That's certainly a take. China just has this decades long history of targeting foreign industries, flooding the market with that product, and then being the only one left standing.

The idea that we should allow cheap vehicles to flood the domestic market because that will "cause the US auto manufacturers compete" ignores the wholly uneven playing field at work here, and the government backed goal of one side. Just the cost of labor alone makes that not an approachable thing to do.

On the reverse "bad" US side, we have more and more international auto manufacturers building and investing in factories in the US every year. Strangely, this decision involves billions of dollars and years of work to make happen. It's not based on internet vibes.

And the "renewable" growth is really kind of misleading. They're also building more coal power plants than the rest of the earth, combined, each year. They represent ~50% of the worldwide coal power in use today and produce roughly one third of the total CO2 in the world now, almost 3x that of the US.

But I guess the future is government funded undercutting of international competitors, using technology stolen by the government from those competitors, in order to destroy those competitors, while using very dirty and cheap energy to do so? Is that the lesson we're supposed to learn from them?

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thewebguyd 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The US auto manufacturers could compete, they just don't want to.

They've played their own regulatory capture games here and have all but abandoned the concept of affordable small cars & EVs. They've decided to go all in on $80k luxury EVs and enormous trucks (while being protected by 25% tariffs on light truck imports), and the stupid CAFE footprint loophole.

Maybe if they'd stop flooding our streets with ridiculously sized vehicles and actually tried to compete, it would be a different story. They aren't even trying.

We are just as capable of offering subsidies, if thats what it takes, to make small affordable EVs.

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piva00 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's what the USA did during its industrialisation, it's what Japan did during its industrialisation. If you are looking to history to find ways to make your country prosper and industrialise, wouldn't you take those examples since they panned out pretty well?

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strictnein 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The US, via a wide reaching, decades long government policy stole technology from other countries, passed that along to chosen domestic companies, and helped flood the market with the stolen/cheaper goods by supporting the companies doing so to produce goods to be sold at below cost?

There's a lot of data around that in the history of the US and Japan?

	▲	monocasa 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		For the first part, yep. Samuel Slater (known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution" in the US, but "Slater the Traitor" in the UK) was the most well known example, but was also simply one piece of a large policy of ignoring European parents and encouraging people to come with 'stolen technology' to the US and make a competing company here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater Also, the Chinese are absolutely making a profit on their exports, so I'd question your "below cost" broad characterization.
	▲	overfeed an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> The US, via a wide reaching, decades long government policy stole technology from other countries, passed that along to chosen domestic companies... market with the stolen/cheaper goods by supporting the companies doing so to produce goods to be sold at below cost? NSA spied on Airbus in the 90s and passed along information to Boeing and MacDonell Douglas - paving the way for the latter to win a Saudi deal, over Airbus. Further, Boeing airliner development is subsidized by military purchases of its jets by the US government. Its easy to forget that increasing the influence of and/or financially benefitting American champions falls under the auspices of "National interest"
	▲	z2 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		See Doron Ben-Atar, Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power. Concern for IP tends to come _after_ a country develops.

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tredre3 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

American car manufacturers have extremely small market shares outside N.A., and many (all?) of them required multiple government bailouts over the past few decades.

If you think that keeping China is good for the consumer, you'll have to present a stronger case than "we must protect our companies".

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strictnein 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> If you think that keeping [out] China is good for the consumer

It would be excellent for the consumer, in the rather short term, to not keep them out. Cheap cars! Cheap goods flooding our markets are great for consumers in the short term.

> American car manufacturers have extremely small market shares outside N.A

Here's a game:

One company is American. The other is not.

Company 1 Market Share: North America: 16.5% South America: 8.9% Asia: 7.6%

Company 2 Market Share: North America: 14.87% South America: 8.3% Asia: 8.28%

Now, without looking, which is the "US company without market share outside of NA", and which is the foreign company that understands how to compete?

	▲	z2 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Unfortunately, I looked, so let me add to this game, starting with the fact you omitted Europe: Company 1: Europe ~0% (trucks & SUVs just don't sell well there it seems) Company 2: Europe 7% Company 1: Manufactures in 8 countries, 2/3 of its factories are in North America. Company 2: Local production of cars in 25-30 countries depending on partnerships. Company 1 data: 2025. Company 2 data: 2020 (?!)
	▲	recursive-call 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Company 1 is the American one?

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bsder 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The idea that we should allow cheap vehicles to flood the domestic market because that will "cause the US auto manufacturers compete" ignores the wholly uneven playing field at work here

We have been here before. This is Japan and the 1970s all over again.

The US car companies will absolutely refuse to deliver the affordable, high volume cars everybody wants until kicked in the ass and balls several times. In the 1970s it was land yachts; in the 2020s it's gigantic SUVs and brodozers.

I do not like what China and BYD represent. However, if they are the only way to dislodge the US car companies that are blocking progress, so be it.