Chinese technology companies are paving the way for a world that will be powered by electric motors rather than gas-guzzling engines. It is a decisively 21st-century approach not just to solve its own energy problems, but also to sell batteries and other electric products to everyone else. Canada is its newest buyer of EVs; in a rebuke of Mr. Trump, its prime minister, Mark Carney, lowered tariffs on the cars as part of a new trade deal.
Though Americans have been slow to embrace electric vehicles, Chinese households have learned to love them. In 2025, 54 percent of new cars sold in China were either battery-powered or plug-in hybrids. That is a big reason that the country’s oil consumption is on track to peak in 2027, according to forecasts from the International Energy Agency. And Chinese E.V makers are setting records — whether it’s BYD’s sales (besting Tesla by battery-powered vehicles sold for the first time last year) or Xiaomi’s speed (its cars are setting records at major racetracks like Nürburgring in Germany).
Because Biden said you could? He’s the one that doubled tariffs on Chinese EVs from 50% to 100%. Biden also gave the EV tax credit which was essentially a subsidy to Tesla, which Trump ended.
Note that I’m not defending Trump, but simply noting that the US was heading in his direction. He’s a symptom of advanced disease, but you don’t get to blame him all the shitty things all US presidents ever did. He’s a raging tumor, but the cancer was spreading already.
Because the US is a corporatocracy. Red or Blue, corporate donors win.
Biden increased tariffs…AND invested heavily in battery plants in the US. Trump killed that. Biden’s tariffs were because the Chinese government is dumping in the US to undermine the car industry.
Yeah, I liked Jim Crow Joe even less than orange gameshow host. Some of his policies had direct negative effects on my life. Then the election came around and the democrats decided we don’t get a primary at all this time, so we ended up with a choice between an ignorant gameshow host who somehow fancies himself an independent thinker and a cackling hen who puts on no such airs, both of whom are completely loyal to the international billionaire cabal.
That is a very fair statement.
Agreed. Not sure what those downvotes are for. I saw this coming 20 years ago. Especially with lobbying as out of control as it has been. If Trump dropped dead now, we’d still have a catastrophe.
You’re absolutely right. Trump is a lightning rod for rage, but most of what the US is doing is bipartisan. It’s a huge problem that so many people harbor false hope for the controlled opposition.
The strongly worded letters opposition?
That’s a joke, right?
People downvoting facts simply because they contradict their own stated position tells so much. They want cheap Chinese EVs but can’t accept that what they defended as protecting American companies (Biden’s tariffs) and making EVs more affordable for Americans (Biden’s EV tax credit) are the reasons they can’t have cheap Chinese EVs.
Instead of reflecting on the progranda they’ve been consuming, they downvote and move on to repeat the same nonsense later. I’m relieved they didn’t call me a tankie Russian bot this time for suggesting Biden wasn’t an angel.
Yeah, people responding to my original comment assume I’d prefer Jim Crow Joe. Trump has a more abrasive personality that a lot of people love to hate, but obviously they’re both geriatric puppets to distract everyone while the billionaire cabal continues business as usual. Trump is primarily an entertainer and is certainly the more engaging distraction.
Well this is Lemmy, not reddit. We’re all tankies here.
JFC…are people this dumb? The first taste is free buddy, these TEMU EVs are being sold below cost just to attack US industry. BYD has a $38B debt propped up by the Chinese government.
You geniuses forgot about the Biden investment in US battery plants.
I just read an article stating that Ford lost 36k on every EV they sold in 2023… In a market where they had government protection from Chinese EVs.
You’re mixing a few real dynamics with a lot of propaganda framing.
Yes, China uses industrial policy and subsidized credit, and yes, firms can price aggressively to gain market share. But pretending the U.S. is some pure “market” victim is absurd when it literally did the same thing via public-credit industrial policy. The Biden-era battery buildout you cite is a perfect example: the public underwrites corporate risk, and when demand softens the companies pause projects, restructure deals, and keep the upside private. Ford/SK On’s “big national strategy” became delays, a JV breakup, and loan restructuring; Stellantis/Samsung is ramping cautiously amid volatility. That isn’t “saving U.S. industry,” it’s socializing risk and then calling it patriotism.
Also, “TEMU EVs” is just culture-war branding. The issue isn’t that consumers are “dumb,” it’s that working people are getting squeezed, and cheaper cars matter when wages lag and housing/healthcare eat the paycheck. If you want to defend tariffs or targeted restrictions, make the case honestly on labor, climate, and supply-chain resilience, not xenophobic moral panic.
And the funniest part is you invoke BYD debt like it’s uniquely scandalous while ignoring the mountain of subsidies, tax abatements, and cheap financing that props up U.S. automakers and battery JVs. If you’re worried about state-backed capital distorting markets, congratulations: you’re arguing against capitalism as it actually exists, not for it.
If we’re going to spend public money on industrial capacity, attach enforceable labor standards, community guarantees, and public equity or governance rights. Otherwise it’s a corporate welfare program with a flag taped to it.
Wrong, they are selling cheap to dismount Mercedes, Porsche and BMW in Europe, and it’s working. Once they dump on those 3 companies they will raise the prices to be profitable, but Europe will already have no options. Just wait and see. Chinese EVs are all over Germany now, and it’s only going to increase.