If stock futures are any indication, it’s probably going to be a good day to peek at your 401(k) or pension. The reason? Negotiators from China and the United States have reached a deal. Well, they’ve reached a deal to reach a deal, and in the interim, tariffs are being massively rolled back.
It’s another morning of trade here at The Morning Dump, but perhaps I’ll be influenced by the market a bit and will give in to a bit of hope. Maybe there’s some good that can come of this. Maybe there’s a path to get affordable, yet nice, electric cars and hybrids into the United States market.
Execs already think Chinese cars are coming one way or another, even if there are a million trade barriers at the moment. How? Foxconn could be a model and, oh, look at that: Foxconn is going to do contract manufacturing for Mitsubishi.
The Art Of The Deal To Make A Deal
My perspective on the UK-US deal-to-make-a-deal was that it seemed to disadvantage carmakers already in the United States for no real obvious gain. I feel similarly about the just-announced pullback of Chinese-US tariffs.
Here’s the Associated Press on the outline of the outline of the deal to make a deal:
China’s Commerce Ministry said the two sides agreed to cancel 91% in tariffs on each other’s goods and suspend another 24% in tariffs for 90 days, bringing the total reduction to 115 percentage points.
The ministry called the agreement an important step for the resolution of the two countries’ differences and said it lays the foundation for further cooperation.
“This initiative aligns with the expectations of producers and consumers in both countries and serves the interests of both nations as well as the common interests of the world,” a ministry statement said.
China hopes the United States will stop “the erroneous practice of unilateral tariff hikes” and work with China to safeguard the development of their economic and trade relations, injecting more certainty and stability into the global economy, the ministry said.
The most important aspect of this is that both sides agree that they don’t want a “decoupling.” I.e., neither wants to live in a world without the other. The details are extraordinarily vague at this moment, and I don’t think this has any impact on the many existing tariffs in place against Chinese cars, including the ones put there by President Joe Biden.
Maybe those car tariffs should be lowered? I’m going to get Swiftian again, both in the Jonathan and Taylor sense (we’re going Red!) of the word. First, though, a reality check.
Survey: 76% Of Auto Execs Think Chinese Cars Will Enter The U.S. Market Eventually
The idea of Chinese automakers in the United States isn’t so far-fetched, at least according to a new survey. The latest report talked to more than 100 execs from various automakers in the country and found that most of them (76%) assume Chinese automakers are going to eventually sell cars to American consumers (arguably, with brands like Polestar and Lotus, and Chinese-made cars from Buick and Lincoln, this is already happening).
Erin Kerrigan, managing director of Kerrigan Advisors, a dealership sell-side firm in Incline Village, Nev., said the questions about Chinese automakers were added to this year’s survey given their growing dominance globally and in their home market.
“These are considered real threats by the OEMs,” Kerrigan said.
About 70% of those surveyed said they were concerned about the financial impact of Chinese automakers globally.
The concept of cheap labor in China undercutting manufacturing in the United States is a concern, and it’s happened before. There are definitely security concerns around connected vehicles. A big issue with Chinese companies has frequently been the reasonable fears of forced labor being utilized. All of that is real and none of it is insurmountable.
My Modest Proposal For How It Could Work
Giving into hopium for at least one subhead, here’s a best-case scenario for almost everyone that keeps a lot of constituencies happy. I don’t even think it involves a bunch of cheap electric cars coming to the United States, though perhaps we’ll get a few of those as well.
What are the big problems here? Everyone wants nice, affordable, safe, and efficient cars. As Jim Farley showed, Chinese automakers know how to build a car that checks a lot of boxes.
Obviously, all the issues listed above have to be addressed. My solution? As part of a deal with China, we get cheaper raw materials and minerals (after the country agrees to better and more ethical mining practices, causing prices to go up slightly, which is also a good thing net for the United States as higher prices make more sources competitive). What does China get?
They get access to our market, but not with a lot of exports. The electric vehicles that can be imported here are limited to a certain size/weight class that we don’t generally build cars for, partially because of demand and partially because of price. I’m thinking small, compact EVs. Those cars can be from Chinese brands and can carry that branding, if that’s what the automaker wants. I.e, an automaker like BYD could bring in a Seagull, and it can be branded as a Seagull and sold through a BYD dealer.
At the same time, Chinese automakers are incentivized to build cars with American partners here under American brands. Western car companies already have joint ventures with Chinese OEMs (GM with SAIC-Wuling, Ford with Changan, Stellantis with Leapmotor), so it’s not hard to build on existing relationships or create new ones.
Anything larger than a small city car has to be sold via a Chinese-American JV (for our purposes, that could include existing foreign automakers like Hyundai or Toyota). For instance, BYD could sell its PHEV Shark truck here, but it could only do so via a JV and with American branding, so perhaps a deal with Stellantis could include Ram-branded Shark. If you look at the history of small trucks in America, most of those have been produced with Asian partners.
There are some guardrails necessary to make this successful:
- A Chinese OEM can’t just set up a JV with an American version of its own company.
- An increasing number of raw materials and supplies need to be sourced from the United States/USMCA zone (this is what Reagan did with Japanese OEMs in the ’80s).
- Labor needs to be, if not pre-agreed to unionized, at least in a structure where it’s possible.
- Some amount of technology transfer from China to the United States.
- “Connected” systems have to be vetted through a new agency/subagency set up to protect sensitive data systems.
There are probably some other issues that need to be thought through.
I also don’t think most of these cars should be solely electric. I think they should mostly be extended-range electric vehicles, or EREVs. It’s what most people seem to want/need if Europe is any indicator.
As Bloomberg reports, some of that is a response to regulation, but tastes matter as well:
Until recently, Chinese automakers had prioritized selling EVs in Europe, spurred by the region’s ambitious targets to lower carbon emissions and the desire to lead in the emerging segment of a global industry. That changed when the European Union imposed higher tariffs on Chinese-made EVs last year, after determining that generous subsidies from Beijing had created an unfair advantage for its battery-powered car industry.
With multiyear gains in EV sales at a plateau, Chinese carmakers have turned to more conventional drivetrains to pick up the slack.
EV powerhouse BYD Co., for instance, is for the first time selling significant numbers of plug-in hybrids in the EU and the UK. SAIC Motor Corp.’s MG sold almost 47,000 hybrid, plug-in hybrid and combustion engine-powered cars in EU countries in the first quarter, according to Dataforce. That was more than double its early 2024 tally, while EV sales fell by half.
There could be some room for plug-in hybrids as well, like the crazy Equinox PHEV in China that has a 621-mile range.
Again, there’s a lot here for different groups. The environmentalists get cleaner cars, the car companies get technology, the states get new businesses, and labor gets new members.
Foxconn Lands A Mitsubishi Deal
After a lot of tsuris over Foxconn maybe buying Nissan, it sounds like the Taiwanese megaconglomerate is going to get a deal to produce EVs for Mitsubishi… which is maybe what it wanted all along.
WardsAuto explains the ins-and-outs:
A new BEV Mitsubishi model is expected to be available by the end of 2026 under the contract, which would be Foxconn’s first major production deal in the sector it has been courting for some time.
It has previously said it would consider taking a stake in Nissan for vehicle production cooperation, as it has ambitions to diversify its business.
Foxtron, the company’s BEV joint venture with automaker Yulon Motor, counts Yulon-owned Luxgen as its main client in Taiwan.
The companies say in a statement that the cars will be built by Foxtron and “Foxtron will provide design and manufacturing management services, and this model is expected to enter the Australia and New Zealand markets in the second half of 2026,” the statement adds.
So, it’s not coming to the United States. At least not yet (although Foxconn has a plant in Ohio).
Foxconn itself is a cautionary tale. The iPhone was invented in Cupertino, but it couldn’t exist in its cheap and accessible form without China. Many people say they want electric cars, yet they’re not willing to pay the high prices for them. Merely opening the floodgates to cheap Chinese EVs in the United States may help solve the environmental problem, but it creates worse issues (though, eventually, the gorillas freeze to death).
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Here we go! Yeah Yeah Yeahs with “Gold Lion” blowing up some drums.
The Big Question
Poke holes in my idea! Tell me why I’m dumb!
Photo: GM
That “Union” thing: most unions don’t allow minors to join.
BOOM!
Easy way is to have American Companies order America-Regulation-Approved cars to sell. American Companies don’t have to manufacture cars anymore. But, they know the regulations and they know what Americans want in their cars, like a screen as a control panel and electronic door handles and nanny-nagger-beeping-noises and automatic brakes and steering to prevent accidents and lots of cameras.
Yes, naggers.
I’m going to start losing my mind if Autopian writers/editors don’t start making the difference between Chinas. It should matter significantly to car buyers (as it does to politicians) whether or not the “Chinese” company is actually based in Taiwan, like FoxConn is, or if it’s based in mainland China.
Generally speaking, there has been bipartisan support for non-Communist remnants of the Chinese nationalists on the island of Taiwan. So, FoxConn comes closer to a Japanese/South Korean company that uses contract manufacturing facilities in mainland (People’s Republic of) China.
The distinction is required because it reflects the reality that Republican Governor Scott Walker would not have welcomed a PRC company to manufacture TVs in Wisconsin in 2016. Trump wouldn’t have shown up to celebrate the groundbreaking ceremony.
It also matters because BYD and FoxConn and SAIC all have vastly different levels of government influence (from various governments, to be clear).
But China (PRC) isn’t China (ROC) isn’t China (Autopian) and lumping them together signals a really weird understanding of the economy.
We have written repeatedly that Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, but the iPhone is built in… Zhengzhou Technology Park, which is in…Zhengzhou, China. The ROC and the PRC are obviously two different places, and we treat them as such.
Nope.
It will destroy most of your industry and enslave what remains. Including you all.
Either the invisible hand of the market works with no nuance or caveats, and any jobs lost by US manufacturers to Chinese imports will be replaced by jobs that make more effective use of US capital (we should have no tariffs) or it doesn’t and we require competent government intervention to improve the talent pipeline for domestic manufacturing and incentivize the growth into new markets by acting as a general buyer that can absorb the growing pains necessary to develop the skillsets for these markets domestically over however many decades it takes (what China did).
But instead the US has taken the dumbest route, worst of both worlds, with tariffs distorting the market by protecting inefficient industries while simultaneously neutering the talent pipeline with attacks on science and academia.
Your idea is dumb (non-derogatory) because it presumes that the individuals on the US side are competent actors that want genuine improvements to the competitiveness of the US auto industry on the global scale, or renewed domestic production. A reminder that LFP chemistry was invented in the US. Tech transfers might help initially, but they don’t fix the problem that caused all of these issues in the first place: An educated, socially mobile populace is not seen as an unqualified good by a large plurality of those with financial or political power in the US.
What good are tech transfers gonna do if there are no grad students to explore different pathways for synthesizing cathodes? What’s the point of vetting Chinese connected systems if privacy is a forgotten concept and the data can be washed and acquired through a litany of US data mining companies? What good is Union Labor if all the contracts are based in “Right to Work” states where the union has very limited bargaining power? What’s the point of US sourced material if there’s no regulation on the mines, and they dump sulfates, copper salts, and all sorts of nasty shit into the water table and poison the next several generations of workers?
To use a sports analogy: we’ve got to stop spiking the ball and giving up turnovers. It could be so much easier if we stopped electing the dumbest collection of scam artists and wannabes to try and do genuinely hard things.
Which will never happen.
Which is why it will never happen.
I’m starting to wonder if I should go read The Art of the Deal. Mostly because I’d like to know if it really involves telling lies about your friends and enemies alike to piss off everyone, then meekly backing down when you get called out for being a sociopathic asshole. Because my observation of Trump’s “deals” in his two terms so far suggests that’s exactly the strategy.
The art of the deal is to propose or insist on something ridiculous and then back off to end up with a worse situation than existed going in and having everyone celebrate that, as is exactly what is happening here. The tariffs are still higher then they were and will still be paid for by consumers. Any prices that have already increased may recede some but are unlikely to recede to prior levels with companies likely to view things as a win-win – i.e. the company gets a slightly higher profit margin than before this started and the consumer doesn’t have to pay as much as they would have. The consumer in actuality still gets the shaft but it’s a little gentler and less brutal than anticipated.
In all of the happy announcements I must have missed how the “fentanyl crisis” was all of a sudden resolved to anyone’s satisfaction or is being addressed going forward. Nobody gives a turd about the 20% Fentanyl tariff anymore as it’s paid by the consumer and everyone is stroking each other now that the overall tariff isn’t 145% anymore. 20% paid by a consumer to the U.S. Govt doesn’t do a single thing to stop Fentanyl at the border.
This is exactly what I predicted a few weeks (months? years? Time is losing meaning these days) ago when it first blew up. It was a manufactured crisis to enable the same kind of price-gouging that happened during COVID.
Anything for Trump to save face. Which oddly is an understood Asian business practice.
He is not interested in doing what is best for the country, he wants to bask in attention and disrupt things because it makes him feel like a big shot.
I’m old enough to remember when Japanese imports threatened our entire way of life in America, depending on who you listened to. Seriously, I remember when people were vandalizing Japanese cars just for existing.
It turned out just fine I’d say. We not only got better choices but you could see the direct influence that that competition had to bring up the quality of American made cars. Not to mention the manufacturing and management lessons learned from bringing in Japanese cars the way it was done then. We even experienced some of the highest quality and reliable cars for a good 20 years there starting in about the early 90’s – although that seems to be slipping these days.
So it’s time we do it all over again. Bring in the Chinese cars and make competition cause everyone to re-focus on building quality cars at better prices.
But how do you account for the vast discrepancy of labor costs? The forced labor in China presents a huge financial advantage albeit one gained immorally. Their government subsidies also cause a bigger divide. We’d have to outsource our manufacturing to them, convince them to let us build their cars here, or drop our automotive wages so low no one would be willing to take the job. At least those are the ideas I’ve come up with. I very much agree with your premise – the customer typically wins when competition shows up, but that makes the assumption that there is a reasonable playing field for both sides to compete.
Chinese unskilled and semi-skilled labor is no longer a bargain – rates have gone up over the last 20 years. Depending on the industry, there are places in the EU that have competitive rates to Chinese factories (not all of the EU, but in many economically challenged areas/regions). What China does have is lots of relatively low-cost engineered and skilled tradesmen like machinists – which are almost impossible to find in the U.S. Thus, if you want to be a manufacturing powerhouse you need to be investing to create a pool of workers for these skilled jobs.
Re government subsidies. I fail to see the downside in letting the Chinese taxpayer give me a check for buying the very reasonably priced car they built.
Either that, or we were never going to get a car subsidized by the Congress government anyway and that argument is a strawman.
I can see Chinese EVs eventually being sold here because they would only have to meet NHTSA standards. ERVRs would also have to meet EPA/CARB emission standards so I think they are less likely.
China has been on China 6b emissions (slightly stricter Euro 6) for a few years; while they differ a bit, so I don’t think it’ll be super hard to meet EPA/CARB.
Your idea sounds a lot like how American cars got into the Chinese Market, which is not a bad thing. I think your plan would largely be okay, as long as we can figure out two things:
The displaced American workers will of course be able to take over all the high-paying jobs vacated by those that are being deported to SuperMax prisons in El Salvador. I don’t know what El Salvador produces that is sold in the US but it’s high on my own boycott list if I see it anywhere.
The rampant IP theft was happily allowed to happen by any US (and/or other country’s) company that decided getting into bed with a Chinese JV would be good for their short term profit outlook and their own executive bonuses and Golden Parachute. China can’t steal what isn’t shown to them, the hen house population doesn’t usually venture near the fox’s den for a reason, let alone share space.
You raise several good points. The US companies definitely saw profit from going into China and largely signed away a lot of rights. I guess as a grunt I get sour about it when I have had to do a lot to obfuscate and hide IP but still work with the JVs while putting in so much effort to make products, but yes my anger should be redirected at the execs that created the situation in the first place. I dont necessarily blame my counterparts in China, they are just doing what they need to and they have often been a pleasure to work with.
Companies sometimes also just simply didn’t take China seriously as a country. For example, the owner of a couple important LFP battery manufacturer patents at first didn’t even file the patent in China, and then when they finally got around to it they did it super sloppily and combined the patents into one filing, causing it to become legally unenforceable after being challenged later; it didn’t matter back then because China was a backwater country with an inferior communist government which could never compete with the capitalisn!!!
“we get cheaper raw materials and minerals (after the country agrees to better and more ethical mining practices”
Why would that even be on the table? Isn’t there a pretty strong push to get environmental considerations entirely out of any government or corporate decisions? Ethical treatment of poor people (foreign or domestic) isn’t something that can be discussed with a straight face in the present administration.
Why reward legacy US automakers for their lack of innovation and constant pushback against regulations?
These corporations have shown time and again that they will shutter a factory and doom entire areas they abandon to economic despair if they can save a nickel by moving production.
They have done their best to benefit from cheap foreign labor at great cost to US-based workers. Let them compete outright with other cheap foreign labor.
+1
“Their decisions to eliminate some US-based jobs was bad! Let’s punish them by using Chinese competition to eliminate MORE US-based jobs!”
Ford and GM were (and still are?) perfectly happy to produce cars in China and send them to the US (Lincoln Nautilus and Buick Envision as the two most obvious examples). They kind of lose any credibility when wanting to resist Chinese companies from doing the exact same thing, i.e. bring cars over here produced by the same exact workers. How does the US-based auto labor force feel about those two vehicles and their employer?
What would be stopping a former experienced Ford or GM worker for applying for a job at BYD in Ohio or Xiaomi in Alabama? Nobody bats an eye when an American works for Honda in Ohio or Hyundai in Alabama.
How is it a punishment to compete? Assuming the Chinese cars need to meet the same standards as others, everyone should be able to compete on price.
I think a potentially much simpler way to get Chinese vehicles (and any other world vehicles for that matter) into the US would be to have them delivered in Mexico, and have one of the Mexican states take over from Vermont for registering and putting plates on any old car.
Just like people take “medical vacations” to Mexico now for less expensive medical care, they could head across the border for a day, buy whatever car they want, have it registered in Mexico, and drive it back across the border. I wonder what cans of worms that would open up.
This is already a thing. Tons of people drive across the border from Mexico every day, and many of them are driving Chinese built vehicles. I live in San Diego and see Mexican plated Chinese vehicles pretty frequently.
I’ve seen a few newer Chevy Cheyenne’s in the south and southwest.
BYDs, MGs, and Cherys amongst others are a not infrequent sight in the border states such as AZ or even much farther inland, yes, with Mexican plates. Looking them over in a parking lot shows that there is no visible external build quality difference vs the Ford or Honda parked next to them. And if they really did suck, I doubt anyone would risk driving one across the border to a country that did not have any way to service them if need be.
I believe some Chinese automakers are setting up factories in Mexico, changing the country of origin for those models from China to Mexico and potentially allowing them to get around restrictions on importing Chinese-made vehicles.
Go for it. Ford and GM were perfectly happy importing vehicles from China and charging luxury car prices for them and build plenty of other cars in Mexico that they sell in the US. Why shouldn’t the Chinese just build in Mexico and bring the cars up over the border? What is the difference between that and any of the Fords and GMs built in either China or Mexico? Lincoln and Buick will themselves tell you their Nautilus and Envision are of the highest quality, never mind all of their cars that are Hecho in Mexico.
Right? They’re playing by our rules. They’re not trying to sneak things around and into the US.
If the Chinese can serve the car-buying public better than the big three, that is the big three’s fault.
If I were running a restaurant for, say, 100 years in an area and a Chinese restaurant opens in the same area and crushes my business, that is MY fault for losing track of my own market.
The big three have relied on influence and intimidation instead of innovation to secure their positions. They have (not Ford, but whatever) been bailed out once, promising restructuring into lean and innovative operations. Some unknowns from half-way around the world with no experience selling in this market should pose no threat at all.
Your suggestions as to how this could work are “lucid, intelligent and well thought-out. OVERRULED”.
Seriously, what part of the US trade and industrial policy made sense in the last 8 years? Since Obama inked the TPP, we’ve been flapping in the wind like a bunch of dimwits and shooting our toes one by one.
Which Trump killed.
Well, it was a lucid, intelligent and well thought out trade deal. So it got overruled.
I won’t say you’re “dumb”, since it appeared as a loaded question, but not every party “wins” with Chinese cars. Not necessarily a bad thing.
—
Consumers gain additional choice. If the options are good, they can potentially meet their needs at a lower cost than today. Chinese manufacturers expand their customer base. Granted, that’s comes at the cost of incumbent players. If there is better product for the dollar (assuming there’s no dumping to grab market share), it will reduce the market share of incumbents. The auto market in the US isn’t materially growing outside of the US population itself growing. The better the product Chinese manufacturers offer, the more share they’ll take.
Is that a bad thing? It depends. Short-term there’s not a lot of impact, it’s the mid-and-long-term if incumbents lose material market share. The manufacturers and their suppliers lose business, which means their workforces suffer. There needs to be slack in the system to accommodate that transition, particularly for the workforce, as people need to retrain, potentially move, etc. to pursue other endeavors. That’s a process that happens over 5 to 20 years. Some percentage is left behind if they fail to transition.
Granted, those manufacturers may have desires or incentives to at least partially onshore manufacturing. That can reduce some of what I just previously mentioned. That also takes time if it were to occur.
—
Again, is it bad? Not really, depending on your perspective and whether or not you’re an existing actor in that system. It’s certainly messy though. That messiness is what everyone is afraid of, because it affects a lot of people.
How could we make sure that the cars built in China are done within international human rights expectations?
Oh that’s simple… we just turn a blind eye to things we don’t want to see!
so true!
lower expectations.
Done.
The same way we ensure that the “justice” system in El Salvador meets international human rights expectations?
If Chinese cars make it to the US the US automakers- due to their own lack of quality control and high prices- will be bankrupt in 2 years or less. Plain and simple.
Like the tech sector did with so many industries like taxis.
Pretty accurate. It would be the end for whatever is left of the big three.
It’s not a solvable problem because the other guys play by vastly different rules. They will always subsidize, should we as well to compete? They have their migrant workers population with no rights or livable pay in the cities, should we create that class of serf workers? They muscle and micromanage their industries- do we want a doge office at every big industrial player as the CCCP does? Etc.
The problem will eventually need to be “solved” because if we don’t they will eat our lunch. They already can make most of what we make. What they can’t make they will learn to do eventually. Fuck- even one of their animated films just broke records so they can make movies like we do too. All of it. And either we can sit around and watch it happen or rise to the occasion. To do so will mean American companies will need to change their operating models. A reversion back to heavy investments in R&D versus now where every quarter with missed earnings leads to job cuts and cuts in budgets until the company is bled dry
Survival of the fittest. To be clear, I am saying this bitterly, but also with hope that a kick in the ass is a push forward and we all eventually learn to do better.
It’s hard, because in the US the interests of the “owners” (Wall St. and other whales) and the management (C-suite) revolve around higher profit each quarter, without fail (sometimes the “solution” is to bleed the company dry and throw it on the waste heap).
I feel like you would just end up in a similar place we’re currently in with Japan. You crack the door a bit, and people are like “Hey, these are cheap and alright. I would like more.” And the door just keeps creeping open a bit more. Till the Big 3 have to stop huffing glue, or whatever they’re doing. Then rapidly pump out various modals in attempt to compete. It becomes a question of like why gatekeep in the first place? A very reasonable argument would be to give our current industry time to prepare for competing. But, it’s not like they did the other time. Could they have learned, probably. They just might be addicted to those sweet, sweet 120 payments. And will just strip the copper pipes out, and make as much money as they can. instead of more measured renovation.
We’re in this weird game of footises with the Turbo-Captialist Communist. It’s like we don’t want to hang, but they got a lot of sweet toys over there. Even before Local Florida Man did economy by vibe. At some point in time, we’re going to have to pick our sweet treats or watching “The Car That Can Jump for Some Reason” on our black market TikTok, knowing we’ll never experience it. Someone just pick a lane, and prepare for said choice. Because right now it seems highly likely the lane is “give me the sweet treats”, and our current industries probably won’t do well against cheap jumping cars. And they would rather kick can down road, then do some homework.
Also, never got why people are some afraid of the CCP spying on them. China don’t car that you went to Arby’s twice last Tuesday. It all feels like a useful villain for all those local tech companies that our currently monitoring us, who might somewhat care you’ve gone to Arby’s twice last Tuesday.
Oof, Arby’s twice in one day? I don’t think even our president could stomach that.
Of people, companies, and nations already spying on me – insurance companies and other financial institutions scare me far more than the Chinese government.
Honestly, Palantir’s dragnet should be the most concerning for your average person. They’ve proven to be fast and loose with what they consider acceptable information. Including paying for it, and anything information found in the process of a warrant. And plain old disregard for any and all legal precedent. Which conveniently, they’re well known to whomever’s check clears.
We’re up to at least 2 “The Car That Can Jump for Some Reason”s by the way (Nio ET9 & Yangwang U9)
I just don’t see that we ‘need’ Chinese cars, and if it’s because they’re cheap well then we just need cheaper cars. Unfortunately US car makers won’t get there in their own so need market pressure so then we get back to we need Chinese cars as they’re the main game in town right now for that.
I am old enough to have lived through the Japanese and Korean cars being seen as cheap junk and then undercutting American car companies. I expect to see it again with the Chinese cars and it will give my conservative rural relatives an excuse to be loudly and publicly racist again.
Under $20,000 no tariff. Under $30,000 10% tariff. Over $30,000 25% tariff.
Domestic manufacturers make ZERO vehicles under $20K.
I had a similar thought, choose a price threshold that no automaker currently in the US has a desire to go below and let the Chinese makers bring over whatever fits in that bracket.
Nobody makes a vehicle under $20k now, except the stickshift Versa, and that’s going out of production before long. The Mirage is already out of production.
I actually like your idea a lot Matt, except the union part.
There is power in a union.
Yeah, for the union, not for anyone else.
Unions, and union workers, only care for themselves.
Time and time again it has been shown that non-union workers in a heavily unionized industry have higher wages and better benefit packages than they would without the union presence in their industry. This is especially true in right to work states where employees can opt out of joining a union in a unionized workplace, but they still receive the same pay and benefits as the union workers.
Besides, who are the unions supposed to represent besides themselves?
When something unionized actually benefits me in the workplace, I’ll gladly start being more accepting of unions. Working in an industry where Unions force the most asinine issues for “better pay and benefits” when they haven’t had to deal with actual terrible pay and benefits, and don’t care about the end effects of their strikes, have made me incredibly sour on any union.
Trust me, some comments on here won’t sway my opinion on this topic.
Unlike the corporations, they ONLY have your best interests in mind.
Also unlike our government, either liberal or conservative. They only have our best interests in their minds too, don’t you know that? /s
99% of corporations, if it’s even that low, are also ass. This isn’t about bootlicking those jack wagons.
I guess it’s not that binary, but in unions vs the corporations that employee people, I side with the unions. They’re another organization and unfortunately, an organization is only as good as the people running it. I’ve had a union machinist cost us thousands of dollars in raw material, multiple times, up until he died because the union wouldn’t let him go. I don’t think he cared about doing a good job since it didn’t seem to matter to his employment. I still don’t dislike unions as a whole.
“I have not personally benefitted from a union, therefore nobody has, and the concept of unions is bad!”
Hey, people told me unions benefit everyone in the long run. Haven’t seen anything outside of safety regulations, and a lot of that is common sense that best fits the category of “natural selection will run its course”.
5-day work week. 8-hour work day. Minimum wages. Vacation time. Sick time. Pensions/retirement funds. You owe the existence of all of these to unions. Go crack open a middle school history book sometime. (But make sure it was published prior to 2016, when these facts started becoming a little too inconvenient to certain people.)
Other countries came up with 3 & 4 day work weeks and it’s been a success, minimum wage isn’t a definite because what it is in one state isn’t the same in all others and it hasn’t been raised federally in years, & not everyone gets pensions & retirement funds.
Minimum wage is the most wild thing to mention. I need to thank the unions that the federal minimum wage is 7.25? Something no union worker even remotely makes? Gee, thanks.
Most other countries have much stronger unions than we do.
OK, now you’re being obtuse and illogical to an extent that I usually only see from Russian bot accounts. At least we no longer need to take anything you say seriously.
It’s the internet. If you take everything little last thing seriously on here, that’s all on you.
I have my opinions.
Whereas CEOs and Presidents are completely different.
Mind you, I said government, so you forget about: the senate, house, supreme court, state governor, state assembly, state house, mayor, & local assembly members. If I forgot a member of American government, local, state, federal, or otherwise, let me know.
“none of it is insurmountable”
It’s early for me, but I don’t understand this sentence. Are we to get over our “real” concerns and fears?
pssssst, we already have Chinese cars here, though the Chinese discount isn’t passed on. Especially Buick and Volvo
Time to build cars people can actually afford. Signing on to the international UNECE standards would also help. We should accept both the current US standards as well as the international standards.
Someone can still sell a brand new car at a 4-digit price even now. There are Chinese and non-Chinese cars that could do it.
Renault Kwid -> Mitsubishi Kwid
Renault Twingo -> Nissan Twingo
Suzuki Swift -> Chevy Metro
Toyota should sell the Vios here.
Honda should sell the Brio here.
GM has a lot of cool cars at fair prices in their Mexican lineup. In fact, GM’s best, most comprehensive lineup is actually in Mexico.
In the 80s with the Japanese voluntary quota shit, Detroit didn’t take advantage of a price advantage. Nope, they has the audacity to raise their prices and eliminate any advantage they’d otherwise have. Toyota taught GM everything, but they learned nothing. Jim Farley has Toyota on his resume and learned nothing.
Time and time again, American car companies learn NOTHING, and they should NOT have been bailed out.
I havent thought about what GM sells in Mexico in years. Went and looked. Yep. They have some decent small cars and SUVs there that could easily sell here.
Yeah I was going to mention Polestar is literally a Chinese company selling here the price here vs china is crazy. Though they are actually building the 3’s here unlike the 2’s.
And the Polestar 2 is pretty uncompetitive in China at that price because it lacks features and is a bit outdated.
There does not seem to me to be a compelling case to allow Chinese vehicles here.
The market as it currently exists covers the needs of pretty much anyone who actually buys new vehicles.
What is a Chinese EV going to do that a Slate or Gen 2 Bolt isn’t, except be a security risk and funnel money to a geopolitical adversary?
I’m frankly tired of this site cheerleading for communist oppressors and governments who wish us ill. The burden of proof should be on the avowed enemy to make the case for why they should be allowed here, not us rolling over and allowing it. No, I don’t care at this particular moment if you believe the US government is just as bad. I also don’t care if electronics, toys, etc already come from China. Allowing that was a mistake too. A mistake that should be corrected.
Tariffs on allies were and are dumb. Tariffs and sanctions on enemies have their place, even if this administration’s implementation of them leaves much to be desired in its execution.
I think if we are going to rework trade with China there’s a big risk of making the mistakes of the past, and rather than ignore them we should be proactive in protecting ourselves.
Arguably, it’s what has left the domestic three so uncompetitive throughout much of their lives.
They didn’t need to be competitive.
I am not convinced the Slate is going to happen at published rates.
I know you will push back but the “let the poor buy used” gets old after a while.
Don’t recall saying anything like that, if I have, it’s not my belief now.
I don’t think Chinese EVs that meet US standards would or could be sold for the prices their cheerleaders expect here, and there are plenty of cheap cars now for sale or coming.
It’s the poor themselves who seem to have found more value in used cars than new the last decade or so….the manufacturers didn’t discontinue subcompacts because they were hot-selling.
“The market as it currently exists covers the needs of pretty much anyone who actually buys new vehicles.” I must have misunderstood and the cheap cars being pulled was a chicken/egg thing they were not on the lots for people to buy and then the manufactures proved them selves correct to make high profit suv/trucks. The same thing happened with manual transmissions.
This was not even close to true, at least where I lived and shopped for cars. Plenty of subcompacts rotting away while people bought SUVs instead, new or used.
The Mitsubishi Mirage has a MSRP less than $20,000.
And it collected dust on dealer lots. Sold less than 30,000 of them annually in a vehicle market of 15-17 million vehicles.
The Honda Civic has a MSRP of ~$25k for a decently equipped reliable car. Sales have declined from 377k in 2017 to 242k in 2024.
Lack of affordable cars isn’t the problem. There’s something bigger afoot.
Pretty hard these days to go after China and accuse them of this or that when we- the USA- are now one of “those” countries. Literally arresting people and their families in the middle of the night, a president who ignores court orders, a president who just cost the US taxpayer over 10 TRILLION in lost retirement savings over a pointless “tariff” that showed trump for being a chump with China just doing nothing because they really dont need us as much anymore. Yeah. China’s government is brutal and abusive. But so are we. And will continue to do so until this cult is gone.
This site does not “cheerlead” any government. We write about cars; sure, sometimes that has to do with complex topics like imports/exports; sometimes that involves having to objectively review cars (and yeah, Chinese EVs are actually good); sometimes we have to talk about policy — but it’s a pro-car site, and most of us don’t give a damn about politics. Certainly not enough to cheerlead a government.
I myself am not a fan of the idea of Chinese automakers importing cars into the U.S. (for numerous reasons, one being: I don’t think there’s a level playing field). On this topic, Matt’s view may be a little different in certain ways than mine, which may be a little different than Jason’s, etc etc. This site is not a monolith. Folks have different opinions, and they’re allowed to share them, just as you’re totally welcome to disagree with them.
But the idea that “the site” cheerleads for a government just isn’t real.
I’d like to see this article written or this POV expressed more clearly and more often then. Because the opposite seems to dominate coverage of this issue here.
I’ll grant you that I believe the “cheerleading” phrase may have overstated things a bit. But in general I’m gonna have to agree with our V10-loving friend here; there is a general tone here on the site that any liberal-leaning POV is altruistic and good while conservative-leaning ones are evil and to be ridiculed.
I see most (most!) issues from both sides and I don’t think anything is completely black or white but there is definitely a slant. It’s actually hard to really even discuss anything here because it all comes unglued in the comments. The authors and articles generally do a good job (and I think Matt does better than most of you honestly) but I do see the biases and the comment section is nearly impossible to try to discuss anything without politics ruining it. The articles aren’t nearly as biased as in the comments certainly but it’s here.
If we’re going to get into the weeds then it really comes down to specifics and semantics. If you’re more conservative as in- smaller government, more money spent on the military, more limited government, a form of fiscal responsibility and whatever the GOP once stood for then fine. I’m game. If we’re talking anything about the current admin then fuck that as there is absolutely nothing redeeming, useful, or beneficial coming from it for the average American. Its pure evil and so far beyond ordinary day to day tit-for-tat partisan politics.
I’ve never personally felt this site leaned one way or another. It just is and it talks about cars.
I do not want Chinese cars to come here because they would probably destroy the US auto industry. Millions of jobs would be lost. But this SHOULD be a wakeup call to the “Big three” that they had better prepare for that inevitability. Its just REALLY aggravating that here we are, all excited about a small EV truck ( Slate ) when there are probably 100’s of small EV trucks sold from dozens of different companies in China now that are dirt cheap and yet here we are, salivating on ONE truck from a barely existent startup because the only trucks being offered from the established automakers are either HUGE or cost a small fortune. And on top of that- most aren’t even very good. Even the new Tacoma is having major probems and good luck getting one of those for under $50k.
The world of automakers needs a major shakeup and this should be their message to get off their asses.
There’s a couple of EV trucks in China, but a lot of EV and PHEV SUVs. Trucks don’t sell well, necessarily, there, because size limits actually prevent some of them from being registered in the cities. To be honest, I’d like to think that if Chinese OEMs though they could sell cars here prior to the previous administration imposing a 100% tax, they would.
I really don’t want to get into the weeds really but to your point, yes I was referring to the philosophical belief side of things.
I don’t agree with either party in any meaningful way at the moment and therefore I don’t vote. I might jump back in if anyone reasonable comes along but our primary and two-party system seem to exist to ensure only extreme ends of the spectrum will prevail so I don’t see the point.
However, I just don’t see that this means we can’t have a reasonably civil discussion with those we disagree with, yes even a Trump supporter. Assuming they are also civil and certainly I’ll grant that is not often the case. Most start out either antagonistic or overly sarcastic to prove a point. So there’s that I guess.
In these comments section though I generally can’t talk at all, even if I’m having a conversation someone will jump in attacking me. I’ve been attacked for my position of not voting or any number of reasons.
My point on bias or directional leaning is more about the overall expectation that one side is reasonable and one side not. It’s tough to leave politics out of the cars but it’s all just going off the rails IMO.
If millions of jobs are lost, millions more will be created when the makers that don’t get usurped expand and formerly overseas producers may build here and need labor as well.
Everyone thinks Ford and GM and Chrysler will go belly up. Nobody is concerned about Toyota’s plants in the US, Honda’s plants in the US, nor those of BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, VW etc. Why is that?
If the Chinese do somehow “kill” the legacy American autobuilders, the first to profit will be Toyota with the Tundra, Nissan will bring back the Titan, Hyundai will build a half-ton, someone will set up shop to build some HD trucks, and everyone else will just build more CUVs to take up the slack from the extinct Explorer, Escape, Terrain, Tahoe, etc.
If it’s the Chinese, okay, presumably they will set up shop here to save on transport costs and hire local labor like they did when the windshield place took over the GM plant in Ohio.
It’s not like Germans work all the jobs at BMW and Mercedes in S.C. and Alabama or there are thousands of Koreans at Hyundai in Alabama or the Honda and Toyota plants in Kentucky and Ohio are staffed with Japanese immigrants… All mostly American workers, conceptually no different than those at Ford and GM and Chrysler.
Most manufacturers from all over the world have design and engineering staff here to design vehicles for the US market. There are exec structures in place. The ones that would be lost is the overall CEO and Board of Directors, many of which at Ford, GM, and Chrysler haven’t seemed to particularly care about the average US worker or customer very much in favor of their own bonus or golden parachute. No big loss really.
You’re buying right into the conservative bullshit nonsense of withholding cheap goods from people who need them because of some claimed security risk. It’s an effort to keep people poor and force them to buy the overpriced garbage forced on them by corporations that directly benefit the people in power.
Chinese cars have been on the market in Europe for years now and they have yet to be taken over by the evil Commies, so I think we’d be fine.
Lol, yes that is 100% my motivation.
The poor of this country would be so much better off if the CCP could sell them more rather than our “evil” corporations. No concerns with the “people in power” in China at all!
We’ve got our own problems dealing with our own evil bastards in the current admin, complete with our very own Jospeh Goebbels Wannabe, Stephen Miller.
At this time, we should be more concerned with the fascists in power here.
You can buy a Slate or a Gen 2 Bolt!! Awesome, where?
I trust even people making comments like this will be able to figure it out eventually.
Neither the Slate nor the Bolt.2 is on the market. There is nothing guaranteeing they will actually be as “affordable” as claimed or debut when they are said to, at this point they’re technically on par with the (un)reality of a $25k Tesla. The Maverick probably came the closest to being an actual “affordable” new car design in recent memory and then it was almost impossible to find for several years in that entry level but value laden form and now a few short years later is priced significantly higher, never mind the dealers often blatantly price gouging on the few they got their own hands on.
In any case, that is but TWO vehicles. What are the other options? It’s easy for you (and me) to pontificate and point the poors to those two “cheap” cars (one a two seat micro-pickup, the other a small four seater based on so far “buggy” Ultium architecture) when we ourselves can buy pretty much from at least 80% of the entire auto market without much trouble even if perhaps we ourselves would like to at least entertain something more value-conscious.
If the US won’t build actually affordable cars in any kind of quantity then why stop others from doing so? And if nobody really wants cheap cars then they will disappear all by themselves.
“And if nobody really wants cheap cars then they will disappear all by themselves“
That’s exactly what’s happened the last decade, but everyone here seems to believe it’s a conspiracy rather than automakers responding to demand.
China is not my enemy, and the US government definitely wishes me ill. There are more options in the world than heroes and villains
I’m against it for similar reasons. Xi Jinping has been president of Communist China for long enough. Communist China does not have a level playing field when it comes to labor standards and freedom of speech. This needs to be remembered, and we need to be reminded every time these arguments are being made in favor of Chinese cars.
Buying trinkets we don’t need from China is one thing. Buying big ticket items from China is another thing. We almost lose our choice when it comes to buying the little stuff, and often don’t know the full origins of the good being purchases, thus lowering our ability to choose whether we buy or not.
But, a Chinese made car is a Chinese made car, and buying one supports Communism perhaps more directly than buying squirt guns or computer mice.
Just to be clear here, Communist China despite being called Communist China, isn’t actually communist anymore. If it was Communist then we likely wouldn’t be discussing importing things from various companies. Because Communism notably does not involve corporate competition. And China may be a totalitarian government. There really isn’t a movement locally to make that change (outside of Hong Kong, and Outer Mongolia, and somewhat Tibet). China has a looonnngggggg history of Authoritarianism. And has multiple extremely violent civil wars. The Chinese often value a government that can provide stability, more than Western nations. With Xi providing both that, and a rapidly increasing quality of life, the guy is frankly pretty popular.
Which is why this conversation is always gets weird. Most people seem to have little knowledge on Sino-history and current outlook. This isn’t Mao doing five year plans and killing all the birds. This is a Marvel-obsessed technocratic heavily industrialized state, that’s really not all that dissimilar to America day to day. We aren’t destabilizing the CCP, it’s an Epoch Times pipe-dream.
Yes, you’re right. I have done this in the past, and perhaps it’s time I stop doing so anymore, calling China a Communist state. It’s done for the drama. My feelings still stand, and I get your points, and they are certainly valid, but stability can still be had with new minds being in charge every few years.
That said, I’ve told the story before of how a former CEO of mine disappeared for a few days on his way back from China because one of his connected Chinese salesman was pissed at him.
Were they placed in a van by unidentified masked men, and rushed off to El Salvador without due process?
“But, a Chinese made car is a Chinese made car, and buying one supports Communism perhaps more directly than buying squirt guns or computer mice.”
Tell GM and Ford to stop selling the Envision and the Nautilus in the US. They’re the ones producing in China and selling them over here, no quality issues I can see. They ARE the camel’s nose under the corner of the tent as it were…
In regard to your CEO being disappeared in China for a few days, check the news here, more than a few people have been “disappeared” here lately as well with not much sign of any intentions to stop it with more than a few of them having perfectly legal paperwork to be here.
Thank you.
Access to developed world markets should be limited to those who share our values and ideals. Empowering our geopolitical competitors who do not share those values by way of allowing unfettered access to our economic market is foolish.
The admission of the People’s Republic of China to the WTO and the consequent economic dividends for them over the past decades has not changed their government’s attitude towards human rights and policy to the developed world. I could see how the 1990s ‘End of History’ vibes could make the assumption that ‘capitalism = democracy’, but the past two decades have dispelled that pretty effectively.
We can’t change history, but the sooner we recognize and correct our errors, the better off the developed world will be.
My fear is that we’ll continue to sell our soul for ‘cheap stuff’ and in the race to the bottom, we’ll sell out our ideals and values that made the developed world the high point of existence in all of human history.
Life is so much more than access to ‘cheap goods’.
I love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Such a great band, although I feel like I didn’t fully appreciate them until a little after their prime. This is one of my favorite songs of theirs. I never skip it when it pops up in my assorted playlists.
Karen O has some pretty good solo work too
Check out “Lux Prima”, the album Karen O did with Danger Mouse several years ago. It’s damn good.
Have the American brands ever thought about designing and building nice cars that people want to buy for a reasonable price?
No, that would make line go DOWN. Think of the SHAREHOLDERS! You’ll get $80,000 6,000 pound trucks on 120 month loans and you’ll like it, mister!
I do, actually
“Yeah, my pickup mortgage is as long as my home mortgage, but at least I kept my monthly payment under $1k!”
Heh, $80k is child’s play in 2025. We’re into six figures now for a spec’d out 3/4 ton.
Oh they thought about it, but those people who thought those thoughts have now been sacked.
Translation: Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër ?
You’ve inspired me – henceforth, I shall refer to any tariff price increases as nasty moose bites.
We’ve been through this. The DEALERS buy the cars to sell to the consumers. DEALERS are the American brands customers.
If you want the American brands to build nice cars that consumers want to buy for a reasonable price, then talk to the DEALERS.
The problem is not the maker, it’s the dealers (a.k.a. middle men)
this is why people have tolerated Tesla’s poor build quality and Elon’s childish antics for so long: no dealers!
the dealers lose their ability to order new cars if they don’t hit their quota of CUV sales each month
Yup. Then they realized that the vast majority of their customers don’t buy on price, they buy on monthly payment. You can buy a lot of car at a “reasonable” monthly payment when you take out a 108-month (or longer) loan. Until that behavior stops, either by people realizing how dumb that is, or by banks refusing to hand out those loans like candy, it ain’t gonna happen.
Nissan and Mitsubishi wouldn’t exist without long term car loans
Predatory financing is quite literally the only reason Nissan still exists
They thrived on the merits of the Jatco Xtronic CVT they’re moving away from. No wonder they’re floundering now…
LOL 😛
This bit is incredible and I hope you never stop
Mitsubishi has already almost put itself out of business in the US because of their desperate consumer financing moves.
A sacrifice I’d be willing to make.
The monthly payment schtick is one of the best cons of modern times and wouldn’t work if we valued even basic financial literacy in this country.
Customer: Ugh I can’t afford this $90,000 truck that I totally NEED!
Dealership: LOOK! It’s only $999 a month! You TOTALLY CAN! Just sign here!
Customer: WOW OKAY! My wife is pregnant with our first kid and we totally need something way, way bigger and body on frame for her too while you’re at it.
Dealership: HOW CONVENIENT! We have an Expedition Big Texas Balls Edition with all the bells and whistles.
Customer: But it’s $110,000! We make $90,000 a year as a household
Dealership: OOOOO ahhhhhh OOOOOOO hmmmm let me talk to my manager….
….guess what buddy? It’s ALSO $999 a month but because we like you we will roll them into one $1,950 monthly payment!
Customer: WOW SHE’S GOING TO BE SO HAPPY I GOT HER A CAR TOO
6 months later: the man is getting yelled at by Caleb Hammer
I, for one. highly anticipate the Big Texas Balls Edition of all vehicles.
I mean, a loan isnt the worst thing if you don’t borrow more than you can afford to pay back.
I could have waited 5 years and put money into savings and then bought a car, ot I could have a car for those 5 years which I then own outright at the end of the term.
at any point I could sell it and pay off the loan if I lose my job or whatever.
I could also die on year 4 of my saving plan, so why not enjoy today
Oh I agree. Loans aren’t inherently bad and I’m not one of those insufferable ONLY PAY CASH NO DEBT EVER types because they’re wrong at worst and have different priorities at best. If you just want to live a simple life and don’t care very much about money then that’s a fine way to go about things…but if your goal is to build wealth in any capacity you’re going to have to take risks along the way and acquire assets.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that cars are good investments because they aren’t, but I’ve got no issue with taking out a loan that you can afford to have a car that you actually enjoy. I’m still paying my Kona N off but the interest and payment are both very low, so it’s not a big deal and it’s a fair price to pay for the joy I get out of driving it.
But what you shouldn’t do is what most Americans do and take out high interest loans with super long terms so they can “afford” a $60,000+ car that they don’t need. Just because you can afford the payment doesn’t mean you can afford the car. That $80,000 RAM or Tahoe or whatever might only be costing you $800 a month or whatever…but if your circumstances change, $800 is suddenly too much, and you owe $85,000 on your car that’s now worth $60,000 because of interest and depreciation you’re gonna have a bad time.
I think you’ll agree here, but do we really think they’re going to do that when they profit from it too?
Of course not. Dealers and banks are perfectly happy with the status quo.
This x1000
Even without China, Detroit never took small cars seriously. American car companies see cheap small cars as an afterthought, while others see them as a core part of their lineup.
You can also blame avergae consumers for trying to maximize their dollar when buying a car once every 5-7 years so they completely ignore sub compact cars because they might want to take a road trip with 5 people once a year
When the dealer has a lot full of CUVs for minimally more than the one compact in a bad color they have available, it’s not entirely the consumers’ fault.
they could order what they really want instead of trying to haggle below MSRP on what is available that day
but most people find themselves in a situation of need, not want.
Dealers are a lot more willing to offer a deal on a vehicle in inventory. If you need a vehicle, the delay and likely higher cost of ordering may not be an option.
They can…walk away and go somewhere else and let the first dealer realize they lost a sale.
The theory is as follows:
If instead of everyone going to one dealer and settling on whatever they had everyone instead went to five dealers, walked away from four and just bought at the fifth, all of a sudden you’d have 80% of the dealer population clamoring for the car that they could not sell because they didn’t have it even if in the end they sold the same number of and type of car.
I agree. I have way more car available to me than I need. My rear seats hold very few human backsides during their time with me. The five passenger awd suv that hauls my lone self six miles to work is definitely overkill. But I was shopping out of need since we wrote off a car unexpectedly and that was what was available.
This is one of the reasons why Hyundai/Kia are succeeding in the American market. They take their affordable small and medium sized cars seriously and people buy them because they’re comparatively cheap without being personality-less penalty boxes. If you interact with something like a Kona or K4 or whatever then cross the street to go check out the American equivalent there’s just no comparison whatsoever.
For the low to mid 30s you could get a reasonably spec’d Sportage or Santa Fe or a lower spec Equinox, Hornet, etc. It’s not a hard choice unless you’re one of those people that refused to buy anything that isn’t American. The Japanese options are superior as well but the prices reflect it in a big way these days.
There’s definitely a level of thoughtfulness baked into Hyundai/Kia products that you don’t see in the domestics.
Sorry but I am not touching any KIa or Hyundai products until they start treating their customers better. My current and former boss both own Hyundai Santa Fe’s and BOTH practically drink oil and have to be topped off at every gas station visit. Both have been on the phone and via many, many emails to get them fixed, which both should since they have an engine that has been recalled for destroying its bearings and then starts using a shit ton of oil. So far Hyundai refuses to fix their cars. So they are stuck with vehicles that will self-destruct unless they add quarts of oil every 300-400 miles. That’s beyond ridiculous.
I’m not asking you to. I’m not buying another after the one I currently own. I’m discussing why their market share is growing exponentially in the US…and even with their known issues it’s not like the domestic manufacturers are doing any better right now. Hell they’re even fucking up the shit they’re supposedly good at (looking at you and your L87 engines, GM….)
Well, we can speculate but its probably because they seem to come out with a new model about every 2 months, have crazy looking designs that look fresh and they have a good lineup of SUVs that people like. That’s why they’re selling well here. But that is probably prior to many people finding out the cars are junk.
Their cars aren’t junk across the board, I rather like mine and am going to be sad to see it go when I inevitably need something bigger in the next couple of years. There’s also a reason they get such rave reviews most of the time and most actual reliability statistics say they’re more or less middle of the pack.
But boy did they need to figure their QC and dealership shit out yesterday…or even yesteryear. Their dealerships are still frat houses and they consistently find a way to shoot themselves in the dick when it comes to quality. It seems like every month there’s another headline about some catastrophic failure, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
If they want to take a step forward in the legitimacy department fixing those two issues are non-negotiable.
For YEARS we heard nothing but how great GM’s 6.2liter V8 is in any truck or SUV that they deigned to install it in. And now… it’s all about the problems that’s having whenever the headlines aren’t discussing yet another Ford recall.
I’m not buying that the US makers are any better or care about their customers any more than H/K.
I don’t think my ’15 Soul is junk, and it doesn’t consume any visible oil between (3.5K) changes with mostly stop&go city driving. The KiaBoyz thing is a problem now, but wasn’t until 2022 (and I like having a key that doesn’t cost $250). The only other issue is that (like some German vehicles of the era) it’s a GDI engine with the potential attendant carbon problems, but so far so good.
Every few years when there’s a crisis they discuss it briefly. Hell, how much mileage did GM get out of talking about maybe making the Volt some day in the future? They even got themselves a government bailout on the strength of their bs.
(Yes, the Volt did happen eventually. It did not happen as promised anywhere near the timeline promised and definitely not at the price promised. GM is not alone in any of that, but it would be nice if anyone subjected corporate press releases to even the smallest bit of scrutiny.)