I wonder how Tesla is going to respond. They might have most of the EV market in the US but if I was looking for my first EV, I wouldn't choose them.
I’m conflicted about these tariffs since on one hand I understand the security threats and I’d like the rest of the world to catch up so it’s not just China dominating the market, but on the other it seems sad that affordable and effective EVs are here and probably can make a significant dent in emissions but the politics keep them from being utilized.
Where in Europe are you?
The EU is looking at enforcing a 50% tariff on Chinese EVs in the coming months [0][1]. A trade war has already unofficially started between China and the EU [2].
[0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/probe-into-chinese-subsidies...
[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/31575d29-1945-4a90-8640-04967e1d1...
[2] - https://www.politico.eu/article/china-beijing-market-eu-trad...
In Mexico they assemble cars from Chinese parts and ship duty free to the US and Candada.
Or build more factories in the US. Geely owns Volvo and they're building in the US. All the EU makers, the Korean and Japanese makers too have factories in the US.
Tariffs are on real imports, not on US or USMCA made products.
Considering China, South Korea, and Japan just finished up a meeting which included moving forward with talks on a Free Trade Agreement in the face of American-led sanctions and tariffs...
It's going to be fun seeing just how effective American diplomacy and economic violence actually is nowadays.
South Korea has in particular suffered a great deal undr China's economic coercion since THAAD in 2017 -- their global giants like Samsung, Hyundai lost over 90% of their sales in China and they have likewise removed much of their manufacturing footprint in China. Not all too sure they want to jeopadize otherwise collaborative relationship with friendly ally, the US, for a hostile trading bully next door, China.
If that FTA does become a thing, the US will have lost before any hot war even began. May we live in fun times.
- vastly easier land use situation, and impossibility of local protest
- the big one: synergy. Making batteries and electronics and steel parts all comparatively close to each other inside the same customs zone.
- less regulatory capture (they actually have to compete!)
Lots countries have had subsidies and incentives for electric cars; however China's policies seems to have been uniquely succesful - exactly why is not obvious.
Some point to the "mayor economy" where cities compete in being attractive for companies to setup business. For example see the story of Tesla's Shanghai plant.
That makes energy super cheap. But is is an external cost, people are paying with their health.
Europe and USA went to similar periods in the past. Now China is regulating more and more because pollution is a huge problem there.
Then you have salaries, that used to be cheap, now not so much.
Also a very important thing is that in China capital is not free, it is a communist system and your savings account are used to subsidise what the Government wants. EV, solar, electronic chips and batteries are a priority so they receive infinite amounts of money from Government.
Finally you have scale. China usually have enormous markets because it has so much people, although that applies to cheap things, for cars they don't have enough buyers inside so they want to sell in Africa and India and the West.
This is not necessarily a problem if we can all peacefully coexist. China has a history of weaponizing their dominant market position to settle geopolitical/market disputes -- eg, rare earth metal ban against Japan in 2010; China's recent graphite "export control" to protect Chinese EV companies' business in markets abroad.
The fact that China practically banned all foreign EV battery makers from local EV market and forced EV OEMs to use locally made batteries by local battery makers to dominate the global battery market since 2016 under Xi's Make-In-China 2025 adds to the view that this isn't purely about saving the planet or making affordable EVs for the rest of us.
The US already has been countering China's every anticompetitive, discriminatory policy measure by more or less equal response: for instance, eliminating all subsidies on EVs with critical minerals sourced from non-free trading nations and banning Chinese EV/battery companies, and so on -- or otherwise known as Biden's IRA (vs Xi's Made-In-China 2025).
I'm not necessarily taking sides, but if you feel that the US's policy is bad, that's probably because China's original policy was also bad. If you were ok with China's exclusionary EV policy since 2016, you probably shouldn't be crying about the US's policy today since it's designed to mirror China's.
Do note however that, in March, China did file a WTO complaint accusing the US (IRA) of doing what China has been doing past decade under MIC 2025 -- misusing subsidies to force local content, local production (aka, in international trade lingo, it's called "local/domestic content requirement"). So I'm a bit troubled by China's double-standard.
https://dialogue.earth/en/business/life-after-subsidies-for-...
Doing business in China is indeed very hard, but Tesla is still selling quite well there, despite absolutely furious competition.
Extension of the preferential tax policy for car purchases The total reduction and exemption is expected to reach 520 billion yuan —— Precision to provide assistance to the expansion of new energy vehicles 2023-06-21
The Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Taxation, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently issued a joint announcement to clearly continue and optimize the tax reduction and exemption policy for the purchase of new energy vehicles to support the development of the new energy automobile industry and promote automobile consumption. According to preliminary estimates, through the implementation of the extension policy, the total scale of vehicle purchase tax relief from 2024 to 2027 will reach 520 billion yuan.
Do some research before spewing this kind of nonsense.
The other large markets like the EU and India are also looking at tariffs for EVs exported directly from China and are pushing for Chinese companies to create domestic JVs in both countries (eg. BYD in Hungary, MG in India).
[0] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/269872/largest-automobil...
If you were looking for your first EV, you wouldn't be looking at this car because it is not an EV.