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A senior White House official said: “China is producing at a rate and with a trajectory that’s far in excess of any plausible estimate of global demand.

“That is going to flood the global market with supply that undercuts our ability to build productive capacity at home and leaves all of us across the world more vulnerable to economic coercion.”

Yes, yes, of course beatinbg climate change is the most important thing ever! Well, except me getting votes at the next election from auto workers, obviously.

14 thoughts on “Sigh”

  1. Sounds as though they might be a bit cheaper than the average car price in Oz.

    But I don’t want an EV anyway.

  2. This is all too predictable and very funny as a result. This will all become even funnier when Clackett Lane services go up in flames or we discover that the PLA has had them fitted with surveillance equipment and kill switches.

    How will the EU justify banning them ?

  3. In a few areas ‘China’ (meaning independent Chinese producers) has demonstrated a tendency to go overboard in making the new in-fashion thing. Most will be aware of ghost cities, enough flats to house the population twice over. There was a problem with over-produced e-bikes, and a boris-bike-like car scheme where cars were built even though the rental side was never able to use them. To what extent this is a free market I don’t know, but the nation seems to have a problem reining in over-exuberance.

  4. BiW , as opposed to the best good-old British Union-Approved car manufacturers produce(d)?

    Any British, American or European milk floats are still going to be inherently explody, but they should at least be built to some sort of safety standard.

  5. “but they should at least be built to some sort of safety standard.”

    Like the safety feature on Teslas which locked the doors on a burning car with a family inside? I understand they’ve changed that now.

  6. Look how much we’re being ripped off:

    In China, the compact city cars have proved popular with drivers and sell for as little as 49,900 yuan (£5,500) each. Stellantis expects they will retail for under €20,000 (£17,200) in the UK

    Tariff walls aren’t going to work against that much cheapness, are they?

  7. that undercuts our ability to build productive capacity at home

    The US doesn’t need China to undercut its productivity. Their $39 Bn CHIPS Act, which was supposed to onshore advanced semiconductor manufacturing to the United States, has already failed due to Diversity:

    The law contains 19 sections aimed at helping minority groups, including one creating a Chief Diversity Officer at the National Science Foundation, and several prioritizing scientific cooperation with what it calls “minority-serving institutions.” A section called “Opportunity and Inclusion” instructs the Department of Commerce to work with minority-owned businesses and make sure chipmakers “increase the participation of economically disadvantaged individuals in the semiconductor workforce.”

    High tech manufacturers are so excited by the opportunity to waste billions of dollars in a doomed make-work programme for the 80 IQ set, that

    less than a week later, Intel announced that it’s putting the brakes on its Columbus factory. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has pushed back production at its second Arizona foundry. The remaining major chipmaker, Samsung, just delayed its first Texas fab.

    A reason we call it Clown World is that they always want two or more mutually incompatible things at the same time, such as fried ice.

    They want Star Trek technology with a population that looks like the slums of Guatemala and Benin.

    They want to defeat Russia and China while slitting our own economic throat.

    They want mandatory LGBTQIA Pride and unlimited Muslim immigration.

    Honk honk.

  8. Steve: such as fried ice.

    It’s entirely possible to fry ice., or even ice cream. You just need to get the temperature differential *just* right..
    Just sayin’….

  9. “but they should at least be built to some sort of safety standard.”

    Even if built to a better standard* there’s a high probability they will use Chinese supplied batteries and/or battery packs. *These days it really doesn’t matter which company name is on the bonnet: the EV Mini, for instance, is being built in China.

  10. Grikath – It’s entirely possible to fry ice.

    That’s cool.

    Dave Ward – Yarp, complaining about the dangers of Chinese electronics, when your house is probably full of Chinese electronics, seems a bit pointless imo.

    The US/EU are not angry at China because they produce crap, if that were the case, there’d be no problem. Market forces and safety standards will trip them up.

    They’re angry that China is drinking their milkshake.

  11. All fun and games aside.. I don’t think the chinese would send fiery explodey death trap EV’s this way.

    It’s the economy of scale our Host talks about regularly: The chinese market is potentially huge already.
    Even if the little EV’s are only really suited for urban/forensic use ( which all EV’s in essence are to begin with..) , China has a lot of cityscape, with lots of chinese living in them.
    Cityscapes full of air so thick with pollutants you can somethimes literally cut it with a knife.

    EV’s are one of the ways to remedy this ( lotsa nukes one of the other..), so once the EV format/tech has settled a bit and power distribution is sorted, you can bet they will actualy be compulsory in the cities.
    This is the PRC we’re talking about, after all. They will not pussyfoot about on this like in Europe. They will announce, enact, and enforce it as soon as it’s technically feasible.

    So huge market, and emerging opportunities to be Appointed as Official Party-Approved Provider for even a region makes that a relatively secure market.
    If you can Impress the Apparatchiks.
    Proving you can build something cheap, at scale, that sells to the Barbarians beyond the Wall, forcing those Barbarian Apparatchiks to throw up their own Walls to try an keep Glorious Revolutionary Electric Transport out is a very good way to do this.

    And the cars themselves will be solid enough ( must comply with Barbarian Safety Requirements to be sold to begin with…) , and crucially easier to repair/maintain than anything the Barbarians have on offer.

    And there’s the bit where the PRC is pretty harsh on companies and people who endanger good honest chinese citizens… If they get caught..
    The chinese have a different attitude towards safety, risk, and acceptable quality, but they did have a good hard look at what the CCCP did Wrong, and will not accept anything that endangers the population and can be traced back to Official Edicts.

    There’s a very strong incentive to build something that works, and keeps on working with proper basic maintenance.
    And as our Host always states: Incentives Matter.

    So the “chinese milk floats” will actually be decent cars. Most likely better in price/quality than anyhting currently on offer, except the luxury segment.
    Because the incentives to make them are there.

  12. Bloke in North Dorset

    Some good points, Grikath, but I’m not totally convinced.

    You’re right in that the CCP needs to raise quality, not least because Chinese citizens have more faith in western goods, cf contaminated baby milk scandal.

    The problem as I see it is that threats of serious punishment might work against senior executives and managers but there’s still a lot of money to be made out of corruption and those threat don’t really incentivise the average worker drone to be more conscientious.

    That said, there is a big push towards Chinese nationalism, but that is more about hating the west, or more specifically NATO, rather than taking pride in being Chinese.

    Give the latest Chinese Whispers podcast from the Spectator a listen, they talk about that point at length.

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