Or just fix public transit for fucks sake. Evs are a distraction from the problemm
The benefit of a tarrif on Tesla vs opening the market to China is that we can easily undo it if there is a US coup, Trump gets medicated, gets burned, whatever. There’s still the potential that this is a temporary situation, not the new reality. If we open up to a third party, we can’t put the genie back in the bottle.
Why not do both? I like public transit idea but does not work for smaller/rural communities
Someone’s doing the happy hunny dance…
That feels like “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. We don’t want to be dependent on either nationalist autocracy.
Get them to help build factories in Canada
I dont think there is a single privacy friendly EV on the market.
If a Canadian company could build and export an EV that wasn’t loaded with invasive sensors and where the data recording and uploading was opt-in (or non existent), loads of US Americans and Europeans would import them from Canada.
I think you can expand that to all cars, not just EVs.
Hopefully ICE bans will expand in the near future
I hope aptera will save us.
I think we should build them ourselves.
Canada has the same incentive to not open the door to Chinese EVs that the US does.
Why would they shoot themselves in the face just to splash some blood on someone else?
Canada doesn’t have the incentives that the Americans have at all. Correct me if I’m wrong. America’s incentive is to protect its own EV industry, Canada doesn’t have an EV industry of its own.
You’re wrong. Just the nature of of the auto industry makes it a little confusing since the entirety of a car isn’t manufactured in one country. But there are a lot of components for EVs manufactured in Canada. There’s especially a focus on manufacturing batteries for EVs which is the single most important component in an EV. And more plants for battery manufacturing are under construction.
What is the reason btw? Genuinely asking because I dunno
It isn’t that an inexpensive electric vehicle from China is bad, in fact that’s great.
The issue is that the cars are subsidized at such a rate that it goes beyond domestic incentive and into “we’ll just make sure no matter what we can sell for less than the competition” in an effort to drive any competition out of business.
It’s an anticompetitive practice that has significant impacts if allowed unchecked.
This is not meant as a value statement about the west, USA or Canada … as in I’m not saying “China bad when they do it, west good when they do it” because it’s bad when it’s done by whoever does it.
Effectively it’s a lever to weaponize fair trade and that’s antithetical to the idea of fair trade, at least insomuch as the international community tends to agree.
A worthwhile note is also that pretty much all US car manufacturers have dragged their feet doing EVs, excluding Tesla. So naturally US car manufacturers are struggling a lot with the massive costs related to adopting EVs now, and struggle competing with a country that spent this money getting established a good while ago.
The subsidies are still a problem, but the 100% tax is in my view a massive handout to domestic manufacturers that never bothered to try until they were behind. That 100% price increase in Chinese will probably mean high margins on EVs for yet some years before cheap alternatives come along.
It’s a fuck you to European partners also.
Fucking someone over isn’t worth fucking everyone over.
Why does that matter to Canada? They don’t make their own EVs. They have no domestic manufacturers to protect against dumping. Might as well just get as many cheap vehicles as you can, while you can.
Yes but Canada has no EV industry… so, even if it’s just temporarily to provide Canadians with an option while telling American companies to suck it… what’s the problem?
Are we really going to say we don’t to business with China because of anti-competitive practices when we have been doing business with American doing WAY worse all along?
It’s not just US companies harmed.
One also would think more long term and hope for better relations with Canada and USA having more cooperative relations especially as it pertains to an auto market.
Regardless harming your European allies to spite the US isn’t ideal either.
It’s not just US companies harmed.
Who else is harmed in this case?
One also would think more long term and hope for better relations with Canada and USA having more cooperative relations especially as it pertains to an auto market.
Why? this is exactly what we had and Trump destroyed… why would be trust them again? ever?.. even if we go back to a trade agreement, there should be hard guarantees in place to be able to trust the USA again in pretty much anything
Regardless harming your European allies to spite the US isn’t ideal either.
Why would that be the case at all? I am all for opening the Canadian market to European auto makers (very few make it here)… Most people who can afford it never buy American cars anyway as they are fairly low in everything when compared to Asian or European brands.
Why would reducing tariffs on Chinese EVs harm European allies when we already barely allow them into the Canadian market?
Tesla stands no chance to compete with Chinese vehicles. It’s wild how high quality and cheap these Chinese cars are.
I wouldn’t really call the high quality tbh. At least better than Tesla.
Supposedly, the quality is amazing. Here in the Netherlands, a car called Zeekr is making the rounds. They’re supposed to be terrific cars. And that’s a brand I had never heard of until a few weeks ago
I have a better alternative: invest in viable alternatives to driving! expand protected bike lanes, build the damn high speed rail, more trains, trams and bus lines. One more asphalt lane for cars wont solve traffic problems :)
Our newly-elected Premier has unfortunately doubled down on giving cars priority with the mandated removal of bike lanes and building new highways (413), even though their own data says that Toronto with be just as congested a few years after building them.
Oh I forgot to mention the tunnel under the 401, which is a massive boondoggle waiting to happen
Along with more work from home jobs?
Just make it so that commutes count as clocked-in time, and let the market sort it out.
Walkable cities. Biking infrastructure. Reliable public transit.
Regularless of of what’d going on in the world right now, these would make our cities far better.
Love this idea; however, bringing Chinese cars is like applying pressure to the wound… fixing public transportation is the long term healing process.
1 - They are not mutually exclusive, bring the Chinese cars now while starting on the long term public transportation projects
2 - The Federal gov can act on the Chinese cars now… public transportation is 100% Provincial purview so an entirely different team needs to address this other priority
As someone who loves driving cars, I’m completely on board with this. Driving should be optional, and I’d love to leave the car home when I go out partying, or don’t want to worry about leaving my nice ride somewhere sketchy overnight.
That would work for much of the population that lives within 100 miles of the US border, but there is a lot of rural and green space in Canada, and bikes aren’t great in Canadian winters. Canada needs good car options too.
As of the 2021 census, nearly 6 million people (16% of the total Canadian population) lived in rural areas of Canada.
84% of Canadians live in cities, and that’s where good urban infrastructure is the most needed.
Making car-centric infrastructure mostly electric will help a bit, but not a whole lot.And spending that money to get us cheaper transit in the long term will probably also free up more resources to help the remaining 16%.
Oh, I agree that mass transit wouldn’t really work in areas that aren’t as dense, but we should definitely have those where possible. I didn’t mean to say we don’t need good car options, but we should also have more options besides just cars
Now regarding bikes and winter, I’d say that’s more of an infrastructure problem. Finland also has terrible winter, yet they can bike as usual. You should watch this video if you are interested in this theme: “Why Canadians Can’t Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)”
I understand that infrastructure is more important to be able to cycle in the winter, even eclipsing temperature in very cold areas. I live in an area where there is no bicycle infrastructure, I’m actually 100x safer riding my motorcycle well below freezing on the road, than riding my bicycle on a beautiful fall day. And I do, I have gear for it .There are cities though, where temperatures don’t regularly get super cold and people don’t actually have the clothing and gear to cycle in the winter. I would guess in those areas, temperature is more of a factor. In areas where winters are consistently very cold, people already have what they need and are able to cycle if the infrastructure is there.
In cities at least, bikes are just as good as cars in winter. Your city just needs to put as much effort in to building and clearing bike lanes as it does car lanes. Places that give a shit actually plow and salt their bike paths and bike lanes.
In cities at least, bikes are just as good as cars in winte
Your bike has a heater built-in and a way to block out the cold wind and/or rain?
That’s usually what people mean when they mention vehicles in the winter, not just the road being cleared
That’s just a matter of having the proper clothing.
This is the way
Bang on!
Why can’t you guys make your own? Its not hard. Musk figured it out.
No he didn’t. They were already making them when he got there.
OK, but the design is very simple. Even Musk could figure it out alone. LiFEPO4 18650 packs have been plentiful before Tesla. All they did was add a bus that melts at excess temps
musk didn’t build anything.
I mean, we literally can and have (as a concept car). Should I link my recent post here about it?
Yes
Chinese EVs are very dangerous because of low quality standards. There are plenty of videos with batteries catching fire and the EVs burning up in the middle of the road.
There are tons of those videos from Teslas… so unless you have a legit source showing Chinese EVs are more dangerous than Tesla’s, your comment is nothing but an annecdote
This is not true.
This is also not true.
Canada can set safety standards however they want. Chinese EVs are available elsewhere, like Australia. Are they catching fire there?
Or is there one video in China where these vehicles already sell in huge numbers?
Apparently they are.
There are plenty of videos of gasoline cars burning too. Turns out packing a shitload of energy into a small volume is dangerous.
Your opinions on the Cyber truck? (An American EV that is very dangerous because of low quality standards)
Lol goodbye tesla if that happens
They’ve been on sale in Europe for years and Tesla kept market share. Many everyday E-cars are chinese (MG, BYD etc), with Nissan and Citroen too.
But that was before the past couple of months and Tesla is now suffering hugely from reduced sales (70% in some countries) - but that has absolutely nothing to do with the Chinese ecars.
The Swaticar is losing popularity in Europe?
Their sales have dropped by half since the US election.
@eestileib @LeFantome Those are rookie numbers. You got to tank those numbers further!
China isn’t our friend. The whole ‘make it more financially appealing for the world to not war’ is not working. China isn’t influencing the world to be decent and at peace. They’re Putin’s allies and therefore our enemies.
They’re Putin’s allies
And America isn’t?
Wasn’t, until Trumptler got into power.
China can buy our housing to rent it back to us, but we can’t buy their EV because other companies won’t make as much profit. Great trickle down.
Yeah China feeling more emboldened to invade Taiwan and talking about wanting to send in troops to gain experience in Ukraine shows they are looking to fill in the power vacuum left by the US and become US 2.0.
More like Russia. 2.0
The old American playbook was to ally with some local elites and then use media, secret service and economic support to bring them into power. Military force and hardcore sanctions were a tool used, if that did not work.
Russia prefers to use military force to force other countries into doing what they want.
China seems to work mainly with economic pressure, corruption and secret servcie work to set up favroable local elites. Their media game is not as good as the US, but TikTok is a clear sign that they are working on it. So far hard force is pretty rarer.
To me China looks a lot more like the old US playbook. They know the Russian one is not as good, as they saw European Empires collapse by using it.
Russia does not prefer military force. They do just as much meddling as the USA does and one might even say they do it better.
No, absolutely not like Russia 2.0 The Chinese are taking a completely different approach to the Russians. The fact that people still think the Chinese are stupid is unbelievable…
Tell me more (genuinely)
Without China, Russia would no longer be able to act. The economy etc. would have collapsed completely long ago without China. China therefore has control over Russia and not vice versa. (Even North Korea now has more to say than Putin…) So China is tackling the global battle via cyberwar and economic warfare. It is also a way to overthrow other countries without war and the West is dependent on China. China is not sending its country back a century, but into the future. They are not rushing into a senseless and stupid war, but are waiting until the stupid Russians burn through the capacities worldwide with the Ukraine war. They are also waiting until America splinters completely and possibly takes Europe with it. It is absolutely not comparable with the brainless MeatGrindr bullshit from the Russians.
I’m not saying that China won’t start a war, but they won’t do it as stupidly as the Russians. China is thinking several years ahead. Just future-oriented.
So apart from nuclear weapons, China is much more dangerous for the West
If that’s the case then why are we still trading with China? Why isn’t tiktok banned? Russia is being openly punished and rejected but China, apparently so close with them, are not?
I understood that capitalism, despite it’s flaws is the way the world has decided to prevent wars. If countries are so intertwined financially it can’t be of benefit to either party to war. If China values our business they won’t fuck with us. If Chinese companies and parties own interests in our country they won’t destroy it or even act against us, as aside from anything else we can sanction them by taking this property without any renumeration.
Because we have democratic laws and, as I said, China is not stupid but acts within the law (apart from cyberwarfare). The results of all this can now be seen with Trump, who is completely destroying democratic values. It is also enough to look at the technological difference between China and Russia. China also produces all the measurement while our measurement is also produced there. Underestimating the Chinese or comparing them with Russia is simply unrealistic.
Let’s wait and see the results of Trump policies. In the end, the citizen has the last word when he starts the civil war.
Btw. The tiktok ban showed how loyal the American population is to the Chinese government.
