Most of the middle-class have been priced out of new cars in North America. We need those cheap cars here!
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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BYD gets CCP funding to take over the global markets.
Not weird there's backlash when China is literally destroying jobs on a global scale.
Can't blame China for mismanagement.
In the US market for instance no US manufacturer makes a car with 4 doors under $40,000. And even then the cheapest one is a Tesla model 3. You know how electric cars cost more to make, it means that it's possible to make one but they refuse or are too incompetent to do so.
Ah yes, this is somehow China's fault and not that of the Western car manufacturers.
This should be like when Japan started turning out cheap and reliable watches. The best safest and most cost effective products must be available for all. In the UK there's a huge market growth in EVs from Kia and Hyundai, (Korean), Volvo (Chinese), MG (Chinese). Recently BYD has taken the market by a little storm. Traditional manufacturers like Ford, BMW, VW etc. all late to the party, and only just catching up. They have been protected.
Can they flood Canada with cheap EV as well?
You generally don't want to incentivize the practice of dumping since its goal is putting competition out of business.
Don't really care about the competition. I care about having cheap access to EVs. If the competition can't compete, then fuck em. That's not my problem.
Don't really care about the competition. I care about having cheap access to [X]. If the competition can't compete, then fuck em. That's not my problem.
This comment is the American consumer for the last 50 years, next step is complaining about outsourcing jobs and lower quality products with no competition.
That only matters under an economic system that necessities competition.
Change the economic system to one that encourages cooperation instead, and that won't be an issue.
So your solution is change the whole system so you can buy a dumped Chinese car without any guilt?
Whilst I agree the system is broken, buying dumped goods only makes the situation worse as it means those players and playing on an uneven playing field
buying dumped goods only makes the situation worse as it means those players and playing on an uneven playing field
So let me get this straight, instead of buying a $20k Chinese EV to meet a necessity of modern life, you should pay $60k for a worse car where all the money goes to shareholders and dealership markups so you can be on an even playing field?
We're not talking about buying the cheap throw away Chinese product instead of the built for life one, we're not talking about consumerism at all. We're talking about taking a 5+ year loan for something society forces you to own in most cities around the world, and making Elon rich isn't a better alternative than having $40k in your savings account.
Not sure what market your in but in Europe the price gap is not that huge, 30% max far as I can tell. Obviously that's still quite a bit when we are talking about car money but 20 vs 60 as you mention is not realistic as long as your not comparing the byd dolfin to a Mercedes.
I also never mentioned Chinese cars are poor quality. Actually they seem like quite good quality and as others have said their software seems good too though I've never driven one so I don't know. The current automakers, whilst they have the build quality sorted, the software and a few is lacking
One suggestion no one seems to suggest is to buy a second hand car. Imo, you get much more value for your money and since the car is already made you help the environment out too by not consuming something that needed to be made just for you
"buy"
How can you buy something in a system that doesn't utilize monetary economics nor private systems of ownership?
And having easy access to transportation is but one of many reasons to change the system. Don't act dumb with bad faith arguments like trying to frame it as the only reason.
Aquire, own, however you want to describe gaining a car in this alternative system. The point is, getting a product that is able to be acquired for an unfair price due to the CCP propping up and protecting their own companies would still be unfair.
I agree with your want for having everyone be more cooperative. The Chinese started by being quite cooperative in building cars with western companies. I used to think that was good but now that CCP has turned it around and doesn't want to share any of their developed tech with other players, I think western business greed got the better of us. I'm not as pesemistic as others that the west is very far behind. European brands do make some killer electric cars but they may not have quite the range or quite the low price and they have not been on the market for that long.
Finally, I'm not trying to make bad faith arguments. I just disagree with your position that I'll buy a dumped Chinese car because fuck the current players for not innovating. That is how I understand your position anyway, if that's not right please explain the neuance I'm missing rather than attacking me
The problem is you still care about companies. I don't. My position isn't "fuck the current players for not innovating" it is "fuck them for exploiting the needs of people, in this specific instance the need of transportation, for profits and their unjust system of private ownership that allows for it to occur."
The only thing Chinese cars being shipped here does is provide more cars. That's a good thing for people who need cars. Anything beyond this isn't my concern. I don't care if it is bad for the owners of companies; that's the fault of the system that requires them to compete for profit in order to be a valid business under the capitalist system. Manufacturing in this country can adapt and change their production and distribution to a different economic model, or they can get fucked honestly. If they don't, then, eventually, the system that gives them control over these resources will collapse, which to me is a good thing, and then people can take back control of what is rightfully ours from the parasitic class, and we can change the economic model without the need for their input.
All of your arguments are still based around the capitalist system. I don't care about it, if my needs and desires make it "bad for business", then boohoo. Change the system so it is no longer a problem. The interests of companies and their owners mean nothing to me.
So your solution is change the whole system so you can buy a dumped Chinese car without any guilt?
And for the record, I wasn't attacking you personally. I was calling you out for using rhetoric, quoted above, that was deliberately phrased to undermine my argument. That was a bad faith argument and I was heated as I didn't appreciate my argument being blatantly misrepresented.
If you're going as far as throwing out monetary economics, cheap doesn't mean anything. You're just describing equitable transportation access.
Even in that scenario, it's not desirable to have that reliance on a foreign state for such a core function. Power dynamics aside, global supply chains are brittle (as seen during covid).
Never said a reliance. Just because they dump cars here doesn't mean we lose our abilities to make our own. It just means we have more cars available. Which is a good thing. The only thing it is bad for is owners of business under the capitalist system but fuck the owners of businesses under the capitalist system.
EVs won't be cheap for long if there's no competition.
Is there any domestically produced competition in Canada? The only one a search returns is still a concept (not yet commercially available). Everything else looks to be imported from elsewhere?
Most countries don't segment electric cars vs regular ice cars. It just falls under "cars".
The same people making a decision to buy an ice vehicle would buy a heavily subsidized Chinese vehicle.
A lot of production occurs in Canada Toyota, and Stelantis have plants there
Canada doesn't really have its own automaker. We do have American subsidiaries of Ford, etc. and if they're gonna go under we'll deal with that when it happens.
Yeah, let's just have a repeat of the rare earth market. That worked out swell for the world to let an authoritarian government have a global monopoly.
With how shit the software is in American EVs we might as well skip the rare earths altogether
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Thank you BYD!
The car market is due for an IBM level shakeup in the west. It’s unbelievable to me that Tesla is the sole manufacturer that creates cars with as good infotainment as a standalone tablet from Apple/Google. Not a single other carmaker other than Volvo can be considered objectively better than Tesla. It’s fucking insane that Chinese phone manufacturers slaughter everything on the market in terms of fluidity and ecosystem. I’m pretty sure Chinese cars even support Android auto when Google itself is heavily restricted in China. Even if you’re supporting China by buying one, it’s worth it to kick western manufacturers in the teeth so that they’ll be forced to compete.
My Ford F150 Lightning takes two whole seconds to register a volume change with an animation onscreen. It’s fucking unacceptable that this is being protected in the west.
I feel this legacy auto really needs to catch up— I just don’t get it they have the money just hire 50 good software people and stick them in a room for 1.5 years and they could have a nice polished stack— just get your legacy hardware / software people to offer a nice api with good documentation for querying sensor data for the non critical infotainment system.
Volvo lol
Let’s not forget , cars are for DRIVING
Volvos drive like utter shit
The electric ones?
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