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Comment by foobarian | Hacker News Reader

Should be safe to allow imports then, right? Since nobody but me would buy one. :-)

I am attempting to import the Seagull currently (experience the pain, see if and how to scale, how to avoid tariff mechanisms, etc), intend to report back with findings.

https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/importing-car

This should be really difficult, especially since America and China have high tariffs in place for automobiles between each other as per China's WTO entrance agreement.

But if you want to have a lot of fun, try importing (as a private citizen) any kind of car into China. It is virtually impossible, even if the car is old. My boss tried to get his Hummer into China once just for kicks, and the negotiations just went on forever and eventually he just went back to the states. You might have an easier time if you are a diplomat and can get black plates for it.

As an infosec/cybersecurity practitioner, it is my jam to probe attack surface looking for weakness to exploit. This is simply another threat modeling exercise, policy instead of tech. I am not against the tariffs, but any means, there is value in protecting US domestic manufacturing for national security interests. But, there is a huge cheap EV TAM that is going unsatisfied by legacy auto and Tesla.

I also have a lot of disadvantaged folks in my sphere who could use cheap, clean EV wheels, and I cannot afford Teslas for all of them.

Tesla had to move production to China originally because of import tariffs. The USA did not establish the bilateral tariffs to protect its car markets, these were in place to protect China's. It seems a bit unfair that the USA is getting flack for this two decades later.

I admit I could totally fail, the learning is the exercise.

Can you import from Mexico instead of directly from China? Would this help overcome the tariffs/other obstacles?

Although this article was previously linked on HN, regarding importing 4 wheel loaders directly from China:

https://electrek.co/2023/11/30/i-bought-container-full-of-el...

Can you buy one in Mexico and keep driving in US for X time?

I honestly don't even mind the tariffs that seem to be present, and could probably tolerate +50% or even +80%. But the other question is whether the car ticks all the safety boxes that could flat out block the car from legally driving on US roads.

Who says imports aren't allowed?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-22/why-can-t...

There are plenty of small cars made outside of China. Why do you think not a single auto manufacturer worldwide bothers to export their best selling models to the US? The market here wants SUVs and trucks, not $15K subcompacts.

We don't know what the market wants, because the government has made it very difficult to supply such a subcompact.

Outside of Chinese-made vehicles the US has probably the most open auto import market in the world. Most manufacturers enjoy a 2.5% tariff, which is a joke, and not reciprocated anywhere in the world. All these foreign manufacturers are selling $25-50K+ cars just fine (over 4 million of them every year in fact). It's the US market that is rejecting lower priced cars.

Safety and other regulations still apply.

European safety and environmental standards are much higher than here.

higher sounds like a quality argument, which may be true. they are not stricter though, which is what they'd need to be to refute the parents point. take headlights, for example, where the us's requirements are significantly stricter than european ones.

They are allowed, but the US has a 27.5% tarrif on Chinese EVs.

$13k instead of $10k is still great for a tiny car!

Imports have to satisfy all the US regulations.

To quote from a link someone else posted:

> Most Chinese cars haven’t been engineered with US safety regulations in mind; just going through those protocols is an expensive and elaborate process.

US protectionism would like a word with you.

Chinese protectionism would also like a word. Remember these tariffs were originally setup between the US and China in 2006 to protect China's car market, not the USA's. See https://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/dswenson/ChinaCarPa...

> Here, the bilateral agreement noted the expectation that by 2006 China’s import tariff on assembled cars was to be reduced from its pre WTO level of 80% or 100% to 25%, while the diverse rates of tariff on auto parts were to be reduced such that the average tariff on auto parts declined to 10%.

That was a reduction from the 80-100% it was previously, so 25% was a huge win back then, but it was (and is) still a mostly protected car market.

I'm not saying anything about the Chinese protections merely the US protections.

The US and Chinese protections were negotiated at the same time in 2006: China wanted a 25% tariff for automobiles imported into China from the USA (down from 80-100%), the USA said, OK, but we will apply the same to your cars. That's why it was negotiated, if China offered no tariff, the USA would have jumped at that.

Almost all tariffs are reciprocated, that's just how this game works. It is only an accident in history that these tariffs now protect the USA rather than China.

The article cites the Alliance for American Manufacturing, for one, as warning that if these Chinese-state-subsidized vehicles are permitted for import without trade adjustments correcting for the distortionary effect of the subsidies, then unsubsidized non-Chinese manufacturers will be unable to compete and have to fold.

As the article quotes Elon Musk in his capacity as Tesla guy:

> “The Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world,” Musk said during the call. “So, I think they will have significant success outside of China depending on what kind of tariffs or trade barriers are established.”

> “Frankly, I think, if there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other companies in the world.”

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