There's a fucked up thing happening in America where they say it's free market capitalism but instead they add massive tariffs to foreign vehicles allowing our shit companies to remain shit. Otherwise we would have Chinese EV's with all of the bells and whistles for 20-30k that last 200k miles.
Honestly he has a point though the Chinese Government subsidize their car industry so they could be sold at a loss and still keep going, while thats impossible for any company that has to make a profit to survive
I mean the reason to bitch about capitalism is that the workers get paid shit wages and safety standards at the factories are terrible, as well as material standards for the product. That's why they cost so little compared to US counterparts.
Yup American capitalism has evolved to late stage. Where established presences use excessive regulations and countless other methods to stifle competition. And it makes sense, isn’t that a really easy way to win? You don’t have to innovate, you’re the only option.
This sounds great until you apply it to car manufacturing. To make the criticism work, you have to gauge workers QOL under party-state capitalism. Seems like a hard sell.
AI: 300,000+ Miles (480,000+ km): Extensive data from BYD e6 taxi fleets operating in Shenzhen, China, showed that after three to four years of round-the-clock service, units routinely hit 300,000 miles with around 10–15% battery degradation.
The cheapest BYD in Australia (~14k USD) takes 30 minutes to charge from 10 to 80% which gets you about 95 miles of driving. The money you save in fuel and maintenance can buy you lunch while you wait. Not ideal for large distances but who is driving their personal vehicle that far daily? The average daily drive distance is ~22 miles so you charge fully like once a week with the absolute cheapest model. Americans are missing out.
The average American drives over 200 miles a week. It takes 1.25 hours to completely charge. The 30 mins is from 10-80%. That’s more time than most people want to spend 1-2 times a week charging their car.
As for the car itself it makes a lot of compromises to reach that price point. For instance it takes 15 seconds to reach 65mph, a bumpy choppy ride due to the suspension, cheap easily scratched plastic interiors, etc. Which is fine if you’re looking for a super cheap car.
You do realise that most people charge their vehicles at home rather than fast charge stations anyway, right? You can literally plug it into the wall of your garage and if you are one of the relatively few Americans that don’t have a garage then you can just charge while you do grocery shopping or even at work. Lack of charging infrastructure is not a valid argument in 2026.
Germany and France have mandated that large commercial parking lots provide EV chargers. Most of central and Western Europe has decent coverage. Supermarkets in Aus and NZ have rolled them out too since some of them previously integrated fuel stations. The US is behind on electrification.
How many hours do you sleep or spend at home a week? I would bet more than the quoted 40-60. You literally have to plug in when you get home and unplug when you leave. That covers the 2/3 - 3/4 of Americans that live in single family homes (US Census Bureau). Even if you want to restrict that to restrict that to detached houses so you can be almost guaranteed that they have a garage or spot next to the house to run a cable then that’s at least 62% so for almost TWO THIRDS of the population, charging isn’t an issue. You’re spending more time on the internet arguing with strangers than it would have taken to fast charge an EV.
Its all relative to where u live. In the "green" states the EV stations are found almost everywhere including apartments, malls etc.. along with pretty heavy rebates to purchase EVs and to install the necessary electric charging units.
Normally higher rebates if the charging unit will be publicly available.
Only 5% of rental properties have EV charging stations. In green cities like Denver, San Fransisco, Portland, Seattle are only around 10-12% with Silicon Valley being an outlier at 14-18%.
That leaves the vast majority of people looking for somewhere else to charge their cars and 90 minutes is a long wait especially having to do it weekly.
"These" Americans want gas cars, EVs would be too progressive for them
People don’t want to spend 90 minutes charging their cars. A perfectly valid reason to not want to own an EV. People aren’t avoiding them because they’re too progressive.
How are people who live in apartments gonna do that? Or people who don’t want to hire an electrician $1000-2500 to an install 240v charging station plus up to $4k more if they have to upgrade their service panel?
How are people who live in apartments gonna do that? For homeowners you’re asking people to change their habits and diligently charge nightly when 95% of EV owners don’t even charge daily (every 3 days). People don’t want the hassle when it takes 3 minutes to fill their gas tank. Never mind longer trips away from home that become more limiting and time consuming.
They don't have to charge them every night, most people don't drive enough to spend a whole night's worth of charge on a daily commute. For apartments, the infrastructure isn't ready yet, only 9% of US apartments have charging stations installed. Unfortunately, we're just not as fast at building stuff as other countries, but I imagine that's partly the fault of the government, which won't allow Americans to import good Chinese EVs, so there hasn't been as much of a push to install the infrastructure. 2/3 of China's car sales are EVs, so it's pretty obvious that they've got everything working already.
None of that's relevant to the concerns you brought up, though. What's the real difference between filling up at a gas station once a week or two and plugging in your car twice a week before you head inside? Frankly, the EV sounds like less of a hassle to fuel, you don't need to stop at a gas station.
We could have had Japanese Kei-cars (city cars) except for the federal government declaring that cars only intended for cities aren't safe or fast enough for highways, so no one should ever be allowed to have one.
....meanwhile bicycles are not legal to use on highways but are still sold.
The reason those Chinese evs are so cheap it's because the chinese government subsidized their car industry so they be so cheap they can be losing money on every car and they wouldnt care
Actually it’s because competition between manufacturers is so intense. The price wars in China have spilled over to other countries DESPITE an order from Beijing to stop undercutting each other. Chinese car manufacturers are currently the embodiment of “good capitalism” from a consumer perspective.
The person who made the tweet is a proud "patriotic Conservative Christian." They love voting for the higher prices, because they're allowed to keep being bigots.
Ford made the first car in America, cars are made up of a lot of steel, there’s this thing called oil, the suburbanization of modern America makes us dependent on cars. Then we fight wars over the oil so we make a lot of weapons and bombs in order to defend our country’s right to drive a gas powered vehicle for the rest of our fucking lives. Cars all the way down.
How do you know it last 200K miles? The Chinese government tests vehicles after 3 years so the chances of a Chinese EV lasting 200K miles let alone Kilometers is slim.
Chinese EV's cost nothing in China because they subsidies them to the point they barely break even, why would they do the same to some random countries. They have them in EU, they cost the same as any other EV out there.
Let the military pay for domestic manufacturing to prop up a company or two. Free market means free market. American people are struggling with crazy gas prices. Let the imports in.
Problem is China takes tax revenue and pumps it into these companies giving them HUGE 0% loans & no taxes in order to conquer a market category. Batteries, ev's, construction equipment, electronics assembly.... All designed by 10+ year plans to own a market. Free market cannot compete with that, so protection remains. It also has the side effect of removing competition and that's why we're stuck with dinosaur cars compared to Chinese ones.
It all comes down to money in politics which is why our country is failing, like rome did.
So let the US government (and taxpayers) decide if they want to subsidize US car manufacturers the same way (I would vote no). The current trade policies preventing the sale of Chinese imports in the US basically forces Americans to subsidize US car companies by paying outrageously high prices.
What kind of security concerns are there regarding Chinese EVs? More importantly, why should I even care? Our government is monitoring everything we do, all the time, right now, as it stands.
Probably remotely bricking every car if things between the US and China come to head.
It would be pretty catastrophic domestically.
You are all welcome to trust an authoritarian dictatorship with the software for your car. Personally I don't hop in whatever van is offering the cheapest candy.
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u/bortodeeto 9h ago
There's a fucked up thing happening in America where they say it's free market capitalism but instead they add massive tariffs to foreign vehicles allowing our shit companies to remain shit. Otherwise we would have Chinese EV's with all of the bells and whistles for 20-30k that last 200k miles.