Hacker News Reader

Comment by EcommerceFlow | Hacker News Reader

The real problem is that our auto companies (besides Tesla) are reliant and subsidized by the Government, making them highly inefficient, and unable to compete within a global market without giant subsidies.

View on HN

The real problem is that American consumers are demanding these gigantic monstrosity SUVs and trucks which literally cannot fit on European streets. When Ford et al were making hot hatchbacks, they were incredibly popular overseas. The inefficiency is at the consumer level.

My town is filled with massive Ford pickups. Pristine and clean, nothing in the beds. These people are no 'utilizing' the thing, it's just a status symbol. Annoys me so much.

European streets? My American city isn't even that old - much of the infrastructure is mid 90s - but modern vehicles just barely fit in the parking lots throughout it. It's common to see some asshole parking their pickup horizontally.

Ford has plenty of cars that fit european roads. The problem is that their cars are garbage.

The bespoke UK/EU models are not the priority, again because they aren't being made in the US, so yes the quality drops.

You cannot get, for example, a new Focus in the US market. When you could, they were much higher quality.

The only Chevrolet you can buy in the UK is the Corvette. Chevrolet makes nine SUVs, four trucks (with however many infinite variations), and exactly one shitbox non-Corvette car.

If US automakers started turning their eyes towards smaller more efficient cars, where hauling Brayden to and from their soccer games didn't require multiple tons of steel, then they could compete in the EU market.

TBF, pretty soon you won't be able to buy a new Focus anywhere else, production finishes this year. Stellantis is still making cars of a similar size and could brand them as Chrysler for the US market.

They cancelled the best selling car in the UK, the Fiesta.

Others are pointing this out but for anyone curious Tesla has received a tonne of indirect subsidy via electric vehicle sales incentives on the consumer side of the equation which absolutely translates into increased corporate profits. Across the globe EV sales in developed nations are very boosted via government programs ((which is a good thing imo)). I'll just link a wikipedia page[1] since I don't want to find a solid source but this isn't really debated it's the real world effect of laws and bills passed by the US gov and dozens of other countries around the world and has been extensively studied.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_incentives_for_plug...

I'm glad someone said it.

Tesla is literally one of the most heavily subsidized auto companies in American history.

I'm not a big fan of Tesla's owner, but I will say - what is the problem with subsidizing something that given enough research and development is considered a net good for our future or could be valuable on a global scale?

Lots of people are begging to get access to Chinese EV's, and guess what they were subsidized by their government for research and development.

We subsidize farmers but don't trash them. If EV's are the future why not provide assistance?

Because it allows the government to pick and choose winners. The big 3 were all losers and should have gone bankrupt back in 08, and now look, they're still highly inefficient and still heavily reliant on govt handouts 20 years later. They don't innovate, they can't compete globally, etc.

So why not change the subsidy structure and require measurable innovation and growth, and actually back it up by reevaluating funding on a regular basis and dropping all funding if metrics are not met. And not continuing just based on promises. If metrics are not met, you lose funding. Period.

Seems more like a problem of US companies being allowed to continue to stall for too long, often due to lobbying and political points, without measurable improvement than the subsidies.

Meanwhile China subsidizes much of their R&D and everyone is astounded at how fast they've improved. Sounds like they're just better at doing it.

> reevaluating funding on a regular basis and dropping all funding if metrics are not met.

The US government isn't going to exert that level of influence on a private enterprise without being a majority shareholder, which is what happened with GM in the 2008 bailout.

The government also can't be in a position where pulling billions in funding based on targets it sets leads to mass layoffs, that would be a political minefield come election time. Subsidies are about creating jobs as much as they are about enabling technology development.

Tesla is only in business today because it was able to sell carbon credits to other automakers. Take that government subsidy away and Tesla would have died in 2009.

Without supportive Californian policies Tesla would never even have existed for Musk to buy into.

The modern EV was born from Californian regulation but that early lead has been squandered.

In most cases I'd agree with your point.

Speaking only for myself, I see Musk's wealth as a contributing factor to a serious, credible risk to democracies in the US and EU.

So I consider destroying Tesla to be preferable to letting Musk remain wealthy / influential.

I accept that others may see it differently.

Tesla is subsidized too. Honest question, do you think the care companies producing EVs in China are subsidized by the government?

Besides Tesla?

Tesla is the most heavily subsidized, what are you talking about?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com