'Simply good' Chinese electric cars power ahead of inferior US rivals
ft.com
ft.com
It won't matter which country makes the best ones. You'll be forced to buy one from a manufacturer headquartered in a friendly nation.
I ask because AFAICT the people who are in favour of trade barriers are the same who always are. The situation doesn't seem unusual. We have roughly the usual number of populists waving footguns, etc. What am I overlooking?
However, soon China will be selling electric cars that are both cheaper and better than any of the traditional makers, and looking to sell them worldwide. This will trigger protectionist actions in the big manufacturers countries, but also seeing their markets dry up, all those countries will also be negotiating trade deals with any country who will listen to also block China selling to their country.
The cars coming out of traditional manufacturers have onbvious flaws that could be fixed tomorrow.
But they don't...
However, I think there's a minor disconnect: I can easily see how e.g. the US might want to block sales from China to e.g. Brazil, but the way from wanting a goal to having an agreement ratified by both countries is long and involves painful phases like getting internal agreement about the concessions made.
The Chinese cars are compelling, so I don't doubt that Washington will say "they won't look so good if the $19k starting price became $82k after penalty taxes."
Great. China remotely controlling vehicles in the US is a real national security threat.
Some of our local brands will merge and/or disappear, as they get squeezed out.
It'll be pretty much the 'Get a new one, throw away an old one' meme for a roughly constant number of car companies.
I tend to think that GM and Ford haven't fully bought into electric cars, so the experience with those cars tends to be fairly miserable (terrible charging, bad reliability).
The interesting thing to me is how far behind the curve the Japanese brands are this time around.
I'd love to see more options on the EV market and hope tarrifs don't happen.
BYD are increasingly popular in AU :-/
But considering how much potential BYD has to steal EV lunch why is the stock price not been reflecting that?
It has been at least a trimester of news about 'traditional' auto makers slashing prices and asking for trade restrictions on BYD. I would expect NVIDIA levels of rally at this point on BYD's stock?
Its as simple as being a Chinese stock. Whether justified or not, that’s the concern. Even among Chinese people. The stock market is seen as gambling in China.