gmauthority.com/blog/2024/05/former-gm-chief-engineer-says-byd-seagull-ev-is-clarion-call-to-u-s-auto-industry/
Former GM Chief Engineer Says BYD Seagull EV Is Clarion Call To U.S. Auto Industry
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:)
'.... while the Alliance for American Manufacturing described the Chinese vehicles as a potential “extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector.”
'.... while the Alliance for American Manufacturing described the Chinese vehicles as a potential “extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector.”
They are though. Maybe not the Dolphin / Seagull, but absolutely the cars in segments a step or two higher like those that would compete with the Corolla / Corolla Cross / Camry / RAV4.
People who look at this from the angle of "Big Three bad" are incredibly narrow-minded and don't see what restrictionless imports of Chinese EVs would do to one of the few industries the US still has as a country. It potentially affects every brand from Chevrolet to BMW to Tesla. And their supply chains. And especially their workers.
Question. If the US auto industry is threatened by a foreign industry that has to ship these products thousands of miles overseas, shouldn't they be wondering how they can do better rather than just essentially banning competition? I thought that is what the free market was about. Especially when the offered product is significantly better than anything you see on the US market.
I mean, in its own way, effectively forcing Chinese automakers to build cars in the United States or face the tariff is not much different than China forcing foreign automakers to form state-owned joint ventures to sell their cars in the Chinese market.
No one is playing fair here. Not China, not the United States. Heck, even the EU as an entity is considering more stringent protectionist measures, despite some reservations from Germany and Hungary.
A declining - or nonexistent - US auto industry doesn't just have implications for the US market either. It has implications for every market that companies export from the United States to. While we can argue all day about the actions that have led the industry to this point, we cannot afford to let Chinese automakers dominate the world.
And I understand and agree that a frictionless approach that says "screw established industry" is the better policy for the climate. But it can't come at the cost of the livelihoods of those who have their food bills paid by that established industry.
BYD, Nio, Xpeng, should establish at least one production line for a volume model in the United States. They don't have to build every car they sell in the US in the US. But if China wants to not play fair, then the US gets to not play fair back. It's only fair.
The issue is that the only American companies worth saving is Tesla/Rivian. Ford GM They’ve had tons subsidies, decades of experience, but they built shit cars 80s to 00s. They were only saved by the CAFE exemptions for trucks. One got a huge loan and one got fully bailed out. Did everyone forget the shit box neons and cavalier, while Honda made Fit and Civics?
Then we gave them 1.5B to figure out how to build evs/phevs. Then the states gave them millions to build factories in USA. And now they’re begging us to ease tailpipe. They have always been bailed out on the taxpayers dime. Maybe we should try the stick instead of the carrot, because the carrot hasn’t been working for 40 years.
So you're saying that American Honda, Toyota North America, Nissan USA, BMW North America, Volkswagen Group of America, Mercedes-Benz USA, Hyundai USA, and Kia USA are also not worth saving?
All of those companies - who are subsidiaries with local USA headquarters - have plants in the USA that would also be affected by unrestricted Chinese imports.
Honda doesn’t have a single EV. They even discontinued their only PHEV. Maybe they should die because of mismanagement.
VW is actually producing EVs en masse, especially in EU. They are doing extremely well on the electrification front.
Nissan is shit, they’ve been mismanaged for years. They left the leaf to rot and created exploding CVTs.
Hyundai, Kia both have extremely good EVs, and will do fine.
BMW is doing fine. Their EV division is doing well.
The previous tariff was 25% + $7500 price differential. It’s the equivalent of around $12k-15k worth of subsidies for a $40k vehicle. If that amount of price differential wasn’t good enough, then really, I don’t think these companies need to be around anymore.
So yeah, i did not mention unrestricted import, but a moderate amount of tariffs but allow them to import would help those automakers squirm a bit would be good. A 100% tariff is signaling to China that they are not welcomed and they’ll get banned if they try. Price differential was already $12K. We have tried the carrot for 15 years, all these automakers don’t care because they know big daddy will bail them out.
When the Chinese government owns half of your company, they are implementing the equivalent of a 100% tariff. You understand this, right?
The Chinese government does not own half of Tesla. Western companies can buy themselves out of they wanted to. Chinese and Western brands coexist in China. The same does not exist in USA, nor will it in the future now.
When GM came to China, they were happy to play with the CCP’s fuck fuck games for $$. But when China comes to USA, they want to ban the Chinese market. They also had all this time to learn how the Chinese supply chain operate to improve themselves.
Just like the time Toyota came to GM in 1984 and literally held their hands and taught GM how to make high quality cars. They learned nothing and didn’t increased their quality control. Since then and they are continually asking government to bail them. The CAFEs truck loophole was literally designed for GM/Ford to prosper because they couldnt design a reliable commuter to save themselves.
Wow. Just wow.
Here are the receipts if you want to read about it:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Chapter_11_reorganization
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Chapter_11_reorganization
I remember the Dodge Neon, the Ford Focus, and the Chevy Cavalier, Ford Tarus from 2000s. Truly garbage cars, and the Americans slowly figured out and started rejecting them.
And before we forget, GM helped create and fueled the US highway and suburbia craze. They got us into this huge vehicle dependent suburbs while EU was going the other direction in the 70s. The fought against California’s stricter emissions policy.
https://youtu.be/RNvvvVt_628?si=xKADR0PWGqLIbtcC
The footprint exemption for light trucks was carved around 2007, around peak Big3 shittiness.
Oh, and never mind GM former ceo became secretary of defense in the 60s, convinced the US government to build highways that happened to bulldoze minority neighborhoods, allowed GM to hugely profit, but that’s a different topic.
So yeah, I’m tired of my tax money going to bailout this shitty car company. All the cards were in their favor, yet they continue to barely inch by.
Those are all mostly consequences. You need to push back in time a bit.
And I’m not sure why you think corporations should be considered saints. They are all going to do what’s in their best interest.
The auto industry is the back bone of defense. So it’s not unusual for there to be overlap. Why do you think the CCP is so heavily involved in their auto industry?
Those “shit” cars were a direct result of trying to compete with the Japanese who were literally dumping cars into the US market. We have a working example of what would happen if we allowed a repeat of that with the Chinese manufacturers.
Why work harder when you don’t have to? People are still going to have to buy vehicles. It is too bad because I really like the design of the Chinese evs. The Big three don’t make anything appealing. Kia/Hyundai make neat vehicles. Besides that, you’re getting into Porsche level for a nice design.
Example: People like screens. Chinese companies: "Let's make the entire width of the dashboard one huge screen." People... "Yayyyy that is one huge mutha of a screens."
Well, if at abolish the unions and manage to drastically decrease pay on labor it'll really help. Perhaps if we can start sending prisoners to work at Ford factories too. If we still don't have the staffing, we should just make being a Cherokee Indian illegal . We could of course expand to more tribes as needed.
Unions are why evs look bad in North America? Same western parent brands in Europe have nicer looking cars. Unfortunately, they get North Americanized when they come here. I can see the company proposing new models to the union at the negotiating table.
Co-“here is our new model. Isn’t it beautiful?”
UN-“ nope make it more bland. Make this other one like soap left in the shower. Meet these demands or we strike” Lol
With forced labor, China is taking a page out of the book that made the USA the economic powerhouse it is.
China isn't a free market and don't follow free market principles. If they were then they wouldn't have shutdown 100s of auto makers and consolidated them into one then pumped it full of government money.
If we copied China we would only have ford or Tesla and pump as much tax money into them as we do to Ukraine.
Tesla has received billions of taxpayer subsidies, without which they would have died very early on: "Tesla has received $2.8 billion in government subsidies. About 88% of those subsidies came from states, while the rest came from federal grants. The state of Nevada has given Tesla $1.6 billion across tax rebates and grants from 2013 to 2023. [...] Musk’s companies also frequently use federal loans, as Tesla has received $466.5 million [...] since 2010."
And the domestic auto industry in general enjoys massive tax and regulatory advantages over imports: The Chicken Tax protection, CAFE and other exemptions for SUVs, and other import tariffs, all so the domestic industry can remain less efficient than they would be forced to be, had those barriers not been in place.
Idk why you're bringing up spaceX at all. Tesla hasn't received anything close to unilateral government support and control. Feel free to Google that next.
And again, purely as an example, The SAIC-GM joint venture is 50 percent owned by the Chinese state. And controlled by Shanghai's municipal government. That is a foreign automaker being literally wrapped around the finger of the government(s) of the country they want to sell cars in.
How is that somehow less problematic than a tariff?
Financially, That’s the equivalent of a 100% tariff, not counting the loss of all IP.
China has BYD, Wuling, Xiaomi, Im Motor, Zeekr, AITO, Nio, Xpeng.....etc. Do you have that much US brands in US? Do you have that level of choices? Do you want a free market with few choice or open market with lots of choices?
I'm just holding my breath on what bill the govt is going to impose next year.