Man, every time where there's a Chinese product category you realistically can't compete with - it's always some excuse of - because Chinese state is subsidizing it and supporting it.

All it does is simply makes the Chinese government sound good and competent.

Oh, nice, a government that does good things that lead to good outcomes! How unusual, how unexpected! That's basically cheating!

We can't realistically have our government be useful and competent and serve our interests, so there's no way we can compete!

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HAL3000 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's an interesting comparison. In China they prop up businesses with cheap loans and help from local governments, in the US it's the VCs. So when Uber was subsidized then everything was ok, but when China state propped up EVs then suddenly it's not ok. These subsidies in the majority of cases are over btw, because competition was too big in China between carmakers, cars in China are ridiculously cheap. Because that's their strategy, you fund a lot of players, like there were 100+ EV makers in China, then you let the market do its job, they optimize or they die, some will die and the best will prevail. Margins are so low in China that they are looking at outside markets where legacy carmakers need to drop the margins and scale up or they will have no chance in competing. And for the argument that they do it to kill the industry so then they can make cars for more price, the most obvious counterargument is why they didn't do it for everything else that they dominate already? Why are solar panels going down? They dominate the world in solar panels, there is basically no competition and prices are still going down, same with batteries.

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toomuchtodo 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Capitalism and free markets failed to deliver, lots of cope around that mental model. If it was superior, it would’ve succeeded. China is 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity, and it shows. Play to win.

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freefaler 32 minutes ago | parent [-]

It was the market that delivered BYD and Xiaomi. The government did his part with industrial policy and inviting Tesla to China to help start the ecosystem, but the brutal competition between Chinese auto makers following the rules of capitalism and free-market made those who survive the ones that can compete with other global companies. Before that they just subsidised and all they got were regional "champions" that siphoned out the funds and created shitty products no one wanted.

After Tesla came with special laws allowing it to work without Chinese co-ownership, but with a mandate to source from Chinese suppliers, this created the ecosystem needed for the next iteration, by the capitalist urge of Elon to get into the market and by free-market economy of suppliers to Tesla that are up to the standards to supply it.

The government set up the battlefield, and let the free-maket filter the strongest to survive.

In the Western countries the government and regulations are frequently the bane of the car companies. Good luck opening a mine or a battery factory in Germany, regulation, unions, green mandates, 36 hr. week. You can't fight with 1 leg tied.

	▲	toomuchtodo 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This narrative overweights free market competition in China and any influence Tesla or Musk might have had versus the $230B in subsides provided to the Chinese EV industry over 14 years (2009-2023), with over ~$1.5B provided to CATL alone (although Tesla did receive ~$17B in total government subsidies in the US). Tesla did not begin production in China until October 2019. If there’s any hero story here, it the will of the CCP to provide this level of support and subsidy to the Chinese battery and EV industries as part of their five year plans. This is why China can build ~20M EVs per year, Europe ~4.6M, and the US can build ~1M. https://ev.com/news/csis-study-finds-chinas-ev-industry-boos... > When it comes to China’s electric vehicles (EV) industry, its market has expanded exponentially compared to other markets. Now, a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has revealed that China’s EV industry received at least $230.8 billion in government support between 2009 and 2023. > As a result, this major investment has played a pivotal role in China’s rapid progress to become the world’s largest EV market, with sales anticipated to reach 10 million units in 2024. https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/chinese-ev-dil... https://www.csis.org/analysis/coming-nev-war-implications-ch...