If I had a dollar for every time I heard about an impending onslaught of Chinese-built cars, I’d probably have enough money to buy a brand new Chinese-built car. Sure, various Chinese brands have held U.S. aspirations for roughly 15 years now, but Chinese EV dominance is now powerful enough that American legislators feel threatened. One potential solution? Higher tariffs.
At the same time, a federal judge has ruled it perfectly legal for automakers to read drivers’ text messages, auto parts giant Continental is reportedly shedding jobs, and the Volkswagen ID.7 comes up a little short on range. All this in today’s issue of The Morning Dump.
Representatives Want Steeper Tariffs On Chinese Cars
It seems every week there’s some alarmist rhetoric about how Chinese cars are coming, but the fact of the matter is they’re already here. In fact, they’ve been coming for years, sold to Americans through foreign brands such as Polestar and, um, Buick. Huh. Is there nothing corporate America won’t offshore? Anyway, the trickle has been noticed, and officials are allegedly rushing to weld the floodgates shut. A Reuters report claims that a group of lawmakers wants to make it harder to sell Chinese cars in America by raising tariffs. Whatever your feelings are on Chinese-made vehicles, this reported proposal is certainly bipartisan, with an even split of supporters across party lines.
Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican who chairs a select committee on China, and the panel’s top Democrat, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Michigan Representatives Haley Stevens and John Moolenaar urged U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai in a letter to boost the current 25% tariff on Chinese vehicles.
“It is critical that tariffs on (Chinese) automobiles not only be maintained but also increased to stem the expected surge in (Chinese) imports,” they wrote in the previously unreported letter seen by Reuters.
If tariffs against Chinese cars come to pass, some manufacturers will be in better positions than others. Volvo should be able to simply export the EX30 from Ghent rather than China, but the situations around the incoming Lincoln Nautilus and current Buick Envision would be stickier. At the moment, there are no factories outside of China that produce either of those vehicles, and the entry level of the luxury car marketplace is certainly price-sensitive. Oh, and it seems that these representatives are reportedly looking for a one-two hit.
The letter also said the United States “must also be prepared to address the coming wave of (Chinese) vehicles that will be exported from our other trading partners, such as Mexico, as (Chinese) automakers look to strategically establish operations outside of (China) to take advantage of preferential access to the U.S. market through our free trade agreements.”
Yeah, I’m fairly sure that’s how free trade works. Just take a look at Toyota, Ford, BMW, or any other automaker with an established North American presence and at least one factory in Mexico. Needless to say, this will be a difficult one to stamp out without seriously pissing off the neighbors, so we’ll see how carefully people tread here.
Apparently It’s Perfectly Fine For Automakers To Save Your Texts
Is your car spying on you? If it’s new enough, the answer to that is a resounding “maybe.” From location information to call logs, newer cars save a ton of information, and automakers are cashing in; it’s all apparently legal, to the point where The Record reports that a lawsuit over automakers harvesting driver’s text messages has been tossed out.
The Seattle-based appellate judge ruled that the practice does not meet the threshold for an illegal privacy violation under state law, handing a big win to automakers Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors, which are defendants in five related class action suits focused on the issue. One of those cases, against Ford, had been dismissed on appeal previously.
The plaintiffs in the four live cases had appealed a prior judge’s dismissal. But the appellate judge ruled Tuesday that the interception and recording of mobile phone activity did not meet the Washington Privacy Act’s standard that a plaintiff must prove that “his or her business, his or her person, or his or her reputation” has been threatened.
In an example of the issues at stake, plaintiffs in one of the five cases filed suit against Honda in 2021, arguing that beginning in at least 2014 infotainment systems in the company’s vehicles began downloading and storing a copy of all text messages on smartphones when they were connected to the system.
Unsurprisingly, just like every other electronic device, cars with infotainment systems come with end user license agreements, and if you delve into these arduous documents far enough, you might find that automakers are harvesting your data. It’s not particularly surprising, considering how insights drawn from user data can be useful to advertisers, but it is disappointing.
Continental Cuts
Tough times continue for the world’s auto parts suppliers. BNN Bloomberg reports that auto parts giant Continental is shedding potentially thousands of jobs in an attempt to navigate choppy waters.
The reductions are part of a plan to trim annual costs by €400 million ($428 million), the maker of auto-parts and tires said Monday. While the exact number of job cuts isn’t yet decided, it’s expected to be in the “mid four-digit range,” according to the statement.
ManagerMagazin reported earlier that the company plans to eliminate 5,500 jobs — 1,000 of them in Germany. Continental said it will dissolve its smart-mobility unit and plans to give a more comprehensive update at its capital markets day next month.
Hold on, dissolving a smart mobility division? That’s a bold move, although not entirely without precedent. Remember when Ford-backed Argo AI shut down? Anyway, vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-x communication hasn’t quite taken off, many consumers seem content with Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems, and building autonomy is, well, difficult.
The Volkswagen ID.7 Falls A Bit Short Of Promises But Still Offers Good Range
Could the electric era mark the rebirth of the sedan? Volkswagen certainly seems to think so, and now we’re seeing some new, more detailed specifications of its ID.7 electric sedan. Unfortunately, not all of them are quite what Volkswagen claimed when the car was unveiled.
Slung beneath the floor sits an 82 kWh battery pack good for 386 miles on the optimistic WLTP cycle. That’s noticeably short of the 435 miles of range Volkswagen claimed at launch, and despite being great and extremely usable, it’s a bit of a letdown, especially when you consider the car’s relative performance. Sure, this thing may put out 402 lb.-ft. of torque, but with a claimed zero-to-62 mph time of 6.5 seconds, it certainly isn’t the quickest EV in the shed. Hell, it might get waxed off the line by a 20-year-old V6 Altima.
[Ed Note: The Tesla Model S offers 394 miles on the WLTP cycle, and it probably has an additional 10kWh of battery capacity at least, so I actually think the ID.7’s range is fantastic, even if it doesn’t meet the goal. -DT].
However, speed isn’t the point, as the ID.7 seems to be about spacious, comfortable travel. With 18.8 cu.-ft. of trunk space, 40.4 inches of front headroom with a panoramic roof, an optional 16-channel amplified sound system, and up to 10 air cushions in the seats, think of this thing as a plush family cruiser, not an autobahn-grade sports sedan. Expect an EPA range figure and U.S. pricing to be released closer to this thing’s on-sale date in late 2024.
The Big Question
Alright, let’s assume that Chinese automakers do finally make it to America, even with raised tariffs. Would you buy a Chinese car? On the one hand, pricing may be extremely attractive, especially as American automakers have focused on high-priced models. On the other, building out a new distribution network is tough, especially when it comes to parts support. As ever, I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
(Photo credits: Lincoln, Thomas Hundal, Continental AG, Volkswagen)
Currently on my list of cars not to buy are OTA cars. It doesn’t matter if it’s from China or the US I don’t want something that can be bricked due to a bad update. Eventually my stance on OTA may change, as in a few years time it may be unavoidable.
If all the major automakers sold in the US are already scrapping data from our phones, is the prospect of China doing it really the one thing that goes to far for most people? It’s already gone too far for me, so it doesn’t mater what country manufactured it.
When purchasing a used car I was not provided with the terms and user agreement for the infotainment system. Does this mean they can’t track my data, or does simply using the car constitute consent for data scrapping?
OTA updates will always be avoidable as long as it’s legal to drive an old car.
Yes, and that’s what I’m currently doing and plan on doing in the future. But there will be a time that it won’t be possible/make sense anymore. In search of a non OTA EV left me with an e-Golf, which is a simply fantastic vehicle. I’m glad 3G died in the US and my car is not connected.
Not sure it will ever be impossible to drive old cars, the amount of model Ts still on the road suggests we have at least another hundred years for popular car models.
Make sense? I don’t know, but I think old cars will be totally practical as long as we have cars and the infrastructure for them, even if most are self driving electric cars. Fueling could become an issue, but there’s always alcohol fuels and biodiesel.
Honestly, with regards to privacy, I gave up on protecting my day-to-day long ago. Our Polestar runs Android Automotive as its native OS, and although it was a concern, I figure it doesn’t collect any more on me than my Android phone running Google Maps and Messages and all the rest was anyways, with the added benefit that I’m not worrying about a generally much less secure automaker OS at the same time. For all my sensitive things, there’s a bicycle and leaving my phone at home.
That being said, woof–we really aren’t even trying to stop the corporate harvesting in the US. Having invested a fair bit of time into protecting my data and coming the conclusion it literally isn’t possible, I’ve switched to a different defense–not allowing collectors to monetize that data effectively. Ad-blocking, spoofing garbage data, all the possible things that make that data useless rather than hidden.
I will say the one thing that does concern me long-run about the Polestar is the possibility of it being very challenging to repair and diagnose personally, without depending on manufacturer owned tools. Right to repair is, across the board, pretty poor, but Polestar seems worse than average in this respect. Would that I have the technical skills to contribute to open-source hacking of those systems; in the meantime, I’ll hope that the relatively small community of enthusiasts will be able to figure some things out.
*Edit for spelling errors.
Back when the mega financial institutions began to form regulations were created to prevent them going wild with your data, there’s HIPAA & such for healthcare data. While none of those are perfect, at least they give you ability to try to restrict your data. But for all the great technologies there is nothing, if you are not willing then said tech won’t work, its a challenge for most people to use 3rd party methods to solve it.
Can’t believe I am saying we need more govt regulation to force the companies to allow us to prevent data sharing for any connected device or service….
This is exactly why we need government. (note I am not saying more or less, just that this is why we need it, the “right” amount)
True, but they also need to focus on the right things in order to determine the right amount. Government providing freedom, protection, privacy, etc has a whole new context in todays digital world.
Re: third party apps and willingness…that’s the thing, I literally don’t think it’s possible, even with the willpower to keep it up. I have stripped the worst of the data collection out using tools available to me, running a VPN (not much point, by the way), using encrypted messaging and email, and all the rest, and…after all that, I’m still on an Android phone, I’m still using networks built by massive companies with total back-end access, all the rest. Not to say it’s not worth trying to reduce the overall information that’s shared, but I genuinely don’t think it’s fightable–there are many, many smarter people getting paid a lot of money to track me and my data with tools I have no knowledge of or control over. And, because of how hidden and crafty these systems are, I don’t believe that regulation will effectively prevent the abuse.
Now, the question is, what’s the problem posed? I want privacy, so that violation is an issue in and of itself, but outside that, the only use for that data is monetizing it. If I can stop that, it’s all pointless. Granted, state actors and police and maybe others may have uses for the data in other ways, but that’s a totally different threat model, and one that requires a fundamentally different approach.
As an aside, for all the screaming about government control over movement by neo-fascists hell bent on preventing cities from making streets safer and more resource efficient, there’s nothing better than a bicycle and a face mask (in comparison to cars) to move and act autonomously.
Bob Seger – I feel like a number….
I’d very much like to read a comparison of the WLTP vs testing practices in other countries. What makes it optimistic? Pros & Cons, that sort of thing.
Ah, this again… *adjusts belt onion*
In the early 1980s, Harley Davidson was getting walloped in the US motorcycle market. Just about every large bike from the Japanese manufacturers was more economical and worked better than what H-D was selling, and the company was in trouble.
The plan back then was to increase tariffs on imported motorcycles over 700cc. This was a very thinly-disguised move to protect Harley, who didn’t offer anything smaller than that at the time. (The joint-venture Aermacchis were long gone.) As a result, some Japanese 750s – like the Honda Nighthawk S – were reduced from 750cc to 699cc or thereabouts.
IIRC those tariff models were sold in the US in 1984 and 1985, so if you’ve ever wondered about the unusual displacements, that’s the reason.
I wouldn’t want to buy a Chinese car because getting lectured by people for owning a Chinese car would get annoying fast.
That’s one reason I leased my Polestar 2 😀
/s
What if we made Chinese companies partner with an American firm and then stole all of their IP?
Somebody get this man a job at McKinsey!
Hello fellow Last Week Tonight viewer. 🙂
You mean have access to our own data? It’s like being able to open file explorer on your own computer to view pictures of your dog from last year.
“These plans we stole from China already had the Ford logo on them!”
“These are some great ideas!!!”
Isnt this exactly what the Ford-CATL deal is about?
Then we could use public funds through a government owned company to commercialize it!
Chinese car? Sure as long as it’s cheap, safe, reliable, has low NVH and otherwise meets my needs.
I was under the impression that tariffs don’t really work because they are almost always retaliated upon. I’m no economist though.
Whether or not they work is a different question to whether they remain–and the Chicken Tax (for one example) has been around for a long time, and is why there aren’t many foreign-built cargo vehicles here.
Retaliation is very real, but the difference between total Chinese imports and exports, as well as consideration of types of exports, means that we might be able to get by with it. If they retaliate with steep tariffs on semiconductors, for example (they’re our biggest export to China), it has the potential to hurt the electronics makers who rely on them. Because we import a lot more finished Chinese goods, they might not be as quick to retaliate as some other countries.
But, yeah, trade wars get complicated.
Tariffs “don’t work” in that they will, based on all data and modeling result in smaller economic activities in both econoimes (assuming a simple 2 way tariff) than compared with no tariffs, and this next part is importat, two countries with approximately equal economic conditions
What this means is tarrifs can be effective as long as your goal isn’t the highest total GDP, but you need to account for one country say, having comprehensive environmental regulations (internal cost) vs yeet it just wherever (external cost) it can be effective to prevent offshoring of industry due to different cost externalities and accomodate approimately what those cost are worth on a given good
The big Q? I’d rather push a Ford than drive a Winnie mobile.
Well now you can do both since the Lincoln Nautilus is apparently being manufactured only in China.
I’d consider it as long as it’s a captive import. The EX30 is a great example. Otherwise heck no. A lot of stuff in my chosen hobby is made in China. The only support from Chinese corporations is “check out YouTube or this forum post”. With cars it would be more of the same. Infotainment issue? Go ask your fellow owners, someone has to have fixed it by now. An actual mechanical issue? Here’s the AliExpress link for parts, good luck!
I am a big proponent of data privacy, but I love it when ordinary people think they are being spied on.
“CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, we have urgent news for you. Bob Jones of Akron, Ohio, just stopped at a Travel Center, and the elapsed time between him locking his Volvo after getting out and then unlocking it to get back in indicates that he did not wash his hands.”
Ordinary people should be concerned with the data their car keeps on them, but because of the local police, or someone local that will sue them and get the data with discovery. The CCP does not care about you Bob Jones from Akron.
So much of the cost of an EV is the battery, I can’t see the Chinese getting much of a cost advantage.
If the Chinese really want to take over America, they could offer cheap ICE sedans.
And don’t kid yourself. Regardless of whether the final assembly was in Europe, North America, Japan, or South Korea, much of your car is Chinese.
Chinese car? No thank you.
I don’t know if it would have gone differently, but I do wonder if the courts would have looked less favorably upon a Chinese company scraping text messages.
The standard of requiring it to threaten business, person, or reputation would still be hard to prove, but I wonder if it would have at least gone to trial, rather than the dismissal. I’d also like to see that case tried because it could create precedent that could then be used to bring cases against other entities. It would certainly be interesting to see the hoops they’d need to jump through if the courts ruled against China and in favor of Japanese or even American companies. They could find a way (such as the privacy rules in China being more of a threat than US or Japanese companies having data), but it’d be interesting to see.
The 6.2 0-60 of the ID.7 is normal car speeds and we should embrace it.
It’s not just normal car speeds, it’s plenty quick. 6.2 would have been considered a fast car not all that long ago. I am definitely here for speeds like that.
Also, how many people do foot-to-the-floor runs to 60 from a dead stop? Nobody drives like that, that particular performance metric really isn’t that important.
I like the car mags that would test 30-50, top gear passing, etc. Much more important metric. My 4Runner actually does 0-60 fairly quickly for what it is, but while trying to maintain 65mph on the highway, the smallest grade or headwind triggers multiple downshifts. Not having to deal with that annoyance with an EV would be nice.
I think you meant to say “nobody SHOULD drive like that”. I work near a high school, so I’m pretty sure that some people do drive like that.
I will say that while I think 6 seconds is the ideal 0-60 time (my E90 330i and RWD Model 3 agree), it is much more normal to put foot to floor in an EV. Something about the instant torque, no shifting, and lack of noise make it seem much more acceptable. Also, many roads here with traffic lights and 55mph speed limits.
Fair enough. I really enjoyed the kick in the ass from my BIL’s EV, I probably would do that quite often. Meanwhile, I almost never floor my 4Runner, because I hate the god-awful noise it makes.
The little engine whine and tire noise when you floor it from a stop are about all the noise you can get in an EV! The biggest thing I love when I drive my E90 is the sound and the shifting. The biggest thing I love in the Tesla is commuting with quiet and calm smoothness. They both are great for going around a turn fast, or blowing past slow left lane traffic.
My BIL pointed something out recently while giving me a ride in their new Polestar2: these BEVs seemingly do 40-100 as quickly as 0-60, so our 3-5sec scans of the rear view mirror aren’t as confidence-inspiring as old days. 20 years ago, you could tell if there was something 10-12 car-lengths back that could overtake you in just a couple seconds: now, a seemingly pedestrian sedan or CUV can be beside you before you know it.
That made sense to me, and I’ve been even more vigilant about traffic behind me ever since
I’ve definitely noticed the same. It’s not just BEVs, though. We’ve decided everything needs to be quicker. That Outback behind you might be the XT, the RAV4 Prime looks like any other RAV4, and anything generic could have any sort of performance.
People buying them aren’t necessarily ready for that performance, either. That scares me. The Mustang leaving Cars and Coffee could be the SUV leaving Fred Meyer if someone puts the pedal down without realizing what that’ll do.
Thankfully traction control has come a long way in the last 20 years. But you’re right: V6 Camrys became common, and then manufacturers figured out how to not kill people when boost comes on. Now a sizable percentage of cars on the road can eat the lunch of high-performance cars from 20+ years ago
That’s fair about the traction control. The people who don’t know what their car can do probably don’t even know how to turn it off, and that is for the best.
And that’s reasonably quick for a largish sedan, too
-under 10 you can easily live with
-under 8 is just gravy
-under 6 the hell do you need, anyway? Livin’ life 1/4 at a time?
That’s my current take
Heck my kid is surviving just fine with his ancient EJ22/4EAT powered Legacy, with an 11.5 second 0-60. Definitely teaches him patience and planning ahead.
Right? I had diesel Mercedes good for around 13 sec 0-60 for 20 years and it didn’t scar me
One of my first cars was powered by the mighty Subaru EA63, with a colossal 58 HP.
0-60 in… yeah, eventually. Definitely easier downhill with a tail wind.
It would give the Beetle from today’s showdown a run for its money.
My very first was a Type 2 Westfalia — with a 1300 (36hp?). No idea as to the 0-60 as I swapped out for a 1600 within a month. Still wasn’t sprightly, but I could go home up the mountain without shifting to first!
After air-cooled VWs, I got an EA81 Subaru GLF: still not quick, but pretty light, so fun
What model was your -63?
’76 DL sedan, 4 on (what was left of) the floor. I had 7th period Biology, and this was a great car for scaring off kids who just wanted to bum a ride home from school because no buses. Driver’s seat was only attached at 3 points thanks to rust, the gearshift knob could be pulled off at will, mid-shift (always good for a scream), and for a while I ran it without a rear seat lower pad. The hooks for the pad were good for giving in situ vasectomies to any dude who tried to hang out my windows and yell obnoxious shit at passengers.
I’m not sure the statute of limitations has passed on some of the other things I did with that car.
(aside from a rental) the fastest car is a dirt-cheap Subaru* that’s rapidly oxidizing back into the earth
Love your description of yours. Reminds me of the 1600 DL a guy we went to buy parts from had as a beater ‘farm truck’:hoof prints & goat shit on the hood & roof — and the rear suspension was visibly secured with literal bailing wire
*really any basically disposable shitbox. I know nostalgia is a helluva drug because I miss them dearly (but know they were horrible & dangerous)
11.5 seconds? Surviving just fine?
Yeah you also survived just fine 30 years ago when your car was slower than that.
My fastest car does about 11.5. That’s not patience or planning ahead, I have never ever needed to floor that car in traffic.
Oh of course. My first car(s) were absolute slugs compared to that. But those cars are basically all gone from the road now, and everything is faster, so that Legacy might as well be like an old Beetle or 2T-C powered Corolla was back when it was new.
My and my wife’s dailies have a 7.5 and 7.3 second 0-60 respectively. The latter is a mid-sized SUV. This is just “average cars” these days. I don’t need that kind of speed, but it’s what we’re given. These are the only available powertrains for both cars.
I learned to drive in my 1972 Super Beetle, with around 50 horsepower. 0-60 in around 18 seconds, no power steering or power brakes. By the time I turned 16 it was already 37 years old. It really teaches you to be aware and to plan your maneuvers. I had a modern car that I drove day to day, but learning on the Beetle did a lot for my driving skills. Still have the Beetle too.
It’s also on par with the long range Ioniq6
That’s fast car speeds actually.
I have a car that does 0-60 in about 11.5 seconds and I have never ever needed to floor it in traffic. I also have a car that does 0-60 in about 14 and I floor it on on ramps but that’s about it, and it has never been dangerously slow.
I will maintain that nobody needs faster than maybe 13 seconds 0-60. 10 is more than fast enough. 7 is fast. Anything under 7 is really fast.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple rolled out an update to CarPlay that prevented the text message scraping, assuming it’s possible to create a barrier in the first place.
Mentioning Apple made me just think, whatever happened to the Apple EV they have been secretly working on forever? Not that it would be affordable or made in the US.
Apple wants your data for themselves so they can sell it back to the car maker.
Everyone wants your data to sell to anyone willing to pay.
What’s got me giggling today is they seem to, more and more frequently, be paying for useless data. I don’t even really take any steps to botch or subvert data collection (other than refusing all unnecessary cookies on my browser), and I get ads for stuff that is so laughably off base for me. Sometimes even in a language that I not only don’t speak, but have never even attempted to study.
LOL, on my Samsung TV I get ads in spanish, which I think is related to one of my devices, as in the emergency test I got both spanish and english calls. Last week I started getting an obscure ad on the TV I know is related to something the wife was looking at, I was shocked that company has a deal with Samsung. Even though its fractions of pennies I still think most of these companies are wasting $ for these ads, as I also view them as worthless.
Spanish ads for me aren’t super off base. I (kinda) speak Spanish, and like you our EAS messages are bilingual, so some of my devices pick up on that.
It’s when it sends me an ad in Korean that I really have to laugh.
Well most TVs are made by Korean companies, perhaps if it can’t figure out your language that’s the default. Now you have me thinking, why am I not getting any ads in Hindi as my wife is Indian her data traffic is filled with that.
This isn’t on my TV though. This is, generally speaking, watching YT on my PC.
(Which is probably made entirely of Taiwanese components… AsRock, Gigabyte, AMD from TSMC fab…)
All the more of a reason for Apple to protect its monopoly.
You couldn’t pay me to touch a Chinese vehicle, I’m never under any circumstances downloading and using Tik Tok, and I’ve gotten to the point that I’m trying to avoid buying anything Chinese made when I can. They’re a brutal totalitarian regime that has absolutely no regard for basic human rights. If you don’t think that your data that comes through the Volvo EX30 will go straight to Winnie The Pooh and his cronies then I have a bridge to sell you.
What a lot of western folks don’t always seem to grasp is that there are no rules in China when it comes to what the government can do. There’s no privacy. There’s no copyright law. There’s no regard whatsoever for human rights or the common good. All that matters is world domination and no cost is too steep.
Is the US perfect? Helllllll no. Nearly half of our population looks at totalitarian regimes like China and Russia with admiration. The far right wants all of this here as long as it’s wrapped up in a neat little Christian bow. We have some of the worst income inequality in the world, we have the most expensive healthcare and yet have outcomes that are essentially on par with much of the developing world, the list is long.
But China is worse. Much, much worse. Tariff the living shit out of every car they try to drag over here. And re: cars mining your data, it’s important to take some basic steps to protect yourself. Don’t use Bluetooth. Don’t use CarPlay. Don’t ever use location services. Use a VPN all day every day. Go into your infotainment and opt out of everything you can opt out of as far as data collection and sharing are concerned. Et cetera.
It’s not perfect, but it’s not hard to reduce the amount of your personal data that’s floating around out there. I’m sure some folks will say I’m paranoid, and that’s fine…but I do everything in my power to make sure I’m as much of a ghost as possible when it comes to my data.
These same people have a google, facebook, and instagram account they DON’T complain about. No, we aren’t perfect, but you are right, China is MUCH worse.
Have you heard about Project 2025???? Holy shit, this is honestly worse than China. I recognize China is bad, but Project 2025 would be catastrophically worse for the whole, complete, planet.
Project 2025 is the stuff nightmares are made of.
Yeah, my god….
This isn’t even “The Day After Tomorrow” stuff either. This….is….reality! China is a problem, but……
Often I think the right isn’t fond of Islam because they hate what they see in the mirror.
I’ve heard it said many times that behind the strongest accusations is often a confession. For instance, how often the most anti-LGBTQ people end up getting caught trolling in the man’s bathroom (or similar).
China is what you get when someone succeeds at Project 2025 / Agenda 47.
The government is packed with loyalist yes-men, and though there are checks and balances on paper, all power ultimately flows from the barrel of a gun held by an imperialist, genocidal dictator.
Precisely.
Thanks for saying this. Very well said.
“I’ve gotten to the point that I’m trying to avoid buying anything Chinese made when I can…”
If you use LED bulbs in your home you’re kinda shit outta luck avoiding a Chinese purchase. Just a fyi if you didn’t know.
It’s really hard to avoid Chinese stuff completely but I do think there is a huge line between buying a $10 broom from Walmart or an LED and dropping $30k plus on a car. Especially when that broom can’t have embedded spyware.
I think it’s a little harder to make that argument with a car, unless they start selling stuff 90% as good for 1/5-1/10 the price.
Unfortunately everything is made in China now and often times you’re looking at a massive price premium for something of equal quality that may or may not be more ethically sourced.
I’m assuming that if anything does come of this, GM will successfully lobby to exempt badge engineered vehicles sold by domestic automakers, so they’ll be free to bring in all the Chinese Buicks they want, but BYD and Chery will be priced out of setting up their own dealers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the behind the scenes impetus behind it is the big, legacy automakers realizing that they’ve effectively priced too many people out of the market and are now trying to close the door to anyone trying to undercut them with cheaper cars, keeping the gravy train rolling by making sure any Chinese automaker will also have to be at $40,000-$50,000+ and therefore at a crippling disadvantage
A very interesting take here. This is something that had no occured to me, and I can’t help but feel you are right. Still not worth the risk though.
Note to the automakers,
You realise that by taking away cars that people can afford, you’re practically begging the Chinese to come in and take the lower end of the market? I mean, remember Hyundai and Kia? There is a gap at the lower end of the market, not a huge gap but it’s still there. If the Chinese come in with a vehicle that looks good, is built reasonably well with a good price, OF COURSE people are going to buy them!
“You’ll buy what we tell you to buy with a 120-month 5% APR loan and you’ll say Thank You Henry Ford.”
5%? If only. My credit score is about 800 and the best offer I could find recently was 7.9%. Insane.
(I agree with you. Just being an ass and being mad about interest rates.)
One of the rare 0% rate vehicles left is the Mustang, which Matt wrote about two weeks ago. Based on some quick and dirty math, a new $40k Mustang at 0% APR has roughly the same monthly payment as a used $32k car at 7.44% APR.
5% will soon be the new “0.9% for XX months”
I think the 120-month term is why that rate was so tempting…
Talking to GMs of dealers over the years, the reason why cheap cars went away is because mostly no one was buying them. The majority of their sub-$30K car sales went to primarily two kinds of clientele: Rideshare drivers, and fleet buyers.
Add in razor thin margins that get demolished if there’s a recall, and buyers who never continue along the hedonic treadmill to buy increasingly expensive vehicles over time, and the manufacturers largely decided to cut bait, with the dealers agreeing.
Could China come in and build a cheaper car? Sure, though again, people aren’t going to be clamoring for the equivalent of a Sentra that’s a bit cheaper. Now if you start putting the equivalent of a Camry on a RAV4 (including reliability) that’s far cheaper? Yeah, that’ll get notice. Yet I wouldn’t plan on that happening any time soon, and if it did, at least Toyota would see the threat coming and have time to respond.
Thank you.
I wonder how many of the people mourning the death of the cheap car ever bought a base model (ie not a GTI) compact or subcompact new.
Much easier to whine though.
So my then new 2016 Golf SportWagen S TSI (base) and new 2023 Mazda3 2.5 nonturbo mean I can complain about it, right?
Complain away!
I bought an almost-base-model Kia back in ’02. It had power windows and locks and A/C, and that was the extent of the upgrades.
And I’d be the first to admit I wouldn’t buy a base model, cheap car today if I were in the market. I’ve got enough disposable income and I discovered the wonders of heated/ventilated seats and a heated steering wheel.
I also wouldn’t buy a fully loaded model unless heavily discounted, because they usually come with features I have less than zero interest in.
Carmakers are very shrewd in how they package trims and upgrade packages these days. Every trim step up, and every “premium” package for each trim, includes one very desirable item and 2-3 “meh” items. And because you can’t separate them, they get their margin for all of it, not just the hot stuff.
I’ve bought a new Hyundai Accent 3-door hatch (2011) that was likely the most spartan car in America at the time. Followed that up with a 2012 Suzuki SX4.
We exist.
I made my statement knowing full well the buyers of these cars are, if anything, overrepresented here.
I too wish robust choices in compact cars still existed. But there are many features of the car market that don’t line up with my own preferences. The difference (not with you personally, general statement) is I don’t take the automakers’ decisions personally or opine loudly that they are making a mistake when they don’t make the exact product mix I prefer.
Ha, I was mostly joking around. I’m aware that in general, people don’t buy these small, spartan cars that automakers don’t make piles of cash on.
I wish there was more enthusiasm for these smaller, less luxurious cars here, products that people could actually get excited about and still afford. But alas, that doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon.
Well, my Fiesta ST purchased in 2018 isn’t a base model, but I did get it out the door for under 20k so it definitely qualifies as a cheap car in context. Prior to that I owned a Saturn SL2, so not a base motor but it did have crank windows and a cloth interior. It was a pretty basic car.
SL2 with crank windows is a Grail! SLs and SL1s having cranks was the norm, but I don’t think I’ve ever found and SL2 without power locks and windows.
It did have power locks but no power windows. In line with that is an amusing story on changes in technology. I was in that Saturn with my daughter and one of her good friends, and the friend was sitting immediately behind me. The was some commotion from behind and it went a little something like this:
“Hey, your windows don’t work.”
“What are you talking about? The windows work just fine.”
“No, they don’t.”
I was stopped at a traffic light so I reached behind me and cranked the window down. The consternation was priceless. She had never seen crank windows before.
Now ask her to put a disk in the cassette player!
I bought a 2014 Fiesta XFE for $16k brand new, and I mourn the loss of the option of doing so again. That was the first car that I ever bought new, and the way things are going it looks like it will forever be the only one.
I also think it is important to note that, with no intent to brag whatsoever, I make roughly *twice US median household income*, and that’s still my outlook. If that doesn’t indicate a problem with the economics of the US car industry, I’m not sure what does.
I’m not your financial advisor, but I think it’s fair to say that your extremely conservative approach to buying vehicles is not widely shared. With a ~$150,000 income, unless you have very atypical expenses elsewhere, you certainly *could* afford more than a $16,000 subcompact; you *choose* not to. That is obviously your choice, but I don’t necessarily see it as a problem with the auto industry.
I am in the exact same boat as Mike Smith in terms of attitude. When I bought my cheap Fiesta ST the sales rep asked me, “Are you sure you want the Fiesta? You could buy anything on the lot except the GT.” I’m a cheap son of a gun, so no. The Fiesta was exactly what I wanted and it’s been one of my favorite cars I’ve ever owned.
With that said though, I agree with v10omous that our attitude is not the norm and does not indicate anything in particular about the world at large.
I thought I’d never buy a Hyundai/Kia, yet I did. Vehicles are just too dang expensive. I’ll buy what I can afford and what works for me.
Buying just the amount of car/vehicle that’s right for you is the best practice. No need to rock an Escalade or a Bronco Raptor unless you have nothing better to do with your money. And for the Korean automakers, Hyundai/Kia’s 10-year/100,000-mile warranty for new or CPO is very tempting. I’m already at 21,000 miles, not even a year into owning my Ford Maverick, and the skimpy 3-year/36k-mile factory coverage is making me a bit nervous.
the dealer is happy to sell you an extended service plan!
Oh I know lol. Already cross-shopping Granger vs. Ziegler vs. Flood for the Ford Protect Extended Service Plans to see who has the better rate. They seem to work on bulk sales so their prices are much better than going through a local dealership. Doing a quick glance, Basecare at 8 years/150,000 miles for $1,600 doesn’t look bad at all. Plus it’s supposedly transferable if I sell the car to someone else or gift it to a family member.
Waiting for Rootwyrm’s comment on the automakers text scraping.
Same. Don’t worry though, he’s just still typing.
I’m expecting a treatise that rivals Das Kapital.
When he finally publishes it in the comments, Jason will have to add not one but at least TWO additional TRS80s to handle the load!
OMG is he a slow typist, too!
I’m under the assumption he’s getting advice from Toecutter on circumventing character limits per post before he goes all in on typing it out.
oh oh, now it’s an idea for a new membership tier perk! Comment length limits by subscription tier. This is brilliant!
I think this is an important note. I’d rather see more car companies looking to improve efficiency, rather than packing in more batteries, so getting good range with less battery is an absolute win, even if they had initially projected better.
Biggest problem is weight and that is only going to get worse with the solid state batteries the media touts as the solution to everything, solid state batteries weigh about 1/3 more!
One benefit to solid state, as I understand it, is that it could solve the range problem by offering much faster charging instead of more battery range. Whether that would end up with a net reduction in resources needed for batteries is up to a number of factors.
Of course, you are right about the weight, plus the resources involved are still a problem. I’d like to see a significant focus on aero and finding battery chemistries that use fewer rare earth minerals, but I don’t know enough about battery science to know how feasible the second bit is.
Yeah, now we just need the charging infrastructure…. So there’s about 130,000 chargers in the US now, I wonder how many is optimal? If there’s 1.5m gas pumps, I would think we need more chargers than gas pumps, as many can not charge at home or afford the equipment cost. Perhaps the fed tax credit for setting up home charger should be 100%
On efficiency, we just need more carbon fiber frame i3 like EVs…
I don’t think we need more charging stations than gas pumps because many can charge at home. I don’t think anyone (weirdo preppers aside) is filling up their gas tanks at home.
I think we might, if you count apt complexes and think about how many chargers cities may need. If an complex has 100 apartments, how many chargers do they need? Probably more that what the complex needs as are they going to be built and restricted to only those that live there? Apartments & condos make up 15-20% of the 130m+ homes. While 80%+ charge at home now, they are people that got an EV largely because they could and also afford to set it up. 10 years from now I feel like the number of charging stations accessible to the “public” will be more than the gas pumps, regardless if we really need that much.
We shouldn’t need more public chargers than gas pumps, even if we switched at current charging speeds. Some portion of drivers will charge at home, which reduces usage, so even if the amount of time spent at a charger is longer than at a gas pump, it should balance. Especially if we add incentives to install home charging and charging at apartment complexes or such.
But, yes, we certainly need to be building it out at this point. And probably need to come up with easily-installed chargers that can be deployed to a lot of places people want to spend time. Gas stations are designed around the need for a big tank in the ground. We could do better with charging and spread out the people charging to places where they can do things, at least as long as charging is going to take some time (and, because money’s always involved, they’ll spend money at those places).
As to efficiency, weight is only one part of the problem. We like to create big, boxy SUVs/pickups that look aggressive, but create extra drag. Sure, some people need more ground clearance, but vehicles don’t need to have big, rather flat faces.
I can tell you the exact number of times my EV has been charged at a public fast charger in the 26k miles I’ve had it:
Six. None of which were anywhere near a top up to 80%.
Yeah, I’ve been considering an EV, and I would be looking at 6-12 fast charges a year, most likely. And they wouldn’t be all that long.
I’ve been telling my girlfriend, who is not sold on EVs, that we would likely be looking at a charging stop of 15-30 minutes every 3 hours, give or take, on a longer trip in it. She seems suspicious of those numbers. Of course, the one I had a great deal lined up on sold, so it may be a bit before I find one I want.
She has a hybrid, so it’s not like we’d even need to road trip the EV, but she has concerns regardless.
I can tell you that’s pretty accurate for timeframe, especially if you get something that has 800V architecture. Mine’s a 400V, and not even a particularly fast charger at that. 70 kW on a good day. But it’s good enough to go cross-state with a stop long enough to go to the bathroom, stretch legs, and eat a quick lunch.
that’s the thing about the charging stops. you don’t need to stay at the pump so you can use all the stopped time addressing human needs/desires.
I wouldn’t take a Chinese car for free.
Honestly, I wouldn’t even trust a European-built Volvo not to be spying on me for the CCP.
People can call me naive, foolish, whatever. China certainly sees our current situation as another Cold War even if we don’t yet. I don’t have any desire to support any enterprise headquartered there.
Maybe the car companies should just stop gouging instead. That’s the reason there’s room for the Chinese in the first place. The Mirage’s price has practically doubled in the past few years as the competition disappears. The Chinese can undercut ANYBODY.
Someone should sell a brand new car here for under 10k.
And like you said, they can always import from Mexico, Brazil, India, Thailand, etc. instead.
Also, it’s time to finally recognize the international UNECE standards.
We should have tariffs on Chinese cars equal to China’s Tariffs on our cars which are 100% tariffs. Make the law so the rate changes so that it is always equal with China’s Tariffs on our cars.
I could support this, and I feel like US automakers could, too. If they lower their tariffs, it could be a great way to help create inroads for US-made vehicles in China. If they raise them, no Chinese cars here.
Current Chinese tariff on US cars is about on par with the other way around.
Representatives Want Steeper Tariffs On Chinese Cars
If I’m understanding correctly, competition is fine as long as it benefits our domestic corporations. Oh, Capitalism, you fickle, fickle mistress.
What do I get from this? I’m reading that we, the buying public, won’t be seeing much downward pressure on EV prices, even if the Chinese bring products stateside. Our domestic manufacturers can’t seem to get out of their own way to offer a reasonably priced entry level EV (even with subsidies) and we don’t even get the benefit of competition to organically drive prices down. Cool.
Car companies have had outsize influence in Congress for ages, that’s why we have a 25 year rule instead of a 15 year rule (and we only have that because some wealthy car collectors lobbied to get some sort of exemption, otherwise nothing would be allowed in). And it isn’t just domestics, it was mostly foreign luxury car companies that pushed to shut down private imports – because car dealers are also very powerful with politicians
You could even argue that FMVSS itself is protectionism, as opposed to UN ECE or just giving reciprocity to certain other countries’ regulations
So much this. While I wouldn’t want the accordion-mobile of yesteryear to be on US roads, today most countries have adopted the Euro NCAP as their standards (China, Australia, India, etc.)
To make cars satisfy different and often opposing standards just stupid.