QOTD: What to Do About China?

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

It seems to be a bipartisan effort to keep Chinese automakers from coming in to the States and beating the brakes off of the American, European, and non-Chinese Asian automakers.

We have tariffs in place that might even prevent American automakers from building cars in China and selling them here. We have a prominent senator trying to prevent Chinese automakers from getting around tariffs by building cars in countries like Mexico and then selling them here.

The question to me is, how do the other automakers deal with Chinese cars? Personally, I think tariffs are a bad idea, economically speaking, and the best solution would be for the other automakers to simply built cars that are good enough -- and affordable enough -- to be competitive with Chinese-built autos.

That said, I am no expert in economics or geopolitics. I know a bit about cars and the automotive industry, of course, but perhaps not enough for a high-paying executive gig at an OEM.

I also know a lot of our audience is quite knowledgeable, so I am throwing this out to you in the B and B.

As usual with anything political, please nice or face the banhammer.

Thanks in advance, now sound off below.

[Image: Scharfsinn/Shutterstock.com]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Wolfwagen Wolfwagen on Sep 26, 2024
    NUKE EM! Lets get this car over the cliff already!
  • Victor Victor 4 days ago
    The US factories will never be able to compete with chinese labor, and that's the main issue. Maybe the liberal in you won't care. The economy will, though
  • KOKing I owned a Paul Bracq-penned BMW E24 some time ago, and I recently started considering getting Sacco's contemporary, the W124 coupe.
  • Bob The answer is partially that stupid manufacturers stopped producing desirable PHEVs.I bought my older kid a beautiful 2011 Volt, #584 off the assembly line and #000007 for HOV exemption in MD. We love the car. It was clearly an old guy's car, and his kids took away his license.It's a perfect car for a high school kid, really. 35 miles battery range gets her to high school, job, practice, and all her friend's houses with a trickle charge from the 120V outlet. In one year (~7k miles), I have put about 10 gallons of gas in her car, and most of that was for the required VA emissions check minimum engine runtime.But -- most importantly -- that gas tank will let her make the 300-mile trip to college in one shot so that when she is allowed to bring her car on campus, she will actually get there!I'm so impressed with the drivetrain that I have active price alerts for the Cadillac CT6 2.0e PHEV on about 12 different marketplaces to replace my BMW. Would I actually trade in my 3GT for a CT6? Well, it depends on what broke in German that week....
  • ToolGuy Different vehicle of mine: A truck. 'Example' driving pattern: 3/3/4 miles. 9/12/12/9 miles. 1/1/3/3 miles. 5/5 miles. Call that a 'typical' week. Would I ever replace the ICE powertrain in that truck? No, not now. Would I ever convert that truck to EV? Yes, very possibly. Would I ever convert it to a hybrid or PHEV? No, that would be goofy and pointless. 🙂
  • ChristianWimmer Took my ‘89 500SL R129 out for a spin in his honor (not a recent photo).Other great Mercedes’ designers were Friedrich Geiger, who styled the 1930s 500K/540K Roadsters and my favorite S-Class - the W116 - among others. Paul Bracq is also a legend.RIP, Bruno.
  • ToolGuy Currently my drives tend to be either extra short or fairly long. (We'll pick that vehicle over there and figure in the last month, 5 miles round trip 3 times a week, plus 1,000 miles round trip once.) The short trips are torture for the internal combustion powertrain, the long trips are (relative) torture for my wallet. There is no possible way that the math works to justify an 'upgrade' to a more efficient ICE, or an EV, or a hybrid, or a PHEV. Plus my long trips tend to include (very) out of the way places. One day the math will work and the range will work and the infrastructure will work (if the range works) and it will work in favor of a straight EV (purchased used). At that point the short trips won't be torture for the EV components and the long trips shouldn't hurt my wallet. What we will have at that point is the steady drip-drip-drip of long-term battery degradation. (I always pictured myself buying generic modular replacement cells at Harbor Freight or its future equivalent, but who knows if that will be possible). The other option that would almost possibly work math-wise would be to lease a new EV at some future point (but the payment would need to be really right). TL;DR: ICE now, EV later, Hybrid maybe, PHEV probably never.
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