• Steve@communick.news
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    22 hours ago

    Because the government is subsiding those cars in a number of different ways; Attempt to control the global automotive and clean energy markets.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      5 hours ago

      oh yeah…the 8 billion dollars to Detroit subsidy is why they make all those cool, highly efficient cars.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        5 hours ago

        Not all subsidies are done for the same reason. Keep reading my other comments down that thread.

      • rafoix@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        And the oil industry and builds the roads and fights the wars to acquire oil.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        1 day ago

        Not to the same degree, or with the same goals.
        US subsidies are simply about corporate profits. China’s are about over-producing and lowering prices to incentivize global adoption.

        Forks and knives are both silverware, but very different.

    • Astrealix@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      And because wages are lower as well. Manpower costs more in America than China by quite a bit. The article doesn’t scale prices to purchasing power. It’s not 5x as much anymore probably, but it’s a significant amount.

      • Left as Center@jlai.lu
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        1 day ago

        My guess is that manpower share is probably not that significant in the price of an EV.

        • Don_alForno@feddit.org
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          19 hours ago

          Almost all costs come down to wages when you look at the economy of an entire country. The car factory pays wages and materials (grossly simplified to illustrate what I mean). The supplier they buy the materials from pays wages and raw materials. The place those raw materials come from pays wages and their own raw materials. And so on. At the end there’s some guy in a mine swinging a pickaxe who’s paid, you guessed it, a wage. (again, grossly simplified for illustration. Of course they use modern machinery, of course the supply chains are networks and not straight lines…).

          So when you produce in a country with a vastly lower level of wages, everything gets cheaper. The car maker doesn’t only pay less in wages, they also pay less for steel sheets, cables, cloth and leather for seats, you name it, because those suppliers pay lower wages too.

          • Left as Center@jlai.lu
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            17 hours ago

            Almost all costs come down to wages when you look at the economy of an entire country.

            Yes. There is the matter of productivity somewhere in between, which is mainly linked to innovation and past capital expenses.

            they also pay less for steel sheets, cables, cloth and leather for seats

            Not really. These are already procured externally in a globalized world where manufacturing already left to low-wage places

        • StillAlive@piefed.world
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          20 hours ago

          My guess is that manpower share is probably not that significant in the price of an EV.

          It’s not about wages being part of price.

          It’s about wages being aspect of buyers.

      • InternationalHermit@lemmy.today
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        1 day ago

        I occasionally watch an American YouTuber married to a Chinese man, living in china, and they can’t afford a car (my observation, she claims they don’t need one). They have recently upgraded to a bigger electric scooter as their family car.

        • socsa@piefed.social
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          1 day ago

          Most Chinese cities have extremely high registration fees which make car ownership impractical for most people. They also have great public transportation which tilts the calculus towards not needing a car if affordability is even remotely a concern.

    • krisevol@lemmus.org
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      1 day ago

      And they are winning. China is expected to dominate 4 of the top 5 auto manufacturer by 2030

      • ChapulinColorado@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        Sorry, option not recognized. Listen carefully as our options have recently changed (weekly). Please choose from the following available ones:

        1. Kidnap foreign leaders we don’t like and other threats to independent governments.
        2. Fund genocide.
        3. World wide inflation with this one simple trick (Strait of Hormuz).
        4. Look ma! No diapers (includes diapers).
        5. 1st amendment (billionaires only).
        6. Insider trading (WH friends & family only).
        7. All of the above (includes special bonuses and 1 meme coin!)
    • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Subsidizing practical applications of clean energy seems like a moral good to me.

      Are they attempting to control the market? Even if they are the solution is to produce a more competitive product, not sit on one’s hands or double down on ICE vehicles.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        22 hours ago

        Are they attempting to control the market?

        Absolutely!
        A competitive product isn’t the problem. It’s the fact that they’re intentionally pricing the cars below cost, loosing money on every vehicle. Once there’s no real competition, they can leverage that market monopoly to to gain others, or simply increase prices well beyond what they naturally would be. Just like Amazon did with diapers and other markets.

    • CannedYeet@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      That’s very nice of them to make stuff cheaper for me. If only my government wouldn’t tack on 100% tariffs.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        1 day ago

        It’s not. They aren’t doing it for charity.
        It’s just like when Amazon sold diapers at a loss. Once all the competition is gone, and China has the global monopoly they want, they’ll use it to inflate prices even higher, or for leverage on other markets.

        • CannedYeet@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          I love that that story of Amazon selling diapers is the most salient example of what economists literally call “dumping”.