Read the interview with the Ford CEO. Who drives a Xiaomi SU7, imported from China and he refuses to give it up.
It is the arrogance of car makers all over the world. No one is matching the innovation of the Chinese car makers. This includes European giants like Volkswagen and BMW who are suffering in China.
http://autofreak.com/vw-bmw-mercedes-china-sales-collapse-q2/
Despite having cases of car makers that receive
subsidieshandouts from EU countries and then leave anyway to produce in China or elsewhere, Belgium just gave Volkswagen 119 million.
Let’s see how long it lasts.Plus the price is outrageous here. I was reading china has electric cars for like 15k
Yes. You can get cheap EV’s here for this price, like the BYD seagull. But most standard EV’s like a sedan or SUV start more around the 200000 RMB mark or 30.000 US$.
Like the Xiaomi SU7 that the Ford CEO is driving, is around the US$45.000. But it’s an amazing car. There is nothing in the US or Europe that can compare. I personally prefer the Xiaomi YU7.
Last month I was in Europe and rented an Audi A3 sport, and that didn’t even have rear view cameras or GPS!! The newest Maestro (car brand from Huawei), has an espresso machine built in.
I’ll have to deep dive into the Xiaomi, thanks for the breakdown
You’re welcome. You should also check out the other major car brands like Xpeng, BYD (the largest EV car maker in the world) , Li, Nio, Geely (who owns Volvo and Polestar)
Will do!
US admin and auto industry: “We’re digging our own graves? Let’s double down!”
Oh no! Is it time for the auto industry to collapse, get 81 billion dollars, change nothing, and berate the American consumer for being too poor to buy their cars that now cost twice as much for no specific reason other than capitalism again?
It sure as hell isn’t time to ride the bus or build a train. So I guess we’re doing your thing.
Noice. Schedule another for 2041?
That’s optimistic, better pencil in 2029
I’ll hold the date, thank you.
public transportation is pretty lacking in teh us, even “funded blue area” they are usually neglected too.
In the states, certainly. Countries in Europe have done a much better job, and they’ve even reaped a dividend as a result. Spain, Germany, France, even Italy generate economic growth when they roll out new lines where they want to see more development or expand traffic into popular city centers.
Biggest self-inflicted wound the UK did to itself to date was nixing the HS2 Northern Leg. Similarly, in the states, Houston/Dallas got royally fucked when the HSR connecting those two big metropoles got axed. Dallas is supposed to be gearing up as the NYC of the Gulf Coast. But it’s impossible to get people into or out of town except through their maxed-out airports and clogged highways.
After getting that $88 billion bailout They’ll bring back sedans and start researching EVs…for about 4 years and switch back to gas guzzling jacked up overcompensating trucks for the men and big suburbans/yukons for the moms who pay more attention to their phones than the road.
Rinse repeat
they’ll bring back sedans
Dodge: here’s your Dart
Chevy: here’s another Cobalt clone that uses a worse motor
Ford: We’ll make any Sedan you want as long as it’s a Mustang and not a sedan
“th-thanks…” 😕
Have they tried CLOSING more EV Plants and DISCONTINUING More EV Models? That MIGHT help!
-CEOS!
Nah. When reelecting Trump, America acknowledged that our country will collapse with the oil industry. We’ll fight a war to preserve our hegemony over oil, and the resultant oil crisis will be the final straw that gets everybody else in the rest of the world that have money to buy a new vehicle committed to electrification.
It is the Iron Law of Institutions in macro scale. The oil industry and American car companies would rather see America suffer and lose its position in the world, than to help facilitate a transition to some other energy source that would threaten their own entrenched power.
When reelecting Trump, America acknowledged that our country will collapse with the oil industry.
If you look where Trump (really, any Republicans) win big, it’s inevitably an area with a big O&G footprint.
Of late, that’s shifted slightly to Tech Data Centers. But the nature of lucrative extractionary industry is that it gives you a ton of money to pay one half of the working class to restrain and abuse the other half.
It is the Iron Law of Institutions in macro scale. The oil industry and American car companies would rather see America suffer and lose its position in the world, than to help facilitate a transition to some other energy source that would threaten their own entrenched power.
My dad worked for Exxon. He used to joke that they had a big switch in the back of the HQ that read “Green Energy”. And as soon as fossil fuels stopped being profitable, they’d flip it and become a solar/wind giant overnight.
He died back in the 90s, so he never got to see the big milestones. But if you ever look up T. Boone Pickens, this oil billionaire was saying very much the same thing in the late '00s. Natural gas is temporary. Wind is where the real infinite money machine lives.
And now my own state of Texas leads the county in wind production and runs a tight second to California on solar.
So much of this is absolutely already happening. And it’s being financed by the same folks who said it was impossible twenty years ago.
It’s sad watching the U.S. and Japanese auto industry self-destruct in slow motion. There are a lot of smart and capable people in the auto industry, but the management are stuck in an 80s design and manufacturing process.
The oil lobby has been actively encouraging this for decades. Automakers are lock step with the oil lobby. This is so people have to stay reliant on petrol.
There’s no EV infrastructure here where I live. The amount of scam solar is like 10:1 here as well.
Is the Japanese auto industry in as bad shape as the US? Where I live Nissan Leaf is everywhere, but that model might be an exception?
Toyota CEO: “Unless things change, we will not survive.”
This is Toyota though. So by, “unless things change” he just means, “unless the world turns their backs on EV and switches to hydrogen fuel on a traditional ICE package.” Toyota refuses to accept that people want EVs.
I don’t think it’s done them any good to have trade restrictions trying to protect US sales. The increased pressure of better foreign car sales in the US would force more rapid adaptations.
As sad as this is, this is all the fault of the current automakers. The EV1 showed great promise but it was killed off despite the pleas of their drivers. It was just too cheap and convenient to keep making ICE cars and ripping off their customer base. When the innovations of Chinese manufacturers started looming over the horizon, the US did what it always does and wall off the domestic market with tariffs. Content with their captive market, they did token efforts for EVs but kept pumping out $80k+ gas powered behemoths. I’m aware of Tesla being the exception but frankly fuck that company, Elon Musk’s Nazi shit ruined it and I wish it’ll go under.
I wish he would just sell it and let it actually become a worthwhile company. If he would just fuck himself out of the equation I think Tesla would be a lot better.
It is known as the Nazi car brand now which is wild when Volkswagen still exists.
And the oil industry. Also, nobody wanted to spend the money to build EV infrastructure.
Yes. ‘EV infrastructure’ is just “reliable power” and successive conservatives in the administration and judicial interrupted only by shackled progressives for brief periods hasn’t done anything to maintain or grow any infrastructure in America, including a reliable power grid.
For example, I support a tiny company who happens to produce an additive required to make 75% of American water safe and palatable since the distro pipes are such shit.
(Honestly, I know why they posted feds at the gate, now, since if hillbillies or qanon took the plant out - they hate vaccines and fluoride, so it’s not a stretch - America would be super-fucked generationally)
Ironically, expansion and maintenance of infrastructure like the power grid become a voting issue only when it’s past breaking, and US car makers have staved off that crisis of Obvious proportions by their very meddling.
I’m just glad we’ve decided to keep feeding America their power … for the time being. Because in addition to being in a flood risk area, the only plant producing the chemical required for American drinking water happens to be powered redundantly from a Canadian feed.
I don’t understand. Using Elon in charge of Tesla? How can it be failing? I thought he was a genius and not just some guy that had a profitable company partly in thanks to all the carbon credits being sold?
Remember when Tesla was just a play to sell more batteries? This is now BYDs business model.
I don’t remember that ever being a thing, actually. (Edit: as in “it completely went under my radar”)
It was related to Tesla giving away it’s electric motor payments, Elon said he did it to encourage battery sales.
Opening patents could help facilitate the expansion of battery charging infrastructure and ultimately create customers for Tesla’s future battery factories, Kallo said.
Tesla has a goal of producing a mass-market electric car in about three years, and the company hopes a large-scale factory will leverage its projected demand for lithium ion batteries to reduce their cost. https://abcnews.com/Business/elon-musk-gain-giving-teslas-patents/story?id=24111407
Does it really matter? Won’t the government just block all Chinese vehicles from being sold here so carmakers in this country don’t have to compete?
Still doesn’t help with the fact that not a single person outside the US will buy a Tesla or a Ford.
Sooner or later Americans will stumble onto TikToks and see how cool BYDs or Beijings are, and they’ll wonder why their Chevrolet is a piece of shit.
The iron curtain only gets you so far when the internet exists. And when a government is too incompetent to even try to censor it.
Tesla stores are pretty common in China. They still buy the Tony Stark tech genius businessman schtick.
Tesla sales have been falling pretty badly in China for a few years now, ever since Chinese companies improved their cars. However, it looks like it had a good couple months at the beginning of 2026. I’d still expect Tesla China to go out of business in a few years.
For anyone interested:
I think I saw more Tesla stores than cars.
I def saw more jeep stores than jeeps.
Sadly Tesla is still 6% of the EV market in Europe (apparently because of inclusion in Uber Black and UberXL)
Ugh ffs why would anyone use Uber anyway when we have Bolt and I’m assuming some other services (but Bolt is the main one here since it’s an Estonian company and I’m Estonian)
I’m pretty sure there are even more Teslas in Bolt than in Uber. In my country most Tesla taxis are actually Bolts. Bolt in general seems to have more expensive cars than Uber, from what I’ve seen.
A lot of drivers had the idea of taking a loan for a Tesla, then paying it from driving for Uber/Bolt. Not sure how it’s going for the Uber ones with Uber’s declining driver rates.
Interesting. Most Bolts here in the homeland are Toyota or any of the German big 3 (including Škoda in that one since it’s owned by VW)
True but nobody can afford to buy American vehicles so it’s hurting the companies since they can’t sell anything
40-60k for a new EV, that may have some kinks as well.
People …READ. 75% of all EVs in the USA is a whopping 5% of total sales.
No one in most countries can fit US tanks on their roads.
23% of sales in Europe. 60% in Asia.
Would be a lot more if they didn’t plainly cheat with their protectionist measures keeping the better and cheaper Chinese cars of the market or make them expensive with tarriffs
Good. They are overpriced and full of shit that supports the fascists.
supports the fascists.
Isn’t that true for the Chinese EVs as well? The billionaire owners of the EV industry are all tied, willingly or unwillingly, to the authoritarian regime of Xi Jinping
Don’t forget union busting and a general failure to pay workers enough to afford their products. Billionaires’ greed always fucks us over.
End of the day, I can’t afford a new car no matter who makes it. $30,000 for a DRM’ed shitbox that will shut itself down if I’m 30 minutes late on a payment? No, thanks.
Seriously. I keep telling my dudes to hold onto their 2005-15 models. Good safety tech, maybe a Bluetooth audio connection and no fucking microphones or cameras.
As it stands I’ll just keep my 2012 bmw 128 running forever. It’s paid off, fun, and has never given me a problem.
They did it to themselves. By limiting competition in a lazy move to maintain dominance they have lost.
Oh, they haven’t lost. It’s us who have lost. Government is protecting their profits.
For now. Its always been the government who helped create the captive market.
They have definitely lost.
Can I start losing then? I’d love to have great grand children that never need to work a day in their life.
Oh no they don’t think they have lost. No one will force them to give the money back unless there is a purge. Even then no one will be asking.
Don’t worry the invisible hand will save them
/s
China has subsidized the shit out of their car industry. Dumping trillions of renminbi across every vertical and then ramping up production to flood every market with a deluge of cheap EVs will do that.To their credit they are also willing to let bad car companies die and the good ones take their place.
Not that we couldn’t have done the same but the people elected a party which has a walking orange disaster of a president into power and they are doing their very best to hand the future to the Chinese.
So basically China is winning this particular war because they’re doing it smartly.
China tends to take a 1000 year perspective on things…
In the west we can hardly think 3 months ahead of the present moment.
.
But they also tend to push forward with a decisions long after it’s clear there needs to be a change, only to drastically turn the wheel from one day to the other. For example the one child policy and zero covid.
Well aside from the crippling debt their strategy seems sound.
One of the most hubristic miscalculations of the 20th century was the Western managerial class in the 1980s and 1990s assuming that globalization would permanently consign developing nations to the manufacturing of cheap plastic junk while domestic blue collar jobs were offshore.
The higher ups in Western corporations operated under the arrogant delusion that their own expertise would forever remain insulated from global competition. They fundamentally failed to foresee that the very countries they relegated to the bottom of the ladder would inevitably ascend the complexity and cognitive value chains.
The same market forces that the managerial class so eagerly unleashed upon others starting in the 1980s are now beginning to affect their own bottom line, and suddenly what was once championed as “optimization” and “the future” as they dismantled the livelihood of the working class, has become a crisis. It serves them right, how it bites back.
One of the most hubristic miscalculations of the 20th century was the Western managerial class in the 1980s and 1990s assuming that globalization would permanently consign developing nations to the manufacturing of cheap plastic junk while domestic blue collar jobs were offshore.
I don’t think it was a hubristic assumption so much as an engineered economic plan.
When you look at our history of sanction and regime change, the countries we love to target are the ones that won’t comply with this model. Doubly so, the ones we outright invade.
The auto industry collapsed a long time ago and they stopped listening to consumers about the same time. Now only foreign cars are manufactured in the US.
