Capitalists suddenly stop loving the free market when it hurts their profits
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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The argument is that it is NOT a free market, because the Chinese cars are government subsidized. A Government subsidized company is not part of a free market.
Well frankly Western governments should also be subsidized in electric car production. If they actually want to move towards net zero, like they claim, it would be reasonable to expect them to actually do something to encourage greener technologies. Currently all they've done is said that they like it very much, and oh look let's build one or two wind farms.
Well frankly Western governments should also be subsidizing electric car production.
They are, EU governments give incentives and tax reductions to all EVs. That way all benefit equally, disregarding where the car was made, but EU is NOT subsidizing manufacturers illegally.
USA also has anti competitive regulation like China, but in USA you only get the benefits for cars made in USA, on top of that EV cars from China have a steep tax added.
Of the 3 biggest markets in the world, only EU is playing fair. But all have EV incentives.
There is no “fair” under capitalism. What I read from this is that the EU has failed its citizens on promoting and helping regional brands to compete on the global market.
When the global market speaks, you can either adapt or do nothing and complain. It’s clear which one is the path the EU is choosing.
Stellantis is mostly European, it's FIAT and Peugot with their other brands. I'm fairly certain they get enough subsidies and tax breaks. That this Italian/American/French company is registered in the Netherlands shows that some tax-dodging is involved as well. I think it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
(Also, Volkswagen Group is the bigger European car manufacturer.)
Even in Europe Chinese cars are more popular because they're affordable.
Also, electric cars such as Polestar (Volvo's EV brand, also Chinese these days) look much better than Tesla's.
Hard to not look better than a manufacturer with a self-centered facist at the top
Once China stops committing genocide and constantly threatening to take over other countries by force I'll start caring about giving them equal tax breaks.
Absolutely, I agree XI is as dangerous as Putin IMO, and we shouldn't grant China any favors.
Capitalists suddenly stop loving corporate welfare when they aren't the ones benefitting from it.
so like tesla?
Yes. Absolutely, which makes it weird that Stellantis feel they need to warn Tesla, when they are very much beneficiaries in both USA and China.
And all the other US manufacturers.
But go figure wen china do the same is bad .
Yes it is bad when those subsidies reduce the price of the car (or any other product) to half of what the competition is charging. This puts the competition out of business and gives consumers less options. Once the competition is gone, the price shoots up past what it would be initially because we have no other option. They've done this countless times in many industries.
They just use the same weapon as the conçurency so . Tbf money need be spend in city made for human not cars but it's a other story .
How many billions did this not founding member of Tesla did he get from government again?
Isn’t that what the tax credits are?
That said, it’s entirely reasonable for a country to levy tariffs on another country’s goods to support their own industries. Other countries do that to America.
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Elon Musk is the biggest risk to Tesla and the reason it's going to fail.
No shit. They're getting huge governmental help, openly steal from non-chinese companies, global trade is already structured around them, and they can utilise literal slave labour.
But most importantly, China is targeting a market that no other EV maker wants to go into first : Reasonably priced EVs.
This guy doesn't care about any of the above. He just doesnt want the EVs he sells to lose their incredibly high margins. If china comes in and swoops up a buyer at 22k then he loses one at 52k.
That's it. These vendors could take the legs out of China in the market by offering comparable cars at comparable prices, but they want all EVs to stay "luxury" instead. That's China's real threat. They are dropping the bottom out of the artificial high priced market with reasonably priced cars.
Sounds like your standard USA corporation
Yeah but China bad
The risk is that he would actually have to compete instead of resting on the beach. It's good that these people are sweating when some fire is placed under their butts in the form of competition.
My next car will be electric, I have over 250k on my ice car and it’s only now just starting to show wear.
I haven’t purchased an electric because of the price, but I’ll definitely buy a $22k Chinese should they arrive on these shores.
Cry me a river.
Read the article. It’s not crying. It’s acknowledgment of a new legitimate competitor like Japan and South Korea became. It’s a call to arms for US manufacturers to get better. This is pro consumer.
Your own inept management in the face of obvious consumer demand for a cheap, basic EV for all is the biggest risk. Fucking out of touch idiots.
Last time I checked BYD prices, they were not cheaper than other EVs.
What am I missing?
I wanna say just compete better, but the only way to do that is lower employee wages and reduce regulations.
What about building a better product?
Because the competition is on price, EVs need to compete with cheaper ICE cars.
It's very difficult to compete on price against companies that are heavily subsidized by the government.
Tesla however also enjoy those subsidies because they manufacture cars for EU in China. So it's kind of puzzling why Stellantis would think this is a concern for Tesla too, when they are one of the beneficiaries.
Probably because BYD recently overtook Tesla as the world’s largest EV manufacturer.
If/when that realisation hits Wall Street, Tesla shares are going to take a massive hit.
Yes BYD has surpassed Tesla on equal terms, or rather terms that actually benefit Tesla.
Tesla enjoys massive benefits in both USA selling EV quotas to other makers, and enjoying tax benefits and subsidies on top. In China they enjoy the same benefits of near zero tax, and benefits for selling EVs.
Tesla is surpassed by BYD now, but that will only get worse if EU regulate Chinese made cars.
Again I don't see how the warning against Chinese subsidized cars is relevant to Tesla. Except the warning could be that Tesla will lose even more market share if they lose their double ended benefits in both USA and China, that clearly make them more competitive in EU and globally too.
That's true for every consumer product. The key here is segmentation and (re)positioning.
Today cellphones are the cheapest they have ever been. Still, iPhone was never more expensive.
BYD and cia are not only building a cheaper product, they're also building better ones at their price range.
iPhones are not better product than other phones though, so building a better product wouldn't matter in that example.
They're building the only ones at that price range because other than Tesla, BYD is the only producer that builds their own batteries.
It's not an apple with apple comparison though. People are willing to pay a higher price for EV when factoring in reduced maintenance costs, charging and ?? environmental benefit.
Wealth inequality is growing worldwide, many of us cannot afford higher priced products when it comes to large purchases like cars and that's not going to change anytime soon.
A phone as a luxury good, yeah it's expensive but do-able. A non-cheap EV is like 10x the price of a phone however.
Eh, I wouldn't classify a phone as a luxury good. Id also say a non-cheap EV is more like 50-60 times a phone. But there's definitely a gap in society for those that can buy new cars, let alone new EVs
How about not taking millions as CEO compensation instead of reducing employee wages? Oh no, they need another yacht.
He says he wants to avoid "a race to the bottom". This is the most important part, it's corporate-speak for "competition".
This isn't a warning that Chinese manufacturers are competing in the luxury car market. They're creating affordable ones, and they're going to eat everyone's lunch because Western manufacturers want to literally avoid competition.
Lowering wages and reducing regulations is not required to compete, but willingness to manufacture affordable cars is.
Lowering wages and reducing regulations is not required to compete
It is if your competition is a nation that treats its workers like even bigger garbage than western companies do. They cannot go lower than China can.
Tariffs work as well. But then we'd have to start manufacturing stuff for ourselves rather than getting other countries to do it.
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