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The Chinese auto industry never ceases to amaze: a normal crash test of a BYD Denza car was caught on video.
An employee of the car company asked the driver not to touch the steering wheel and brakes in order to show the excellent capabilities of the car's autopilot. pic.twitter.com/TxIDxpyoQV
— @PalasAtenea🍊 (@AthenaMia2nd) July 4, 2024
This is why Musk doesn’t reveal how many interventions have prevented perpetually defective FSD from crashing and killing and why he is now resorting to pumping mythical Tesla robotaxis and faking delivery figures to boost $TSLA stock to which his paper wealth is tied🤣 https://t.co/sYwgORYK8a
— Facts Chaser 🌎 🤦🏻♂️ (@Factschaser) July 3, 2024
Will this help the domestic economy in Europe?
It seems unlikely. Serious tariffs on everything imported might be a long term protectionist strategy which could help the European economy, but these people are supposed to be globalists.
Banning EVs alone just looks like sour grapes. It’s also provoking Europe’s number one trade partner for no reason.
But we know from the Ukraine war that German politicians simply do not care about the people of Germany. They don’t care about normal people, they don’t care about rich people. The only thing they care about is doing whatever the US tells them to do.
The European Union will impose tariffs of up to 37.6% from Friday on imports of electric vehicles made in China, EU officials said, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing in Brussels’ largest trade case yet.
There is however a four-month window during which the tariffs are provisional and intensive talks are expected to continue between the two sides as Beijing threatens wide-ranging retaliation.
The European Commission’s provisional duties of between 17.4% and 37.6% without backdating are designed to prevent what its president Ursula von der Leyen has said is a threatened flood of cheap EVs built with state subsidies.
The rates, laid out in a 208-page document published on Thursday, are almost the same as those announced by the Commission on June 12. The executive made adjustments after companies identified minor calculation errors in the initial disclosure.
Beijing said then it would take “all necessary measures” to safeguard China’s interests.
These could include retaliatory tariffs on exports to China of products such as cognac or pork.
EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis said there is no basis for China to retaliate.
The Chinese EV problem is not a small problem for the West.
They are absolutely dominating. And this is an industry that is small now, but which the West has declared will be the majority of cars on the road in Europe and America in the next X years.
BYD sold 340,000 cars (all EV and HEV) in June 2024
Targeting total sale of 4 million in 2024 pic.twitter.com/NiF3vaUfOe
— CCL (@CCL2K30) July 3, 2024
The way things are going now, Tesla is on the verge of collapse. I assume that the German companies can stay in the market because they are producing more “luxury” style models that some people want, and some people just want a German logo on their car. But the overwhelming majority of cars on the road are going to be Chinese.
And it’s the American global warmers that are saying EVs are going to replace all normal cars in the next decade or whatever. That was their idea. China said “yeah, we can make that happen.” Of course, China is also making gas and diesel cars, which are going to be cheaper and better than Western cars, excluding maybe Toyota/Honda (which are not actually “Western companies”).
The Bigger Issue Here
The bigger issue here is that it’s not just EVs that China is dominating. The way things are going now, they’re going to dominate all consumer electronics, completely. Apple phones have become so overpriced, and so annoying. There is no logic in people continuing to buy these phones. They do so out of habit, and in many cases because the Chinese models are not available in Western markets. But that will not last forever, without a full protectionist system that would probably be impossible to implement at this point.
Then you have industrial technologies. The Chinese are hiring German engineers sick of dealing with Germany to work in all of the different tech fields. China is going to be overtaking the companies that make all of this ultra expensive medical equipment, they’re going to overtake the companies that build the bullet trains, they’re going to dominate appliances, all of it.
This can’t be stopped and it’s really already happened.
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Yep, people will switch from not wanting or buying imported EVs made more expensive by these tariffs to not wanting or buying already expensive EVs made in Europe.
Just as well, as there isn’t enough copper and rare earths to make all the EVs to replace the existing fleet of vehicles. BTW, you are the carbon TPTB want to eliminate, and it is so much easier when you have no reliable means of powered transportation to get out of Dodge.
Sure, up the same can be said about the US, UK, the rest of Five-eyes, and all the EU… IOW, the gulag-chain formerly known as the Free World™️.
The tariff thing is interesting.
We lived in Brazil for a while. Brazil protects its own industries, way more than the US does. The result is that everything in Brazil is expensive. Rough estimate, a car in Brazil, made in Brazil, is probably at least 40% more expensive than a comparable car in the US. That’s true for just about everything, except maybe sugar cane juice and knock-off soccer jerseys.
On the other hand, Brazil seems less beholden to any foreign supplier. If the US or China cut off shipments of [name a product] to Brazil, it wouldn’t be a disaster. Foreign made anything is more for showing off, than it is a better value than made in Brazil.
The price for this protectionism is that the poor and middle class just do without, or go into debt.
But, when push comes to shove, outside powers don’t have as much leverage over the country.
The Chinese can’t help that they have more grey matter, more cortical neurons, and higher IQs. It’s their nature.
Now China is starting to run away in scientific, engineering and industrial development.
Meanwhile the West goes down the drain in tighter and tighter spirals, obsessed with catering to the lowest common denominator and importing more of it. As the U.S. conforms itself and caters to peoples who never reached the Copper Age of civilization, the Chinese in the West are returning home to China as they see the bleak future in the West.
Auto import tariffs are ostensibly enacted to allow non-Chinese EV automakers time to establish an integrated non-Chinese sourced electric vehicle supply/production/distribution chain. Whether this can be done profitably (or even at all) is a big question. Of course the real reason is to further an on-going economic war with China.
Most Americans don’t understand the Chinese auto industry, because for them it is ‘out of sight, out of mind’. But this year China is said to have surpassed Japan in auto exports. With this in mind it is unclear how the tariffs will affect local mainland ‘joint ventures’ (such as FAW/SAIC-VW).
China’s main economic goal is to foster export trade, and because a trade war is not in their interests, China is hesitant to apply reciprocal tariffs, especially tariffs of such a magnitude on such an important industry (100% in the US, for Chinese EVs). Nevertheless, import adjustments to non-auto related consumer goods will certainly happen.
The EV thing is really not very practical in the US– at least in most places. Americans like large pickup trucks, which don’t translate into EVs, especially if the purpose includes hauling/towing. Also, driving long distances with an EV isn’t suitable. In large cities with a sufficient electric infrastructure an EV could make some sense as a ‘second’ car.
Sadly, US cities have witnessed their EV infrastructure scavenged by feral populations of diversity, ripping out charging station wire in order to sell copper via the black market. Pissing off Tesla Trendies who, over burnt coffee at Starbucks, don’t understand how economics in the real world works.
Finally, there is a real concern that Chinese companies can absorb the high tariff, still selling at a competitive discount. That of course remains to be seen, but would not surprise me– at least in Europe. Chinese EVs are probably a non-starter in the US, for multiple reasons.
The rest of the world? Those consumers will simply buy on price, bypassing Tesla and whatever assorted Euro EVs are available, going with cheaper and probably better built Chinese product. Product which, by the way, will be built locally, for instance, in Mexico or South America.
The West account for 15% of the world population and 35% of car sales.
The rest of the world accounts for 85% of the world population and 65% of car sales. This is due to grow as they continue to develop.
China alone is 20% of the world population and 32% of car sales.
The West has retreated and sealed itself in a small garden with high walls. Instead of competing with China to keep their car companies lean and nimble, they protect them with tariffs and allow them to stagnate. Good luck to them.
I Think That I Shall Never See
Something As Lovely As A TARIFF
Trump’s much needed recalibration of trade deals such as NAFTA and his implementation of mildly punitive tariffs on the Chinese Communist Party and others is one of the best things I liked about what Trump did while he was president. Are the Chinese dodging Donald Trump-inspired tariffs by using Mexico as an entrepot to the USA?
I want Trumpy to go further on up the road with his beautiful tariffs in the 2024 presidential campaign against Biden . I want PROHIBITIVE tariffs or REVENUE RAISING tariffs to be placed on any damn thing or service that comes anywhere near the USA. Trump’s tariffs weren’t big enough. I want FAFTA. Fit – As – a Fiddle – Tariff – Act(FAFTA) to pay for national health care — free at the point of delivery.
I take the darker view of the American Empire’s ruling class and its dealings with China in that the American Empire’s ruling class always saw China as a way to get massive amounts of cheap labor to make massive amounts of money while de-industrializing the USA and pauperizing Whites Without College Degrees in the USA.
Some people advance the notion that Nixon was being strategic in his dealings with China and not just setting up a chance for plutocrats and globalizer transnationalists to take advantage of China’s cheap labor. I think Ohio Quaker Boy Nixon was doing the bidding of the American Empire’s ruling class by preparing the way for plutocrats to profit off cheap Chinese labor. Nixon was in on the anti-worker China scam from the get-go.
Nixon was an evil and treasonous and immoral bastard who sold us out for some cheap Chinese labor and some shekels from the JEW/WASP Ruling Class of the American Empire.
Tariffs are beautiful and tariffs must be used to crush the Chinese Communist Party and anybody else that needs to be crushed.
REVENUE RAISING Tariffs are boring and lack pop; unless they are used to crush globalizers, bankers and foreigners and to reward Americans. FAFTA.
PUNITIVE Tariffs are just half measures on the way to PROHIBITIVE Tariffs.
PROHIBITIVE Tariffs are the way to go!
TRUMP 2024 could call for the implementation of an 800 percent Beautiful Tariff on any and all goods and services emanating from any and all territories and jurisdictions controlled by the CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY.
Trump 2024 could say that every other nation or jurisdiction should be hit with a 700 percent beautiful tariff.
Trump 2024 must immediately call for the importation of some lady beach volleyball athletes from Denmark — tariff free for you and me — as a gesture of goodwill and comity with Denmark and maybe some tariff free Danish butter cookies. The Wild Danes must be made friends with; otherwise they are a dreaded enemy.
The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire has conspired and colluded with the Chinese Communist Party for 50 years to lower wages for American workers and to de-industrialize the USA.
I fully supported the then President Trump and his beautiful tariff measures to teach some manners to the Chinese Communist Party. I just think Trump 2024 should make his beautiful tariffs on the Chinese Communist Party PROHIBITIVE instead of REVENUE RAISING or PUNITIVE.
Trump 2024 should call for the US Navy to stop and sink all boats carrying any damn thing whatsoever from the Chinese Communist Party. Do it on live TV after the crew has been evacuated and the fuel from the ship has been removed. Environmental and humanitarian concerns must be paramount when sinking ships carrying cheap labor crud from the Chinese Communist Party.
An interesting and intelligent comment. One does note that, over the last century, the Brazilian elites have used a combination of mass immigration and pro-natalist propaganda to basically increase the population by a factor of ten, from roughly 20 million to roughly 200 million. Forget the propaganda about “the more the merrier,” the bottom line is that when the elites force population growth faster than is reasonable for the circumstances, the working class loses and the upper class wins. Always. So don’t blame Brazilian protectionism for working class poverty.
Go Chinese go. They are the future of the world, no doubt about it. Even Carl Jung had some every insightful things to say about the Chinese back in the 1920’s. All positive by the way.
I thought that the climate crisis was so grave that we all needed to switch to electric cars as soon as possible? Surely if the Chinese can make cheap electric cars so that we can all afford to switch to electric cars then that is a good thing? I’m confused.
If only that were the case, I just see endless immigration from places like Africa entering this garden every day.
A few years ago, the RAF started pushing for diversity in their pilots. The number of female RAF pilots would be more or less nil without diversity, and black pilots likely the same. The pushed out male applicants started taking jobs as trainer pilots in the Chinese military. I can foresee white technicians mass heading off to China. They will dominate the creative side of Chinese technology and the busy Chinese technicians will mostly follow their diktats. The Western technicians out of a job in the West will have no conscience about it. Even insignificant me legally classed as an expert in China, had women pushing themselves on me in public transport. I neither encouraged nor discouraged it. And Chinese cops too scared to interrogate me after my altercation with my Chinese family.
the real reason, for the tarrifs, is to prevent china from entering the market and demonstrating a superior product. they could just as easily give the tax credits to domestic manufacturers, while allowing the chinese cars in, without these credits.
instead they want to exclude them, which will result in chinese tarrifs on their luxury cars, which will further damage the european auto industry, driving it out of europe, to the u.s., that can no longer educate engineers, as well as points elsewhere (india). this is part of the deindustrialization process, intended to destroy western economies, transforming them into rentier slave economies, as they are losing all their colonial possessions and must now prey upon their own people.
Tariffs are conceding USA- Canada – Europe can NOT compete. The world has changed but in DC – London – Brussels time warp is 1950.
De-dollarization brings peace
With peace comes prosperity
You will be very disappointed.
In case you do not know, NO foreigner can pass the Security Clearance to work in any important High tech sectors in China. Just like Chinese cannot pass it here in the U.S.
NOT all Chinese policemen are afraid of White Foreigners!
Another nail in that narrative’s coffin…
I have always maintained that. I don’t know of anyone with an understanding of the historical record who argues that the driving impetus for the US-China reproachment was economic, as opposed to military-strategic. I have read nothing from the time from the principals involved that indicate as much, or even suggest it.
What you describe came later, but at the time could not have been contemplated realistically. When Nixon made his trips, China was still in the throws of anti-Western Maoist revolutionary zeal. Mao was unsure of his own position (re: Lin Biao’s recent likely coup attempt plus his doomed flight to the Soviet Union); the CR was still on-going and China’s border with Russia was questionable due to recent fighting between Soviet and Chinese troops. Mao was concerned at an existential level about Soviet subterfuge, and the US had other non-economic concerns that precipitated Nixon’s overtures.
Nixon faced tremendous opposition from the hawks in Congress over China. China was blamed for impeding the stalled Paris negotiations. and was considered politically untrustworthy. The anti-Nixon press ran editorials warning against any Chinese overtures once the trips were revealed. Not to mention a Taiwan lobby that understood the implications of American diplomatic relations with the mainland. Say what you will about Nixon (and there is a lot to say against him), China was a big political risk for him, and was never viewed as a ‘done deal’ at the time.
Your notion that Western industrialists were positioning themselves for doing business with China in 1970? If it was contemplated at all it was a distant dream, but not part of any concrete reality. Similar to a kid telling his parents he wants a pony for his birthday. Sure, every kid wants a pony, but reality isn’t going to allow it.
In fact, what you describe happened later, and only after Mao left the planet and the Jiang Qing faction was imprisoned. Before that, any thought of Western economic exploitation of China was out of the question. Remember, it wasn’t until about 1982 when Jewish capitalist Armand Hammer’s Occidental subsidiary, Island Creek, was invited by Deng Xiaoping to begin development of China’s energy sector.
Actually, one could easily argue that the Chinese were ‘using’ the West for their own purposes, as opposed to the West exploiting China. I think that is a better interpretation, especially given what everyone witnessed later with Yeltsin’s government. Something that has proven impossible with China’s ‘opening’ to the West (and is now impossible in Russia, under Putin).
Today we understand that the Western capitalists have failed in their planned takeover of China, and that is why the US and those under its thumb are waging economic war against the Middle Kingdom.
Looking back through time is easy, but when reviewing history we must be careful of not viewing events anachronistically. Of course your rabid antagonism and propensity to blame China for problems of America’s own making doesn’t help your attempt at objective analysis. But that’s another issue altogether.
It’s kind a difficult to do, when only 14% of China’s exports go to the US, and only 19% of China’s GDP comes from exports.
Even if the US totally cut off China’s exports, China would lose only (0.14 x 0.19) = 2.7% of its GDP.
A little uncomfortable at worst, but certainly nothing fatal.
Americans need to find another way to crush the Yellow Peril. How about exporting those super toxic ideologies called Wokeness and Individualism? That will surely snuff out them nasty Chinkies!!!
I present an excellent solution to your worries. It would require no effort, nor cost you anything:
Let Chinkies to continue to trade with Africa and the rest of the Global South unhindered. They will continue to build ports and roads and develop these countries.
When these countries are more developed and their economies are doing better, their people will not be so inclined to migrate to The Garden. ….. Your problem solved! at no cost and no effort!!!!
Its a Win Win Win situation………Triple Win!
It is very Taoist, no? Action through inaction.
Sssshhh, let the american “huh-why” LARP a little bit longer.
There will be about 4 billion sub-saharan/black Africans by the end of this century. They have an average IQ around 70 and IQ is largely genetic – they will never be able to develop their countries.
The only solution to Europe not being Africanised and living standards falling a lot is strong and discerning immigration policies.