China doubles subsidies for EVs in its 'cash for clunkers' program | Hacker News Reader

China doubles subsidies for EVs in its 'cash for clunkers' program

apnews.com

15 pointsgeox17 comments

This will speed up their domestic electric mobility transition, and as their market saturates, they will eventually point the firehose of affordable EVs (from the built up manufacturing base) at the rest of the world that doesn’t punitively tariff. This should also contribute to demand destruction for petroleum for light vehicle mobility [1].

With every housing unit ever needed already built [2], China is going Big Tech and Clean Energy [3]. It was unfortunate how much real estate consumed their economy, but being the clean energy and mobility factory to the world (with an enormous global total addressable market) is a rising tide that lifts all boats.

A bit of my analysis is: perhaps the developed/Western world should consider similar subsidies?

[1] https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3260353... | https://archive.today/rIOAC ("PetroChina: rapid EV uptake means oil consumption for transport to peak by next year ‘at the latest’ in China")

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/even-chinas-14-bln-popul... ("Even China's 1.4 billion population can't fill all its vacant homes, former official says")

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-07-15/evs-solar... | https://archive.today/LOdqN ("Bloomberg: Xi Jinping’s Great Economic Rewiring Is Cushioning China’s Slowdown")

Unrelated, but the second link is very intriguing. Does this mean that housing can be free for the population? Its just hard to wrap my head around given housing issues in the west

Many existing housing stock are not up to the modern standard. Also much of the new housing is built on where land is cheap, not where people currently prefer to be. It will take time to see if people actually follow housing supply (unlikely), when all evidence is people move to where housing is unaffordable (or rather unaffordability is a measure of people's desire to live somewhere).

Or, there will be a a long series of unintended consequences and people will scam the system like what happened in America.

I agree there are a lot of possibilities ahead, and we’ll only know what the outcome is by observing over a period of time. But, to be frank, I believe in China’s ability to execute far more than the US’ in this context. If your average Chinese citizen attempts to scam the system, they’re more likely to meet punitive measures than in the US, and China’s ability to engineer and manufacture shouldn’t even be up for debate.

A lot of scamming isn’t done by the citizens though, but by higher ups who can cover their tracks for decades before being caught.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-corruption_campaign_under...

Yes, he has purged some of his enemies’ corruption, but definitely has not touched his family/friends.

Can you share citations supporting this assertion?

Reporting on these issues was actually the reason the New York Times got kicked out of China…

Similar proposal in Sweden right now. Plenty of concerns with the reg, but seems to be happening.

Chinese EVs are impressive. I saw BYD once and the difference in quality between a model-3 is stark. Especially the interior.

There are a lot of videos on youtube showing Chinese EV batterys exploding, wields breaking, front ends breaking off. Not saying they are all like that but enough that I'd be wary and trust teslas quality more.

The teslas that also have a ton of QC issues? I'd rather trust a long time car manufacturer like Honda, BMW, Audi, or Nissan when it comes to EVs

That's possible. I only saw the car. My opinion is purely in regards to aesthetics and feel. Long-term ownership performance is an unknown.

I’m more concerned about them from a security perspective. Most EVs are network connected computers on wheels. Driving a car like that made by a geopolitical adversary is not appealing at all.

Tesla use BYD batteries for the LFP standard range cars.

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