Will China flood globe with EVs, green tech? What's behind latest US-China trade fight

It helps wage the war against climate change, cost of living, and inflation. Simultaneously. How spectacular.

Oh no! We didn’t get on board and now we are falling behind.

If it isn’t the consequences of our own actions

GOOD. The US has practically raped the entire world. It’s time we pay, all of us.

Makes sense... The only version of capitalism that works is government protected monopolies for a few... The only competitive strategy they know is lobbying

I bought a MG4, I'm extremely happy with this car and I hope the arrival of Chinese EV will lower the price of all EVs.

Have you seen the new Xiaomi SU7? Holy crap, that thing looks nice!

I'm getting my xpeng g9 in 2 weeks.

But unlike Japan, they can't force China into Plaza Accord and are panicking.

Arnaud Bertrand wrote a great article on this.

TL;DR: The 3 main signs of overcapacity (capacity utilization rates, inventory levels, and profit margins) for China are all at similar rates as the US, indicating they are not in overcapacity. And they aren't even selling them at a lower price abroad than at home to beat competition; it's the opposite. He concludes that China is simply getting too efficient at manufacturing these days and the US is starting to struggle to compete with that, and this is just them trying to convince China to slow down.

So yeah, the actual "issue" here does seem to just be that the US isn't able to compete with China in these fields anymore.

Have you sat in a Chinese EV? They put US and European one to shame.

Chinese solar panels used to not be great, but today they're easily competitive with the best that US and European vendors have to offer but at a fraction of the cost.

I don't think it's about EVs. My understanding is that it's about protecting American auto manufacturers from "unfair" overseas competitors. There is a history here.

:: incoming semi-coherent rant::

Volkswagen was one of the first auto manufacturers to come to the US back in the 1950s. The us government set up a framework that allowed foreign manufacturers to establish themselves in the states. This was supposed to help the economy by making sure the cars sold here were manufactured here and abused by a set of standards the governing bodies set up.

Well eventually the Japanese got into the game and when brands like Toyota established themselves as cheaper and better than anything you could buy in America, the American car companies lobbied against it and won. This put a soft limit on how many cars could be imported from Japan (which in turn hurt Japan's economy). At the time there was a lot of sentiment going around that the Japanese were taking people's jobs so it actually was a very popular decision at the time (which seems weird because everyone was driving their cars).

Furthermore in the 1980s, people started importing and selling used cars from Europe. This hurt the auto manufacturers deeply as they could not compete with used luxury cars like Mercedes imported from Europe at those low used price points. This is why the auto manufacturers lobbied for a 25 year ban on the import and sale of cars (though they claim it was for safety, it was really to kill the grey market for imports).

The Truth is that a lot of other countries also followed the US in these Bans. Canada has the 20 year import ban and Europe has their own set of regulations.

Chinese cars and EVs will come to the West Eventually but first they'll come under the names of brands that are already here like Volvo. You won't see a Geely branded vehicle for a while unless they open up a Geely of America branch and begin shipping their parts here for assembly. This however will prevent them from having as much as a competitive edge in the US because labor is more expensive in the states than China and South East Asia.

Do they want you to transition to EVs? Yes. Do they want it to be cheap? No.

Lmfao as if the US has any grounds to talk about human rights, with its fucking constitution protecting slavery in its prisons (which, consequently, has the highest prison population in the world)

Why does it matter if US green manufacturing is quashed? You could've said the same thing for US dominance in the combustion car industry starting from Ford, for US dominance in the tech industry for decades, for US dominance in the media industry...

Why is green energy somehow different? Cheap Chinese solar panels and EVs decrease cost of living for Americans. They decrease inflation. The only con is that they prevent more jobs from being created in green manufacturing in the US... But even then, that's only because the US doesn't let Chinese companies in.

Are you that much of a corporate apologist that you would rather people starve in the name of corporate profits than buy Chinese goods?

That's right! I'd rather die in a wet bulb event on a boiling planet before I give a single dollar to those duplicitous Chinese!! We must protect American billionaire profits, at all costs.

One country controlling the technologies of the future is definitely a bad thing. But shouldn't the response be to invest in R&D yourself, rather than starting a trade war?