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China Conquers Mexico’s Automotive Market, and the US Is Worried
(www.wired.com)
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this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
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Provides a better product at half the cost.
/Capitalists lose their minds.
Said it a while ago, the US is losing at capitalism for the first time in modern history and doesn't know how to cope
Oh it knows how to cope, it’s why it’s pushing the neo-feudalism.
They want a class of slave labor to use like China, not those pesky workers with rights like they have now. It’s a race to the bottom and China has the lead.
Idk, Chinese workers might have it better than they did in decades passed.
Not been to China recently eh? Or ever.
They have free education and health care, affordable housing and government pensions. Things that taxes should be spent on instead of wars, destabilising governments you don't like, and funding genocidal maniacs.
Instead they're supporting Russia and Putin in the war, harass the Philippines at sea, infiltrate the government in Hong Kong and prepare to capture Taiwan.
Isn't Taiwan the country that literally jails political opponents?
Last time I was in China was early 00’s. From everyone I’ve kept in contact with or met since, things have only gotten much worse for them.
Wow, you’re just putting out all the propoganda pieces aren’t you. Is this your alt account from .ml?
China gets ahead by stealing IP, cutting all corners with environmental concerns, and has a ridiculously low labor rates.
Sadly the western countries allow businesses to offshore and keep those profits. Short term gain for them by helping build up the West’s biggest rival.
I generally don't believe in IP.
Manufacturing labour costs were $8.31 per hour in China last year, compared with less than $3 in places such as India, Thailand and Vietnam. - The Economist
Yes, it’s starting to go up because all of the outsourcing to China. Now they are outsourcing to other countries. The IP theft is still rampant though.
And they spy on every citizen they have and jail them for innocuous things or jail them for being a certain race then hide it from the world and use them as slave labor. Yeah, they’re just a utopia.
Sounds pretty much like the US. Both are pretty shitty.
Didn't they have some of the biggest house prices to income ratios? And wasn't private tutoring out of control in there? And weren't they fighting with almost every single neighbor they have?
Last time I checked they had a housing finanical crisis and companies building "tofu" housing
Yes we do, we ban their sales here in USA! And add tariffs!
China builds the cars in Mexico, that forms a tariff free zone with the USA. And USA can't exactly just ban sales from Mexico because a lot of USA companies moved their operation to Mexico for cheaper labor.
Yeah. The real issue is passing safety standards. Which I'm doubtful China can do.
Somehow the likes of BDY manage it in the EU were they are selling their cars just like all other car companies (including TV adverts and everything)
Last I checked the EU invariably has tighter regulatory standards when it came to consumers (not just on safety but also in terms of consumer rights) in just about everything than the US.
It seems a little strange that "safe to drive cars" per EU regulations wouldn't be "safe to drive cars" per US regulations.
Granted, plenty of Chinese companies (basically the poky little manufacturers) might not manage to fullfil Western Auto Safety Standards, but some of the bigger one already have overcomed that hurdle.
Lets not have certain Prejudices cultivated for Political Reasons blind us to hard-nosed Business and Technical Facts.
Chicken tax 2 no Changli for you
It's glorious to watch. Even from within. Even knowing I'm boned when this house of cards finally tumbles.
I'm sure there's a German word for that.
Maybe Galgenhumor? Or Schadenfreude? But if both, I guess.
You probably have time to prepare. 🙂
Is it a better product? How is the quality, the maintainability? How do they treat the environment and their workers? These are all factors I think about when considering a purchase.
I'm guessing it's like 80% as good for half the cost. That's usually how it goes with Chinese stuff.
Now that's just commie talk. /s
The Teslas from Shanghai are straight up better than the ones from Fremont... And if we're being honest Shanghai probably has better quality of life than San Jose.
Teslas are anomalously bad to start with, so I can't write that possibility off. I would definitely buy BYD before Tesla just as a consumer.
Shanghai being better than San Jose seems unlikely, though. America is definitely a lot richer, despite the warts.
Wealth does not necessarily improve quality of life.
Notably, electricity (among other things) is substantially cheaper in Shanghai.
On an individual level, sure there's sad rich people, and happy slum refugees. On a population level it makes a huge difference.
Why won't the Americans let in the chinese manufacturers to find out? Surely if the cars are trash they have nothing to worry about?
That's the thing about economics. Humans are not rational actors. And even if they were, they don't have perfect information.
For example, there's a thing going around in the US right now about raw milk. It's not allowed to be sold because of the risk of disease. But people are idiots and seek it out anyway, and get themselves sick.
For cars, assume one of them is an absolute lemon and deathtrap. It constantly needs maintenance, and if you get in a crash, you die. You won't know about the former until a few years after you've bought it, and if the latter happens, you can't seek any recourse because you're dead.
Now, I'm not saying that this applies to the Chinese EVs, exactly, but we haven't seen them shaken out in the US yet, and China doesn't have a very good track record with consumer safety in the recent past.
To counter those vague negative "maybes" of yours, I just want to point out that the EU, which have much more tight regulations on just about everything than the US, especially when it comes to consumer protection, allows the sale of BDY cars.
If a regulatory regime which is more strict when it comes to consumer protection than the US allows such cars to be sold, then claiming or implying that the reason for the US to block their sale there is that they might be dangerous is quite the flight of fantasy.
I mean, it's not what OP was arguing, but the main reason they don't want the cars let in is just to stop China from becoming more powerful. It has little to do with the products themselves.
Surely if the products were shit, then there would be nothing to worry about with respect to China's power. No?
If they're shit today, they probably won't be tomorrow. They're just as capable of bootstrapping as the next person.
Back in the 90's Clinton was quoted as saying that with capitalism and development, democracy would inevitably follow in China; trying to stop it would be like nailing jello to a wall. Nobody thinks that way anymore.
I don't really understand your point... I wasn't making any comment about democracy in China. That's absurd.
To clarify, the reason China was allowed to gain that amount of economic influence in the first place was because it was thought they'd be part of the democratic West. Without that, nobody wants an authoritarian superpower.
What? Literally nobody thinks that. The entire Belt and Road Initiative is pretty much open expansionism
Belt and Road is waaay more recent than what I'm talking about, being declared in 2013. The Cold War ramped down in the 80's and ended around '90 or so, and then the triumphalist narrative that "history had ended" and democracy had irrevocably won was influential in the 90's and arguably 2000's.
Also, I'm not really sure "expansionism" is the right word for peacefully growing one's economy and soft power. Otherwise, the West is expansionist as hell, and that undersells actual territorial expansionism like in Taiwan or Ukraine.
In Canada, Teslas from Shanghai are by far preferable to the ones from Fremont. Something about those Chinese factories man
If you cant afford anything else than it is the best product.
It is much better. US car brands look like they are stuck in the 90s. Still, I don't get the preoccupation from the US, almost all cars in Mexico have been from Asia for at least a decade or maybe more. And before that it was all Volkswagen.
Don't get upset when capitalists beat you at your own game. Does it matter if it's better if we're talking about a "free market" (lol)? It's not like capitalists in the US give a shit.
I was going to say something about Chinese vehicles not entirely being the greatest quality, but then I remembered we're comparing it to American vehicles.
Better product, half the cost. Can't go wrong.