- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
When Reuters reported in April that Tesla had scrapped plans for a long-promised, next-generation $25,000 electric vehicle, the automaker’s stock plunged. Chief Executive Elon Musk rushed to respond on X, his social-media network.
“Reuters is lying,” he posted, without elaborating. Tesla’s stock recovered some of its losses.
Six months later, Musk appears to have backed into an admission that Tesla dropped its plans for a human-driven $25,000 car. He said in an Oct. 23 earnings call that building the affordable EV would be "pointless” unless the car was fully autonomous.
Along with European, Japanese, and South Korean automakers. Nobody is building EVs this cheap because no other country’s government is dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into selling them well below their actual cost.
Those automakers are at least trying to compete by building small cars. I see more ads for electric f150s than i see for compact cars in north america.
The profit margins are insane compared to sedans.
Domestic manufacturers almost entirely phased out small cars long ago before EVs were even significant because they can’t build them as well as companies like Hyundai, Toyota, and Honda. Even those companies have phased out tiny cars because nobody in the US was buying them.
Why don’t you buy a Chevy Bolt, or Nissan Leaf if you want a small, cheap EV?
It isn’t they can’t build them, it is moreso they don’t want to because of profit margins and influences from CAFE standards makes small cars hard to build and big SUVs easier due to some backwards fuel economy regulations.
The same profit margins and CAFE standards that companies like Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda have to abide by too? This makes no sense as these companies were outselling domestic maker’s cars 5 to 1 in the exact same financial and regulatory environment.
Toyota and Honda have to meet similar regulations in markets that have those regulations but aren’t as insanely car focused as the US. They aren’t going to make a radically different Accord or Corolla for the US market just because they can. The leadership for US manufacturers are just lazy and have been for the past 50 years.
What does this have to do with the discussion?
Initial poster claimed that companies don’t want to sell small cars because of greed.
I argued that domestic manufacturers can’t build cars as well as the popular Asian brands and even those brands stopped selling small cars here because of low sales.
Person replies to me claiming the real reason why we don’t have small cars is because of stock prices and a loophole in CAFE standards that allow “trucks” to get worse mileage and still be in compliance.
I reply stating that Honda and Toyota have to meet these same regulations and financial responsibilities yet they aren’t selling small cars either
You reply with some random comment about Toyota and Honda having to sell their cars in more markets therefore it’s easier for them to meet efficiency regulations.
???
Correct, because Uncle Sam is spending hundreds of billions of dollars to make oil and gas as cheap as possible while automakers spend bullions every year on stock buybacks. America’s poor investments are all China’s fault.
You think European, Japanese, and South Korean automakers are American companies? That’s weird.
Do you really think BYD and other Chinese state-owned auto manufacturers have found some secret sauce that nobody else can figure out allowing them to somehow build a car cheaper than anyone else in the world, or do you think it’s more likely that the state is paying for them to have artificially low prices?
Furthermore, let’s imagine the rest of the world matches these subsidies, what is your end goal here? Are you wanting everyone in the US to dump their old car in a parking lot and go out and buy a new one every year like people used to do with smartphones? That’s not exactly good for the environment and is just consumerism on steroids.
The way you write your argument out as questions makes you sound like Tucker Carlson or one of his “I’m jUsT aSkInG qWesTioNs” deciples.
It comes off as condecending and disingenuous, even if some of your points may be correct.
Condescending, sure, but I don’t see how this makes it disengenous, and I’m only responding in-kind to this user who continues to write snarky-ass, passive-aggressive replies rather than writing an actual rebuttal.
Every country subsidized their auto industry, it’s just that all the benefit goes directly to ceos except in china apparently.
Ford received 9 billion in June.
Ford received a loan to use toward building new factories for EV production. In China, Ford would owned by the government and funded with taxpayer dollars directly.
Damn, sounds like nationalizing an industry leads to lower costs and cheaper products.
Sure, when that rationalization comes with lax environmental regulations and zero worker protections along with heavy subsidies that expire just after their last competitors close up shop. What are you left with then?
It’s better to keep private companies in charge of environmental regulations and worker protection, they will self-regulate.
God knows they won’t mouth fuck us the moment they have a monopoly at least.
Where is that the case? Dumping toxic shit into the water/air and using slave labor is one of the reasons why they can sell their cars so cheaply. This person is trying to claim it’s due to rationalization alone.