advantage!! Help! Gummit! More money!

    US Automakers have shit the bed 1000 times. They can show themselves out.

    • anon232@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      This isnt about competition, its about safety standards and not having literal death traps on our roads. Like another comment said, look at how many chinese brands with word salad names there are on amazon, now imagine that but with cars. If people are buying these and importing them into the USA it could put many lives at risk since they wouldn’t be following our safety standards for vehicle manufacturing.

      • reddit_sux@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        You can have well regulated competition or boot legged death traps. Not both. Instead of tariffs make them regulated, with strong safety rules and need for a network. It might just give you cheap, well built EVs. They might target small city cars with 200 miles range instead of humongous SUVs that everyone is running after.

      • hark@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        This is already addressed by the fact that a vehicle has to comply with NHTSA safety standards in order to be imported into the US. Tariffs do nothing about this.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    The US’s own automakers have a history of doing the same thing, moving manufacturing to Canada and Mexico.

  • Mango@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Cry me a river and quit putting fake dealership lottery shit in my mailbox. Don’t even think about building a bridge until my throttle body doesn’t think about it first before opening up and telemetry is a relic from a more barbaric time.

  • CRUMBGRABBER@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    I’m not an expert, but I think its totally possible to make a safe 20k EV, maybe even cheaper. We dont need supercomputer touch screen sell yer data super gps NSA track all civilians crap in there either. Just a simple goddamn daily driver.

  • _sideffect@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Don’t be so quick to adopt Chinese products.

    Look where it got us today. And also, look at the quality of mostly everything nowadays.

    Imagine that with cars.

    • teamevil@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      As for read and replied to on a Chinese made phone…I’ll gladly bash Chinese stuff when it’s made of pure lead and toxic but this is an American manufacturing issue not a Chinese one… same thing happened in the 70/80 with Japanese automotive manufacturing due to the US not making what people want…

    • w2tpmf@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Quality control? Safety standards? Phhhh those only add cost!

      Buy an affordable car from XYSSJ brand!

      …oh a XYSSJ car catches fire and kills the passengers trapped inside … and the brand disappears.

      Not to worry! You can buy an affordable car from the latest brand:FongWay! These cars sure look surprisingly familiar… 🤔

        • w2tpmf@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          One really bad deaign out of thousands made in 120 years of manufacturing. Still a pretty good average.

          They had a few other famous failures (though not nearly as bad as the Pinto) including the Edsel and the Bronco 2. Both of which they removed from production and moved on to make something better.

          Ford is literally the antithesis of what I was saying about a brand that just disappears after a fuck up rather than owning it and improving on the next one.