this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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I don't mind bashing Musk for a second, but as far as I know China follows a startup mentality with electric cars - the government supports the industry so they can sell cars below their actual price, and once they killed all their competition they can increase.
There's no fair winning against this policy
We have 10 trillion dollars more GDP. If China wants to declare open season on EV's there's no reason we can't beat them at this game. This policy is meant purely to prevent our auto industry from having to innovate like a competitive market would force. Nope we're going to have 50k E-SUVs that spy on us and fall apart. And we'll like it. Because they also passed legislation in my state to ban the sale of new gas cars in 6 years. And the mass transit system is. not. ready.
You seem to think the ICE cars are not spying on you nor falling apart.
No, I'm under no illusions. I'm just not happy at the lack of competition.
2014 Kangoo begs to differ (no options, except the brown color).
We got one, it's pretty much unkillable. We even used it to gather wood.
AFAIK every ICE car model has some cutoff year after which they have added spy tech. You do have to buy used to not be spied upon. Mozilla did a page on Renault here: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/renault/
I see a bunch of people freaking out over EVs, panicking about spying or being disabled remotely. But the newer ICE cars are, AFAICT, the same thing. I just want everyone worried about this 1984 shit to not be burying their heads in the sand. I'm worried about it also. We should organize against it. (I guess the person I responded to didn't think ICE cars are any better, after all. But it did seem so at first.)
Yeah, buy used for now, but I'd like to stop the practice entirely. Otherwise they can just wait it out as more and more old cars are totaled or unmaintainable.
But is the Kangoo in the same price category as the EVs that spy on us? Is it even released at a time when major corporations spying on everyone is so normalized like it is today? I think both of these being no would explain why that car is so nice, simple, and reliable.
Have you seen the reports from China about their EVs? If it's about falling appart, they're far ahead of anything any western manufacturers could produce lol
I would think that the winning move would be to impose enough tariffs to offset the foreign government subsidies, yet still promote some competition.
The government could also 100 percent fund battery research; Put a government owned company out there to make a floor in the market (5 person hatchback with minimum amenities); Give us more than 7,500 in EV rebates on a select few models; Change CAFE standards so bigger isn't automatically better; etc...
There's a lot we could do. We instead chose the most reductive and protectionist route possible. And even then Volvo (Owned by Greely) says they may be able to get a refund on the entire tariff because of the other models they produce in the US.
Definitely need more subsidies or grants for domestic research. Though I don’t see the government owned company idea working mainly due to how capitalism is implemented here. The government tends to not directly compete with private entities.
Fully agree with clamping down (via higher taxes or something similar) on the giant vehicles and the loopholes they can abuse today.
Oh yeah, Americans would riot before buying basic goods from the government. Still it's something that would be legal and is an option. Even floating the idea seriously could cause the auto makers to remember how to make those minimum amenity hatchbacks.
And the US supports the oil and gas industry. The government supports the industry so they can sell gas below its actual price.
Like that time a US state subsidised Tesla with a billion dollar factory in exchange for jobs most of which were never delivered. I bet in China at least they would expect their grant deal to be fulfilled.
I'm not trying to advocate for China, just pointing out how much of Tesla's current position is the result of hand outs (see; carbon credits)
That's free market, alright.
So they're just like Uber. Why didn't they put a 100% tax on them?