The US government can do the same, and they do bailouts for companies often too. Isn't that also meddling in the free market? Why didn't the US government incentivize EV then?

BYD is so ahead because they were making batteries for a long time before going into ev business. Also I would not say tesla quality is high either

Look into Harley Davidson, they should have gone bankrupt multiple times but were saved by high tarrifs placed on imported bikes.

due to aggressive subsidy and investment by the Chinese government

yes. similar to a lot of western products.

Americans aren't going to care about quality that much if their monthly payment is only $200. As long as a Chinese EV is reliable long enough to make it's total cost of ownership much lower than American EVs or ICEs they will line up to buy them.

The American market has been desperate for a cheap and reliable car, a role Japanese automakers used to fill, and both US and Japanese makers know it.

All the best and worst shit you own is made in China. If you don't want cheap shit don't buy cheap shit, but these cars are really nice and inexpensive.

These cars are in tons of countries outside of China and they are very well received.

I don’t know about other countries but US has both pretty strong incentives and protectionist barriers. However they’re meant to be temporary. This is legacy automaker’s chance. A few years for the government to help them transition, but they need to be willing to come out of the closet. They’re throwing that opportunity away

American cars have their own subsidies as well. I mean the government bailed them out of dying several years ago.

We shouldn't have bailed them out. We should have bought a public controlling interest in them.

American Cars look like relics from the last century when compared to Chinese design and capabilities, that is why the American car companies do not want Chinese brands in their market because there is no way they can compete with them.

Chinese brands just arrived in Mexico and it has been a massacre for american and European brands, a lot of car dealers have been closing lately and you can see in the streets that most new cars are Chinese. The Chinese dealers have impeccable service and the architecture is impressive. Prices are 1/3 of the European cars and 1/2 of the American Cars. The only ones that might be able to compete are japanese and Korean car companies.

Every country does this that is a red herring. Does your country have public schools that produce people who work in the automotive sector? Congrats you live in a country that has an agressive subsidy and investment in the automotive sector.

Cheap labour under a command economy is hard to beat, I'll grant you that. But the best counter to that is to focus on high quality construction, like Toyota does, for example

People were saying the same thing on quality about Japanese car when they first arrived on the market.