100% tariff and political threats -- implying that they'd find a way to mark them as "unsafe", despite the fact that Canada and Europe tend to have higher safety standards than the US and already have BYD presence.

You can see the political groundwork being laid here.

https://homeland.house.gov/2025/05/21/homeland-republicans-p...

If these concerns are so pressing, why do we allow any electronics at all from China?

It smells like air cover for a de-facto ban on BYD. To force US consumers to buy from politically blessed car makers instead of letting us choose the highest quality car available (at a given price point).

Global automakers typically make small modifications to vehicles for different markets. Cars, like most engineered products, are built to a list of design criteria. BYD, like every large automaker that does this, has capable engineers that can target any regulatory specification you give them. They already do it for all of the other markets they sell in, just as every global automaker does.

Chinese cars don't exist in the US because of laws specifically designed to prevent their sale here. The tariff for Chinese EVs was increased to 100% a couple of years ago when it was rumored that BYD was going to move to the US market. And currently, there is a bill circulating to ban them entirely.

I could see them going the Huawei (pun intended and apologised for)

I cannot answer your question but I visited China last year and the amount of different EVs they had was staggering. And really nice vehicles, I was very impressed with that.

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> Are BYD cars specifically banned or do they just not comply with all the US regulations?

Whatever the stated reasons are is one thing.

The biggest issue is that a network of BYDs in the US would be a massive intelligence coup.

It will never be permitted unless the intelligence aspect is addressed… if it can be.

This shallow comparison could apply to any car. Are Toyota cars just Ford cars with a different logo?

Back when people used to buy Teslas, the company was notorious for how long it took to get repairs done. Even if BYD was exactly like Tesla theres many ways they could differentiate themselves if they were allowed in the US

> What are we missing out on?

You’d never know because you never had a choice in the first place

in a word, choice. also it's a much quieter car inside, despite being cheaper.

Freedom.

and what's the tesla equivalent for the BYD dolphin?

Competition. Lower prices. Better repairability.