• archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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    3 months ago

    Were complaining because unlike US subsidies that any company can qualify for

    That’s just not true; the US subsidizes domestic production in a ton of industries (corn, oil, ect). Maybe you’re referring to specifically environmental subsidies, but I think there’s room to grow to tailor them more to encourage domestic production. Developing the infrastructure for things like batteries and solar panels will take time, but domestic ev manufacturing is already established and could be further subsidized directly, if the US chose to. Placing a 100% tariff on Chinese goods means that domestic/western manufacturing can continue comfortably marketing their EV’s to the upper-middle to luxury vehicle segment of the market without worrying about competing with cheaper Chinese vehicles. If instead they subsidized production themselves, they could potentially better compete with China’s cheaper cars and provide more affordable options to consumers who can’t afford to spend $50,000 on a car, and who would otherwise purchase a cheaper $30,000 ICEV vehicle because that’s all they can afford.

    We only have 3 domestic companies that manufacture vehicles in the US, GM, Ford, and Tesla, while these tariffs protect the entire market including all the foreign manufactures that sell vehicles here like Hyundai, VW, BMW, Toyota, and Stellantis.

    Ok, well then subsidize those as well? Why are we saying European manufacturers are incapable of subsidizing their own production, too? China chose to aggressively transition to electrified production, I think that’s absolutely a good thing; the western world should be following suit. Not to mention that grid electrification would be protective against, say, if their oil or gas supplier cut them off and they had to scramble to find another supplier or risk their people freezing and economies panicking.

    Why exactly are you complaining if, as you say, the current demand is for EVs and the replacement vehicle demand is for EVs? If this is true then that means people are buying EVs even though China isn’t selling any here. Seems like there’s no issue here.

    Because they are prohibitively expensive for most Americans, still. China is producing far cheaper vehicles, which would otherwise broaden the market for EV’s in the US if we allowed them to be sold without our 100% tariff.

    That certainly is an option that is much more environmentally friendly that buying a car built in China. Why exactly are you trying to use this as a crudgel here if your goal is to reduce pollution? That makes zero sense.

    My goal is to reduce carbon emissions, and a part of that long-term goal is to replace ICEV production with more sustainable EVs. For what new vehicles are needed, we should be prioritizing more sustainable EV’s instead of ICEV’s, as well as further electrifying our grid and supporting local transport options. It isn’t one or the other, I was simply pointing out that there’s a transportation market regardless of if you’re talking about PEVs for micromobility or EVs for traditional interstate travel.

    The US and the rest of the western world has seemingly decided that protecting their existing ICEV infrastructure and fighting China’s increasing market dominance is more important than speeding their own transition to renewables and electrifying their infrastructure. I think it’s ass-backwards to tariff the one producer who is doing the most to accelerate transition to clean energy infrastructure if your goal is to get to net zero as quickly as possible (as it should be).