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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

I hope that our tariff situation in the coming years doesn't leave us behind the coming tech curve.

Our entire energy future in the US could be held back severely if we are kept from adopting the best technology by politicians trying to prop up oil. The market must be allowed to choose the most efficient technology on its own. (And even the oil companies know that their future is limited, the only question is how long they can delay that future and how much money they can extract from consumers through higher prices than the alternatives.)

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Hah. We're already way behind the tech curve on anything physical. Propping up oil doesn't help, but it isn't the problem by a long shot. China props up coal and it certainly doesn't hurt their manufacturing.

The problem is that we can't build anything in this country, with a handful of very expensive exceptions. If the US wants to change that, we have to send a planeload of senators to Shenzhen and copy fucking everything. Take detailed notes and copy JLCPCB, LCSC, Alibaba, Foxconn, all the raw material suppliers, all the chemical suppliers. Build a new EEZ near NYC or SF and invest $1 trillion over 10 years (5% of discretionary spending.) Write up a few laws: every business must have fast turnaround, thin margins, and instant quotes. In a decade every product in the world would be made in America.

It wouldn't even be hard; that number is ~10% of military spending and all of those companies will voluntarily give you a detailed tour. It's not like we don't understand any of this stuff. Etching a PCB or running a warehouse or spot-welding some crap is relatively simple.

Everyone thinks China leads the world in manufacturing because of labor costs. Ha, no. China's far richer now. It started out as the labor costs, but now it's the vertical integration. You can go from prototype to product in a month in China. Try doing that in the US; it'll take a month just to get your calls returned, and you'll find that we don't and we can't make shit. At scale, we can't make foam, we can't mold plastic, and we can't make PCBs. More to the original subject, at scale we can't coat electrodes, we can't process chemicals, and we can't work metal; put that all together and we sure as shit can't make batteries.

> put that all together and we sure as shit can't make batteries.

US is a second largest battery maker

It is also the second largest consumer of them (making local production a good option). Excluding Tesla's in house production, all other battery makers of any scale are foreign companies.

Aren't Tesla batteries made by Panasonic (inside Tesla factories)?

Not the newer 4680s.

Yep, Tesla uses Panasonic's NCA-90, but Tesla now makes 4680 in-house, but without all that fancy dry processed cathodes that promises up to ~20% reduction in cost.

LG should be mass-producing 4680's by now (and dry battery electrode by 2027). Panasonic is still working on 4680. Maybe soon, but dunno when.

We're third, between Poland and Hungary, and other countries are making serious investments.

"Third, between Poland and Hungary" would be fine if we were talking about production of goulash, or words with too many consonants, but we are talking about batteries, which are now a critical part of energy infrastructure and daily life.

Also, the US battery production is almost exclusively Tesla, which is actually Panasonic, using a process that has still not been Americanized, using Japanese equipment, the most critical of which "in an area not accessible to non-Panasonic employees." It is also behind China on cost. Oh, and did I mention it is government-subsidized to a hilarious degree? In other words, it's a joke.

To be fair, you asked yourself for about a trillion of subsidies?

>using a process that has still not been Americanized, using Japanese equipment, the most critical of which "in an area not accessible to non-Panasonic employees." It is also behind China on cost. Oh, and did I mention it is government-subsidized

The subsidies aren't the problem here. The problem is that they are uncompetitive islands of foreign technology that lead nowhere, and they are _more expensive even after being heavily subsidized_.

I always enjoy threads where US HNers casually explain in a derogatory way that they should not depend on anyone for anything remotely useful.

The cognitive dissonance between these threads and the ones where local law and taxes are an insult to their right to free trade is amazing.

It might surprise you to hear that I’m both American and European, and when in Europe I also encourage manufacturing. Being able to make things is a strategic advantage, period. Never did I say that we should not depend on anyone for anything. I simply believe that we should not depend on others for everything.

I’m also not sure what you found derogatory in my comment, and I don’t understand what you’re getting at about local laws and taxes and how that would be relevant here.

LG's 65/115GWh (online/planned) plant in Poland is the biggest battery factory in EU.

But I believe the US surpassed the EU this year with the GM/LG's Ultium 2 factory. I have no doubt in my mind that the US battery manufacturing will become more competitive as they scale up and commoditize: GM for instance reported a 45% decline in battery cell cost YoY in 3Q 2023; followed by a sequential quarterly drop of $30/cell from the 1st 2024. With AMPC ($35/KWh), GM's per cell costs drops close to $80/KWh and is expected to fall further -- below $70/KWh in a couple of years.

  Panasonic (NV): 40 GWh
  Tesla (4680)  : 9+?? GWh 
  GM/LG Ultium 1: 45 GWh (2022)
  GM/LG Ultium 2: 45 GWh (2024)
  SK Georgia    : 21 GWh (2021)

I agree mostly, but you'll find that we don't want a lot of those things here, especially in chemical and raw material extraction + production.

Places that used to do this in the U.S. have left major scars and real human impact. The lack of regulation and enforcement mean they are causing the same (or worse thanks to scale + neglect) in China.

We don't need the raw material extraction and that's why I didn't mention it in my comment. Raw material extraction doesn't happen in Shenzhen and for some materials it doesn't even happen in China. You can get a shipload of cheap sodium sent wherever you are. All you need is a few companies to store a bit so it's readily available.

None of the things I listed have to have a large environmental impact. We have huge warehouses and same-day logistics in the US, they're just for consumer goods. Making PCBs or coating electrodes or working metal can all be very low-impact processes. Shenzhen isn't Bhutan but it certainly isn't a chemical waste pit. Most Chinese pollution comes from coal or resource extraction, not manufacturing.

It's the sudden shutdown that gets you.

Like how people don't get married because divorce is such a big risk. Or people don't drive too fast because it's not speed that kills but the sudden stop.

This is a very pessimistic description of the US. You can't mold plastic at scale? How in the hell is Tesla one of the most profitable made-in-the-US car manufacturers around? Are you basing this on anything concrete?

Posting this from Europe by the way, which also has fallen behind on quite some elements of the modern economy, but I likewise wouldn't write off the entire manufacturing sector of Europe in one single post either.

>The problem is that we can't build anything in this country, with a handful of very expensive exceptions.

Made-in-America cars are not competitive abroad and would hardly be competitive in the US if it weren't for a series of strange legislative moats. They are also massively subsidized in many ways.

Furthermore, Teslas are not really made in the US in the same way that things are made in China. Your average widget off the shelves is one hundred percent made in China using almost entirely Chinese materials. Teslas, on the other hand, are "made in the US of foreign and domestic components." Shut down the ports and you couldn't make a single damned Tesla.

If you haven't manufactured anything before you may expect that I'm talking about things like the screen or the cameras. No. I'm talking about nearly every part of the car. Where do you think the tools to make the car parts come from? The thousands of chemicals involved? The myriad plastic clips? Shut down the ports tomorrow and pretty much the only significant car part you could make from scratch is some pretty sheet metal.

>You can't mold plastic at scale?

Next time you speak to someone who makes plastic products, get an idea of how much it would cost to make new molds and produce XXX items for a random widget, in China vs Europe vs the US. When you get the answer you can drown your tears in a nice bottle of baijiu.

In general I find European "manufacturing" to be an even thinner layer of duct tape between Chinese components than its American counterpart. The few things we do well in the US (sheet metal, fancy semiconductors, fancy tooling) are either nonexistent in Europe or American-controlled (see ASML.)

US production costs about five times as much as Chinese production, and has a six-month lead time with actual phone calls. China has one month lead time, everything’s done over wechat, and is again, one-fifth the price. Why ever go domestic?

You can request a quote and start building a generational relationship with sales reps to get samples in few years at 500x cost before 300% new customer premium. Or you can upload a file to blunt but honest Chinese Web interface and get it thrown into your doorstep in 5 working days. Manufacturing in developed countries are either working or broken depending on how you think about that.

Current form of capitalism coupled with constant inflation universally penalize work: it makes less work at higher charges under the guise of better value a local individual optimum. This isn't a problem according to some justifications, or less work is less work if you ask some others.

China hasn't gotten to that point of constant output reduction and price hikes. Their manufacturing is still working in that sense.

Which senators do you think might be qualified to go and do such a thing?

>we can't work metal

........? North America and China are about equal in terms of steel and aluminum working expertise. Really not sure where you're getting that idea...

Oh? Look at machining costs in the US vs China. Look at the cost to get something punched or stamped or bent or extruded or skived.

We have a few companies that make a decent effort, it's true, and indeed the US sheet metal industry is one of the few industries that could be entirely self-sustaining if the ports closed tomorrow. But most of the metalworking in the US is just heavily subsidized six ways to Sunday and still uncompetitive.

What you mean to say is the US needs to become capitalist again. China is ahead because in many ways they are more capitalist than the US. In China strong firms survive and weak ones die. The opposite of this happens in the US, the government will prop up the likes of Boeing, Ford, Wall Street all simply because they are too big to die even though they are not the best at making planes, cars, financial products etc...

> Everyone thinks China leads the world in manufacturing because of labor costs. Ha, no. China's far richer now. It started out as the labor costs, but now it's the vertical integration

The US is behind China on key manufacturing sectors, but over the last few years this is changing in a big way. And I agree that China no longer has the labor cost advantage, but that also means that the US has a good chance to catch up now.

The last few years have seen an absolutely unprecedented boom in factory construction in the US. A lot of those are for green energy, but because green energy somewhat politically incorrect in the rural red areas where these go, there's not much local news about them.

https://www.volts.wtf/p/how-is-new-clean-energy-manufacturin...

So sure for plastic and PCBs, the US is not competitive and hasn't cared to be for a long time. But for emerging technologies like green energy, we have it in us to recapture the sector.

And maybe the needs of these other sectors will push local suppliers to want to be competitive, if the volumes are large enough. Because if there is a big enough customer, they can be competitive. But if a persons new project is not big enough to move the needle for a company in the US, why would they change their practice for PCB production?

I like the optimism, and it is true that the US invested a lot in battery and solar manufacturing, but outside that there has been no real growth or negative growth in the other manufacturing sectors. And even in battery and solar production we're a small fish. Even the wildest interpretations of the “Inflation Reduction Act” don’t claim to change this. I said more downthread, but US battery production actually fell to third recently, between Poland and Hungary.

At the end of the day, having one or two highly specific sectors with growth is basically nothing. It’s one or two drops in one or two buckets and there are thousands of buckets and modern manufacturing relies on those buckets being literally right next to each other. US lawmakers will throw a few bucks to the sexiest and trendiest buckets but what we really need is the least sexy parts; the business logistics and the suppliers, the raw materials, the moldmakers, etc. In 2024, the cheapest way to get aluminum stock or untold many other essential supplies quickly delivered to your business is to pay consumer prices for a million individually wrapped units at Amazon and then pay an employee to unbox them. What we need is broad and large scale vertical manufacturing if we want to be competitive and that is obvious to anyone who manufactures in the US.

Well the factories are just getting completed now, downstream effects wouldn't be expected until later.

This is like people saying for the past decade that solar will never be anything because it was <1% of energy production.

Predicting the future based on position only works if the velocity growth is the same for all points. I don't think that will be the case. Unless we just give up, and actively choose not to compete.

The existing and impending protectionism almost guarantees the US car manufacturers are screwed. The rest of the world is already buying loads of BYDs, so US car makers are already competing with them and losing badly. They’ll be relegated to only being viable options in the US. Then we’ll be left with expensive and inefficient cars until we eventually give up on propping them up.

The exceptions being Tesla and possibly Rivian and Lucid. With Tesla you know that Musk will find a way to keep going either by hook or by crook. Rivian is in a more uncertain situation but they have shown that they have the mindset of a SV company like Tesla and so we can't write them off yet. Finally Lucid seems to have a large well of cash from the Saudis so they may stick around as a niche maker.

Rivian isn't doing so hot; they're still losing money like it's going out of style. Lucid is doing far better.

Thats the SV way though, rivian will do ok

Which is why a bunch of this will never happen. They have a boatload of money sunk into EVs and the only thing more powerful than christian nationalists are corporations, especially auto manufacturers.

A large number of red states have foreign car company factories. If those scale back or shut down, people are going to be pissed. Dollars to donuts all those car companies have plant idling and layoff plans all drawn up and ready to go the second tariffs come in.

I half want to see it for the /r/leopardsatetheirfaces moment. Who would have thought it'd be unwise to have a man who bankrupted multiple casinos (by shuffling personal debts into them), an entire sports league, an airline, and failed to sell alcohol and beef to Americans...be put in charge of a national economy.

He'll make a lot of bluster, Big Three will tell him to knock it the fuck off, he'll find someone to blame for his base (probably the auto company execs), and go back to eating Hamberders while staring at a national security brief written at a 3rd grade English level.

During his first term he made it so that we can't buy BYD here. No way that's changing now.

BYD has been expanding a lot since then, they have much more money than 4-6 years ago, they've rolled out more factories around the world. It's not a given since now they have both more experience, and more cash, the American market is huge so they might try to find the loopholes this time to have their products in the USA.

Probably much harder if tariffs on Canada/Mexico happen but if those don't materialise (which is quite likely because, well, it's going to fuck with American food prices, energy, etc.) then BYD's factory in Mexico will probably be there, ready to start exporting.

The US export market for vehicles will definitely suffer. But it was already suffering even before the tariffs.

It's very simple: the EV market is growing at around 20% globally this year. That's despite all the whining from some manufacturers that there's no demand for EVs. Which is true but only for their EVs. Because they simply aren't good enough. Too expensive to make. Not comparing well to cheaper competitors, etc. Take your pick. They aren't selling well and that's a problem for the manufacturers that are making them. But it's not true for other manufacturers that are growing. Even in the US the EV market is expanding.

Either way, that EV market growth is in the context of an overall car market that isn't growing anywhere near 20%. So, EVs are growing at the expense of legacy car makers. Their market share is effectively shrinking. By about 1/5th a year. They have cost related to that for downsizing production capacity, getting rid of staff (and the associated compensation packages), dealing with related strikes, etc. Many of these companies won't make it. It would take many billions in $s of investment in R&D, new products, new production facilities, etc. And with many of these companies slowing down those investments, it's not going to magically improve for them. It's a death spiral.

There are also no signs of EV market growth slowing down much further. With price parity effectively there if you have access to BYDs (which much of the world does), it's game over for ICE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Managed_decline

Given the overall panic levels in the industry, I'd say it's not that well managed.

Don't worry, in Europe, the incumbent manufacturers have a much better way to prevent EV sales: lack of charging spots. Unless you are rich enough to own a house and install your own charger, the law still does not mandate, even for apartment buildings currently under construction, electrical plugs in parking spots. Which means that, if you rent, you can't buy an EV. If you own your apartment, you STILL can't buy an EV (unless you convince everyone else to spend at least 5k€/spot to install such plugs, and wait 2-3 years).

That is a fair point. But the car manufacturers have no influence over whether the charging spots are going to be built or not.

Even if there is no mandate to have them at the apartment buildings, the customers will naturally prefer those dwellings that do have them. Which in turn will create pressure on the building owners to have them installed.

I don’t know where you base your claim on. Do you own an electric car in Europe?

I live in Europe and own an electric car. There are fast chargers everywhere and also some slow chargers near my house. I mostly drive in the Netherlands and Germany. Charging infrastructure is not a problem at all!

If there is a problem though, it’s German electricity prices. Charging is almost as expensive as refueling a car per km.

I have had an EV in Switzerland for four years. It’s not impossible but is hard. And no we don’t have as many as you think because half the time the ones that purport to be available don’t work.

If you drive tons that would be another story. Most trips are shorter so EVs are more viable.

I also could have asked to charge from the wall in our building but haven’t had to due to other charging options.

Rented an EV to drive from Stockholm -> München -> Geneva -> Paris, there was plenty chargers to not make me anxious through the whole drive.

Europe is a continent, maybe the issue you allude to is more localised? Where exactly in Europe do you see an issue with lack of charging spots?

I think (as already mentioned in other replies) it is usually less about chargers along major highways, but about charging at home/work. Which is especially relevant in places like Germany, where people primary rent rather than own their home and electricity costs are relatively high.

If you can't charge over night for cheap and maybe even combine it with your own solar installation, then EVs are losing a good part of their value proposition.

Many supermarkets had fast chargers in their car parks on my route, as well as chargers along highways, and in cities.

Charging overnight as far as I understand is a bonus proposition of EVs but given I could charge the car in about 10 minutes in a fast charger and have more than enough for a day staying in some cities I don't see much difference from ICEs stopping to fill up gas. It's a tad slower but not that much that bothered me and would make me choose an ICE car instead.

Even with paying fast chargers' fees it was still much cheaper than paying for petrol.

> Charging overnight as far as I understand is a bonus proposition

I would disagree with it being just a bonus proposition, since it imo is part of the inherent advantages.

And while i do agree with you that in many cases it will still be an overall favorable comparison for EVs vs ICE cars, i think there is no denying that between being able to charge at home for cheap and having to rely on public chargers there's a value (and convenience) difference.

I am not really up to date with how pricing looks (so feel free to correct me), but i think in Germany electricity at home is on average like 27ct/kWh, and on public chargers you pay between 40ct on the low end (possibly with some monthly base cost) up to 80ct on the high end for some DC fast chargers.

There are loads of chargers all over Europe. And of course the most important one is close to where you live which you use for charging most of the time.

My parents actually have an EV and rely on neighborhood chargers because their apartment block doesn't have a charger yet. It's fine. A bit of chore to park the car 500m from where they live once a week or so and then unplug it and drive it back to its regular parking spot. They are still saving loads of cash on fuel using only public chargers. Beats having to spend 60-70 euros on petrol. And it's not like they sit around waiting for the thing to charge.

Also, you can charge most cars of a regular wall socket. It will be slow. But it works. Or you can use one of the hundreds of thousands of slow chargers in Europe. There are around 0.5M currently. Projected to double to 1M next year and grow to 3M by 2030. Lots of fast chargers too. You can drive all over Europe with an EV.

It's petrol car owners that need to start worrying. Who is still supplying petrol? How far to the next working petrol station? The market for petrol and diesel is shrinking as rapidly as the EV market is growing. More, probably, because early adopters tend to be the ones that drive the most. You can't get petrol at home. And if your local petrol station closes, you'll need to drive a bit further.

With commercial fleets, lease cars, delivery vans, etc. all going electric in a hurry, there are simply going to be less petrol stations. It's like finding hay or water for your horse when cars became a thing. Not going to be a thing on every street corner.

>There are loads of chargers all over Europe.

That's meaningless if the chargers are not at your home or close to where you live. And the public chargers available half are broken or have some issue or terrible UX on payment. Plus long charring time so you need to take time out of your day to go back to the charger and bring your car back home. Terrible UX versus a 3 minute refuel at a gas station and you're done for the week.

EVs make the most sense when you have your charger at home, or at least at work. Otherwise UX sucks balls. Imagine not being able to charge your phone at home and always be looking to charge it in public. That would suck, wouldn't it?

>It's petrol car owners that need to start worrying.

Do you see gas stations closing en-masse yet? I haven't.

>delivery vans, etc. all going electric in a hurry

They are not in any hurry. Only the national post where I live has some EV delivery vans for virtue signaling and green washing. All the other smaller delivery companies and contractors use diesel vans almost exclusively because they need to actually care about range, saving money and turning a profit.

People do drive to smelly, expensive _gas stations_ to power their gas-powered cars. Having to drive to plug your EV is not worse UX than that.

What does the smell have to do with it? Do people choose car refueling methods based on smell of the refueling place, or on cost/convenience of ownership? Can't some drunks or homeless people piss and shit at EV charging station and make them smell even worse than gasoline fumes?

My point was you don't have to loiter for hours or leave your car at the gas station to fill it up then come back to get it like with EV chargers. It's a 3 minute in and out quickie situation so smell or not is not an issue.

I wrote that argument in my previous comment as well but I guess you didn't read it.

I just realised I was writing a thought-out reply to someone named Cumpiler69.

The problem is that using public chargers is, at least in Sweden, so expensive compared to home charging that its suddenly an even worse economic choice to buy an EV. Using public DCFCs (even slow chargers are expensive) the cost is ofte comparable to diesel cars. Add ontop the very expensive EV prices...

I think most people that have EVs are pretty happy. Very few people going back to an ICE car once they switch. Of course there are counter examples. But they are outnumbered by 9 to 1 by people that stick with EVs. And then they convince their neighbors. That's why the market is growing. By 20% world wide.

Anyway, apparently Shell is planning to close a 1000 stations. About half of the petrol stations in the Netherlands are projected to disappear over the next 5-10 years. Not surprising considering the massive shift to EVs. Some countries this will go quicker than others of course. But even countries like Germany are starting to see a shift.

You can deny all you want but the numbers are there if you care to look at them. I don't know many businesses that can deal with double digit percentages drops in demand. That's exactly what petrol stations have been facing for a while now and will continue to face. All the obvious things are happening. By the 2030s most commercial traffic will be electric. Because it's simply cheaper. It's not virtue signalling but economics that's driving this.

All the small businesses, contractors, etc. that convince themselves they need to buy diesel at a premium in large quantities will be competing against others that simply don't. More every year. The rest is just Darwinism and market inertia.

>I think most people that have EVs are pretty happy.

Well d'uh, that's why they bought EVs in the fist place, but that's not the point. The point is to convince the people who don't have EVs to get EVs. You need to make them happy too, otherwise they're not gonna buy EVs. Why don't people get this fact?

>You can deny all you want but the numbers are there if you care to look at them.

Care to share them? Also, the NL isn't representative for all of Europe, not by a long shot. Most new cars I see in my neighborhood are diesel, lots of new diesel SUVs, and EVs are only in the suburbs where the richer people live in their single family homes, while poor and middle class drive ICEs because they don't have chargers at home or at work. What happens in the NL has no impact where I live and vice versa.

>All the small businesses, contractors, etc. that convince themselves they need to buy diesel

They didn't "convince themselves" as if it's some cult/religion, they actually did the math on the economics and decided that diesel is better for their businesses' bottom line. You'd also know that if you'd get out of your bubble.

> they actually did the math on the economics

No they didn't. Approximately 0% of small business owners have time to sit down and do math. They keep buying diesel because that's what they've always bought. They've learned the hard won lesson that change is hard and change is costly. Few small business owners are going to be on the bleeding edge.

They'll switch when EV's are the default choice.

> Do you see gas stations closing en-masse yet? I haven't.

The National Association of Convenience Stores is paying attention and watching Norway to be ahead of the game:

https://www.nacsmagazine.com/Issues/October-2024/The-Latest-...

> Unfortunately, this also means that many locations that are good as gas locations today in Norway will lose their relevance in the future. Even with the high EV penetration in Norway, few gas stations have been closed so far. Although some of the players aim to be “the last man standing,” there is little doubt that many sites will be closed in the years to come. This may be unfortunate for smaller communities that rely on having one or two gas stations.

I live in a condo (sort of) in northen europe and we put in chargers in all our garages last year.

> The existing and impending protectionism almost guarantees the US car manufacturers are screwed

Your conclusion is this but your justification proves the opposite.

I think you might be confusing economic tactics.

Tariffs don't discourage adoption of the best technologies, they discourage importing products from other countries.

If solar/wind/batteries/nuclear/hydro/whatever is better than oil, and there are high tariffs, the result will be onshore production of those technologies.

What gets in the way of that is subsidies, not tariffs.

Unless there is an underlying assumption that the US is incapable of producing these better technologies itself, in which case the US is probably fucked regardless.

>Unless there is an underlying assumption that the US is incapable of producing these better technologies itself, in which case the US is probably fucked regardless.

That seems to be a safe assumption these days: I just don't see the US producing these better technologies itself at all. It's still pretty good at making cutting-edge software, but that's about it.

> It's still pretty good at making cutting-edge software, but that's about it

Chinese software engineering seems to be catching up extremely fast in this regard too. I'm surprised how often I find an interesting new open source tool or library on GitHub and the comments in the code are all in Mandarin.

Chinese devs were never behind, they just don't contribute much in the past and very few were active in open source community.

This is true. So many CNCF projects for example these days have a lot of contributions from Chinese devs or originate from companies like Alibaba/Tencent etc

> If solar/wind/batteries/nuclear/hydro/whatever is better than oil, and there are high tariffs, the result will be onshore production of those technologies

Better along what metric? In a market, the axis is going to be cost which tariffs impact

Chinese solar panels being cheaper is not "better technology" which is what I was responding to – that's just China producing things cheaper, for a variety of reasons.

If solar panels in general are a better tech (by whatever metric), then tariffing chinese solar panels and not subsidizing oil should result in more American solar panels being produced and beating out oil.

But Chinese solar companies do have the best products. Longi ships panels with 25.4% efficiency today. First solar's best is 19.7%. That is a multiple generation gap. And longi is on track to go commercial tandem cells that have over 32% efficiency. There is no reason to choose First solar over longi in free competition. First solar has market share entirely due to non-market barriers, like tariffs, non market access, political connections, unfair subsidies.

Is LONGi "free competition"? They haven't been given a leg up by the CCP in any way?

The only leg up ccp gave is providing the consumer market for solar, and just let all solar players brawl in the market. And the government standards kept going up to force manufacturers improve their products.

The extremely tough competition in Chinese market meant they worked extremely hard. First Solar would not have survived if they are in the same competition in China.

And did the Chinese stole IP from Americans that Americans don't even have? What does it take for people to understand Chinese people are people too, they are just like you, living and breathing human beings. No one is inferior, no one is dumber. People can be as just as capable.

I can also say industrial policy will fail. The primary reason Chinese companies, like solar and EVs, are where they are now is because extreme hard work and competition. The best thing happened to Chinese EV industry is inviting Tesla into the market, and everyone tried to create a more competitive product and leapfrog Tesla. Westerners say Chinese ppl don't like foreign companies and are nationalist is brainwashed by western media. Domestic brands are considered inferior, Tesla hold the prestige. But as companies are coming up with more leapfrogging products they are changing people's perceptions and mindshare. The biggest thing for domestic car companies they seem to successfully transformed Chinese people's perceptions of Chinese brands. People are no longer mindless envy international brands. If you seen how hard they worked, you will appreciate. They make Elon musk's hard work look easy. They won it fair and square. And they are not against just Tesla, in luxury segment, they are against BWM, Mercedes, Porsche. In mainstream, Ford, GM, Toyota. Decades of brand prestige and reputations.

and first solar is definitely being propped up by the US government. Longi's products can be more expensive than first solar's and there is still no reason to choose them. It just a better product

Why do you think the Chinese domestic market is more competitive than the US domestic market? Do Americans not also like having the best solar panels?

> Tariffs don't discourage adoption of the best technologies, they discourage importing products from other countries.

oh sweet summer child

There’s a big difference between tariffs on cars from China, and tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico. US car manufacturers produce and import lots and lots of intermediate goods from those two countries. Setting up tariffs on those two with the hope of reshoring the manufacturing is problematic because it takes time and capital to build those types of supply chains and also develop the expertise among workers to operate those factories efficiently. Those workers and that capital will need to be devoted to building yesterday’s car parts instead of tomorrow’s.

Preventing cars from being imported from China is still a problem too. American companies are going to innovate slower without the competition. We may see a day when Chinese cars are just miles ahead of American cars in terms of technology, efficiency, comfort, and price. At that point, people are going to be asking “why am I paying so much for this shitty car when much better alternatives are available? Whatever happened to capitalism in this country?” And once those protections are lifted, the car industry would face rapid, destabilizing collapse.

A slower, controlled collapse (not saying that would definitely happen) of the US car industry would mean those resources (the capital and labor) would be able to be put to more productive uses in this country. There’s a lot of stuff we want to build, like modular nuclear power plants, wind turbines, geothermal plants, AI data centers, prefab new housing, humanoid robots, or some other stuff I can’t even imagine. I personally think robotaxis/AV are going to put the entire worldwide car industry into near terminal decline anyway. We should try to pivot away from that industry as gracefully as we can.

Producing vehicles for transport is one of the most productive uses of capital and labor I can imagine in 2024.

If we are incapable of producing good cars, what in the world makes you think we would be capable of producing any of the other things you mention? The "don't worry we can make high technology for export to others" shtick is exactly how the USA ended up in a $300B trade deficit to China. It's a lazy mentality and the result is inevitable atrophy of much more than just the industries you think we don't need.

A country the size of the US can and should be producing at least some (but probably most) of all modern necessities it requires, and motor vehicles will continue to be a necessity for the foreseeable future.

> If solar/wind/batteries/nuclear/hydro/whatever is better than oil, and there are high tariffs, the result will be onshore production of those technologies.

It doesn't look like the USA in 2024 has the capacity to build the whole supply chain for these. Solar's supply chain depends a lot on China, batteries are Chinese/Japanese/Korean tech; even nuclear might depend on a supply chain from Canada. Hydro are huge infrastructure projects, when was the last successful and on budget big infrastructure project the USA rolled out?

There's an underlying assumption the US is incapable, at the moment, to roll out supply chains for all of these better technologies.

Then the US should get capable. Within tariffs is the possibility to light a fire under domestic asses.

Or of stoking a trade war that will bring a hammer down onto the economy with the potential of damaging a lot of lives with the following downwards spiral of higher prices, diminished consumption, unemployment resulting from that, rinse and repeat.

Do you want to light a fire under domestic asses? Create incentives for it without having to hurt common people, your corporations and finance markets are incentivised to exploit your nation for profit, no matter the consequences, try to fix that issue instead.

What is your suggestion?

Trump is using big stick tactics by threatening huge tariffs in order to force negotiation. That's what he does and there is no need to panic at this point.

He's not even President yet and Europe is already offering concessions to avoid tariffs, for instance.

It works because people think he is fully willing to deliver on his threats.

He is fully willing to deliver on his threats. He did it his first term. The tariffs are coming. You don’t rile up hundreds of millions of people with hateful lies to back out of promising tarrifs will fix everything. If you think Trump is all talk in order to negotiate then you are sorely mistaken and you are one of the suckers he’s selling to.

Did the US and the world collapse in his first term? (Well, ignore Covid)

I am not saying that he is all talk. I am saying that he is a master of hyperbolic threats followed by a more nuanced reality.

I can't understand the level of aggressivity and panic (from some) over Trump's reelection. "Keep calm and carry on" as we say in the UK...

Why are you talking about world collapse? You stated that Trump’s tarrifs are just a threat and negotiating tactic and there’s nothing to worry about. I replied that Trumps tarrifs aren’t a threat and the he’s used tarrifs before. Your response is that it’s okay because the world didn’t collapse in 4 years? You’re moving the goal posts. The tarrifs are going to be bad. Will it collapse the world? It may for some that aren’t expecting to pay higher prices for goods, especially people that just voted for Mr Tarrifs because they blamed the previous leader for high inflation. Inflation is something no POTUS can do anything about, but tarrifs are. So in the spirit of continued high prices, yes the world is collapsing.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed the panic Trump has caused with xenophobia the past 20+ years but none of those voters believe in the phrase “Keep calm and carry on”.

Just because you were not directly affected by Trump’s first term does not mean you can wave away other people’s concerns as not problems.

Addendum: Also who is Trump going to negotiate with? Republicans have the government locked and are willing to push these poorly thought out ideas and beliefs.

> I can't understand the level of aggressivity and panic (from some) over Trump's reelection.

The guy tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election by any means possible. Trump called up the Georgia Secretary of State and demanded that he just add 11,000 votes to Trump's total. It's on tape. Trump's team set up slates of fake electors from states that Trump lost. The Trump team drew up a detailed legal argument for how Mike Pence could reject the real electors and let the fake electors vote, throwing the election to Trump. When Pence refused to go along with that blatantly illegal scheme, Trump riled up a crowd and sicced them on the Capitol, in order to physically disrupt and prevent the certification of the presidential election.

Trump has shown that he fundamentally rejects the American political system, and is willing to trash the entire system of elected government if he loses. Many people rightly view that as a threat to the continuation of democracy in the US.

Maybe, but there's about a similar chance that Trump actually invades Mexico.

Just as American neocon think tanks had plans to invade Iraq and used 9/11 as justification to squander Trillions of dollars and millions of lives for no good reason.

Project 2025 talks about how Mexico doesn't actually have sovereignty because it's run by cartels supplying fentanyl. Is it coincidence that Trump announced the same reasons to impose 25% tariffs?

Hopefully calmer heads prevail, but again, Republicans did Iraq just a couple of decades ago. The Republican voters loved it. The corporate media loved it. Trump supported it. And now they all pretend they didn't.

Mass demonstrations and allies saying not to do that couldn't help, and it got Bush reelected.

> Europe is already offering concessions to avoid tariffs, for instance.

Maybe if Robert F. Kennedy goes with his threat to ban cancerous chemicals from food in the US, then Europe won't need to block the imports of American food.

I hope we add tariffs and use that to improve public transit and move away from all car dependence.

Are you European? Because if are actually an American then you are just not operating in reality. I think after this most recent election result, we all need to take a step back and start thinking more realistically.

I am American. I operate in reality. The reality in which China imposes any and all kind of barriers on American businesses while we can't do the same.

That has to change.

Tariffs are one way to enforce fairness (similar labor/environment/subsidy conditions).

Also, cars being more expensive will increase demand for public transit, not all of which needs federal funding.

Unfair...? That's some kindergarten level logic to international trade

If you're aware of David Ricardo and the concept of "comparative advantage" then you'd know banning foreign companies only hurts the country in question

Ride public transportation. I do, and the train cars on my line are made in Japan

Japan is an ally and a democratic nation with much less unfair trade practices. So, not an issue.

Trump proposed blanket tariffs on all imported goods. Why shouldn't he be taken at his word?

Because he doesn’t have the power to do that.

Trump doesn't care about that[0][1]. Canada is also a democratic nation and ally, European countries as well, why the hell are you thinking that is being considered on how tariffs are going to be applied by Trump when he's been pretty clear about it?

From [0]:

> He has promised 10% to 20% duties on all goods coming into the United States, and 60% on Chinese imports.

I simply don't understand how some Americans developed this wishful thinking projection on what Trump will do based on what they want to believe he will do.

He's been pretty clear about introducing tariffs unto big allies because he doesn't comprehend that trade deficit doesn't mean Americans are losing money...

[0] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2024/11/11/economy/tru...

[1] https://www.cfr.org/article/japan-braces-trump-20

I agree with the denotative message of your post (that we should let the energy market do its optimization unimpeded), but I'm guessing we disagree connotatively; most "green" solutions (especially wind, to a lesser degree solar) are only viable at all because of extreme distortions in the energy market induced by subsidies. Tariffs would of course also be distortionary, but it would be difficult for them to compete with the gross distortions that already exist! In the (loosely remembered) words of a friend who designs wind turbine blades and control systems: "we would build these things to be a lot more reliable if we weren't just trying to maximize subsidy revenue". I'm more immediately worried about these demand-side distortions than the hypothetical supply-side ones.

At least in Europe, offshore wind farms (which are more expensive than on shore) don't need any subsidies to be profitable. The turning point was around 2018

Is that true?

Recently (a year-18 months ago?) there were big headlines in the UK when no-one bid for a batch of offshore farms because the guaranteed electricity price offered by the government was too low for investors.

The strike price is also a cap. It's not precisely a market; nuclear also gets a (much higher) strike price agreement.

Oil subsidies dwarf solar/wind/hydro/nuclear combined that is without factoring in socialized costs of pollution and accidents.

That means we should subsidize local solar/wind/hydro/nuclear more and not allow foreign subsidized companies to decimate local companies.

Nuclear has many plausible trillion dollar accident scenarios. They are capped to a few billion in liability from a major subsidy left over from the cold war era.

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