Hacker News Reader

Comment by ZeroGravitas | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, we'll know the battery revolution has arrived when the US needs punitive 100% tariffs to stop imports of low cost, high performance EV cars from a developing nation. Until then it's all talk.

Meanwhile we can talk about two US companies promising that their magic beans are the future.

View on HN

> we'll know the battery revolution has arrived when the US needs punitive 100% tariffs to stop imports of low cost, high performance EV cars from a developing nation.

Somehow US made EVs managed to be priced higher than the Chinese EVs with the imposed tariffs [1]:

[1] Chinese EVs still cheaper than Teslas in US after tariff hike:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41544022

Maybe not yet in US, but EU just launched 30-40% tarifs on chinese EV while it's car industry faces a major crisis and huge lay offs.

[edit] OK, :-( i missed that US has also huge tarifs on EV.

If it were legal to import China's domestic EVs, I think you'd see them everywhere in the US.

I think that's ZeroGravitas's point, expressed a bit sarcastically. This "We'll know when..." is in fact happening.

I wonder how long it will take before people start shopping in Mexico for a cheap BYD and importing those privately. There are probably some hurdles for that. Might be happening already.

After a bit more thought, the steps are

0) Technology advances

1) Engineering advances it to a working, shipping, volume product: "the next generation of batteries are appearing" in cars from China.

2) Politics reacts: "Import tariffs to protect domestic jobs!"

3) People subvert it: "I can get a cheap vehicle in the country next door!"

4) accommodation: "build a factory in the state of Georgia / the country of Hungary to assemble them!", "invest in domestic industry" etc

And there is evidence of all of these steps.

Aren't Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards enough to stop imports?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com