Cool. Then allow BYD non-trucks, non-SUVs into the U.S. then.
The Japanese back in the 70's showed U.S. automakers that price and mileage (in that decade anyway) were important to Americans. I suspect price is still important.
Something else that is not being told in the mainstream media, is the U.S. bias and negative attitude towards South American countries has left the door wide open to China. And China is firmly establishing itself there, where it is unlikely that the U.S. can compete for at least a decade, if not a generation.
We have exceptionally productive fields in the US tumor are the envy of the world. If we can't be productive in auto manufacturing, devoting a ton of our workforce too it is a misallocation of our limited resources.
If we are going to be subsidizing unprofitable industry fro national security purposes, we need to either 1) ruthlessly cut the least productive manufacturers from access to subsidies, or 2) nationalize it. Any other choices would be very inefficient.
Think about this concept. It costs you $1 to make a widget. It costs your competitors $1.25 to make a similar widget. They sell theirs for $5. Do you sell yours for $1.50 or $4.75? Obviously, other things could be in play for the market for widgets, but if you could sell all your widgets for $4.75 wouldn't you do that?
If the cheapest car in the US is about $20k and is a complete POS, why would you sell your better car for $10k when you could still sell it for $22k and still sell just about all the ones you build?
They will also sell higher end configurations abroad to make it worth their time. They won’t sell the absolute bare bones option that comes with almost no profit (if not a loss).
I imagine that a Chinese automaker such as BYD would price itself low, something like an EV at ICE prices, to get a foothold in the American market. I really wish BYD was around here so I could drive one and look at the build quality myself, it's almost like the domestic Automakers and the CIA are putting out hit pieces about the brand.
I said the cheapest car not the cheapest EV. And of that I meant new car. That would be the Nissan Versa, which has an MSRP of $18,385. After TTL, depending on your market you're probably looking at something around $20k out the door.