I think people in the US and the Euro nations are in for a shock once they realize China has completely stolen the market and effectively their brands in third party nations.
The US buried its auto industry a long time ago and isn't a big slice of their economy anymore, as they have services, banking and tech as the big drivers of their economy, but for some EU countries, especially Germany and central-eastern Europe where the Automotive industry provides a lot of middle class jobs, it will be a bloodbath.
I used to work in the German automotive scene about a decade ago and left, but when I talk to my mates still active in the industry the news they get from management is grim. At a town hall meeting (major German OEM) they were recently told due to increased pressure from Chinese competition they'll have to deliver projects "quicker and cheaper than before", whatever that means, since they told me there's no way it can be done faster and cheaper, as for a new project they spent 2 months just to deiced which version control they should use as the younger devs wanted to use git while the older devs close to retirement wanted to stick to clearcase.
I expect the EU will introduce hefty tariffs on Chinese EVs when the local automakers will lobby for it to protect local jobs, but hardcore protectionism long term only ensure your domestic industry lags behind technologically and falls behind globally.
Luxury brands like Bentley, Porsche, Lambo, etc will be fine, but the ones for Average Joe will have a rough time competing.
Yes, the EU auto industry can in theory compete with Chinese manufacturers, but if you enter a race to the bottom with Chinese companies, you can't win, unless you count making razor thin profits and paying crap wages to your workers as "winning".
Mercedes's factory in Hungary is already complaining about a labor shortage and it's not like they're wages were already super high to begin with, which is most likely why they have that labor shortage to begin with. You can't drive wages even lower than that to compete with China.
That sounds like they have plenty of room to do things more quickly.
Ideally they should spin off new SW projects into separate start-up entities built from the ground up on modern practices instead of rolling ancient projects and convincing old workers to update their skills to enter new projects.. oh wait they already tried that and failed miserably[1]
The problem with automotive development in Germany(and everywhere else I think) is that it's not entirely engineering driven by those in the trenches who see and know where the speedbumps are but by clueless MBAs with PhDs from fancy universities who have no idea what's going on and just brute force the "conjoined triangles of success" everywhere hoping it works.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...
MB had a large stake in Tesla. When they realized that Tesla could out innovate them (Model S vs the B 250e), they sold out.
This is still an economy where ‘digitalization’ is a desirable buzzword.
Why would they sell out?
Tesla planned on sticking to luxury vehicles and selling electric power trains to companies, like MB, that would handle everything else. MB, as far as I’m aware, thought that Tesla would prioritize this more than they did.
Tesla helped develop the MB B 250e, MB’s first BEV. At the same time, they developed and launched the Model S, which was far more expensive but a complete game changer.
Who knows what happened between this and when MB sold their stake in Tesla, but it’s easy to imagine that both companies became less enthusiastic about their partnership over time.
Not sure what the EU’s strategy is here. The impact of Chinese EVs is going to be the same as electrification would have been without them in the first place.
Think about it this way. The EU automotive supply chain was perfectly healthy when US owned manufacturers had a large chunk of market share. Throw on the tariffs, force local production, and everything is good.
Chinese manufacturers will eventually do the same thing. Tesla and Greely have already done it. There are plenty of recent examples of traditional manufacturers doing it as well (Suzuki comes to mind).
The EU automotive industry is still in bad shape. The level of production and employment across the entire supply chain simply isn’t needed for BEVs.
Is that a real issue though ? Chinese cars don’t seem like they are technically superior to European cars, they are just cheaper for the same prestation (I’m not saying they are worse overall because I know Chinese companies can build great products. But like every other Chinese manufactured product, it’s cheaper because working conditions are worse, social security is worse and the Chinese government is subsidizing the sector heavily.
There is also a huge imbalance between raw materials prices for Chinese companies and the rest of the world, it’s a known fact that china materials are cheaper for local companies than for export.
So their advantage isn’t on the business but rather on the geopolitics side. And that’s not something you can fight with competition, that’s something you must fight with politics, and protectionism seems totally justified in this situation.
Isn't this the same for every product made in China vs made in the West?
Your smartphone, your laptop, your sneakers, etc they're all made by Chinese workers with much less wages and social benefits/protections than workers who would be making them in the west.
Why no big tariffs on those to protect our local electronics/clothing manufacturing industries?
Yes it is.
> Why no big tariffs on those to protect our local electronics/clothing manufacturing industries?
I don't know :)
But I doubt that any of this is news to them.