"The automaker recently announced that import tariffs and transportation costs will push the price of its Model S in China to $121,000, or roughly 50 percent more than the plug-in sedan costs in the U.S."
We'll never hear it mentioned in American news, but we had import tariffs up until the 80s when we adopted supply-side economics as our ideology. We wonder why our manufacturing has all gone overseas, well there is actually a very simple explanation. Other countries still protect their manufacturing with tariffs while we don't. American workers can't compete with countries that have no minimum wage, no environmental protections, and few (if any) anti-corruption laws that are actually enforced. In fact if you go back far enough (and this might appeal to skeptics with a libertarian slant) tariffs were a primary form of taxation before income tax. I wish we could at least have an open debate about bringing some of them back, with projections and an honest analysis of what it would do for American industry. But with corporations seeking ever-lower costs by design, and politicians ramming through the TPP at top speed, I don't see it happening any time soon.