Comment by jcfrei | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcfrei | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Yes but the level of investment the Chinese have poured into battery production and EVs in general is also completely unparalleled. Industrial policy is nothing new for US and EU but just not at that level.

To be able to compete with China the West would need to:

- Match generous subsidies to companies, not just through banks but at the government level by building entire towns just for battery production.

- Making large parts of land uninhabitable for the cost-effective extraction of rare earths.

- Suppress wages at factories and engineering bureaus to be able to cost compete in manufacturing.

- Dramatically lower cost of energy production (only doable without renewables in the short term).

I just don't see any Western government having a strong enough mandate for any of the policy changes required to compete with China. The simpler reaction is just imposing tariffs.

Western nations have absolutely done this in the past. It’s the reason we are generally the richest and most secure nations in the world. The decision not to do this potentially means we forfeit those advantages for the rest of this century.

And China is hugely deploying renewables, which they happen to be able to produce very cheaply due to their industrial policy. The difference is that China is using their fossil fuel resources to make this investment, while the west is using its fossil fuel resources to shove crayons up its nose.

> while the west is using its fossil fuel resources to shove crayons up its nose

what a bunch of empty invective

China didnt pour money into battery R&D. We did. Me, you, our parents, everyone with a phone since mid nineties. BYD stared out as a phone battery manufacturer, it took them decades to turn from cheap labor sweatshop into knowledge based company with own ideas and strategy.

China has far less farm land per capita compared to the US. Until the majority of excess farm labor are shifted off the land they do not need suppression to keep wages low. They just need to raise mobility, which they have done by building roads and railways.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com