Another protectionist measure to help the laggards in the us auto industry. Will they be condemned to serve just the US market while the Chinese firms eat the rest of South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe?
Maybe. I would not be surprised if the was some lobbying in that direction.
But the USA has also recently had it's communications ripped a new one by hackers. Not once, but several times, and they've been able to spy on the communications of the highest levels of government.
That sounds bad enough, but its fairly benign compare to what could happen. For example, I amazed to discover my solar inverter was controlled by a web site in China. I hate it in general, but to be fair to China this delegation of control is everywhere and is done every country - for example I guess most Chinese mobile phones are controlled by Apple and/or Google.
It's all pretty harmless I guess when we are all getting along. But if China and Australia suddenly weren't getting along it means China could literally shut off Australia power grid, as during the day it's not uncommon for Australia to get most of its power from household solar. There is no need for the sort of subterfuge the USA had to pull with getting Stuxnet into the Iraqi centrifuges, as China already has control over a large part of Australia's power generation. If they can program those inverters to change their phase they can probably take out the entire grid.
And now if China wins the bulk of the car market (which seems like a distinct possibility), they could also have control over most of the cars in the USA, along with their video and sensor feeds. This must be the stuff of nightmares in some quarters.
How did we let ourselves get into the situation that allows a robot vacuum send photos of us on the shitter back to a foreign country, without our knowledge? It's just insane. And while I understand the motivation in this case, this ban isn't the solution. It needs to go far deeper.
However, it seems unlikely the me that they will (on the long term) — unless they find some huge surprise reservoir of rare earths somewhere within their borders.
BMW meanwhile is wasting more time on fuel cells.
Without clear specifics, it's about as relevant as saying Jobs stole the idea of MacOS from a Xerox PARC demo. Ideas are cheap, execution is what matters.
"Intellectual property" is an economic policy, not a moral imperative.
Well they are definitely cheaper
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a62694325/ford-ceo-jim-far...
You mean 4 wheels and a steering wheel ? /s
US stopped having IP in cars a long time ago. Damn, even Ford wanted to close its shop some years ago.