For those worried about national self-sufficiency, the answer can be public transit, not cars.
It's really funny that China made non-trivial amount of strategic decisions on the assumption that US tech do have network kill switches [0], including using it solely to justify protectionism, while nobody on the earth are crazy enough to do this, we all just call them out, "just an excuse to justify protectionism", then all at a sudden here we are, trying to say "mandating network kill switches" could be a good idea.
[0] Use OpenAI Deep Research or rivals and investigate the word "自主可控".
1. China got here by using protectionism and stealing trade secrets. They subsidized their domestic producers and forced foreign entities to partner and train domestic nationals. They used protectionism to leapfrog us. We shouldn't just let them in and destroy our own capacity.
2. Manufacturing is necessary for a country that plans to go to war. America (and every nation!) needs a strong industrial plant to counter its enemies. Without the ability to switch to making warplanes, tanks, and drones, you'll be unable to fight a drawn out war.
3. We're really not that far behind and our industry will be fine. There's way too much panic here.
> For those worried about national self-sufficiency, the answer can be public transit, not cars.
This is highly opinionated r/fuckcars anti-"carbrain" (as they call it). This does not work in America. It's an opinion of city dwellers who have no exposure to the rest of the country.
Self-driving cars will transform public Transit in this country to be more automotive and less rail based. Not the other way around.
2. I don’t think anyone could seriously look at the US and worry that we might not be able to make enough military hardware. What country makes more weapons than the US?
3. The US auto industry is somewhere between dead and absorbed into the globalized auto industry. Their cost structure can’t compete and the US’ cratering international reputation means exports are falling and China has growth opportunities.
Where I do agree with you is that there’s no reason to panic. All of these things are just fine.
Armored vehicles can be somewhat useful in some war scenarios, but even Abrams tanks weren't enough to turn the tide in Ukraine.
It's probably a bit trickier now, but If sewing machine and typewriter companies used to make machine guns in wartime there's probably a way if there is will.
It's worked in America longer than it hasn't worked. Car-centric infrastructure is actually pretty new, and we basically burned down a lot of rail infrastructure to build it.
The fundamental problem with automobiles is that they're orders of magnitude less efficient per person, so they can't scale. You hit a wall, and then you're just fucked and the only solution is to pivot away from automobiles. No amount of self-driving, or more lanes, or toll roads, will fix that - it's a fundamental problem with the technology itself and how it exists in the world.
I mean, try driving around in Houston today. It's shit, but more than that, it's completely unfixable. 14 lane highways don't magically resolve the problem of everyone having their own little box on wheels they control.
Also, on the topic of urban centers and city dwellers: most Americans live in major metropolitan areas and those areas also make up almost all of the economy in the US. Yes, rural areas are important, but nobody is "targeting" them, so to speak. Those areas are already heavily subsidized by denser areas because that's just how infrastructure how.
and uyghur forced labor!
Check these:
> Human Rights Watch warns carmakers over China forced labour risk
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/human-...
> Carmakers may be using aluminium made by Uyghur forced labour, NGO investigation finds
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/feb/01/car-manufacturer...
> China: Carmakers Implicated in Uyghur Forced Labor
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/01/china-carmakers-implicat...
How can we fix American industry?
Well first off, I think we need to implement basic accountability. American industries routinely fail in the long-term because they're allowed to. They know they're basically invincible and can absolutely run their companies into the ground and leadership will fly away with too much money than what they know to do with.
The American school of business is make short-term decisions now, over and over again, forever, until you eventually blow up. This is how basically every company is run. It's an almost debt-driven mindset. It's a greedy algorithm. Take on any amount of loan now, and say "fuck it" when it comes to interest. When the chicken comes home to roost, who cares, you can leave.
That's why American industries will be competitive for a couple decades and then quickly be so far behind it seems it's impossible for them to catch up. They get a tiny little taste of market success, and they immediately stop investing into their future and start cashing in right now. We're even seeing this with Tesla.
And it's not all that bad. We're something like the number-two industrial country in the world.
Pragmatically, the sanest thing we might be able to do is find a region of the country that is remote enough in every way and turn it into a free for all industrial park so long as workers aren't exposed to excessive danger.
I don't know the extent to which demand plays a role. Ford makes F150s because people buy F150s. They have to be forced to make smaller cars, and lose money on them.
Certainly not making as much as they can make on an F150, (I think the estimate on a Maverick is somewhere around 500-600 a car to ford).
As far as overall 'demand', there is a bit of market distortion (depending on how you look at it) as far as dealers frequently trying to push people into bigger vehicles because they are inherently more expensive and they get more commission and profit too. [0]
[0] - I've had this happen more than once, even when I knew what car I wanted to buy.
And no, the answer cannot be public transit. Public transit won't be a valid response to the next Pearl Harbor.
How about we make it so that only 50% of the residential land is zoned for single family homes and let people build whatever they want on the rest of it? The newly rezoned land will be worth more, so if you want to live in a single family home, sell yours at a profit and buy one in the area still zoned for it.
IMO yes it will, because it just makes sense. Denser cities are more efficient for everyone, normal people included. Transport price per unit drops, rent drops, all infrastructure costs per unit drop. I think most people will happily take a reduction in expenses in exchange for density.
No they don't, all that stuff is cheaper out of the city. People move to a city because their income also goes up, services (such as those you listed, but also others) are more expensive in a city, but goods are the same price, i.e. relatively cheaper compared to what you can earn out of a city.
So people in a city can, and are, far more wasteful of purchased goods because the price is effectively lower for them.
The reason this doesn't pan out is because cities are subsidizing everything around them. We take tax dollars from denser areas, which are the only areas that are economically viable, and then we redistribute them to suburbs.
Cities would die without those "areas around them", because those are the places where food is grown and stuff is made. Adjusting prices for food via taxation is something the government does all the time, but if it didn't food prices would just go up, and cities would pay the same amount, just via a different path.
You might need less "stuff" to build things denser, but we've long passed the time when the main cost is "stuff". Labor is what matters, and building in a city takes much more labor.
In the real world non-cities are cheaper in every way, and that includes roads and utilities - and this despite needing more road and pipes.
And some places have more space and cars work fine there.
You have some areas that are kind of a middle between the two, those have some trouble.
bro was talking about public transit & Chinese cars, my guy.
There are probably plenty of ways to ensure a manufacturing base, but having a robust auto industry is one way that is pretty well understood.
I don’t like the amount of inefficiency caused by protectionism, though.
Go reshore the military. Yes, the Americans and Western Europe lost in EVs. Though, I only ever see Americans turn this event into losing a war.
It can work fine in normal situations, but any kind of stress, and anyone without a car is completely stuck. Bad weather, labor strike, high demand, evacuation, moving day, there's a politician in town and roads are closed, there's a celebrity/show in town and you want to go somewhere else, power outage, windstorm and some roads are closed.
Any kind of stress and public transit fails. Which makes it the opposite of self sufficiency.
https://www.tampabay.com/hurricane/2024/10/07/tampa-bay-traf...
But even if that were true, it also has nothing to do with what I said, which is national self-sufficiency.