Comment by bgilroy26
9 hours ago
The biggest obstacles to Chinese vehicle sales in the United States are political and they are tremendous. Whichever party is blamed for their entry will lose Michigan for a generation and car dealership owners across the country
That's where the power is
It certainly wouldn't help them but I don't know anybody in Michigan that isn't a c-suite that really cares that much about someone not buying American cars anymore. Most mechanics will tell you to buy a Toyota or Honda here. In the UP half of the cars are Subarus. The majority of automanufacturing has long ago left and nobody is happy about the quality of big 3 brands.
30 years ago I would have agreed, but most Michigan buyers at best begrudgingly buy American now.
this is a really good point. dealership lobbying is so weirdly under-covered and yet affects so much of our lived experience - from crash safety, to pedestrian experiences, to lemon laws. when I worked for the state consumer protection agency many moons ago, we had a drag-out fight with dealerships in the state legislature trying to advocate for having at least a nominal lemon law on the books. the original proposal would have protected consumers quite a bit - but it was quickly defanged with enough money flowing into the campaigns for the right rural legislators who sat on the right committees. I imagine this is the case everywhere with our legalized corruption system
Even the law that forces there to be dealers.
In theory you should be able to buy a car on line just like anything else on Amazon.
There is also the part where everyone's Chinese vehicle gets bricked when things get too hot between China and the US.
I love this non sense fear mongering.
the US lost all credibility. Nobody gives a fish about what the US says anymore. I bet their military is on par with Russia. Certainly the men in the US won't fight for a country that hates them.
Dems have long lost dealership owners. Those owners are a powerful lobby, but they're not popular... not many people enjoy the process of buying a car and getting it serviced.