I get there’s protectionism of local industry, but clearly the market doesn’t want what the industry is making. We are held captive to whatever the industry thinks we want. It’s not a real free market. We are prescribed options to bail out the fledgling automotive industry (whatever is left of it after outsourcing everything to Mexico and SEA)
Comment on Minister suggests Canada is considering tariffs on Chinese EVs following U.S. move
Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 5 months agoThe reason the US and Canadian governments are doing this is to stop that $10k car from destroying the auto motive industry in North America resulting in layoffs that make the recent tech layoffs look like peanuts.
I agree we need cheaper EVs in North America, I want one too… There’s an Ars Technica article where Ford basically goes “we thought everyone wanted expensive trucks … we made those electric … we realize we missed the mark, we’re going to work on smaller, cheaper, EVs.” So, they are coming hopefully within the next couple of years.
I’m not sure how important manufacturing still is to the Canadian economy, but for the US economy … trying to protect domestic production is important (and we should’ve done it years ago instead of letting cheap Chinese imports destroy a large amount of the factories in North America).
PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
JayTreeman@beehaw.org 5 months ago
These NA car companies always get bailed out. They should’ve been making kei trucks, and small electric cars for ages, but they don’t need to because they’ll just get bailed out if they fail.
These tariffs are another form of a bailout. Maybe instead of bailing these guys out we should nationalize them.
Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 5 months ago
That reduces a lot of relevant context, like why they needed the 08 bailouts in the first place, how many times they’ve been bailed out, and the fact that China has heavily subsidized these cars to the point that even if they were making the same vehicle, it would be significantly more expensive.
JayTreeman@beehaw.org 5 months ago
The US manufacturers get bailed out every 30 years or so, so why there’s a specific reason the most recent time becomes less relevant. What makes BYD specifically so cheap isn’t the government subsidies, which NA manufacturers also get, but it’s vertical integration. BYD is a battery company that started to make cars. They can sell the batteries to the car side of the businesd below cost as long as the final product makes the larger corporation a profit. Tesla for example buys it’s batteries from Panasonic. Panasonic has to make a profit. That makes the Tesla much more expensive than it should be.
Thevenin@beehaw.org 5 months ago
Transportation is a necessity, and I believe every inelastic market deserves a nationalized alternative to prevent price gouging. Like how the USPS keeps UPS and FEDEX in line. With that being said, nationalization doesn’t fix this particular problem.
China is run like a giant capitalist cartel (in all but name), and appropriately, their ultimate weapon in their hunt for global monopolies is the provision of slave labor. The number of slaves in Xinjiang alone is estimated in the hundreds of thousands, and their labor has been credibly linked to the production of cotton (face masks), polysilicon (solar panels), and aluminum and lithium (EVs).
It’s no coincidence that these are the industries being slapped with tariffs. No amount of subsidization or nationalization can level a playing field that’s been tilted by slavery. You don’t outcompete slavery, you either penalize goods suspected of involving it, or you go full John Brown.
JayTreeman@beehaw.org 5 months ago
I agree, but that’s a slippery slope. Lots of countries use slavery to make cheap goods. But yes. Slavery in all forms should be abolished