Better watch out for Kazakhstan. They are KICKING OUR ASS in potassium production. Soon, every American child will be a Kazakhstanian bride, and I did not cost taxes for the majority of my life to deal with this mumbo jumbo garbage. That’s why I voted for Trump. Also, it’s the “Kazakhstanian” part of this that bothers me. That’s why I voted Trump.
Why are you coming at Kazakhstan? Can you go see a ballet for like 4USD? Does your city have a subway and tram system?
Because your country is only known to Americans because a singular comedy movie where the main character is pretending to be what Americans believe a person from a place called Kazakhstan is like, that’s how relevant you are. You exist. Congratulations. I got shit to do.
It’s good to be irrelevant to Americans because otherwise Americans will shit up the place.
See, the cool thing about this is that I’m American and I’m engaging in banter and you’re butthurt and prejudiced and projecting hate. That’s what different about us, specifically.
Actually I am the one engaging in banter and you are the one with the hurt butt. Checkmate.
Bro. I like anal pain. Even if I was butt hurt at this moment, I would be joyous. But, I actually thought you were the same person and I went to comment on the other person’s original comment and then I realized.
Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium. All other countries have inferior potassium.
China has subsidized the shit out of their car industry. Dumping trillions of renminbi across every vertical and then ramping up production to flood every market with a deluge of cheap EVs will do that.To their credit they are also willing to let bad car companies die and the good ones take their place.
Not that we couldn’t have done the same but the people elected a party which has a walking orange disaster of a president into power and they are doing their very best to hand the future to the Chinese.
So basically China is winning this particular war because they’re doing it smartly.
China tends to take a 1000 year perspective on things…
In the west we can hardly think 3 months ahead of the present moment.
.
Well yeah. It’s hard to compete with a country with no minimum wage or labour protections. And no worker’s unions, they’re literally illegal. It’s a capitalist paradise. They’re either going to move their manufacturing to China, or turn America into it.
Because the US famously has great labor protection and livable minimum wage and no slave labor.
/S
China has both minimum wage (https://www.china-payroll.com/2026/01/09/china-updates-minimum-wage-standards-across-multiple-provinces-2025-overview/) and worker’s unions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China). The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is the largest union in the world.
China has both minimum wage (https://www.china-payroll.com/2026/01/09/china-updates-minimum-wage-standards-across-multiple-provinces-2025-overview/)
China has no federal minimum wage. And what cities and provinces do have one, it’s way lower than anything in the west. Your own article confirms this, although I’d like a more reliable source than “china-payroll”.
and worker’s unions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China). The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is the largest union in the world.
Did you even read the article you posted?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China#Slave_labor
The people do not own or control this “worker’s union” any more than they have a say in what happens in the Party.
Do you also believe America is a functioning democracy? Because if you believe these country’s propaganda lines, I have some stuff to sell you.
Good. They are overpriced and full of shit that supports the fascists.
supports the fascists.
Isn’t that true for the Chinese EVs as well? The billionaire owners of the EV industry are all tied, willingly or unwillingly, to the authoritarian regime of Xi Jinping
Oh no! Is it time for the auto industry to collapse, get 81 billion dollars, change nothing, and berate the American consumer for being too poor to buy their cars that now cost twice as much for no specific reason other than capitalism again?
It sure as hell isn’t time to ride the bus or build a train. So I guess we’re doing your thing.
Noice. Schedule another for 2041?
That’s optimistic, better pencil in 2029
I’ll hold the date, thank you.
public transportation is pretty lacking in teh us, even “funded blue area” they are usually neglected too.
After getting that $88 billion bailout They’ll bring back sedans and start researching EVs…for about 4 years and switch back to gas guzzling jacked up overcompensating trucks for the men and big suburbans/yukons for the moms who pay more attention to their phones than the road.
Rinse repeat
they’ll bring back sedans
Dodge: here’s your Dart
Chevy: here’s another Cobalt clone that uses a worse motor
Ford: We’ll make any Sedan you want as long as it’s a Mustang and not a sedan
“th-thanks…” 😕
News about global trade deficits isn’t mildly interesting. It’s mildly boring.
Yeah this is the wrong comm, should be /c/actually_infuriating@lemmy.world
There is a legitimate reason to not want Chinese government subsidized cars to undercut American auto makers, but it’s also correct to say that American automakers can’t compete with Chinese automakers right now even if they were in a similar cost footing.
It’s hard to feel bad when GM intentionally killed electrics back in the 90s, the ship where America leads the world in EV production may have already sailed then. We may yet see the American auto industry have its Kodak moment.
There’s no reason to be protective over the auto industry. The years where auto plants could transition to weapons fabrication are over; the manufacturing process has become specialized to chase efficiency. If anything, it’s justice should American car brands go out of business, because they were subsidized and propped up time and time again and stole the money given to them to afford innovation. Most recently in 2010, when American cars lost in the marketplace because they didn’t match hybrid efficiency, they simply did not meet or exceed their competition. Instead, they sat on their asses, took the bailouts, and the Japanese sold better cars. Now, Japanese cars are losing to Chinese cars, while still maintaining superiority over American cars.
Anecdotally, the newest gen Ford Bronco, Explorer, and F150 ICE cars are terrible. I got to daily drive all of them while my Lightning was in the shop for repairs because they couldn’t loan an EV. Those cars were noisy, slow, awfully designed interiors, inefficient, and just plain cost more than the competition.
Same in Germany. Took the money, took subsidies and did nothing to innovate. Now they earn to get out of business (but we’re fucked since the state owns some of it and made us dependant).
That is not entirely true. The new VW ID.Polo is a very nice new compact EV for a reasonable price for example.
Do you remember how vw betrayed us and the environment? You might argue everyone did that, which is true. Does not make it better though.
Too little too late.
I remember that very well. Doesn’t change anything about the ID.Polo being a great car for a competitive price tag. Chinese cars in Europe aren’t much better priced.
Fair point, I can agree on different opinion here. For me with that VW is not a company I will do any (direct) business with, as in deal breaker. In contrast to the US we also have not been reimbursed any loss (which I coincidentally directly had, selling a diesel).
If I were in Germany, I’d buy a Chinese car without even thinking about it.
America has a toxic masculinity problem. Americans keep buying giant trucks and SUV and Jeeps. GM did put out some legit hybrids and EVs like Volt, Bolt EV, EUVs. But didn’t sell enough. So we are stuck with shitty gas guzzling cars that keeps getting bigger and bigger.
America has a toxic masculinity problem.
Yeah the “manly dude” starter pack’s cornerstone is a f-150 or silverado. It’s just a baseline requirement.
Also though, mom has to have a canyonero to get groceries and shuttle the kids because “mama bear needs to keep her kids safe from all those giant cars out there”.
I don’t even drive anymore, but I hate the American insistence on BIG vehicles. I loved my Prius, Prius V and Civics. They were all great cars. My kids have an older Fit and it’s a fantastic little car. If only it came in electric!! Or was sold at ALL in the USA, ffs
American vehicles are way too big even by my standards, but the cars you listed, I would have a hard time getting into or out of the rear seat. Gotta be at least mid-size and up for me.
We’ve tried nothing and we are all out of ideas
It’s nuts how the phrase “Kodak moment” has changed.
Can you give me that legitimate reason beyond hurting poor Ford Chevy and GM’s pockets?
For starters the 300,000+ people employed by those two companies (Chevy is GM). Perhaps you meant to include Stellantis (Chrysler) which would make that number closer to 600,000 people. The auto industry was a big driver of the 2008 crash.
That’s before we even start to get into the issues stemming from a Chinese monopoly on the auto industry. What happens if American, Japanese, and European auto makers go out of business and then China stops the subsidies? We will literally be in the same situation we are now but with money going to China instead of paying domestic workers.
America’s somehow STILL in the fucking around phase.
Idk, as I said before sounds like everyone Big Mad because China is better at capitalism than the west. We could easily sell vehicles for cheaper costs by producing closer to local markets and making simpler cars. But then the corps wouldn’t keep their over inflated stock prices.
I agree, western automakers could easily lower prices.
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Get rid of unions
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Lower wages in auto manufacturing AND every industry in the supply chain (mining, etc).
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Every country that manufactures cars needs to mine and produce its own materials (may need to create more humans to work these industries)
The engineers and designers at BYD make less money than assembly line workers in Germany or the US.
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So what.
Protecting them from china and bailing them out multiple times hasn’t done anything.
It’s almost like poorly run businesses SHOULD FAIL.
Are we a free market capitalist society or not?
Yes, and? They’ve been propped up by the USA govt for decades. If they can’t compete with China or Japan, that’s their own damned fault.
Ford and GM are only a fraction of the auto industry in the US. The majority of sales are foreign brands, but none of them can compete as companies against the entire nation of China and its willingness to put them all out of business and takeover said auto industry. They own the mines, materials, and labor and have bottomless pockets to subsidize their vehicles and dell them well below cost.
How is any company supposed to compete against that?
By maybe not massively inflating the price of their cars and manufacturing their vehicles closer to local markets? Like idk what to tell you, it just sounds like youre mad because china is better at capitalism lol
How much should these cars be selling for then? Can you give me a breakdown with your expert knowledge? Can you also explain why it is that every automaker in the world outside of China is participating in this alleged price fixing scheme rather than undercutting each other?
How many cars are being built far outside their local markets? What ones specifically? How much is this adding to the cost of these vehicles?
Let’s see some actual facts.
Make better products?
Like every car from not China sucks hard, but they keep going on about prices.
None of them ever tried to make good cars.
Then yoy can get comparatively better cars for much cheaper? It’s not like you have much of a choice.
Lol this is a very naive, internet-brained take. Have you actually driven all these cars along with their Chinese counterparts? What makes every non-Chinese car suck so badly exactly? Is it because they’re not selling $60k cars for $15k?
Who wants 60k car full of surveillance and badly designed tech?
Slate had the right idea, but Bezos is involved, so we will see.
But every major brand has lost the plot a decade ago, they all took massive amounts of money from government and did fuck all with it and gobbled each other up. Now they act shocked that people prefer anything other than the 6 brands that remained.
I agree that Slate has an interesting idea but they have an uphill battle with the marketing. Unfortunately, the US, to a great extent, particularly the rural US, sees electric cars as being “more tech”, which they equate with more frustration. Naturally EVs actually could likely have simpler computer systems than ICE cars, but, for instance Tesla chose to slap a huge iPad in their cars when consumers want dials.
For all the technical superiority of EVs, it’s hard to convince the average person that they should drive a novel looking “high-tech” vehicle, when a Toyota Camry is an easily available, affordable option. Most people with F150s don’t need them, they want them. Slate isn’t competing for those people, it’s competing for the people who buy Impreza’s, Corollas, and Camrys. I’m not sure it’ll work out.
For an industrial on-site work truck for running errands, I’d bet they sell like hot cakes, but that’s a much smaller market.
From your lips to Milton Friedman’s ears…
Does it really matter? Won’t the government just block all Chinese vehicles from being sold here so carmakers in this country don’t have to compete?
Still doesn’t help with the fact that not a single person outside the US will buy a Tesla or a Ford.
Sooner or later Americans will stumble onto TikToks and see how cool BYDs or Beijings are, and they’ll wonder why their Chevrolet is a piece of shit.
The iron curtain only gets you so far when the internet exists. And when a government is too incompetent to even try to censor it.
Sadly Tesla is still 6% of the EV market in Europe (apparently because of inclusion in Uber Black and UberXL)
Ugh ffs why would anyone use Uber anyway when we have Bolt and I’m assuming some other services (but Bolt is the main one here since it’s an Estonian company and I’m Estonian)
I’m pretty sure there are even more Teslas in Bolt than in Uber. In my country most Tesla taxis are actually Bolts. Bolt in general seems to have more expensive cars than Uber, from what I’ve seen.
A lot of drivers had the idea of taking a loan for a Tesla, then paying it from driving for Uber/Bolt. Not sure how it’s going for the Uber ones with Uber’s declining driver rates.
Tesla stores are pretty common in China. They still buy the Tony Stark tech genius businessman schtick.
Tesla sales have been falling pretty badly in China for a few years now, ever since Chinese companies improved their cars. However, it looks like it had a good couple months at the beginning of 2026. I’d still expect Tesla China to go out of business in a few years.
For anyone interested:
There are more US auto workers working for foreign-owned companies than there are for American-owned companies. Eventually the Chinese EV companies will follow the path of Honda, Totota, etc. and just start opening factories in the US. Tariffs don’t apply to US-built cars.
american ones are pretty crappy, and alot of them are built in mexico anyways.
True but nobody can afford to buy American vehicles so it’s hurting the companies since they can’t sell anything
40-60k for a new EV, that may have some kinks as well.
Not in America they’re not.
Which fucking sucks! The selection of electric cars on sale in America is terrible!
People …READ. 75% of all EVs in the USA is a whopping 5% of total sales.
No one in most countries can fit US tanks on their roads.
23% of sales in Europe. 60% in Asia.
Would be a lot more if they didn’t plainly cheat with their protectionist measures keeping the better and cheaper Chinese cars of the market or make them expensive with tarriffs
The auto industry collapsed a long time ago and they stopped listening to consumers about the same time. Now only foreign cars are manufactured in the US.
And China’s moat is the ecosystem that they are building around EVs. The mining and refining tech for lithium, battery tech, motors, drivers and manufacturing that will be impossible for any other country to replicate.
Not impossible, just expensive.
Easier to buy the products China already makes than to insource industry and control your own (marginally inferior) production chain.
The US is demolishing the tools to compete with China, entirely because the current leadership has an ideological aversion to “Woke” modern technologies. There’s no reason the BRICS states would need to follow this path
It’s sad watching the U.S. and Japanese auto industry self-destruct in slow motion. There are a lot of smart and capable people in the auto industry, but the management are stuck in an 80s design and manufacturing process.
I don’t think it’s done them any good to have trade restrictions trying to protect US sales. The increased pressure of better foreign car sales in the US would force more rapid adaptations.
Is the Japanese auto industry in as bad shape as the US? Where I live Nissan Leaf is everywhere, but that model might be an exception?
Toyota CEO: “Unless things change, we will not survive.”
This is Toyota though. So by, “unless things change” he just means, “unless the world turns their backs on EV and switches to hydrogen fuel on a traditional ICE package.” Toyota refuses to accept that people want EVs.
Yeah fuck Toyota, they have been actively steering consumers away from BEVs to their hybrids for decades so that they can keep that sweet replacement parts cash rolling in. Here in Australia when they finally launched an EV, they gave it a ridiculous alphanumeric name that nobody remembers (and I refuse to look out up) - almost like they wanted it to fail. I’ll never own a Toyota again.
The oil lobby has been actively encouraging this for decades. Automakers are lock step with the oil lobby. This is so people have to stay reliant on petrol.
There’s no EV infrastructure here where I live. The amount of scam solar is like 10:1 here as well.
What is scam solar?
Once or twice a month we get people crawling the neighborhood, 5 or 6 of them just walking down the road, no credentials and they wanna get me free state funded solar and all the need is a picture of my electric bill to prove I’m not already receiving the payment blah blah blah. Eventually a cop comes by a day later and asks about it because one of the old people got scammed.
So how does the actual scam work?
Sometimes it’s that picture of the bill; they use it it switch you to a more expensive energy provider.
Pretty straight forward, put them on as many rooftops as you can regardless of suitability or quality components. Collect government rebate +/- co contribution.
As sad as this is, this is all the fault of the current automakers. The EV1 showed great promise but it was killed off despite the pleas of their drivers. It was just too cheap and convenient to keep making ICE cars and ripping off their customer base. When the innovations of Chinese manufacturers started looming over the horizon, the US did what it always does and wall off the domestic market with tariffs. Content with their captive market, they did token efforts for EVs but kept pumping out $80k+ gas powered behemoths. I’m aware of Tesla being the exception but frankly fuck that company, Elon Musk’s Nazi shit ruined it and I wish it’ll go under.
And the oil industry. Also, nobody wanted to spend the money to build EV infrastructure.
Yes. ‘EV infrastructure’ is just “reliable power” and successive conservatives in the administration and judicial interrupted only by shackled progressives for brief periods hasn’t done anything to maintain or grow any infrastructure in America, including a reliable power grid.
For example, I support a tiny company who happens to produce an additive required to make 75% of American water safe and palatable since the distro pipes are such shit.
(Honestly, I know why they posted feds at the gate, now, since if hillbillies or qanon took the plant out - they hate vaccines and fluoride, so it’s not a stretch - America would be super-fucked generationally)
Ironically, expansion and maintenance of infrastructure like the power grid become a voting issue only when it’s past breaking, and US car makers have staved off that crisis of Obvious proportions by their very meddling.
I’m just glad we’ve decided to keep feeding America their power … for the time being. Because in addition to being in a flood risk area, the only plant producing the chemical required for American drinking water happens to be powered redundantly from a Canadian feed.
I wish he would just sell it and let it actually become a worthwhile company. If he would just fuck himself out of the equation I think Tesla would be a lot better.
It is known as the Nazi car brand now which is wild when Volkswagen still exists.
And China subsidizes over 50% of every EV that is exported. It’s called economic warfare, dump a bunch of shit onto a market cheap and destroy everyone elses economy in that area. Chinese EVs aren’t magically “cheap”, they pay workers almost nothing and subsidize the rest.
It’s a good thing that China subsidizes EVs. We should be doing that too!
us, eu wont, because OIL countries funds the political parties , they wont give it up, they will die holding onto it.
We subsidize EV purchases in much of Europe, regardless of where they’re made. That way there’s no economic warfare, you’re not pushing cheap product to drive competitors out of business.
The Chinese model is designed to kill off competition worldwide so they can eventually raise prices. They can afford to do it because unlike every other country with a manufacturing economy, they can use tax money to do whatever they want without worrying about re-election and also they are the world’s most important trade partner. It’s easier to stop trading with the US or EU than with China.
People would vote for a government that gave them cheap electric cars. This has nothing to do with needing to win elections, it has to do with pleasing daddy US and daddy doesn’t want the world to stop using oil. Europe is a US neocolony.
And American companies definitely don’t take government hand outs left and right
You got a source for those facts?
You saying the US government has not given Detroit $88B since 2008?
