cwerdna said:
alozzy said:
to compete against the $25k Tesla.
Gotta love the Tesla hype machine. I found it doubtful they will ever release a $25K USD (before tax incentives) automobile in the US while Elon is in charge. Even if they did, it will be late, hard to get and quickly killed due to "lack of demand.
The Chinese might make it a government priority to produce EVs so cheap that it destroys the competition for all but luxury EVs. They have used this strategy (short term financial losses, subsidized by government, in order to grab huge market share) to great effect in so many other markets.
An excellent example is the solar panel industry. Thanks to huge government loans and tax breaks to Chinese solar panel manufacturers, those companies were able to acquire the expertise and economies of scale to flood the solar panel market with inexpensive, decent quality panels.
US manufacturers - despite owning many patents and other IP for solar panel technologies, and despite having created and dominated the solar panel market for decades - lost market dominance over a 5 year period.
It seems inevitable that the Chinese will do the same with the non luxury EV market segments. They already own/control much of the EV battery supply chain, including lithium mining interests in the Congo and elsewhere. Tesla's decision to focus on luxury EVs is very likely a recognition of, and response to, that inevitability.
Chinese EV manufacturers will give Tesla some tough competition in the luxury market too, but at least Tesla are well established in that market and can likely hold their own.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/10/22/outside-of-tesla-china-might-be-dominant-force-in-global-ev-market/
https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/the-us-is-falling-behind-china-in-the-race-for-electric-vehicles/
An excerpt from that last article:
In the past decade, Beijing has poured more than $100 billion into its EV sector and is also looking to lead in the connected, autonomous, and shared vehicles of the future. Beijing plans to spend $120 billion on connected and autonomous vehicles by 2021, and more than $400 billion on 5G technology
Tesla alone cannot stem that tide. Unfortunately, US politics makes any long term, strategic economic goals almost impossible.