cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15089465
Americans Are Open To Cheap Chinese Cars. That’s ‘Scary’ For The Rest Of The Auto Industry
Everyone is broke as fuck we are open to cheap everything. People are living in literal sheds
I wish I could afford a shed.
it’s like you’ve never heard of roommates. If you get a third job and find a couple people, i’m sure you could afford to rent a shed
Just stop spending so much money on food. Sheds will feel bigger if you are starving to death
No, most of us are broke because we insist on ensuring that suburban mcmansions are the only places to really live. When you spend 30% on driving and 40% on housing, suddenly you are broke.
Yeah that’s what I don’t get, people complain housing is unnafordable now, but their expectation for a house is way higher than previous generations, and squander their money on “necessities” that really aren’t that. Yes, the housing market IS fucked, but by less than people make it seem like
Yes I think that’s the part where you have to, you know, compete or whatever.
“We hear you, American consumer! You say you want a sub-$40k, small, basic EV. So here’s another luxury SUV/pickup truck/yacht crossover starting at $90,000.”
They’ll just ban them from being imported. Far cheaper to pay off some politicians than it is to compete or whatever. Kinda like the tariffs on the solar panels ‘flooding the market’ they just announced.
You have to be capitalistic, no not like that!
Nooooo, you have to buy local, get our new Chevro-laid Mountain Dew 16x16 for only 250k (Tips not included)
It’s difficult to compete with Chinese companies that operate at a loss and are subsidized by the Chinese government.
Fucking lol. Good thing we don’t subsidize ANYTHING AT ALL and never export anything either. Boy. You’d have to be EVIL to want your country to have AFFORDABLE CARS. What’s next, AFFORDABLE HOUSING?
Why can’t we subsidize American carmakers more?
We do. They just send the windfall to exec salary and shareholders rather than to tax paying customers.
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Subsidies are an incredible tool when used well, like when they funded a bunch of utility cooperatives that electrified rural US. Maybe you’re asking why we should because propping up the car industry when public transit and bike infrastructure should be subsidized instead, rather than challenging subsidies, though.
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Don’t cram touchscreens and smart features into every fucking aspect of your car. Keep your costs low, keep prices low, and believe it or not, you’ll tap into the “bottom” 60% of the market that has been forced to buy used for the last 10 years. I don’t want a base trim 10 year old Honda Accord with 150k miles, but it’s all I can find for under $20k.
Touchscreens and “smart” features don’t add enough cost to justify the premium you pay for them.
I keep getting shit on for wanting an EV with manual roll-up windows where you have to use your hands, a super basic FM stereo kit, and a dash clock being the most advanced shit inside. I don’t need rear-view cameras and sensors and other shit that complicates and increases repair and insurance costs. I don’t get it. Give me dead simple, please and thank you.
Back up cameras are mandatory in the US, and apparently Automatic Emergency Braking will be mandatory starting in 2029, so you’ll be stuck with some sensors whether you like it or not.
But otherwise I agree that buttons and dials are better for controlling AC and radio than a touchscreen ever will be.
Yeesh. I’m still driving a vehicle from 1999. Guess I’m out of the loop on the backup camera thing.
Backup cameras are useless for many people. I can either wear glasses so that I can see where I’m driving, or I can take them off to see the fisheyed backup screen. Not both.
Backup cameras are pretty good imo because they let you see the small things you wouldn’t be able to see out of a mirror. Helps prevent needless accidents. If you don’t wanna use it, just don’t look at it. Most cars should still have rear view mirrors
the backup camera is useful when the rear window is obstructed (such as from mud/dust) and for comically large vehicles where a short pole wouldn’t be visible if it was less than 3ft behind it.
Good thing glasses are permanently superglued to your face and thus it’s impossible to swap between having them on and off when swapping between going backwards and forwards…
That’s not a reasonable thing to expect to have to do while driving. Sounds like the “you’re holding it wrong” of cars
Except for those of us who, you know, like to see where we’re going rather than relying on a limited FOV camera. Of course, if I could learn to remove and replace them while keeping both hands engaged in actually, you know, steering the damn car, that’d be great.
I better have both hands on the wheel for all those times I’m mid turn and shift while still moving into reverse……
It’s… for when you’re backing up. You’ve come to a complete stop. You’re going to stop before you start moving forward again. It’s not hard to tilt glasses onto the top of your head while you stop or flip them back down when you stop.
A MUCH bigger issue would be the rear view mirrors which are just cameras and screens.
Are you mixing the two up?
No.
Touch screens in cars are a massive safety issue. I’m not saying they don’t have some benefits but the fact that many newer cars have basically no physical buttons to perform basic functions is a problem. I can feel for the dial to adjust the volume or change the radio station. But a touch screen encourages the driver to take their focus off the road. That’s a serious problem.
Wut? I bought a brand new car for €11k three years ago. Right enough the same car is 15k now but still
Maybe make affordable cars here then?? Dumbasses
Profit line must always go brrrrr!
I want to know how much the price of a car would come down if I didn’t need to visit a salesperson working on commission. I want to go to Costco, test drive it to make sure I like it, and check out.
Right?? Cheap is the wrong word.
Oh, apologies my good Lemming but you’re mistaken. We make affordable ones here but the auto companies decided they’d make more money if they artificially keep supply low to keep prices high. Car Graveyards
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Next you’ll be seeing bs gaslighting articles saying “American carmakers are being driven to bankruptcy thanks to millenials’ changing preferences”
The industry should meet the needs of the consumer, not the shareholder.
But that’s not the American way
Capitalism creates monopoly. The consumer’s needs can be manufactured. In a society organized around capital shareholder needs are paramount.
I mean fuck, if only we could get shit like kei trucks.
Some of us have been open to foreign vehicles you can’t really get in the US for a long time. Oh well.
The massive size of vehicles in the U.S. is ridiculous. I think a lot of people would buy smaller, cheaper cars if they were on the market.
The EPA makes really tight emissions targets for vehicles under a certain size or the auto makers have to pay a fee iirc. Pretty sure they the medium sized stuff out of existance, an unfortunately I’m guessing the same fees would apply to imports too.
I think folks bought into SUVs since they were bigger & selfishly less likely to take more damage in a crash. As such, with SUV tanks everywhere, being a pedestrian or in a small car on the road on in an SUV’s trajectory can often lead to lethal injury.
When youre that fat you need a big car tbh
Absolutely. So many sensible sized European cars aren’t sold in the US because bullshit market research says small car bad big truck good.
Nope, it’s the government’s mileage standards. If you make a truck with a shorter wheelbase and track, it has to hit higher gas mileage standards. Easier to make a big truck that’s allowed worse mileage.
Also, I did a brief stint selling cars in the 90s. One of the salesmen explained it like this, "What’s the real difference in a big truck and a small truck? Same engineering effort, same production work, all that. Hell, same parts for most systems.
More steel on the big one, and steel is cheap. We can charge a premium for the larger truck."
My absolute favorite vehicle, based on looks alone
Auto industry looking at their overly inflated prices, “well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions.”
Well too fucking bad for the auto industry? Just because it’s an American industry doesn’t mean we should give a fuck about it. If they want our loyalty, make fucking better cars.
If they want our loyalty, make fucking better cars
I mean, in the spirit of the post, make fucking cheaper cars
Cars have been getting expensive AF
Cars has been so poorly made dor 1 or 2 decades now, that I respect most people who drives late 90’s to early 00’s cars.
Electric cars are a joke in terms of quality. How they don’t have self-dignity at all?
Oh the thing is we should totally care!
Not for the “losses of expected revenue” of car industry shareholders, I don’t care about that.
But for years already I hate that china, you know, the most hardcore surveillance state, is pumping Europe with their computerized automatic surveillance machines!
At least they are not operating as automatized killing machines. Yet.And before anyone says. I feel the same about other, noon-chinese cars too that are filled with all kinds of external sensors. I hate Teslas with a passion, but in my opinion chinese cars are even worse, just as chinese, state sponsored apps on our phones.
There’s all kinds of wacky taxes, regulations, and barriers to prevent the US industry from having to compete with the world. One such example is the Chicken Tax:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/chicken-tax.asp
That one keeps the Toyota Hilux out of the US.
Toyota Hilux: the middle-east terrorist’s truck of choice.
But seriously, those things are everywhere in the Middle East and Africa.
This.
If automakers were truly scared, Ford wouldn’t be scaling back it’s EV plans.
The world doesn’t need an EV Mustang or $99K F150, it needs an EV Focus or Escort oor Fiesta level car that normal people can afford.
Which we won’t get with Ford deciding instead to focus on hybrids.
Instead, the Blue Oval wants to focus on making more hybrids instead and says it will have hybrid options for all its internal combustion engine-powered vehicles by 2030.
Also, apparently, people quite like the EV Mustang.
But with Mustang Mach-E sales up 77 percent to 9,589 sold, and a 148 percent growth for the E-Transit, Ford is the country’s second-bestselling EV brand.
Does that account for the fact that most US Tacoma’s are built in San Antonio (there’s also a plant in Tijuana) and the Tundra is also built at the San Antonio plant?
The tundra, F-150 and Honda Ridge line are all tied at 75% domestic US parts production. The Tacoma’s is a bit lower at 70%.
Yeah, I’m a weirdo with a cargo e-bike. Love it, except when it rains or snows.
I’d love a sub-$20k street legal EV that skips the entertainment system and most other features. Just give me a weatherproof cabin with comfortable seats and a modest cargo capacity for groceries and small appliances. I’m only ever going to drive it for at most an hour around town and back. Maybe listen to a podcast from my phone. Stick solar panels on the roof and it’ll probably always be topped off for how infrequently I drive. I’ll rent something if I take a longer trip.
Yes, this please. Although I don’t have a cargo bike, I load up all 3 sides of my pannier and fill a backpack with my cargo 😅
You mean something like this?
Yeah, totally. I’d also love to see like a rack of those for rent, every few blocks in my city. That’d be near perfect
Not scary for the auto workers who want to work on them, build them, supply parts for them, etc or the families who want affordable EVs. More scary for the wealth class who didn’t reinvest enough into updating their facilities and processes to stay competitive businesses. The government already gave them extra time with the embargo but that isn’t going to last forever.
If it pass safety standards without all those smart and data collection bs and being reliable for 7+ years with easy part sourcing I might give it a try.
The data collection thing is a big one for me.
Even Xiaomi has released the SU7, a real Tesla killer and also way cheaper. But not for the US market, but for the EU.
What’s their e-bike situation like? Are there good ones or will they blow my nuts off?
Yes
Recommendations?
Oh I was making a joke, like you posted an ‘or’ comment & I replied Yes like it will do both. 😂 Good bike, blows your balls off.
I’ve been looking at Super73 for years as a CLASSIC styling, really handsome ebike. YouTube search for things like Survival ebike, ebike for preppers. Because you’ll tap into a whole community of people that want good & tough ebikes, not flimsy crap, ebikes that should be good relatively long-term. I trust Canadian Prepper; this video is a little older but information & considerations tend to be relevant years later.
I saw another prepper cheaping it with $700-800 ebikes, if I find it I’ll post name & link…
Anyway jokes aside I hope that helps. Idk your situation but I’d almost be tempted to wait just a few more years; pandemic/oil prices have pushed so many ebikes into the wild & that has brought about soooooo much real-world testing & consumer feedback. I’m thinking the ebikes just a few years from now will be so much better, and possibly for cheaper or the same price.
In my experience preppers buy things that sit in their storage space unused. I want something I can use hard (as a cargo bike) several times per day, every day, for decades.
This is a valid criticism that we talk about…working through supply, using supply, and becoming familiar with it is actually the ideal we should all strive for. 🙂 Idk about any bike, electric or not, that can withstand hard use several times/day for decades. (o_O) But product design is getting better all the time!
Oh, I definitely know bikes that can survive hard use for decades. Of course you have to change wearing parts every X thousand km, but the bike should last generations.
What I’m unsure about is the e-bikes. I really don’t want the battery to catch fire or explode. And the motor should last generations.
This is actually super great timing. I’m guessing by safer, they mean, won’t blow your nuts off. 🤭 Might be a good community for us, too.
Some of the best bikes that last decades were built in the 1970s. There are some machines that don’t get more durable when you throw more R&D at it.
Breakthroughs in product design for nonelectric bikes have been mostly optimizing weight, but very minor improvements that don’t apply steel cargo bikes built to last generations.
Even some domestic brands like Juiced go on sale for like, $1,200 for a Juiced Ripracer. Aventon appears to make good stuff too, if you want bike shop support. I’ve had my bike for a month and put 320 miles on it. Fun little bike :)
Lemmy:
Go UAW, fight for higher wages and better working conditions
Also Lemmy:
I demand the cheapest car possible, I don’t care if its built by slave labor in xinjiang. If western companies can’t compete with third world labor costs then they’re obviously inefficient and don’t deserve to exist.
I mean I’d argue there’s some serious room to help out the consumer since the price of cars has been outpacing inflation pretty handily since around 2014 (and been beating it into a bloody pulp since 2020). There is some insanely obvious price gouging going on when the average price of a new car in 2024 is over 49k. There is room for BOTH higher wages and at least semi reasonable car prices for the American consumer. In my eyes if you clearly aren’t willing to help me as an everyday clearly struggling American today, then goooo right ahead and kiss my ass as I buy foreign if it’s cheaper.
That added cost came in the form of dealer markups during COVID that never went away since theyre still selling. The manufacturers don’t have much control over what the dealerships do.
The average purchase price has gone up because people are buying more expensive cars, eg. Large trucks, SUVs, luxury sedans, high end trims etc. not because cars are getting more expensive.
If you look at lower end sedans there price hasn’t changed much. For example if you look at the Chevy Malibu the current base price is $25,100 , in 2014 the base price was $22,340 or $29,400 adjusted for inflation, in 2004 it was $18,700 or $31,067
None of those are close to the $10,000 cars coming out of China because you just can’t make a car for that cheap in a country with high labor costs like the u.s., or even Japan or Germany.
Now look at how much the executives are being paid in the US compared to the cost of the vehicles…
It ain’t the welders and wrench turners who are adding the most to the cost of vehicles.
As opposed to China where there totally isn’t a massive wealth gap between factory workers and their executives! Not like the CEO of Xpeng is worth 1.4 billion or anything…
It’s true, China Has Billionaires.
Income inequality rhetoric ignores that a class can reap the benefits of work via public investment (e.g. a bullet train), even if bosses make more as individuals. Working Chinese people are seeing the fruits of their labour despite billionaires and inequality. To recriminate them for not demanding more is recriminating the virtue of patience.
In fact, much of what passes for “socialist” idealism in the West turns out to be a mirror image of bog-standard liberal-capitalist entrepreneurship propaganda: “I will be my own boss! I will run my own business!” This idealism appears unaware that the necessity of management is foisted upon us by logistics, not capitalism. Denial of this reality results in fantasies of perfect synchrony between perfectly autonomous anarchists.
The “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” dream, embraced more by pundits with cushy lives than working people, also reveals a dark truth: western “socialists” have some awareness that a more equal world will mean losing first-world privileges. They cannot conceive of things getting better steadily and slowly, with hard work. And so they are forced to denigrate the Chinese road of self-sacrifice in favour of leisure-driven utopianism. The reality is that the victory of the working class over the capitalist class will usher in an era of hard but rewarding work, as opposed to hard work without reward.
United Nations, 2019: Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s Founding
Sure man, I guess the nets on the sides of the factory buildings are there to catch workers who are jumping with joy because their work is so rewarding.
I don’t deny that China’s economic ascendancy has been remarkable and a big win against poverty, but now that people have gotten past the starvation phase, I don’t think you can use the “high tide raises all boats” analogy. It sounds a lot like tricke-down economics to me, with some hand-waving that things are different in China because the wealthy elites are actually generous patricians.
It’s the same thing the right does with government. It is a truism that there is all sorts of “inefficiencies” where the money is going to the wrong people for the wrong stuff.
In both cases, it’s sort of correct and sort of wrong. Corporations, governments, and any human institution beyond a certain scale (a few hundred people), will leak wealth into places it shouldn’t. It’s an unavoidable feature of our species as best I can tell.
It’s fine to accept it, it’s fine to be angry about it. It’s silly to blind yourself to it in some places and whinge about it in others.
If the price of labor was what determined the price, then why have prices gone up, when labor prices have not?
Car prices haven’t gone up, the average purchase prices of cars has gone up but that’s because people are buying more expensive cars, Large trucks, SUVs, luxury sedans, higher trims etc.
If you look at lower end sedans there price hasn’t changed much and has even gone down. For example if you look at the Chevy Malibu the current base price is $25,100 , in 2014 the base price was $22,340 or $29,400 adjusted for inflation, in 2004 it was $18,700 or $31,067
Auto workers wages have gone down but they’ve steadied in recent years in 2004 hourly wage was $21.71 or $36.07 adjusted for inflation, in 2014 it was $21.38 or $28.17 adjusted for inflation now they are around $30.
So since 2004 the price for a car has gone down 24% and auto wages have also gone down 20%. The recent UAW contract wage increases with little to no increase in price shows there is some room for workers to get more out of that $25,000 cost pie, but there would be no room if that pie is shrunk to $10,000 to compete with Chinese manufacturers.
slave labor in xinjiang
Oh no the CIA-backed terrorists got job training, the horror. https://lemmy.ml/comment/8175413
The actual slave labor is in the United States, thanks to the 13th amendment.
