> If only there was a country selling cheap, reliable electric vehicles with extremely low running costs
The missing middle in discussions around Chinese EVs is import quotas (and disconnection mandates).
Americans buy over 15 million vehicles a year [1]. Letting China export up to 150,000 EVs into America a year, subject to anti-surveillance measures (e.g. no phoning home), paid for by the importer and thus--ultimately--consumer, would not bankrupt American producers. It would, however, show American consumers what they're missing out on while increasing competition in the American car market. Hell, it might even give some stateside auto engineers some good ideas.