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Is the Chinese EV industry one big scam?
553 sats \ 6 comments \ @stack_harder 27 Oct econ
I am, generally speaking, not anti EVs, I am just anti-subsidisation of governments in things like this.
Emotions aside, the current facts are that China has made it one of its key policies to be the world leader in EVs and is subsidising the shit out of the whole thing on a ton of different levels. Yet, only around 20% of China’s 200-plus EV makers operate at sustainable capacity levels and a few, max, are in profit.
I understand why they want to control the cobolt mining and lithium battery market, that makes sense from their geopolitical perspective, but what's the end game with the EVs - just keep subsiding forever leading to maybe only a few companies that even make any money? what's the point really? China doesn't give a shit about the planet so it's certainly not that.
i would be interested to hear the opinion of fellow stackers who know more about this, perhaps @TomK has some insight?
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41 sats \ 1 reply \ @zuspotirko 27 Oct
I can think of a reason why an authoritarian autocracy wants to flood the world market with cheap subsidized cars. A car weighs tons, costs a lot of money, has an excuse why it wants cameras and microphones everywhere and regularly communicates home for "updates" or for "syncing app store/entertainment/maps".
Winnie Pooh only needs two or three cars to stop working for an entire road to congest. Only a few dozen roads to congest to chaos a city. Only a few hundred cameras and microphones to find out a lot. Only one car to have a "bug" to kill a specific person. Only one update to deprecate millions of cars to customers for new 30k items each.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder OP 27 Oct
this is a good point i hadnt considered
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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 27 Oct
I'll ramble off a few points:
  • There's like 20 electric car companies in China now.
  • Competition is bringing prices down.
  • The virtuous western consumers think they're saving the planet by buying them.
  • A new market with jobs and all the network effects (especially data collection) keeps China as factory for the world.
  • Electricity in China is cheap, whereas petrol is expensive.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder OP 27 Oct
this is a good point too, while the profit might not be there, the value of the data could be immense to them
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cotton 27 Oct
The mistake the west made with China is they expected China to behave like their former colonies in Africa, and simply be a source for cheap labour and be exploited, it was never meant to compete, just live on handouts.
Thankfully China had other ideas.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @7e6e393a56 27 Oct
Unfortunately. nothing different from American practice and the European Union, which are exploitative and also protectionist. Perspective of someone who lives in a South American country "It doesn't matter whose whip it is, the pain is always the same"
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