to be clear Biden banned them

super stupid

now absolutely no reason for American "manufacturers" to innovate on features or price

because they know there will never be competition

meanwhile the highly educated and extremely savvy prime minister of Canada is now allowing those imports

I wonder if any from Canada can make it down here, they should have same safety standards, is there a huge fee for individuals to import vs corporations?

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twoodfin 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s highly impractical to import cars less than 25 years old into the US for anything beyond “show & display” licensing, and that’s only for select models.

Modifying them to meet US safety standards and then getting them approved is arduous and expensive, especially if there’s no comparable US model to emulate / borrow parts.

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BLKNSLVR 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What are the requirements of vehicles that drive across the border, like if a Canadian family is holidaying in Buffalo?

If they're driving a BYD, do they get stopped at the border?

What if they sold their BYD to a US family? Can it be registered and insured? I'd guess not, therefore it wouldn't get bought by a US resident in the first place.

	▲	kotaKat 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Border-crosser here: Many Canadian-model-only vehicles are driven in the US by tourists and the like - you can bring it in for up to the year temporarily. https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export/importing-car > Nonresidents may import a vehicle duty-free for personal use up to (1) one year if the vehicle is imported in conjunction with the owner's arrival. Vehicles imported under this provision that do not conform to U.S. safety and emission standards must be exported within one year and may not be sold in the U.S. There is no exemption or extension of the export requirements. To actually legally permanently import the vehicle, you have to go through the rest of the onerous CBP requirements, validate safety standards, etc, etc - and that's when it becomes a true screwball and it'll never happen. But yes, I guarantee you'll see some BYDs running up and down the Northeast, and very likely spot them around Florida as snowbirds drag them down with them still. I think I'm even more likely in my position to see a BYD with red Ontario diplomat plates, now that I think about it... My favorite oddball I've seen the most of is the Chevy Orlando MPV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Orlando

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ahartmetz 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It happens all the time that a government regulates foreign industries while giving domestic ones relatively free reign. Canada has no car manufacturers. Europe has no Facebooks or Apples. The US doesn't make diesel cars.

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andyferris 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Canada might not own car manufacturers but they do have factories that build cars for GM, Ford, etc, and these are important to their economy. I thought some were sold in the US even?

Chinese companies aren’t exactly building factories in Canada to sell to NAFTA, but I guess Carney figures it’s worthwhile overall?

	▲	raddan 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Many are made in Canada [1]. I remember traveling to Quebec in the early 2000s and being surprised to see more people driving Fords than back home in the US. I suspect part of BYD’s strategy is to get a foothold in the North American free trade zone. Maybe they won’t be able to export to the US at first. But if I recall correctly, an import US legal principle is that laws/tariffs cannot discriminate against a single company (excluding for national security). So BYD will simply iterate toward a design that satisfies US regulators. I am not familiar with Canadian safety regulations but I would be surprised if they were dramatically different. Unless American car manufacturers can find it in their hearts to sell an affordable car, this is an existential threat. [1] https://www.guideautoweb.com/en/articles/76684/all-the-vehic...

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thinkthatover 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

now now, Canada is only allowing 50K of these cars to be imported per year. This is a middle power extending a hand to a superpower in the new multipolar world, nothing more. Also BYD subsidies (and sales) in China have been dropped in the past year.

Is the tech better? Yes. Is protecting domestic auto capability from subsidies in the National Interest? Debatable. This convo always circles around to how we characterize subsidies (EV credits for Elon, direct state sponsorship by China) in a way that's always concealed just enough from the general public to stop people from asking hard questions.

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whynotmaybe 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> because they know there will never be competition

In the US only.

It seems to be the same small vision that lead to French cars being sold in droves in Latin America.

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hshdhdhj4444 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Biden’s banning them was not a good decision IMO.

At the same time, he was encouraging domestics manufacturers to start building their own EVs out, which opened up the possibility of unbanning, with reasonable import duties, once the American companies were competitive.

However, right now we are pushing American companies to go in the opposite direction and dismantle their EV efforts.

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philipallstar 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think you'd have to be a bit ignorant of very recent history to think that America is some cesspool of lack of innovation in the electric car industry. They invented it, despite there being no competition at the time.

	▲	mikestew an hour ago \| parent [-]
		In “recent history”, America invented EVs, and there was no competition? What kind of revisionist crap is that? Or am I just misreading your comment?