Instead lets have them made in a place that has threatened to take over ~4 sovereign nations in the past three weeks? Yeah I'll take the 1/2 price cars thanks.
Can you in any way separate in your mind the idea of the USA as a nation of 300,000,000 people, who need jobs and who all benefit from having safe and good quality cars, from the trolling actions of a few politicians?
With statements like yours, it feels like the left is rooting for the most catastrophic outcomes possible for that whole country, just to spite Trump. Even though we'd all lose and Trump wouldn't be affected either way.
Well there are another 7.6 billion people on this planet many of whom are already feeling the consequences of the "trolling actions of a few politicians".
I'm not American or a "leftist" for reference. I have no ill will towards the American people, neither the Chinese or any other. Governments on the other hand.... But regardless if I can buy a car for 1/2 the cost from one belligerent major power over another. Yeah - I'll take the half price car.
Pardon my assumption -- if you're not in America, America's tariffs on their imports don't impact availability of cheap Chinese cars (should you want to trust them).
You are assuming that all posters on HN are American? An Australian, for example, doesn't care if their car is made in china or not, they are taking the cheaper car! Many countries don't have local auto producers, and they are just going to take the best deal, and that's going to be Chinese.
> With statements like yours, it feels like the left is rooting for the most catastrophic outcomes possible for that whole country, just to spite Trump. Even though we'd all lose and Trump wouldn't be affected either way.
This only makes sense if the poster is American though right? Otherwise, they are just being pragmatic.
I assumed they were American only because they seemed to have an opinion on the import tax America charges on BYD cars. If they live anywhere else, America's import taxes don't impact them.
I don’t see that anywhere in the comment hierarchy, but that would make sense. However, I think there is a misunderstanding: parent was talking about not wanting to depend on cars made in the USA, they nowhere seem to imply that they are in the USA. If you aren’t in the USA, the USA’s agenda right now (take over a bunch of non-USA territory) is not more appealing than china’s (sell cheap EVs, maybe take Taiwan someday). Trump’s unpopularity abroad doesn’t help matters, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump threatens them and they respond by signing free trade deals with China.
I asked "would you want all cars to be made in China" (meaning all cars bought in America) because American-built cars built by people who are paid nontrivial wages would not be competitive in America with those built by very low cost Chinese labor if America lets Chinese cars in. None of this impacts anyone else though.
If you really think Trump is going to try to literally take territory though, you've really been trolled. He has said all kinds of ridiculous shit in his 'political career.' That's his one signature thing.
What's your alternative to dominance by China? Dominance by Elon Musk? American industry has been fucking the dog since the 1980's. This is what we deserve.
This attitude is why Trump won. A statement like that sounds like you've stopped trying to make anything better, or to articulate a competing plan and convince voters to support it.
So, in this way, the self-loathing defeatism is partly responsible for people like Trump gaining more power.
Is it the UAW who has forced the automakers to make primarily those high-profit trucks, and to only design terrible EVs?
In my opinion the reason why we're in the dark ages of EVs is that a majority of Americans have range anxiety so our EVs have to weigh a lot and cost a lot to have 250 mile batteries, whereas everywhere else you can buy a car with an 80 mile range for a price poor people can actually afford.
Note - the range anxiety is both because of our car-centric (sub)urban design encouraging lifestyles where you drive 100 miles a day, and because of how a large number of urban dwellers and even suburban non-rich have no garages to do home charging. (And it's objectively far worse to own an EV for anyone who can't charge it at home.) All of this causes people to refuse to buy cars with say, 75-100 miles of range unless they're hybrids.
Most of the pro-CCP ideologues I see these days have a horrifyingly naïve sense of equivalence between China and any given other country (or are just sockpuppets of the CCP but I doubt there are many of those on HN).
The same party that happily ran over peaceful protestors with tanks, and never even so much as apologized for it, is still in power almost 40 years later. They openly put their people in prison just for criticizing the Party.
People compare the CCP to Western countries' misdeeds against their citizens when there's not even a comparison. For instance, when the US illegally wiretapped on the AT&T and Verizon networks to slurp up all the call data they wanted, they didn't actually use that data to imprison citizens for their speech, even ones who said things like "Bush is a war criminal." China both does the privacy invasion itself, and quite openly uses anything they can uncover to persecute anyone they deem a threat to their power.
>>persecute anyone they deem a threat to their power
USA does this as well, its just critique of government by a single person is not a credible threat to the US government. Mind you, all these "freedom fighters" ended up being financed by the USAID, so literally were foreign agents.
Whistleblowers get the whole book thrown at them, Snowden and Assange got nearly killed by CIA, Iraq files whistleblowers get book thrown at them.
USA is just as bad empire as China, and probably even worse, because of the millions of murdered innocent people over the decades of forever wars.
You've cited a small number of people including radicals like Assange who believe basically all information should be public, no matter the possible damage. That doesn't establish a pattern like the many political prisoners China has and continues to imprison.
> millions of murdered innocent people [...] China has no such track record
No, China, since becoming Communist, has specialized more in murdering their own citizens.
Anyway, thanks for providing a great exhibit of exactly what I was talking about: either CCP propaganda, or hopelessly naïve Westerner bent on believing in these two nations' moral equivalency. This is the same level of honest discourse we'll see heavily promoted on TikTok when China invades Taiwan in a few months or years, saying "China and the US are the same, so who cares if they take over a democracy by force."
Japan hit its peak before surveillance capitalism became pervasive. They also categorically fail at developing complex software. The Chinese won't make that mistake.
You can see the effects of the free market in many industries which have been decimated by globalization.
We used to be able to get a manufacturing job which would provide for a family, but decided it was okay to allow big corps to use slave labor on the other side of the planet and just ship everything across the world (not great for carbon emissions). Just look at the rust belt.
It’s not a bad idea to say that we should have the free market stop at our border. Other countries don’t play by the same rules that we do and can even have entire industries propped up by a foreign government in order to take up market share.
We are the richest nation on the planet. The reason the rust belt exists is because we decided it was better to have the most billionaires than to invest and care for our people. It’s entirely possible to help raise other countries out of poverty, which globalism has, and take care of your people. We just didn’t.
I'm not sure what you mean by "care for our own people". I would say that providing an abundance of meaningful work that can feed a family is one of the best ways we can care for our own people. We have unions and high wages, and having good paying jobs for people who don't want to or can't afford to attend University means that people from all walks of life can have some prosperity.
Removing industry from an area brings nothing but misery to the people who live there. Are you suggesting that some sort of communism should have been implemented in the rust belt where we give these people free money or something?
The Chinese market is way larger than the US one, they have everything they need to lift themselves out of poverty by building things for themselves. The US became the richest country in the world by building everything here and reaping the rewards with greatly increased prosperity.
There is no reason to send all our good paying jobs to the other side of the world, and ship all goods across literally the entire planet, the process of which emits and insane amount of C02, just so that the owners of mega corporations can make a few extra dollars per unit.
The "rules based order" is just an American invention to give our government something to talk about besides international law, which the US has basically always ignored.
no, you cannot enforce rules based order on the whole world when it suits you (to force everyone use USD for reserves and global trade, allowing USA to borrow unlimited money for free and export inflation to entire world), but the moment it doesnt suit you - just abandon it.
why would anyone trust usa's word if any agreement/word/promise can be torn unilaterally?
I agree with you, I'm trying to add color to the situation by pointing out that America has benefited from this invention stemming from the conditions of pax americana where the alternative is international law via the UN and ICC and other institutions that are perhaps more independent than the US would like.
> china can't just do whatever and tariff american companies to hell, right?
In general, the US would introduce retaliatory tariffs in that scenario; the game theory of the situation basically requires that.
Despite popular belief, the CCP is also not actually completely immune to public discontent (it often seems to be really quite scared of it), and would likely be willing to kick off a major trade war, as it would cause price increases.
Even if we consider "China is funding the companies to no end" argument... well, frankly, I wish US would do the same. It is pretty damn cool to see incredible technological progress in huge scale.
The various incentives, tax rebates and ZEV credits that Tesla (and other EV manufacturers) benefited and still benefit from are also government funding, so the US already do the same.
This _hasn't_ happened in Europe, which has lower tariff barriers on Chinese cars. BYD has about 15-20% of the EV market, as do VW, Stelantis, Tesla, Hyundai and BMW (unlike the US or China the European market doesn't have one clearly dominant player in EVs); no other Chinese manufacturer really moves the needle (though MG (SAIC) is regionally popular).
What is so special about EV cars?
its just an appliance to move from point A to point B, even the electric motor inside EV is from household appliances like washer/dryer.
the question should be: Should American consumers be allowed to drive green environmentally friendly cars for $10k or should they be forced to shell out $50k (+interest) to billionaire elon musk
Irrespective of what country, and your belief/disbelief in the threat level, you have to see that a highly internet-reliant device that would bring much of the country anywhere (thanks to car-centric infrastructure) would be a perfect target for a hostile nation, no? With one click you cripple the workforce. Again, speaking nothing of which country is or is not hostile.
how would that car get access to Internet, if wireless providers are controlled by the USA ?
Verizon, ATT, Tmobile and their APNs are controlled by the FCC, and any regulation can force vehicle traffic to be isolated if there is credible threat.
but, why would BYD or other nation sabotage its own future profits by bricking cars?? it doesn't make sense.
if I sell you gadget, I would never brick it, cause I am going to lose all future profits
> how would that car get access to Internet, if wireless providers are controlled by the USA ?
> Verizon, ATT, Tmobile and their APNs are controlled by the FCC, and any regulation can force vehicle traffic to be isolated if there is credible threat.
This response would *not* be soon enough. One response from a server, and the car could be bricked forever, explode/short circuit causing a fire, self-drive into the nearest government building, etc. A car is a huge weapon, especially when remotely controlled. This software could be pre-installed from the factory, with commands injected via side channels. I could imagine a hundred ways to do this.
> but, why would BYD or other nation sabotage its own future profits by bricking cars?? it doesn't make sense.
I'm precluding this situation with a background level of hostility between nations... they don't care about maximizing profit, but maximizing damage. It would be a government stepping in forcing this.
its pure paranoia.
first of all, I as a consumer, mature enough to understand risks and carry them myself, I dont need no government to babysit and censor what I am allowed to buy.
second, you assume China will resort to bricking civilian cars, when they have better options like actual weapons. Bricked car can easily be towed away, there is no way China can cause damage.
the best way for China is to keep manufacturing cars and selling them to USA for $$$ - this will ensure the relationships are beneficial to China (mutual trade is better than military conflict)
> its pure paranoia. first of all, I as a consumer, mature enough to understand risks and carry them myself, I dont need no government to babysit and censor what I am allowed to buy.
You have the tools to reverse-engineer every single chip in your car to ensure they aren't backdoored?
> second, you assume China will resort to bricking civilian cars, when they have better options like actual weapons.
Again, my argument has nothing to do with China, I'm simply saying cars would be a great thing to weaponize. Much easier than smuggling a weapon into the US, you just sell a car to a consumer and you have functionally a remote-controllable bomb.
> Bricked car can easily be towed away, there is no way China can cause damage.
Not if it's driven away and used in an attack first. did you read my reply? You still haven't actually responded to my point that internet-connected cars would be an excellent weapon by a hostile nation.
I dont, but there are plenty indie hackers who would be happy to buy cheap $10k car and reverse engineer it.
Any backdoors would be easily detectable and preventable just by .... not connecting the car to the Internet, or folding connection to isolated VPN not accessible from the outside.
all vehicle traffic can be inspected and sinkholed with IoT firewall, if you really want it
Not when cellular or satellite chips are very well hidden... You might not even know about them, let alone have the ability or knowledge on how to stop it from connecting, force it through a VPN/firewall, etc. You already can't do that with desktop PC's thanks to things like Intel ME.
All those telecom companies have also been infiltrated by China RECENTLY, and they don't even know how long or how badly, AIUI.
Good point though. My current cars drive just fine without internet - I would hope future cars would continue to do so, even if GPS doesn't work, can't find a charging station, etc. Otherwise, I'll be stuck with gas cars until the day they take my license..
it's amazing to me when people on hn (supposed champions of meritocracy and innovation and free markets etc) are so scared of actual free trade. like what are you scared of? equilibration in wages? the only reason to be scared of that is because you're afraid of your purchasing power going down but that means of course your current purchasing power comes at the expense of someone else's. and if you don't buy that argument - "it's not a zero-sum game you communist!" - then you have nothing to be scared of (because your purchasing power will remain high) and you should support truly free trade.
> it is weaponized to destroy a nation-state’s industrial output surreptitiously
are we talking about the US or China or Canda or Mexico here? i can't keep track of who the "bad guys" are that are supposedly weaponizing and who the victims are.
On 12/17/24 they hit a 52 week high around $490 per share. Since then, in less than two months, they have lost one third of their value. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/
Musk has single-handedly alienated his core domestic buying demographic in favor of a group that, when polled, says they would not consider an EV at rates of around 70%.
EU markets in which TSLA was viable but contested are even worse.
This while Tesla's strongest international competitor is passing on units sold, executing better, and underpricing them.
As someone who has followed Tesla since the Model S, previously held Musk in some regard, and test drove a Model 3 I find this such an abject travesty of an outcome for what should have been a great US based global car maker and someone who had the potential to accomplish such good for the world with their incredible wealth and privilege.
To my understanding, the ridiculous stock price and valuation have absolutely nothing to do with the car business. It's basically the potential hopes and dreams of what the leadership can do with direct access to US government.
Yup. And don't buy the line that Elon made Tesla a success. They had the core tech and talent to build an EV (without all the other bullshit he added) before he came along. Given enough time they could have been something on their own too.
This is most definitely not true. Tesla was barely more than an electric powertrain and battery combo when Musk took over. The first production Roadsters even reused the chassis from Porsche 911s (IIRC).
Other US competitors aren't at parity with Tesla or BYD. Nikola went bust. Legacy automakers turned out mediocre EVs. Rivian is the only true competitor, but they are a luxury brand and don't have Tesla's crown jewel (the Supercharger network).
> Tesla was barely more than an electric powertrain and battery combo when Musk took over.
Musk also had zero experience or track record making cars when Musk took over, nor any hardware products of any kind, for that matter, or running a manufacturing org.
Occam's razor would indicate it's very improbably to credit success all to him.
It was a Lotus. I don't see how you can get that so badly wrong (they aren't even remotely similar) and claim to know the state of Tesla at that time very well.
