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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

> final desperate move before VW death, they keep shoting themselves into foot with green deal and other EU nonsense and then complain when Chinese come running...

China invested in building EVs, and has the capacity to build 50M per year (global light vehicle sales TAM is ~90M/year). VW did not. The choice was "Green New Deal" or profits, and they picked profits. The Chinese won because they knew EVs were going to be the future, and the intentionally focused and maintained effort towards building the future through their five year plans. Everyone else gave up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49556939

China's Manufacturing Advantage, Explained [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49451076 | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgYKVpOsMJs - August 2026

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I think this is also another occurrence of the "innovato's dilemma" applied to the car industry. None of the incumbents have negotiated the shift to EV very well with similar patterns as we've seen previously in other industries, in this case combined with the huge investment and industrial capabilities of China.

they are not necessarily near future if you don't threaten companies and buyers with 2035 ICE cars ban

if we didn't have subsidies and extra taxes on ICE the market would be completely different, EVs still can't compete for anyone not living in own house with FV, even if you would save significant amount of money on each km the price difference would pay itself after hundreds of thousands km, if whole market was not overregulated by EU pushing EVs and trying to discourage people from buying EU produced ICE cars

up until very recently 90% of newly registered EVs in Czechia are registered on company, only 10% of already very small EV market share are ordinary private buyers and mind that's still with benefits like cheaper/free parking for EVs or (up until recently) free highways

> they are not necessarily near future if you don't threaten companies and buyers with 2035 ICE cars ban

This argument is irrelevant. Climate change is real. Combustion vehicle bans are to contribute towards mitigating climate change. Electric vehicles are an essential solution to decarbonizing transportation. EVs are now both cheaper to manufacture as well as to operate than combustion vehicles over their lifetime, without subsidies, and superior for the climate. Western manufacturers can either try to survive or die against Chinese manufacturing, those are the options, as nothing will stop China from continuing to ramp EV production and exports to the world. Peak combustion vehicle sales was 2017, the industry will only shrink in this regard.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electric-car-sales?tab=li...

https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales

https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e...

Global sales of combustion engine cars peaked in 2017 - https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/global-sales-of-com... - May 21st, 2026

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...

Saudis Give European Oil Buyers No Supplies for Next Month - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-18/saudis-te... | https://archive.ph/vMUqP - September 18th, 2026

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