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Comment by brohoolio | Hacker News Reader

Can you explain what you mean?

I fail to see the downside for EU manufacturers.

China is VWs biggest market. BMW, Renault, Mercedes all have massive interests in China, which very quickly end the second China retaliates on the tariffs.

Currently EU manufacturers are competing in China. If a trade war happens that will end and both sides will retreat to their own respective regions, currently that is clearly worse for EU car makers. All German car makers oppose these tarrifs for exactly those reasons.

> China is VWs biggest market

Yes but for how long? China was very successful at baiting Tesla and raising their own EV industry. If anything it's proving that businesses can't rely on Chinese markets even without a trade war.

Tesla is failing because their products are falling behind every day.

>Yes but for how long

Depends on the EU regulations. If they don't want successful EU companies, not for very long.

I think it's hard to say that Tesla products are at fault here when Tesla has been clearly setup to grow Chinese EV industry and now can't compete due to Chinese regulations, subsidies and a massive campaign to promote Chinese cars. Just tune in to tiktok - it's very blatant.

All I'm saying is that perception of Chinese EVs is very inflated compared to objective reality. There are plenty of opportunities left in the automobile market.

I think the OP meant "as intented by the US", ie. car manufacturers moving their production for the US market out of China.

German automakers oppose it because they will be hit the hardest. They focus on premium market. They don't have much competition in that market especially for conventional cars. And they don't care much what will happen later and with others.

But the other side of the wall is that all other low and mid price segment manufacturers (Renault, Stellantis, etc.) welcome the tariffs. Because that's where the automakers from China compete (unfairly).

>They focus on premium market.

Are you kidding? Do you know who VW is?

Majority of VWs sold in China are made in China

Some part of the inflation now is also because of the import new import tariffs (my country first). Countrys with new high import tariffs have a higher inflation rate.

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