cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15089465
Americans Are Open To Cheap Chinese Cars. That’s ‘Scary’ For The Rest Of The Auto Industry
I’d rather walk than spend money on an ‘American’ car. Fuck, I’d rather walk period but you can catch my drift.
The biggest con is the industry’s war to make Kei trucks illegal in the US.
I feel like a lot people on Lemmy, and people in left-leaning spaces in general, kind of have a blind spot on this one. People get that buying local is good, but not buying American.
It matters where your money goes. People complain about the soullessness of modern American life, and how hard it is to find a good job, and how democracies are backsliding around the globe, and then they buy things from China that are cheaply made and, at most, slightly better value in the long run.
This isn’t me trying to be nationalist or xenophobic but whenever anyone (including me because there’s no way to completely avoid it nowadays) buys Chinese goods you are supporting a government that is aggressively un-democratic, that actively supports Russia, and also has basically zero labor laws and an absolutely enormous wealth gap between the ruling class and the working class.
And yeah I get a lot of Americans are hurting right now due to inflation but the solution isn’t to send money overseas. The best thing you can do for your neighbor is buy union and buy American.
also has basically zero labor laws and an absolutely enormous wealth gap between the ruling class and the working class.
Article 17(2) of the Revised Company Law now stipulates that the assembly of employee representatives shall be the basic form of the democratic corporate governance system and that this shall apply to all companies. That means, regardless of whether a company is private or state-owned, whether it is a limited liability or a stock corporation. This is a notable development, as democratic corporate governance as a requirement for all companies is set out in national law for the first time.
An Employee Assembly shall be convened at least once a year, and more than two-thirds of the employee representatives must be present at the plenary session of an Employee Assembly. Elections and votes on relevant matters at an Employee Assembly require a majority of all employee representatives.
don’t be too hard on him, americans are taught from birth bizarre propaganda about their country, they can’t help it naturally
Voting with your dollar is a myth (it’s a myth that workers have any vote, not that the dollar controls the imperial core). China offering a viable alternative to not being able to afford cars because companies have arbitrarily inflated prices is great. Arbitrarily spending a lot more money that will mostly go to shareholders in the US is not going to help the worker
Voting with your dollar is a myth? So if the IDF (or ISIS, if you prefer) drops an amazing new EV for $10k, with all money going straight to weapons procurement, you’d buy it?
The IDF? No. China? Absolutely!
Very much a strawman argument. China can offer cheap electric cars because they aren’t paying american car company CEOs. Also, your argument supposes that American manufacturers aren’t supporting IDF…
lmfao more people in china believe their govt is democratic than in the usa 😂
ah, but don’t you know that all 1.4 billion people are brainwashed and can’t think for themselves??? Something something tiny man square???
Buying local/national is fine when the quality is there. But I’m not putting my face into a grinder just to bail out American corporations.
“Buying American” would be exporting money for me, and there’s no domestic car manufacturing anymore. So I’m sending money overseas no matter what I buy, and it’s probably all made in China anyway… :P
basically zero labor laws
You have no idea what you’re talking about, like at all. Even shitty Wikipedia says they do.
Yes, let’s try to pick apart the one hyperbolic statement he made and completely ignore all of his other valid points. Let’s also link a very biased article about Wikipedia that has absolutely nothing to do with anything as some sort of proof that China is some bastion for workers rights. It’s not like they literally force people into labor camps simply for being minorities or anything.
The US is far from perfect but let’s not pretend they somehow have worse labor rights than freaking China.
Their labor conditions are significantly worse than modern American work conditions let’s not kid ourselves. Although this never bothers people when it comes to goods made in Mexico.
Well too fucking bad for the auto industry? Just because it’s an American industry doesn’t mean we should give a fuck about it. If they want our loyalty, make fucking better cars.
Oh the thing is we should totally care!
Not for the “losses of expected revenue” of car industry shareholders, I don’t care about that.
But for years already I hate that china, you know, the most hardcore surveillance state, is pumping Europe with their computerized automatic surveillance machines!
At least they are not operating as automatized killing machines. Yet.And before anyone says. I feel the same about other, noon-chinese cars too that are filled with all kinds of external sensors. I hate Teslas with a passion, but in my opinion chinese cars are even worse, just as chinese, state sponsored apps on our phones.
If they want our loyalty, make fucking better cars
I mean, in the spirit of the post, make fucking cheaper cars
Cars have been getting expensive AF
Cars has been so poorly made dor 1 or 2 decades now, that I respect most people who drives late 90’s to early 00’s cars.
Electric cars are a joke in terms of quality. How they don’t have self-dignity at all?
I mean fuck, if only we could get shit like kei trucks.
Some of us have been open to foreign vehicles you can’t really get in the US for a long time. Oh well.
Absolutely. So many sensible sized European cars aren’t sold in the US because bullshit market research says small car bad big truck good.
But the European market is also pushing bigger cars and SUV.
The smart is now a 4 meters SUV
The Volkswagen up (small 4 person car) is out of production and they’re selling nothing under 4 meters
The fiat panda (another small 4 person car) is in the process of being redesigned and the mockups look like a huge range rover SUV
Skoda, after retiring the citigo, has the Fabia that’s relatively small (almost 4 meters) and the rest are huge
Most automakers are giving up on the cheap and small compact car segment, leaving a big gap for Chinese automakers
The smart is now a 4 meters SUV
Is it? I haven’t heard about it, I’ve seen some weird concept picture, but the Fortwo as currently being manufactured is still the same 2.6m long car as it was in 2014 as per Wikipedia.
The Volkswagen up (small 4 person car) is out of production and they’re selling nothing under 4 meters Skoda, after retiring the citigo, has the Fabia that’s relatively small (almost 4 meters) and the rest are huge
They are the same company. The Skoda Citigo and the Seat Mii are both just rebadged Volkswagen Up cars.
The fiat panda (another small 4 person car) is in the process of being redesigned and the mockups look like a huge range rover SUV
Those mockups are actually the redesign of the Panda Cross, which was an SUV-ish thing they introduced in 2014. Fiat still makes the subcompact 500, having recently made an electric version.
Some EU automakers are doing weird stuff, but if you look at the electric car market for example, at lest where I live, locally produced electric kei trucks actually outsold Tesla at some point.
The smart fortwo has been discontinued a few months ago, replaced by the 2 ton smart #1
The fiat panda cross was just a fancy trim of the fiat panda, same size and weight just bigger bumpers and higher wheels
Nope, it’s the government’s mileage standards. If you make a truck with a shorter wheelbase and track, it has to hit higher gas mileage standards. Easier to make a big truck that’s allowed worse mileage.
Also, I did a brief stint selling cars in the 90s. One of the salesmen explained it like this, "What’s the real difference in a big truck and a small truck? Same engineering effort, same production work, all that. Hell, same parts for most systems.
More steel on the big one, and steel is cheap. We can charge a premium for the larger truck."
The massive size of vehicles in the U.S. is ridiculous. I think a lot of people would buy smaller, cheaper cars if they were on the market.
The EPA makes really tight emissions targets for vehicles under a certain size or the auto makers have to pay a fee iirc. Pretty sure they the medium sized stuff out of existance, an unfortunately I’m guessing the same fees would apply to imports too.
I think folks bought into SUVs since they were bigger & selfishly less likely to take more damage in a crash. As such, with SUV tanks everywhere, being a pedestrian or in a small car on the road on in an SUV’s trajectory can often lead to lethal injury.
When youre that fat you need a big car tbh
My absolute favorite vehicle, based on looks alone
If it pass safety standards without all those smart and data collection bs and being reliable for 7+ years with easy part sourcing I might give it a try.
The data collection thing is a big one for me.
All cars should cost 500k minimum and roads should stop being built, also cap all auto-industry salaries and annual shareholder payouts to 500k with the rest overflowing to the workers. Within 20years seeing a car in America will be rare, within 50years, we’ll have solved climate change.
Ah yes the old “ban living in rural America” strategy, that will play well. Reliance on cars was a mistake but its too late to just pretend a lot, if not most, Americans need a car to live.
Did you know that before cars, people lived in rural america and that most of rural america was served by trains.
Most of rural America wasn’t served at all, you had to travel to a town with a train station. For smaller towns, no lines were ever built. It’s a completely unrealistic idea. It also doesn’t address the issue of local transport.
Cars are like 5% of co2 emmisions. Until they ban dirty ship oil and curb industry emissions (world wide), nothing will change.
Wrong: According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), motor vehicles produced about 22% of total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020, making them the most significant contributor to the country’s emissions.
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Also you should probably note that the automotive industry is also contributing to world emissions.
We will be long dead as China will have taken over the world if we implemented these policies and crippled our economy and military because of it.
Sounds good. In the meantime I’ll be taking an electric train to a brewery that is currently a 2hr drive from me since I’m no longer slaving away so that MIC executives can build planes that don’t fly, for a war that isn’t going to happen.
You certainly won’t be doing that in America lol. Unrealistic in the next 30 years at least.
Have to keep going and ensure survival so that we can get to that point.
Jokes on you, I can actually already take a train from Chicago to Kalamazoo and enjoy a beer from Bell’s Brewery. It’s not a high-speed train to get there, but that can be upgraded if there was ever the desire to do so.
The sheer aura of capitalism is so strong in this post.
It’s the only system that works (if you ignore the planned economy that has built 45,000km of high speed rail and has a home ownership rate of 90%+, and has more green energy production than the rest of the world combined)!! That’s basic economics!!
Why not cap shareholder payouts to $0 and nationalize one of them?
That sounds like socialism. I’m proposing a market based solution which as we all know is the only possible way that things can be done.
lol
Auto industry looking at their overly inflated prices, “well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.”
Everyone is broke as fuck we are open to cheap everything. People are living in literal sheds
I wish I could afford a shed.
Just stop spending so much money on food. Sheds will feel bigger if you are starving to death
it’s like you’ve never heard of roommates. If you get a third job and find a couple people, i’m sure you could afford to rent a shed
No, most of us are broke because we insist on ensuring that suburban mcmansions are the only places to really live. When you spend 30% on driving and 40% on housing, suddenly you are broke.
Yeah that’s what I don’t get, people complain housing is unnafordable now, but their expectation for a house is way higher than previous generations, and squander their money on “necessities” that really aren’t that. Yes, the housing market IS fucked, but by less than people make it seem like
Don’t cram touchscreens and smart features into every fucking aspect of your car. Keep your costs low, keep prices low, and believe it or not, you’ll tap into the “bottom” 60% of the market that has been forced to buy used for the last 10 years. I don’t want a base trim 10 year old Honda Accord with 150k miles, but it’s all I can find for under $20k.
I keep getting shit on for wanting an EV with manual roll-up windows where you have to use your hands, a super basic FM stereo kit, and a dash clock being the most advanced shit inside. I don’t need rear-view cameras and sensors and other shit that complicates and increases repair and insurance costs. I don’t get it. Give me dead simple, please and thank you.
Back up cameras are mandatory in the US, and apparently Automatic Emergency Braking will be mandatory starting in 2029, so you’ll be stuck with some sensors whether you like it or not.
But otherwise I agree that buttons and dials are better for controlling AC and radio than a touchscreen ever will be.
Backup cameras are useless for many people. I can either wear glasses so that I can see where I’m driving, or I can take them off to see the fisheyed backup screen. Not both.
Backup cameras are pretty good imo because they let you see the small things you wouldn’t be able to see out of a mirror. Helps prevent needless accidents. If you don’t wanna use it, just don’t look at it. Most cars should still have rear view mirrors
the backup camera is useful when the rear window is obstructed (such as from mud/dust) and for comically large vehicles where a short pole wouldn’t be visible if it was less than 3ft behind it.
Good thing glasses are permanently superglued to your face and thus it’s impossible to swap between having them on and off when swapping between going backwards and forwards…
Except for those of us who, you know, like to see where we’re going rather than relying on a limited FOV camera. Of course, if I could learn to remove and replace them while keeping both hands engaged in actually, you know, steering the damn car, that’d be great.
I better have both hands on the wheel for all those times I’m mid turn and shift while still moving into reverse……
It’s… for when you’re backing up. You’ve come to a complete stop. You’re going to stop before you start moving forward again. It’s not hard to tilt glasses onto the top of your head while you stop or flip them back down when you stop.
A MUCH bigger issue would be the rear view mirrors which are just cameras and screens.
Are you mixing the two up?
No.
That’s not a reasonable thing to expect to have to do while driving. Sounds like the “you’re holding it wrong” of cars
Yeesh. I’m still driving a vehicle from 1999. Guess I’m out of the loop on the backup camera thing.
Touchscreens and “smart” features don’t add enough cost to justify the premium you pay for them.
This. Removing the $200 Android tablet from the dash isn’t going to make cars suddenly $5,000 cheaper.
but they love charging 5k for it though.
Wut? I bought a brand new car for €11k three years ago. Right enough the same car is 15k now but still
Touch screens in cars are a massive safety issue. I’m not saying they don’t have some benefits but the fact that many newer cars have basically no physical buttons to perform basic functions is a problem. I can feel for the dial to adjust the volume or change the radio station. But a touch screen encourages the driver to take their focus off the road. That’s a serious problem.
I personally own Ioniq 5 but that is because Hyundai has better after sales support in my country than emerging Chinese OEMs.
Not to mention existing Chinese cars currently do not possess enough battery capacity and efficiency for my taste.
Once they fix that atrocious after sales support, I will reconsider them.
FYI, Wuling Air EV probably has the 2nd biggest sales number here in my country but people who own them complain alot about maintenance and spare part supplies.
You have to drive 250km to do your grocery shop then another 150km to drive your kids home? lmao
Even Xiaomi has released the SU7, a real Tesla killer and also way cheaper. But not for the US market, but for the EU.
What’s their e-bike situation like? Are there good ones or will they blow my nuts off?
Yes
Recommendations?
Oh I was making a joke, like you posted an ‘or’ comment & I replied Yes like it will do both. 😂 Good bike, blows your balls off.
I’ve been looking at Super73 for years as a CLASSIC styling, really handsome ebike. YouTube search for things like Survival ebike, ebike for preppers. Because you’ll tap into a whole community of people that want good & tough ebikes, not flimsy crap, ebikes that should be good relatively long-term. I trust Canadian Prepper; this video is a little older but information & considerations tend to be relevant years later.
I saw another prepper cheaping it with $700-800 ebikes, if I find it I’ll post name & link…
Anyway jokes aside I hope that helps. Idk your situation but I’d almost be tempted to wait just a few more years; pandemic/oil prices have pushed so many ebikes into the wild & that has brought about soooooo much real-world testing & consumer feedback. I’m thinking the ebikes just a few years from now will be so much better, and possibly for cheaper or the same price.
In my experience preppers buy things that sit in their storage space unused. I want something I can use hard (as a cargo bike) several times per day, every day, for decades.
This is a valid criticism that we talk about…working through supply, using supply, and becoming familiar with it is actually the ideal we should all strive for. 🙂 Idk about any bike, electric or not, that can withstand hard use several times/day for decades. (o_O) But product design is getting better all the time!
Some of the best bikes that last decades were built in the 1970s. There are some machines that don’t get more durable when you throw more R&D at it.
Breakthroughs in product design for nonelectric bikes have been mostly optimizing weight, but very minor improvements that don’t apply steel cargo bikes built to last generations.
Oh, I definitely know bikes that can survive hard use for decades. Of course you have to change wearing parts every X thousand km, but the bike should last generations.
What I’m unsure about is the e-bikes. I really don’t want the battery to catch fire or explode. And the motor should last generations.
This is actually super great timing. I’m guessing by safer, they mean, won’t blow your nuts off. 🤭 Might be a good community for us, too.
Even some domestic brands like Juiced go on sale for like, $1,200 for a Juiced Ripracer. Aventon appears to make good stuff too, if you want bike shop support. I’ve had my bike for a month and put 320 miles on it. Fun little bike :)
Maybe make affordable cars here then?? Dumbasses
Oh, apologies my good Lemming but you’re mistaken. We make affordable ones here but the auto companies decided they’d make more money if they artificially keep supply low to keep prices high. Car Graveyards
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
[https://www.piped.video/watch?v=0FKeAJPgxnM]](https://piped.video/watch?v=0FKeAJPgxnM])
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Right?? Cheap is the wrong word.
Profit line must always go brrrrr!
I want to know how much the price of a car would come down if I didn’t need to visit a salesperson working on commission. I want to go to Costco, test drive it to make sure I like it, and check out.
Next you’ll be seeing bs gaslighting articles saying “American carmakers are being driven to bankruptcy thanks to millenials’ changing preferences”
EVs are cheaper to fill up than internal combustion engine cars, even in oil rich countries - Changan Eado EV, 9 Saudi Riyal (2.4USD) to drive 460km (287.5miles) - . I want to get an EV eventually, I just want to know how well can they handle +50C temperatures.
Same, but I fear the risk of the car getting hacked giving the hacker the control or an EMP attack causing the electric car to shutdown indefinitely.
ICE cars are just as reliant on computers. Have you seen the articles on “your car is spying on you” and BMWs heated seat monthly fee?
Plus, when you consider all the emissions controls required by the government versus the car companies trying to make the cars exciting for the consumer, the whole thing ends up one big giant mess of computer and sensors.
An EMP will brick any car from the past 3 decades. And also trigger ww3, so I’m not sure if you’ve got your priorities straight there.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Changan Eado EV, 9 Saudi Riyal (2.4USD) to drive 460km (287.5miles)
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
