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The US auto industry is in big trouble. China now makes 75 percent of all electric vehicles sold anywhere on earth. US automakers make around 5 percent. (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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[–] 10 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I'm guessing a big part of the problem isn't even the Tesla politics or the right-wing perception of EVs.. it's probably close to 100% cost. They're expensive AF and everyone in America is poor. Most EVs are touted as a luxury ordeal with luxury prices. China can do cheap EVs, but that doesn't work with American business's demand for profit margin.

Maybe it's time the corporations go through some austerity measures?

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago

    Think of it like Kodak with digital cameras. Even knowing the market is being disrupted, even having the technology, there is never a short term reason for self disruption. If the company can’t consider the longer term while a market is being disrupted, they will not survive. Of course selling a couple thousand EVs is not going to earn back the cost of entirely new factories and supply chains after two years. Duh. Of course it’s easier to sell hundreds of thousands of legacy vehicles built in legacy factories that are already paid for using supply chains that already exist. But one of those approaches is on a decline to the grave while the other is a paradigm shift for the entire global industry

    Doesn’t help the US is so anti-competitive, so protectionist, so many policies favoring excessively large inefficient vehicles. By the time we emerge from this smog of political chaos, legacy American car companies will no longer be able to survive independently nor compete globally.

    But the car companies certainly lay deserve a lot of blame- across the entire car market preferring to sell fewer more expensive vehicles, rather than more vehicle that are more affordable.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    problem isn't even the Tesla politics ... Most EVs are touted as a luxury ordeal with luxury prices.

    That is Tesla politics. Tesla specifically wanted to build a luxury, very complicated machine as their first EV. While Chinese automakers did the opposite, they began small with less complicated machines (hey smaller battery for smaller weight) and then built more complex and luxury models on top of that base

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  • [–] -4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    Chinese businesses also demand profit margin, they just don't have worker's unions or a minimum wage.

    EDIT: Prove me wrong, tankies. But you can't, because China won't let any foreigners report on anything.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    Lmao China has both minimum wage and worker’s unions (literally the CPC can be considered one giant worker’s union).

    The real reason things are so cheap in China is that it has spent the last 50 years building its productive capacity specifically so that commodities can be affordable for everyone, and everyone has a job that will allow them to afford that. The US, on the other hand has spent the same period ensuring the entire economy works to enrich a few people at the cost of everyone else.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Lmao China has both minimum wage

    No, there is no federal minimum wage in China, and the provincial ones are lower than any western country.

    and worker’s unions (literally the CPC can be considered one giant worker’s union).

    Sure, in the sense that they also have a "democracy" where only one party is allowed. If you believe their propaganda, I have a bridge to sell you.

    The real reason things are so cheap in China is that it has spent the last 50 years building its productive capacity

    You mean because western capitalists have spent the last 50 years building its productive capacity.

    Do you really think they're going to let the people have any control of that?

    ensuring the entire economy works to enrich a few people at the cost of everyone else.

    And China copied that and took it to the extreme. Why do you believe their propaganda so easily? Are you Chinese?

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