And, a recent tour of one of the Asian powerhouse’s vehicle plants has proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least to Honda President and CEO Toshihiro Mibe.
“We have no chance against this,” Mibe said upon a visit to a Shanghai parts factory, commenting on its seamless automation across all levels of production. Logistics, procurement and all aspects of the process were so automated, in fact, that he did not spot a single human worker on the supplier’s floor.
Ford executives saying even three years ago that China was way ahead of the game
Toyota’s CEO has likewise said regarding not just his company, but the industry in general, “unless things change, we will not survive”
Why don’t you try, I don’t know, making a better and more affordable product?
Maybe the US needs to take a play out of China’s book - require >50% ownership stake of any Chinese company doing business in the US and allow American companies to just take that technology and roll with it.
This is the very same extreme capitalism that they have enjoyed, engineered, abused. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Or, rapidly change expectations for what they charge. They cannot have it both ways
MFW the communists beat the capitalists at their own game
To be fair, China isn’t very good at communism and the US isn’t very good at capitalism.
China has way too many billionaires. And the US isn’t a well regulated, free market.
Good morning. You old style car companies (and it is not just the US ones, count the European companies in, too) slept through the last decades. They tried everything in the book to supress EVs, and still keep developing fossil fuel cars to be released in ten years.
And now they start to wake up, seeing that the world moved onwithout them, and they cry.
I work in a USA manufacturing plant that has nine figures worth of EV motor manufacturing lines cancelled, sitting around collecting dust since the new administration changed all the regulations and incentives.
and people didn’t buy them. did everyone buy a Bolt or Leaf last year???
Ford sold 823,000 F150s JUST LAST YEAR. Then the ponytail and birkenstock crowd blames the companies.
No, no. Build big beautiful F150, Tundras and other mastodonts running on dinosaur fuel. Fail to adapt, fail to exist.
Aww man, China is dumping to gain market share for EVs? That’s crazy. If only car manufacturers had adapted to EVs sooner and researched more into better battery technologies, they might not be in this position. Get fucked. This whole, every car has to be super luxorious in America is getting ridiculous. I looked at a rav4 last year and the “features” they included in the base model was mental. I just want my car to go when I press the pedal. Brake. And a CD Player. I don’t need half the shit they put in American market cars. Doesn’t help that I have a large family that needs to travel far, frequently. So, my hands are tied with getting an SUV. I’d kill for a better train transit in America. Next car gets to be an EV though. Cause that’s the sedan.
In my area last year I was legitimately looking at all options. Toyota lot was the biggest disappointment. They had 1 RAV4 that was completely stripped, cloth seats, barely any features etc. but somehow the payments were still $150 more per month than leases on better equipped EVs at that point (prior to the federal tax credit expiration). I asked the Toyota guy if he had any other competitive options and he tried to tell me I should get a massive truck (Tundra).
The guy at my lot said, “you won’t be able to find what you’re looking for; cause even if we stripped everything out, it would still be the MSRP base price.” And I was just floored by that. I walked off the lot, went home and got a PHEV from Mazda and ended up $2000 under asking; had to stay for hours though. Best I could do cause the only comparable cargo and seat size EV was a KIA EV7 (the suburban looking one). I wanted the Ioniq5, but a buddy of mine had a problem with his and Hyundai was terrible to him. Everything else in that size was just too expensive because all the EVs at that level have so many useless features.
It’s worse than that- the Toyota distributors in my area have a regional monopoly and add a non-negotiable $2000 worth of useless crap to every car for 500 miles.
$129 screen protector for the radio $80 for a bag of red USB cables $700 for “enhanced warranty protection” $1200 for nano-ceramic-ionic-polymeric paint and underbody coating
Wouldn’t they still be in the samw situation as China can afford to dump indefinitely?
They cannot dump indefinitely. That is impossible with current global circumstances. Also, if companies actually invested in EVs sooner, costs would be down already and China would have a harder time dumping. The biggest issue currently is, China can dump for longer than manufacturers can catch up. You reap what you sow, though.
They can. China has near limitless funds lol. It’s like the US with military spending except they’re doing a trade war rather than conventional war.
But they cannot sell them all. Eventually the well runs dry and they will have overstock and the wave will come to shore. The cracks in the foundation seem to be there. But I may be, and probably am, wrong. I studied engineering, not geopolitical based economics.
Car buyers usually buy a new one every 5 years at most while the rest of us buy used. They can keep going for long enough to put at least a few western companies out of business.
Source on China “dumping”? All I see are unsupported accusations that are wholly explainable by the power the lobby of the automotive industry has
The plan was China was going to sell cars like legacy auto has been doing for the past 120 years. USA said no. USA created China’s over capacity. Not China.
I will fully admit my only data is anectodal evidence from friends overseas.
Edit: I’ll also add, I distinctly remember reading abouy China selling zero mileage used EVs. Which lines up with dumping practices.
That one was less dumping and more subsidies fraud, IIRC
Ah, fair enough then. I concede.
Source on China “dumping”?
Illegal Storage at Jamberoo: BYD was caught storing more than 1,600 vehicles at Jamberoo Action Park without the necessary council approvals. The storage facility was discovered as the water park attempted to reopen for the summer season while its car parks remained filled with new EVs.
Inventory vs. Sales Gap: As of late 2025, BYD had reportedly imported approximately 51,000 cars to Australia but had sold only about 38,000 units, leaving a significant surplus of inventory.
Carbon Credit Strategy: Some analysts believe the stockpiling is linked to a government loophole that allows manufacturers to accumulate carbon credits based on the number of electric vehicles imported, rather than just those sold.
It could hit my portfolio? What portfolio?
I’m assuming they mean those with 401k’s or other managed retirement accounts.
Well that’s capitalism. It’s what you wanted right? Competition to keep you on your toes?
Looks like the invisible hand of the market favors what the people want more than what bosses think we can take.
This is not about pure capitalism, though. The reason Chinese EVs are so successful is that the Chinese government heavily subsidizes those companies. I would not be surprised if they sell cars at a loss. So the issue is exactly the opposite of capitalism. It’s pure capitalism being crushed by big government
The government investing in infrastructure upgrades instead of forever bring lobbied by the fossil fuel industry is big government now?
Not saying CCP isn’t big government, but “crushed by big government” is very strong imagery
What do you think Walmart does when they go to a new market?
Or what amazon did for many years, or Uber, OpenAI, etc. Most startups really.
What you’re describing is capitalism, whether you like it or not
This is not capitalism as China is net-lossing market acquisition.
This is called “dumping” and is not a feature of capitalism in any way. In fact, every single economic school that likes capitalism is against it. Generally net-loss market acquisition is very bad thing for our society as it privatizes gains and socializes losses. i.e. if EV market suddenly implodes many people would be holding the bag and if EV market succeeds then only a few people profit.
Marxists themselves classify net-loss acquisition as a failure of late-stage capitalism (which is fair) but when .ml’s favorite flavor of authoritarians do it then it’s ok lmao
And yet here we are, in a capitalist society, and it’s the current reality.
Wild.
We are not in “capitalist society” that’s a bit of an immature take as we have many ideologies and systems at play. We should identify weaknesses of all systems and use a buffet style policy making not subscribe to religion of specific rule. There are many great things in capitalism, there are many great things in controlled markets, there are even some great things in authoritarianism (i.e. wartime readiness).
Personally I don’t believe system design is all that important — it’s human virtue that drives all of this. A sufficently virtuous society would thrive under any policy framework as it would be capable of identifying faults and self correcting towards a more balanced interpretation and enforcement of any rule.
You have been eating from the garbage can of pure ideology.
Capitalism is destroying our planet. You can only spin that as positive if you don’t care about our species continued existence.
nope, shitty people and authoritaniasm is destroying our planet. Often quite literally too.
Shitty people don’t get to run everything into the ground unless we let them. That’s a feature of capitalism.
Besides, authoritarianism and capitalism aren’t mutually exclusive.
We’ve been ruining the environment for a very long time, and that started with the industrial revolution precipitated by, you guessed it, our very own U.S.
They’re the same picture.
I’m glad the US doesn’t privatize gains and socialize loses.
Dumping is the natural end of overproduction or under consumption. It’s also a tool to secure new markets. Capitalists employ it to get new customers and minimize losses. That’s why Walmart exists in small towns and why previous season’s stock goes on sale.
What we see here is a state capitalist entity participating in a global capitalist market using the tools available to them to secure new markets. There’s more than one tool at play here too: the article talks of the advanced state of automaton as the differentiator with domestic producers. At the scale of automation described, even if not sold at a subsidized loss that’s still gonna produce a cheaper product.
Dumping is the natural end of overproduction or under consumption
This doesn’t make sense in this context of dumping. It’s intentional overproduction for market capture not some inbalance in the market.
It’s also a tool to secure new markets. Capitalists employ it to get new customers and minimize losses. That’s why Walmart exists in small towns and why previous season’s stock goes on sale.
This is fundamentally opposite of capitalism, in fact as I said in the original comment market capture is inheritly anti-capitalist. Walmart, China etc. use abuse of power for an unnatural capture of markets. This is closer to authoritaniasm than capitalism.
Most capitalism haters fundamentally misunderstand what they’re hating it for. It’s valid to hate capitalism for it’s insufficiencies (it can be gamed and needs intervention) but it’s silly to attribute everything to some magical all powerful capitalism in the sky - this just reeks of low brow scare tactics like the red-scare.
Market capture is one of the major goals of capitalism because it allows for continuing, unconstrained profits.
When you control the market people have no choice but to turn to you if they need what you sell–regardless of quality.
Securing markets through control of supply doesn’t stop being capitalism just cause it’s done (perceivably) unfairly.
Market capture is one of the major goals of capitalism because it allows for continuing, unconstrained profits.
I feel like you’re going a bit into the weeds here. That’s goal of any participant in game theory - capture and win as much as possible. So it doesn’t matter what economic framework you’re using every participant will try to claim the biggest piece of the pie. At least capitalism tries to address this with “checks and balances” of competition while other systems just blindly work on faith that human virtue will be stronger than game-theory which it absolutely might be, at some point?
To be fair, the kind of capitalism you’re talking about is/would be heavily regulated. In a free-market, which most people refer to when referring to capitalism due to messaging from Republicans, dumping is a perfectly fine tool. Is it ethical? No. But who cares? It’s a free-market.
To be fair, the kind of capitalism you’re talking about is/would be heavily regulated
Any system ought to be. There’s no system that you can just let loose and have it self correct for itself, that’s a fairy-level of a delusion. People are very smart and will always figure out how to game a system.
In other words, a non-intelligent system will always be conquered by an intelligent participant, always.
Where capitalism extremists do delude themselves here is that “capitalism can be a sufficiently intelligent system” (the invisible hand) if it defers intelligence to game-theory level competition: because we all check ourselves we end up low-key giving intelligence to the system. Unfortunately this is just impossible to stabilize without unified borg-like society where everyone plays under this unified system but it also doesn’t mean there isn’t value of introducing some intelligence to the markets under intelligent supervision.
I believe any intelligent system will be corrupted, or manipulated for greed. It’s why I believe in complete anarchy. A complete lack of state and authority. All beings equal, all provided what they need. And everyone works with their unique skills for a better future.
Adding intelligence doesn’t make it any better. It just makes the system more exclusive for the powerful. It’s a higher barrier to entry. But the entry is still there.
We both believe in utopias. And we both hope for systems in which human beings aren’t the most vile creatures on earth.
It was a pleasure conversing with you and many blessings to you.
Cheers! I’m a fan of anarchy as well :)
market favors what the people want
not really
Please keep buying our shitty cars, we won’t survive otherwise.
TBH, Chinese cars are pretty shitty. Their EVs have thermal runaway at an incredibly higher rate. BYDs storage facility just went up because a car sitting there caught fire.
As far as price, yeah it’s not competitive when they pay their workers 10% what Western countries do and give them a coffin apartment to stay in. Then steal the IP from other countries so they have nothing in R&D.
Here’s their clone of a Taycan, which also finished dead last in reliability tests because people were burning alive in them and crashing because systems would go nuts causing crashes. You enjoy your Chinese EV you saved money on, just keep that shit a mile from my house or “crappy non Chinese car” https://autopostglobal.com/electric-future/article/51496/
To be fair to Honda or, here, Toyota…
Worth finding a clip if anyone isn’t familiar
I’ve been in the market for a decent Japanese EV for like 10 years now and still drive my 2004 toyota around. Sure China is dumping but Japan has been sleeping so hard it’s hard to have any sympathy here.
From that I’ve very heard, Japan has been betting on hybrid and hydrogen fuel instead of full electric.
I’ve been heavily considering an electric recently and was surprised by the severe lack of japanese EVs.
Nissan leaf is the way to go.
Nismo edition coming…
sadly not available in my region
So what you’re saying is you need Daddy Trump to bail you out with taxpayer dollars we don’t have so you can not change anything to make vehicles nobody can afford?
Daddy Joe Biden dumped billions into battery plants.
Are you comparing building up new tech and capabilities for the future to keeping outdated, stagnant industries on life support? I mean, even pushing for tiny nuclear reactors in cars would be less crazy than doubling down on tech that we know, for a fact, is killing our planet.
Maybe pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. You know, the whole “meritocracy” thing.
Simple affordable vehicles if they want to keep the factories busy and and sell a lot of vehicles. Greatly reduce the massive trucks and SUVs. I don’t know how many people need to tell them that before they finally listen.
They will be fine, the USA will just bail them out again and again
The USA has not been a leader in production of goods for a very long time, since the 70s for some industries. They have survived by having massive amounts of buying power.
The us is now running out of that power since about 2015. They will soon not have the option of bailing out companies.
