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

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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    4 months ago

    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.

    • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      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.

      • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        We could match the subsidies. Wow shocker, an amazing idea!

        Its ridiculous watching Americans actively argue against their own benefit.

        • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          The subsidies they’re paying are completely unsustainable and is just a race to the bottom for both countries.

            • CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              Because China’s only apply to Chinese vehicles while the US’s apply to everyone in the industry including foreign brands. This increases competition. China’s goal is to reduce competition by putting competitors out of business so that they can recoup their investment by jacking up the prices once there is nobody left to stand in their way.

              • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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                4 months ago

                Did you consider they are subsidizing it to reduce pollution? Would be great if the greatest country in the west started solving problems again instead of coming up with elaborate scams and grifts.

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    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.

    • aaaaace@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 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.

    • Breve@pawb.social
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      4 months ago

      When a corporation or private individual uses their large pool of capital to subsidize an unsustainable business model that undercuts and disrupts the competition until it can establish market dominance, that’s called venture capitalism. When a government does the exact same thing, that’s called communism.

      The typical American mindset of “corporation good, government bad”.

  • graeghos_714@lemmy.world
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    4 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

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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    4 months ago

    I love your propaganda filled shitposts!

    Yes, yes, sure “the US fears…” lmao get real, kiddo.

    Call me when China creates something new that isn’t a blatant IP theft from the west 👌

    But but but they did it cheaper!

    That’s easy when you use slave labor and run plants on a 996 schedule 🤡

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      Call me when China creates something new

      My brother in Christ, they invented paper, fireworks, and the compass.

      But but but they did it cheaper!

      Because they developed more efficient engineering techniques and more advanced methods of industrial scale production. In the same way Japan ate the American auto industry’s lunch during the 80s and 90s by investing heavily in industry and education, China is flooding the zone with talented professionals and capital improvement projects. Meanwhile, Americans are just inventing new kinds advertisements for of bitcoin.

      That’s easy when you use slave labor

      The Chinese middle class is the largest in the world.

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        You couldn’t even refute those idiotic points properly.

        My brother in Christ, they invented paper, fireworks, and the compass.

        True. And irrelevant.

        Because they developed more efficient engineering techniques and more advanced methods of industrial scale production. In the same way Japan ate the American auto industry’s lunch during the 80s and 90s by investing heavily in industry and education, China is flooding the zone with talented professionals and capital improvement projects.

        And because the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing their auto industry in order to gain market share works wide. Pros for us: if we can buy these cars, the Chinese government is essentially subsidizing them for our consumers. Cons for us: without equivalent subsidies domestic car companies can’t possibly compete. There are genuine issues of trade fairness in play here.

        The Chinese middle class is the largest in the world.

        Relevant only if the Chinese middle class is who is working in those car factories. Is that the case?

        I’m not even saying the tarrifs are good or bad. If they’re explicitly time boxed and our governments are able to stick to that deal, then they could be good. But in general tarrifs on EVs during a climate crisis driven by carbon emissions is explicitly counterproductive.

      • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        they invented paper, fireworks, and the compass

        Lol, yea. And Timbuktu used to be the world capital of trade, now it’s just a shit hole in the middle of the desert.

  • thejml@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    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.

  • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    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

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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      4 months ago

      How is this a “MAGA strikes again”?

      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

      Signed under Donald Trump

      • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Did you not read my comment? USMCA is an updated version of NAFTA. USMCA is actually MORE restrictive in regards to imported automotives, increasing the requirement that the total value of the vehicle must come from the country of origin from 62.5% to 75%.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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          4 months ago

          USMCA is actually MORE restrictive in regards to imported automotives

          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.

          That does not look particularly restrictive to me.

          the total value of the vehicle must come from the country of origin from 62.5% to 75%

          The methods by which “total value” are calculated for country of origin leave open the possibility of building out capital with overseas resources and expertise. This has been the end-run around a host of tariff and trade provisions. You do all the hard bits of engineering abroad and then do the raw assembly of parts just on the other side of the border.

          USMCA countries become a backdoor that provide for the evasion of a whole host of trade restrictions.

          How Chinese firms are using Mexico as a backdoor to the US

          Man Wah is one of scores of Chinese companies to relocate to industrial parks in northern Mexico in recent years, to bring production closer to the US market. As well as saving on shipping, their final product is considered completely Mexican - meaning Chinese firms can avoid the US tariffs and sanctions imposed on Chinese goods amid the continuing trade war between the two countries.

          As the company’s general manager, Yu Ken Wei, shows me around its vast site, he says the move to Mexico has made economic and logistical sense.

          “We hope to triple or even quadruple production here,” he says in perfect Spanish. “The intention here in Mexico is to bring production up to the level of our operation in Vietnam.”

          Anywhere the US has friendly trade relations gets this same treatment. Mexico is simply ground zero because of its proximity to the lucrative Texas and California retail centers.

          • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            You’re just repeating what I just said.

            If you don’t like free trade, don’t make free trade agreements. You’re actually on Team Trump on this one, he’s the one who wanted NAFTA gone. “This is the worst trade deal ever made, maybe ever”

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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              4 months ago

              If you don’t like free trade, don’t make free trade agreements.

              The conflict is between the ostensible geopolitical tension between the US and China and the domestic hunger for cheap imports that force American trade negotiators to simply look the other way when presented with these giant loopholes.

              It isn’t whether we like or don’t like international trade (we clearly love it, as an economic policy). Its the confusion between stated policies (No Chinese Imports! They’re bad for the economy!) and functional policies (Launder these same vehicles through Mexico and they’re good again!)

              You’re actually on Team Trump

              Its hardly as though Trump is alone in his hostility towards Chinese trade. Biden’s been at least as enthusiastic. But these foreign policy positions are all smoke and mirrors. They’re intended to justify military spending in a looming second Cold War, not economic protectionism that might drive up domestic inflation rates.

    • Moonrise2473@feddit.it
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      4 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

  • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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    4 months ago

    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

  • cogitase@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    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.

    • buzz86us@lemmy.world
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      4 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.

  • john@lemmy.haley.io
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    4 months ago

    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.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      4 months ago

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

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Unless china has some secret set of labor laws they follow, their labor laws are far more fair to the average worker.

          The median wage for a Chinese worker is higher than the median for a us worker but the mean is the opposite, which implies the US has a huge wealth imbalance in comparison.

          Edit to add a quote from the Wikipedia page on chinas environmental policy:

          "Since the 2010s, the government has given greater attention to environmental protection through policy actions such as the signing of the Paris climate accord, the 13th Five-Year Plan and the 2015 Environmental Protection Law reform [7] From 2006 to 2017, sulphur dioxide levels in China were reduced by 70 percent,[8] and air pollution has decreased from 2013 to 2018[8] In 2017, investments in renewable energy amounted to US$279.8 billion worldwide, with China accounting for US$126.6 billion or 45% of the global investments.[9] China has since become the world’s largest investor, producer and consumer of renewable energy worldwide, manufacturing state-of-the-art solar panels, wind turbines and hydroelectric energy facilities as well as becoming the world’s largest producer of electric cars and buses.[10] Its commitment to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions has been a major force in decreasing the global cost of wind and solar power, in turn helping the use of renewable energy to rise globally.[11]: 8 "

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      IMO, we need to diversify our EV makers and help provide the capital to bootstrap it.

      Good business when the us does it, evil market destroying subsidies when china.

      • john@lemmy.haley.io
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        4 months ago

        Literally didn’t say any of that. I was stating how the US could be competitive.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      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.

    • curiousaur@reddthat.com
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      4 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.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

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

      Great, then every BYD car sold in the US helps bankrupt the Chinese state.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      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.

      • weew@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

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

      • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        They could build and sell a basic car (combustion) for under $15k if enough people bought them but most people don’t want stripped down compact cars. There’s just not enough of a market to justify cheap cars in the US.

          • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            The Corolla is not a compact car, is has the same footprint as most small suvs. The yaris was Toyota’s compact.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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              4 months ago

              The Civic was what I was thinking of, excuse me.

              Practically the default car for high schoolers in my neighborhood.

              • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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                4 months ago

                New civics are as wide as a Corolla but have a slightly longer wheelbase. They’re small compared to midsize and full size SUVs but are not compact vehicles.

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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                  4 months ago

                  American vehicle safety standards, combined with the rising number of SUVs on the road, have driven domestic automakers to increase the size of their vehicles overall.

                  But the Civic is classically considered a compact car. If you drive into a grocery store parking lot labeled “Compact Cars Only”, nobody is going to tow you.

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I disagree but I don’t really have any data or anything.

          In my opinion most people want the least car they need. Its a tool and the simpler and more efficient the better. We won’t know because there just isnt a line of cars like that.

          I have a 2017 Mitsubishi mirage manual thats very simple and efficient, not a bad example.

          • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            Mitsubishi sold 87,000 vehicles in 2023 only 13,000 were mirages. Kia sold 782,000, 27,000 were rios. Nissian sold 235,000, 4,000 were versas.

            In Europe the dacia sold 493,000, 200,000 were sanderos. Those are the numbers needed to make cheap compact cars.

            • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              Its an example of the type of car I think would sell well if an american car company made it.

              There is no comparison vehicle by american brands at the moment.

              • jimbolauski@lemm.ee
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                4 months ago

                Renault could import the Dacia Sandero and have its msrp be $1000 less than the versa after terrifs. With that kind of price advantage you’d think they would but there’s been no effort on their part. The US market for cheap vehicles is too small.

                • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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                  4 months ago

                  I don’t have an issue myself but I think. the average american wants to buy from one of the american brands, even the one thats not american anymore.

                  I don’t think Americans trust dirt cheap foreign goods just yet. Harder to find the right person to yell at you know, or whatever.