this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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China has positioned itself as the main car supplier in Mexico, with exports reaching $4.6 billion in 2023, according to data from Mexico's Secretariat of Economy.

The Chinese automaker BYD surpassed Honda and Nissan to position itself as the seventh largest automaker in the world by number of units sold during the April to June quarter. This growth was driven by increased demand for its affordable electric vehicles, according to data from automakers and research firm MarkLines.

The company's new vehicle sales rose 40 percent year over year to 980,000 units in the quarter—the same quarter wherein most major automakers, including Toyota and Volkswagen, experienced a decline in sales. Much of BYD's growth is attributed to its overseas sales, which nearly tripled in the past year to 105,000 units. Now BYD is considering locating its new auto plant in three Mexican states: Durango, Jalisco, and Nuevo Leon.

Foreign investment would be an economic boost for Mexico. The company has claimed that a plant there would create about 10,000 jobs. A Tesla competitor, BYD markets its Dolphin Mini model in Mexico for about 398,800 pesos—about $21,300 dollars—a little more than half the price of the cheapest Tesla model.

...

That tariff-free access is part of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (T-MEC), an updated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement that, as of 2018, eliminated tariffs on many products traded between the North American countries. Under the treaty, if a foreign automotive company that manufactures vehicles in Canada or Mexico can demonstrate that the materials used are locally sourced, its products can be exported to the United States virtually duty-free.

MAGA strikes again

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Other automakers should try producing $21,000 LiFePO4 EV hatchbacks with a 250 mile range instead of cranking out $50,000 EVs with a bunch of ADAS crap that most people don't care about.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

This right here.. The fact that Xpeng can produce and sell the MONA for $17k should be a wakeup call to US companies. Even just a simple EV without all the bells would be amazing.. We don't want perfect we just want drivable. Legacy needs to focus on overall efficiency in addition so they can squeeze the most range out of smaller battery packs.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (14 children)

The main problem with BYD cars is that they are heavily subsidizing by the Chinese government.

If you remove those subsidies then those cars aren’t going to be very competitive. But the problem would be that by the time the Chinese government stopped subsidies, there wouldn’t be any competition left.

Our best ways to counteract this would either be through heavy tariffs or by subsidizing our own companies in the west.

MAGA wants to do the tariffs route which is basically a bandaid solution that would prevent the Chinese companies from owning the US market but it wouldn’t do anything outside of that. Plus it doesn’t solve is being competitive, it’s just covering its ears and “lalala”’ing the issue for later generations to deal with it. Which honestly, that tracks for basically their whole platform.

If you do the subsidies route though, we’d have to make sure we’re not just constantly lining Musk’s pockets but Tesla is the company has the biggest head start. And Musk is a PoS but the devil’s credit is that our EV market wouldn’t exist without Tesla.

IMO, we need to diversify our EV makers and help provide the capital to bootstrap it. And while that’s happening we need to not let cheap Chinese cars flood the market to undercut any chance we have. So basically we need a combination of both solutions.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yeah anytime the US "subsidizes" something in the local auto market, GM alone eats it up in 5 seconds and pretends they did something with it. Sometimes Ford and Chrysler also get a share.

I'm pretty sure they already recently gave funding to GM for EVs which will go absolutely nowhere because all their major sales are from regular gasoline cars.

I was even hopeful of Ford's hybrid Fusion, but they killed that one too because money.

If they really want to make some serious competition, they should break up the oligopoly of car OEMs. But they never did and never will.

This exact scenario already played out with Japanese OEMs decades ago. They brought a superior product to the market, and instead of competing, they just lobbied congress to make a crap ton of stupid import laws to prevent Japanese cars from taking the market.

Then they had a weird era of those hybrid car brands where the big 3 made partnerships with Nissan, Toyota, etc for tech sharing because they couldn't even properly R&D for crap.

Then Nissan, Toyota, Honda, and Subaru opened plants inside the USA to bypass the import stuff, and here we are today.

The only difference this time is instead of what was generally perceived as an economic ally, the new kid on the block is the next enemy after Russia. And tbh not even a major threat type of enemy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

not even a major threat type of enemy

Brother the American industry apocalypse after China invades Taiwan and TSMC is torched will make the economic impacts of the rona look like a tea party.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

the new kid on the block is the next enemy after Russia

Wait, why is our largest trading partner our enemy, again?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s not even the heavy subsidising, China makes the US look like it has strong employee rights and environmental regulations.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Ugh, that is true but no way should we compromise on that IMO

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

One could argue that China's governmental subsidizing of the industry just shows the commitment they have to be a leader and dominant player in the future of transportation worldwide.

Does the American government have such aspirations? Does the American Auto industry have the vision and goal to adapt to a disrupted market?

In my opinion the arguments surrounding this topic come down to which country is going to work harder to play a leading role in the future.

China is making their bet, and the quality of Chinese EVs is increasing extremely rapidly. If they can so easily dominate the American Auto Market that tells us that the Americans have been sleeping at the wheel and need to make some tough choices about spending. We can curtail the onslaught through duties and various taxes and regulations but not indefinitely.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (29 children)

I would say that all tracks but american car companies are refusing to even attempt to make an affordable electric vehicle, so how can you say its just a gap in research that subsidies would fix.

Subsidies would be drained the same way the profits were, why wouldnt they. American car companies refuse to listen to demand, and this is what they get for it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

If China wants to pay for my next car for me, I'm fine with that.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

So you're saying that buying one means that the American working class is extracting value from the Chinese government? Sounds great to me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

The vast majority of those subsidies (rebates, sales tax exemption, government procurement of EVs) you linked don't seem like they would apply to exported vehicles. This suggests exports would indeed be very price competitive, wouldn't it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

by the time the Chinese government stopped subsidies, there wouldn’t be any competition left.

What? BMW EV surpassed Tesla sales in Europe for July. BMW, VW, AUDI, Skoda all have very attractive alternatives to Tesla, and Mercedes too, if you want higher quality and don't mind it's a bit more expensive.
So how do you figure there is no competition without China?
From Korea we Have Hyundai and KIA, and from USA there is Rivian and Ford.
Arguably the American competition is the weakest, but still it seems to me there is lots of competition, even without including Chinese cars.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

BMW EV surpassed Tesla sales in Europe for July.

You sure about that?

So how do you figure there is no competition without China?

That’s not what I was saying. What I am saying is that if left unanswered, those cars would kill all of the current competitors over time and then after that we’d be at the mercy of whatever the Chinese car manufacturers would want to charge and we’d be unable to stop it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You sure about that?

Your numbers are June not July, there were dozens of articles about it like this one:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/bmw-overtakes-tesla-european-ev-sales-first-time-report-says-2024-08-22/
And this one:
https://electrek.co/2024/08/22/bmw-tops-tesla-ev-sales-first-time-gap-narrows-eu/
Although it seems to include PHEV it still makes the same claim. So I'm just going with what seems to be the standard.

That’s not what I was saying.

Sorry, I read it again, and I misunderstood, the beginning of your text implies the opposite. So it's a bit confusing the way you write it IMO.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

The flat truth is, subsidies or not, nobody would be able to compete with BYD because they're completely vertically integrated(they even mine and refine their own lithium for christ sakes). They're a company that both robustly sells battery cells and robustly sells cars. Their margins can go way tighter than anybody else can afford while they keep chasing new markets and line go up.

If quality was an issue, they might have a problem, but since they've been outcompeting Volkswagen and Tesla on that domestically, the only thing that will stop them at this point is tariffs, and making people pay more for an electric car when we're in a climate crisis is just dumb to me despite the monopoly threat that BYD is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Exactly this. And don't forget that only countries with big car manufacturers might consider imposing tariffs on them, to preserve their local brands. There are plenty of big markets who don't and most likely won't impose any tariffs on them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My stance on Chinese cars is to have no tariffs on models that are $25kMSRP or less this disincentives them from overly marking them up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

If they're assembled in America I can see them easily going higher than 25k. Someone bought a byd shark plug in hybrid pickup truck in Mexico on Reddit(they keep it registered in Mexico and drive it in the US) for just under 50k, but even at that price the quality of it was just a steal when you compare it to an F-150 lightning at 80k. They'd torch US automakers on all fronts if they were allowed to compete here.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hmm.

So beat them to it, and corner the EV market with affordable domestic models.

Seems like a pretty simple solution to me.

I wonder how soon all EVs will be heavily marked up in order to support ~~politicians need for more bribe money~~ "essential petroleum industry", regardless of country of origin

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Or they'll just work out a way to ban the ones they think are too cheap from charging networks

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Oh no! Capitalism?! The free market?! How dare they!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

By the US they mean wealthy owners and shareholders of the automobile manufacturers that failed to invest profits in technology updates to keep their products competitive in an open market. Workers, parts manufacturers, etc would be happy to build and work on economy priced EVs.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

And those companies got rid of all the social incentives; no long-term jobs, pensions are gone, etc. They carved out every possible benefit to the community and monetised every scrap of consumer data from their customers.

Let them burn.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (11 children)

How is this a "MAGA strikes again"? I'm legitimately asking.

Manufacturing has moved to China to reduce costs for decades, NAFTA was signed in the 90s, car companies have been using that to make cars for the US market with cheaper labor from Mexico since its inception. The tariffs on Chinese EVs are the work of the current administration.

Sometimes things happen because of the entire system, not because of one asshole falling out of a coconut tree

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Because apparently it's a problem only when a Chinese company does it. There are no problems at all when it's GM, Toyota or Ford moving factories from the USA to Mexico for cost cutting reasons

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, If the cars pass NHTSA regulations, don’t phone home info to China or BYD, and are inexpensive and not just cheap disposable vehicles, bring ‘em in! I want an inexpensive EV for commuting. It’s not crazy far, and I don’t care about bells and whistles. I just want to make it back and forth reliably and in one piece and I feel like that’s a huge portion of the population.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

don’t phone home info to China or BYD

You can guarantee they will. If we can somehow prevent that, I'm game. In fact, I'd rather all car manufacturers cut the data vacuum crap, and every other industry for that matter.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

i cant wait to fuck american automakers over by buying a cheap, higher quality chinese ev. i dont care how much it costs, it will be worth it to thumb my nose at that shitty fucking industry.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Outside of Tesla, the EV market in the US is already comprised of mostly foreign brands. These concerns aren't about protecting the few American automakers (GM, Ford, Tesla) left, it's about protecting the market for everyone, protecting all those union jobs, and preventing a bunch of companies going out of business because they can't compete against unsustainable Chinese subsidies.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

IMO, they should allow Chinese vehicles under a certain weight. Leave some protectionism while forcing the market to adjust downwards

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Keep them China trucks out!!! Gimme my ‘Merica truck!

—-

I would be more than happy to drive a $15000 electric car.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

its not really 15k though, even countries that are near China and has a BYD factory built in it doesnt get that pricing. The Dolphin in Thailand is a 700k Baht (~19k USD) vehicle

unless china could both skirt laws, ontop of have a supply chain that already exists in the Americas thats is equal or cheaper than in asia, they would not get that pricing unless they stripped the already stripped down vehicles even further.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

I’ll buy Chinese before I buy US

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I contracted to one of the big 3 for over 30 years. When we decided to quit making cars and focus on trucks, SUV's, and crossovers it seemed like they were giving up future numbers for short term profit. It's obvious small electric cars are the future but our big 3 want to ignore that. Blaming the lost market share on small cars from China disregards that they chose to leave that market. Of course Asia would step into that market and fill it

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