US senator wants to put the brakes on Chinese EVs Electric vehicles may become a new front in America's tech war with China after a US senator called for Washington DC to block Chinese-made EVs to protect domestic industries and national security. Sherrod Brown, senator for Ohio and chair of the Senate Banking Committee, penned a letter to President Biden, claiming "there are …
With the main "American" EV manufacturer, Tesla, facing "disastrous" sales and decimating its workforce is the world finally waking up to the issue of EVs being unsustainable hype?
In the UK, for even half of vehicles to be electrified, even if we had the generation and transmission capacity, we would need to dig up every street and lay new underground cables- at a time when we don't have enough civil engineering workers to maintain leaking gas pipes, water pipes and sewers ...
With the main "American" EV manufacturer, Tesla, facing "disastrous" sales and decimating its workforce is the world finally waking up to the issue of EVs being unsustainable hype?
Details, details. US complains about China subsidising EVs. US, UK and EU subsidise EVs in the same way with tax credits, EV credits and Tesla would have gone titsup.com long ago if it wasn't for those. Now Tesla's facing more competition, which should also result in falling EV credit sales to competitors, and it still can't compete with China or India because our cost base is simply too high.
The problem isn't the National Grid
The problem (in the US at least) is that EV chargers are unprofitable and break down a lot.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-18/why-so-many-ev-chargers-in-america-don-t-work-lht2q7w4
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/ev-charging/whats-behind-the-epidemic-of-unreliable-ev-chargers
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/ev-charging/ev-chargers-have-a-big-reliability-problem-can-the-government-fix-it
At least 50% of the chargers I've rolled up to in the past 3 months don't work. Once it was 1 working station out of 10.
It's not "unsustainable hype" except when used as just another Faux News point to biatch at.
There certainly is a market for EV's. The ISSUE is that there probably isn't an *infinite*, always expanding market for EV's, and Wall Street HATES the idea of ever having to admit that about ANY market.
EV's have a market for the average urban driver, one who maybe travels 50 miles one way or 150 miles on weekends, and that's just fine. The problem is when you need to deal with exurban drives, where 80-300 mile trips may be either common or needed. But just as the urban driver's needs aren't universal, neither are the rural / exurban driver's needs, and to try to say that because EV's won't meet everyone's needs simultaneously that they are a failure or just hype is intellectual DISHONESTY.
There's a market for them but they are NOT for everyone. But allow those to whom the product fits THEIR needs to be pleased with them and stop trying to push a singular agenda on everyone else. If you want an EV, then there's no hype - it'll work for you. End of story. If an EV can't or doesn't work for you don't go trying to put down an entire industry plus their customers in an attempt to prove yourself singularly as "correct". The "hype" is needing to overcome 130 years of petrol infrastructure and be taken seriously - people are expecting EV's in less than 20 years, to be as supported and as flexible as ICE cars that have over a century of refinement. We need some realism here.
EVs will happily do long distance trips - you might need to look at what current cars can do rather than assuming everything is the original leaf.
Or are you another jake - who *needs* to travel a thousand miles without stopping whilst towing 10 tons, uphill all the way with no electricity supply anywhere along the route?
They may do but like a lot of others you need to recognise that they do not suit everyone.
I may do 400 miles in a week or I may need to do 300 miles in a day all, depends on my work.
As an emergency first respoder volunteer I can not afford to come back home after 200 odd miles or more of work related travel then miss out because my car is not charged.
Where I live and the hours I work you can guarantee that my wipers, demisters, heating and lights will be on most of the time due to the shit weather except for a few months. This all reduces the travel distance.
I have never spent more than £15k for an used car, never bought a new one and will never splash out £50 - 80K for a top end tesla or one of the vehicles that do several 100 miles per charge.
Where I live, a very rural location, hence the first responder bit - there are almost fuck all publicly accessible charging points.
Even if there were I will not sit in my car for an hour or so and pay a premium for a fast charge.
EV's suit a lot of people but not everyone. I would love to be able to get one within my parameters but it looks unlikely for the foreseeable future.
You need to understand that everyone's case is not the same as yours before commenting.
You've made an excellent argument as to why EV subsidies - up to 7K for already wealthy who can afford the greater cost, not to mention permission for single occupancy EV drivers to use the carpool lanes - are/were a terrible and unfair wealth upstribtion. The irony of the foot up that policy has given Trump leaves me dumbfounded.
Tesla might be thought of as an American company but they have much more manufacturing capability overseas now. Including in China. From a purely business perspective it would make sense to shed the US workforce.
This is how capitalism works, folks -- its all about RoI. Tesla is going to be just like every other automaker, producing cars where it makes the most financial and political sense (so they'll retain some capacity in the US, just like everybody else).
Whether or not this is the right way to run a society.....well, its been drilled into us since birth that There Is No Alternative, only capitalism can yield the best products at the lowest prices for consumers etc. etc. Its just that real life doesn't work like Econ101....
Tesla is suffering because Musk turned into a MAGA moron. There's nothing wrong with that in particular for a CEO, he's certainly not the only one to be in the tank for the sleepy orange felon. But EVs are most popular on the left, and least popular on the right. By alienating his best customers he hurts Tesla's sales, and it isn't being made up for on the right because they constantly get Fox News propaganda about how terrible EVs are. They will be the last to hop on the EV train.
So don't look at Tesla's troubles as an indication for how EVs are doing, their problems are entirely self inflicted. Yeah EVs became overhyped but that's how every new market goes, once it reaches a certain stage it hits public consciousness and then the hype starts until the expectations are way beyond reality.
If you look at consumer desire for EVs from surveys it tends to track increases in gas prices. They were spiking in summer 2022 so there were a lot of people saying they were considering an EV for their next vehicle. Then gas prices went down a lot to a level people see are more normal, and they push those thoughts aside. If a full scale war broke out in the Middle East we'd see $5 gas again and interest in EVs would shoot up once again.
What are these people on? $3.7B is absolute chickenfeed compared to US subsidies of its own car market - well over $13B from what I can see with just a very cursory glance at figures. $2B to Tesla alone, without including its subsidiaries.
This kind of ignorant, protectionist bullshit really winds me up. At least get some figures to back your story up that actually tell the lie you are trying to sell... </rant>
Big oil wants to kill electric vehicles.
OFC they will engage in all kinds of speculations , offer no proof at all to protect their rich contributors from facing competition.
Same goes for the auto industry that have to face a new and strong competition.
It's not a matter of safety , it's a matter of protecting big oil and the auto industry from facing competition.
This "no high tech for China" nonsense is childish and in the end, counter-productive.
All the high tech bans will achieve is to cost US companies sales to a massive market and accelerate the speed at which China will catch up with and then surpass US companies in all of the technologies which they can't, for manufactured reasons, be allowed to buy. It's all about protectionism and very little to do with the, by nature undocumented, "national security" risks. Cutting off your nose to spite your face is the expression which comes to mind.
As to electric cars from China spying on you, well, the ones which don't come from China already do a fine job at that, so what's the difference?
Apart from the fact that China isn't playing fair, I believe it's of the utmost importance to protect our industrial capacity since it eventually influences our military dominance. Which in the end is the only thing that *REALLY* matters.
I've predicted that in the future the world will fall apart into separate trading blocs which will insist on industrial and economic independence and sovereignty. We're already seeing the signs of this de-globalization occurring as we speak. The U.S. and Europe will block China from taking over their car industry by outright banning Chinese imports. Semiconductors are another strategic sector where the West (guided by the U.S.) is taking steps to prevent China from catching up.
> The U.S. and Europe will block China from taking over their car industry by outright banning Chinese imports.
European car makers make more cars in China than in Europe.
And we know from the way that the Eu caved in on the Brexit deal, that German car makers are in charge of making Eu rules
Europe is the soft underbelly of the Western world since Germany is outright opposing tariffs being imposed on Chinese EV's. The Germans are too stupid to see that this is EXACTLY how the Chinese intended their opening up of their car market to German brands to work in their favor. By taking one dominant EU country as a "hostage" they can prevent the Union from imposing tariffs on their EV exports.
The Germans think they can hold on to both their Chinese and European market share if Chinese EV's can freely be sold in Europe. They're completely misguided. The Chinese EV's will wreck the European car industry and become an existential threat to the German carmakers.
It has been reported that there are spare parts problems with some of the Chinese-made vehicles - to the extent that insurance companies are not wanting to insure them!
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-insurance/362519/exclusive-some-chinese-cars-almost-uninsurable-parts-and-repair-support
But the vehicles knowing usage and reporting back to who knows whom might be an issue in some countries - what is sauce for Huawei is sauce for BYD too...
Many years ago some genius in congress decided to raise the tariffs on Japanese vehicles thru the the roof, especially pickups. Subaru got around it by putting two jump seats in the bed of their Brat. Drive down any road and you see how effective those tariffs were. It was around the same time American cars went from acceptable to rolling dust bins.
Ive never bought a new car ive always had used, and I know EVs are going to be the best option going forward to wean ourselves of oil but they are ridiculously expensive so im not paying £30k for a new EV. If BYD can sell cars for $10,000 im all for buying a Chinese EV, as once they get to a couple of years old that puts them in the price range of what am willing to pay for a car these days.
And i don't care if a Chinese car is spying on me, as with all the tracking online and the huge number of CCTV cameras we have in the UK, im already being tracked by people who I consider equally as untrustworthy as the CCP.
EVs are simply too expensive. They are trying to replace not just new ICE vehicles but second hand ones that cost under a grand. The 2nd hand EV market is mainly illegal scooters and milkfloats.
Inflation and higher interest rates are pricing the West out of the green transition. Sanctions on China will make it a lot worse. You can tribalise or you can go green, not both.
But the estimates for green EV are rely on clean green resource extraction methods and manufacturing method all along the chain. China doesn't do that - for example they are increasing coal use.. Out of sight, out of mind?
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