Comment on Public transit in Chengdu, China versus Toronto, Canada
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 5 days agoyeah this makes sense to me
i guess there is a lot of ways to subsidize something. for example, if you want your local EV company to produce cheaper EVs, you could also subsidize public housing sothat rent is cheaper, sothat workers have cheaper rent and don’t need to ask for such high wages to cover the cost of living.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
Lots of things, yeah. Many countries have set up energy efficiency loans too - for home renovations, or for business purposes. The idea is that you give out low interest loans so people (or companies) can achieve what they need earlier. I don’t know if anything like that is in place in Germany, France or Sweden (or Italy, I suppose they still have a bit of their car industry left), but if I was in a relevant position in one of those companies and there was a need to, say, build a battery manufacturing plant locally so that EVs could be built for cheaper and less dependence on existing battery manufacturers, I’d definitely go ask the relevant nation’s government, parliament and/or business development department, for a loan, tax break, or subsidies. Worst that could happen is they say no.
But yeah, an already successful car manufacturer getting straight on subsidies for selling cars they’re already making and selling anyway - extremely unlikely in most countries I’d think. Now if one or two of the German big 3 were on the verge of bankruptcy because of Chinese competition, that might change. Still sounds unlikely though. China’s GDP is 4x that of Germany’s, they can afford to keep subsidizing their shit for longer.