“We can’t drop the tariffs on Chinese EVs. They’re built by skave labour!”
“But Chinese Volkswagen is ok”
this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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BYD's next marketing campaign could simply be screenshots of German auto manufacturer quotes at this point.
Almost all tariffs are to protect the local market. China heavily subsidizes their EV industry so China can get a big part of the global market. This is not good for the market. Another example is steel. China dumped so much on the market that almost every other steel manufacturer in the world had trouble getting rid of their product.
This is also why the following is part of the article:
The Commission said in April that it had agreed with China to look into setting minimum prices of Chinese-made EVs instead of tariffs, but it has insisted that any minimum prices would need to be as effective and enforceable as the tariffs. Minimum prices are fairer for China. They would get more money for their cars, but it would also make it so consumers don't get persuaded by low prices. A healthy market that's fair for all.
I'm guessing Volkswagen doesn't really produce these kind of cheap EVs in China. Which is probably why they feel the tariffs are unfair for them.
And slave labor is probably not a big part of the whole story. Although I'm guessing in the case of Volkswagen the chances of slave labor are far lower too because the EU can punish them much harder than Chinese companies.
China heavily subsidizes their EV industry
They've mostly phased out the subsidies, and will increase the ev tax to 10% in 2028.
slave labor
lmao
I replied to a comment implying slave labor buddy. Don't point at me.
"Slave labor" also means all kinds of other stuff like holding passports, offering housing but not enough money to get away from it, forcing extreme hours, etc.
From the article:
China has sent a clear signal that it is willing to pull the plug on subsidies for its electric vehicle industry
That is a huge difference to having mostly phased out subsidies.
It started phasing them out in 2022, they reach 0 in 2027
They are phasing out subsidies to buyers of EVs, but not the ones applying to Chinese exports of EVs. The Chinese even aknowledge that their susbidies created a massive oversupply, which means artifically low prices for them. That creates a huge problem for the European car industry, which did not get those subsidies.
ones applying to Chinese exports
That's not a thing, if it was, exports would be cheaper than the same models on the domestic market. What is framed as subsidies is supporting the industry getting production up and and running.
There's no overcapacity as evidenced by China only exporting a tiny fraction of their production, and at profitable prices.
Maybe you should actually read the article you linked. It clearly speaks about overcapacity.
Also China is by far the biggest car producer in the world making up a third of global production. The exports are also massive. Last year the exported 5.859 million vehicles and grew more then 19%. The only countries producing more cars then China exports(only exports) are the US, Japan and India. Also this up until September Chinas car exports grew by 14.8% compared to the same period last year. So that would overtake Indias total car production of last year.
You're comparing absolute numbers without considering population differences, of course an industrial superpower, with 1.4 billion people, makes a shitton of cars. Meanwhile Germany produces 4x more cars for export than domestic consumption, and nobody says its overproduction.
That is most certainly the first time, I heared the United States of America described as a nobody.
Germany had 2.8million new cars sold in 2024 and a production of 4million cars. So net export is 1.2million cars. The difference is that Germany imports 4x more cars China does.
About the absolute and per capita. That does not make that much sense for trade. Countries with a smaller population have to specialize much more and trade in other products. Iceland would be stupid, if it had its own car industry for example, but it has a massive aluminium overproduction, which it can then trade for say cars. However larger countries are able to produce a lot more internally. So they tend to export and import less on a per capita bases. So yes China can not do certain things other smaller countries do, just due to its size. In this case even 4x lower net exports of cars then Germany, still mean 4x more cars being exported in total, which causes trouble around the world.
I can't see your first link because the site blocks Hong Kong, and the great firewall blocks CNBC.
But while America is a huge market, the big 4 are kinda garbage riding off half a century of anticompetitive trade practices, people literally only import them as conspicuous consumption, except Buick (GM), taxi drivers I've spoken to seem to like them. We would expect the US to export a smaller portion of our shitty, overpriced cars and import more cars.
still mean 4x more cars being exported in total, which causes trouble around the world.
Skill issue. Refusing to make better, cheaper cars, and just buying politicians and newspaper articles to support anti-competitive practices is how you get a median ev cost of >50K in the US.
It is about Trump wanting German car companies to move their production to the US. Which is also really important to stress that a lot of cars made in the US are not made by the big 4, but by Toyota, Hyundai, Volkswagen, BMW, Subaru and other foreign car companies. A lot of countries are looking for similar set ups from China as well. So stuff like BYD building factories in Thailand and Hungary for example.
Much of China cars exports are from petrol cars.
China floods the world with gasoline cars it can't sell at home
China’s gasoline-vehicle exports alone – not including EVs and plug-in hybrids – were enough last year to make it the world’s largest auto-exporting nation by volume, industry and government data show.