China and the EU agree to consultations over EV anti-subsidy investigation China and the European Commission are to launch consultations on the European Union anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). The State Council of The People's Republic of China made the announcement on June 22, confirming that China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and Valdis Dombrovskis, executive vice …
What a spineless bunch in the EU. In case they have noticed it China is engaged in a all out war against the west for control of the future economy doing everything they can to take all the jobs. While providing support for Putin's actual war in/on Europe if they want to have any "freedom" left they had better wake up and do something about both. Apparently the lessons of a hundred years ago was not enough to teach them morons anything.
I could understand that approach with a great many products but, given that they've put moratoriums on IC vehicle engines, it seems to massively undermine their purported intent if they throw financial obstacles in the way of getting more people into EVs.
Fume spewing old bangers staying on the roads or ever more people becoming unable to afford transportation are both terrible outcomes.
I wouldn't discount them just not caring about the impact, on the basis that they can easily suck enough out of the system to retire comfortably by then. The danger of passive neglect, however, is that it opens the door for populists.
@RedGreen925
"In case they have noticed it China is engaged in a all out war against the west for control of the future economy doing everything they can to take all the jobs"
Is it that China is doing everything to take all the jobs or that the west is actively trying to get rid of those jobs and China is happy to soak up the work? This is as much self inflicted as it is being done to us.
You often find people on these and similar boards extolling the benefits of capitalism in terms of the never ending search for the best product for the lowest prices so benefiting the most people. Et cetera. Quite apart from the detail that this isn't actually what capitalism is about its also quite obvious that the game is only worth playing if we're the winners. As soon as we get outplayed we start muttering about "unfair competition", "government subsidies" and the good old standbys of "military dual use" and "communist something or another".
Anyone who's been paying attention has watched this brew up over years. We do have a contender -- Tesla -- which has almost miraculously come into being despite a barrage of negative press designed to assist short sellers, a difficult sales environment (you literally can't just set up a car dealership in the US -- we've got laws about this sort of thing), a need for a charging infrastructure and everyone plus dog looking for ways to sue the company for a lucrative settlement. They're standing while other car startups are dropping like flies; still we don't celebrate success, only speculation, so we wonder why someone else who doesn't things differently, patiently building up capacity and capability, just appear out of nowhere. Its pretty obvious, really.
With Germany and France producing the most cars in the EU at crazy prices
It is not surprising that the EU are whacking on tariffs
The cheapest EV that supports a family cost nearly £20k in the UK
A better car from China cost £10k
Same components bigger profit margin
It is just about the money
Where do you think the subsidy comes from to be able to sell a car for £10K?
>Where do you think the subsidy comes from to be able to sell a car for £10K?
The problem is that when society becomes heavily financializezd everything becomes really expensive because of the percentages being creamed off at every step of the retail process. Car dealerships need to make a certain level of profit and they can't make it by volume alone, hence (in the US at least) the focus on selling more expensive SUVs and trucks, credit (financing is a big profit center for dealers), ongoing service and now feature subscriptions. Its a pyramid that's not less and less about providing transportation and more about providing cashflow. Chinese electric cars would be embraced if they addressed the luxury segment with plenty of spin-off for all but the threat isn't this, its the looming presence of mass market vehicles that drain the profit from the entire system. Their looming presence is a threat to our national security -- just that this has nothing to do with military superiority and everything to do with upsetting the entire financial house of cards.
(FWIW -- Auto loans are a very big slice of debt in the US, its large enough to be troubling. Everything rests on people continuing to make those payments.)
The EU looks weak and is publicly being bullied by China that wants to "keep talking" but on the condition that the EU drops the proposed tariffs about to come into law July 4th. A kind of carrot and stick mentality (mostly stick).
China is openly threatening to investigate "dumping" by EU exporters of pig meat and diary products. Which is mostly a pretext to unfairly punish the EU agricultural sector.
Oh come on, the EU agricultural sector is hugely subsidised, what would be "unfair" about punishing it exactly?
Both sides look weak here. The Chinese talk, but everyone can see they're not carrying a particularly big stick. Punish the EU agricultural sector? - yeah, take a number, there's only so much quality food on the world market, they can't do without it and they know it. As for the EU, the entire European car industry has been surviving on pure unbridled protectionism for over 40 years, not surprising they want to keep that up.
Just keep rolling that fibre and plugging away at the public transport, and in another 20 years no-one will even want a private car any more. That's the sensible thing to do. But of course the car industry will do everything in its (very considerable) power to prevent that from happening.
Although I agree with you concerning EU agricultural subsidies I'm also a great supporter of them.
Because I believe we should be self-sufficient in our prime necessities, like food. If we didn't subsidize our agricultural sector market forces would lead us to import all of our food from low-wage countries. And IMHO that's completely unacceptable and dangerous.
The UK is a prime example since the country has been a net importer of foodstuffs for more than a hundred years. Brits viewed their dependence on imported food as one of the spoils of Empire. But as Brexit has shown it can easily lead to shortages and even hunger in extreme cases (like WWI and WWII).
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