Comment by melenaboija
7 hours ago
> Then I think you see an early indication not just of electric car dominance, but of the (very potential) rise of China as the premier automotive super power.
It’s done man. Americans are stuck in ICE engines because they’ve been told they’re “car enthusiasts” while the Chinese have been developing EV technology for years. Meanwhile, European makers are stuck not knowing what to do, make Americans happy or compete with the Chinese. The result: nothing has been done properly. And let’s be real, “car enthusiasts” are going to disappear in one or two generations. Practicality beats enthusiasm for 95% of car use.
Perhaps people in the future will visit the US for the dieselpunk nostalgia, the same way people like seeing classic cars in Cuba.
I strongly doubt any current car will stand longevity of those cars. The maintenance entry cost of anything with integrated electronic is just several order of magnitude in complexity.
What? How so? Isn't it just a bunch of PCBs and sensors whereas gas powered cars are a bunch of awesome nonesense you can gently whack against each other to create different notes and tones?
The former requires a special printer while the latter requires tons of machines for precision engineering and the industrial equivalent of smitheries and blacksmiths!
Feels bad faith to shit on people from your ivory tower, just because they can't afford to ditch their reliable beaters and buy a new car. Have you seen wage growth vs car price increases lately? Not everyone is on a remote six figure US tech job. Try to view and judge things from outside your bubble as well.
I'd also dump my ol reliable ICE car that's now probably worth less than a fancy electric bicycle, if someone just gave me an EV for free ;)
But since I'm poor and can't afford EV prices with decent range, nor can I afford a home with a parking place with charger, then ICE it is. European here btw, not american.
I don't know what you mean by reliable beaters. By the time EVs are mandatory, my ICE car will have turned into dust and I'd have to buy a new car anyway. It would be pretty foolish to stall EVs only to then be forced to buy another ICE car.
Look at the average car payment in the US, and the average car sale price
The ”americans can’t afford EVs” argument falls totally apart when the average(!) sale price is over $50k and you can get a perfectly good Leaf for $25k
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Yes, not to mention the fact that Chinese EVs can't be sold here... protectionism for weak American companies that can't compete globally. We've gone from an automotive superpower and the land of Henry Ford to the government propping up automakers and depriving Americans of free choice. If Chinese cars would actually be allowed to sold here they would sell like Toyota Camrys.
This is the outcome when your corporations bow down to wall Street. Tax payers money is just used to prop up their private profits and without exposing them to the actual competition. Short term profit seeking. Who foots the bill, the US tax payer who have to pay for the corporate profits and drive overpriced underperforming vehicles.
Until very recently, tariffs on American cars sold in China were much higher than vice-versa. The new US tariffs were an attempt to even the playing field.
I think most people would agree that no tariffs would be good, but China is more protectionist than any other major economy, including recent changes in US policy.
True enough but really this boils down to we are just doing what they are doing. The reason they had it higher for longer was because for longer the situation was reversed, our cars were better. Now they have surpassed us and don't really need protection. We didn't before either, so it was a moot point. Now we do, so we do the same thing.
The point however is that the United States is supposed to operate under a different model than China. The reason to bring up the ways we act the same is then to find clarity in the contradiction.
This is essentially the same tension that runs through much of modern American discourse. It's never welfare if the beneficiary is a rich CEO at a corporation, only if it's a family in poverty. It's not like Chinese cars can't employ American workers just as Japanese and other foreign automakers do.
To my mind then, I think it's less about reciprocity and more about corporate welfare. Putting aside ICE automakers, there is also a very obvious individual who turned conspicuously political as of late who owes a great deal of his fortune to the expectation that his electric car company will one day rule the world. It would be quite embarrassing for even him if demand for his vehicles suddenly got demolished on his own turf. I would think he and others would be willing to spend a small fortune to keep the political needle tipped in their favor on this issue, the average consumer be damned.
At some level there is nothing wrong with such naked self interest. I just prefer we be honest about it, as only then can we really analyze it.
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Yes, but China has always been straightforward in that they believe in protectionism. It's part of their system.
In contrast, in the West (at least until a few years ago), we have been fed the discourse that free market without protectionism is the best model, and protectionist countries are sabotaging themselves. And I don't know how it was in the US, but in the EU this caused hardship to many people. Entire countries pretty much sacrificed whole industries to the free market gods, because it was more efficient to bring the merchandise from elsewhere. Opponents who were defending their livelihood were framed as reactionaries that were opposing +X% GDP gains or didn't want "free competition" (often against products with unbeatable prices due to being made in countries with totally different rules and labor standards).
Now it seems that the system that supposedly was so bad gives an unfair advantage, so if others apply it the only defense is to apply it as well... but the free market apologists won't shut up anyway, in spite of the obvious cognitive dissonance.
> but China is more protectionist than any other major economy, including recent changes in US policy.
Not true. China let Tesla set up shop in the backyard of their domestic EV industry, WITHOUT the mandatory by law 51% Chinese ownership, precisely so Tesla would light a fire under the asses of domestic players, forcing them to compete better with what was at the time, the pinnacle EV brand.
China is no longer beating us with protectionism but with innovation and manufacturing. People better wake up.
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> The new US tariffs were an attempt to even the playing field.
That's a guess at the White House's thinking. They've been using every form of coercion in international relations, including economic (tariffs), military, and diplomatic. That's a factual basis for divining their reasoning.
Their words are not a factual basis - they can say anything and clearly will. Everyone who does those things provides justifications - Putin was helping oppressed Russians in Ukraine and stopping fascism, for example. Taking them at face value is not a serious analysis.
Interesting that Canada agreed to break with the US on EV tariffs.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46648778
It's limited but I feel like Canada aligning themselves at all with China over the US is an interesting development.
It's a good point but imo not really surprising when the President of the United States essentially threatened to invade Canada and Greenland.
This is classic multipolar politics, trade the two behemoths against each other so they don't roll over one day and just squish you. By alienating Canada and Europe we've handed China a great gift.
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Protecting automakers can be considered a vital business for national security. This is not good for consumers, but relying on China for everything also carries many risks.
If China could sell it's cars here, it would spur American automakers to innovate, no? Government protectionism causes complacency
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This is exactly so. Not only is the USA hurting itself by distancing itself from it's former allys in policy and trade but it's forcing the rest of the world including EU to look more towards east for trade partners and temporarily for military support until Germany rearms itself.
Canadians already took the lead and are now taking steps to let Chinese EV manufacturers into the Canadian markets with less tax/tariff.
Meanwhile Europe is still struggling a lot with coming to terms with new world order. They've been sucking up to the USA too long since the WW2. German economy is largely dependant on car manufacturing and China is threatening this. But something is going to have to give now.
EVs are sold as a luxury product in the US. ICE cars are familiar, convenient (no need to figure out how to install a home charger), and otter cheaper (lower initial cost, service is cheaper, value maintains for much longer, etc). I bought electric, but I recognize it's a privilege to be able to do so.
If competitively priced EVs hit the market, consumers would buy them in much bigger numbers. Manufacturers want to use EVs as a way to redefine themselves and make more money and seemingly the industry is colluding to keep them premium with a shorter shelf life.
EU automaters fail at making modern cars. They just put a bunch of screens in there with awful software. If you go all screens, just commit like Tesla. If you can't beat Tesla, just stick with minimal screens and use buttons.
Somewhere between 2010 and 2020, most automakers went crazy with their designs and it went all downhill from there.
I have a 2020 Fiat 500 Abarth, and it is absolutely perfect: There is a screen (I think 7") for Android Auto/CarPlay/radio/nav, and every single other function in the car has a physical button. It is also absolutely gorgeous - pinnacle of design, IMO
Our 2021 Volkswagen e-Up is like this. There is a tiny(like 3" tiny) screen for the radio, bluetooth and reverse camera, everything else is analogue and has physical buttons. It's honestly best of the best Volkswagen design, what they did with their newer cars in terms of interior usability is a travesty.
That's about what I want from interior - any builtin infotainment will get out of date, any more electronics is just stuff to eventually break
Nothing is done ever. Remember when the U.S. deeply feared Japan's rapidly growing economy?
Whenever I read or hear definitive statements like that I heavily bet on the other side.
> Remember when the U.S. deeply feared Japan's rapidly growing economy
They DID fear them and took action to gimp their industry. Read the Plaza Accord and the aftermath to the Japanese economy.
I am in Portugal right now. You know something we don’t have often here? Garages.
For example in my neighborhood most cars are parallel parked, people are living in centuries old houses converted into high density condos, there are no garages.
So what is more practical, charging your car overnight without an electric plug or going to the gas station for a few minutes?
I do have a garage and 'fuel' is half the cost of my previous, smaller ICE. We're considering solar power to get it practically free.
There's some nicer differences like leaving the air-conditioning on constantly because there's no pollution and it's also practically free. It's nice to have a giant battery instead of requiring an engine to constantly recharge it to run the electronics.
You use kerbside charging. Unlike petrol, electricity comes to you.
This is how it needs to work, but in practice it doesn't really exist right now. (And, in the few places where it does exist, the price basically destroys a lot of the running costs advantages of an EV).
> And let’s be real, “car enthusiasts” are going to disappear in one or two generations.
Not sure if you have realized this, but we have a pretty decent numbers of horse enthusiasts now.
Sure, but compared to an era when horses were used as a practical form of transport the number is effectively zero. Horses are a novelty that wealthy people play with. ICE cars will go the same way.
I think we are going to be driving hybrids in large numbers for several decades until there's a new battery technology that triples energy density over the state of the art now.
It can be invented sooner of course, technology prediction never really works.
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Maybe you’re the kind of person who believes the glass is always full if you can make the glass arbitrarily small.
If I’m a glass enthusiast or glass-filling-liquid enthusiast, sure if the alternative is those things not existing!
Car enthusiast here. I raced in Formula Ford in Europe in my younger days. I still dream about the day I drove a 911 GT2. Nearly every car I’ve ever owned has been a manual.
But with the ridiculous tax incentives here in Australia (at least while they last), my new car turned out to be an EV. Specifically the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. And let me tell you, while the logical part of my brain knows that the gear shifts and the exhaust notes and everything about it is “fake”, when I’m driving it around a track or a challenging B road, every part of my body is fooled into thinking it’s real. And reluctant as I might be to admit it, it might just be the most fun car I’ve ever had
Is it perfect? No. I wish it was 10cm lower to the ground. I wish it was at least 600kg lighter. But it has completely disabused me of the notion that electric cars can’t be fun.
How many generations are we even into cars?
Maybe 4ish? Most kids alive but not yet driving are likely to own only hybrid ma or electrics.
Seems like a relatively short term problem overall.
Not that many Americans are car enthusiasts. The most popular cars have been basic commuters for decades.
While that is true, the new car market has narrowed to the point where most of the buyers want something overpowered for their money. The most popular cars are actually buying these when they are 10+ years old.
(I śaw recently that the USA market is about 16M cars.. this would have been low figure years ago. But they are barely selling 'basic commuter cars'.)
It's hard to get basic commuter without overload of tech these days
Certain tech is cheap. I wouldn't classify that as non-basic. Chuck a few screens in the cabin is cheap. Matrix LED headlights less so.