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Comment Re:None of this is going to matter (Score 1) 126

Nah. You’re not going to go down that route. Your roads are too deadly in their design for a large scale modal shift to micromobility. You’ll just all end up driving ancient giant clunkers and spending a fortune on them. Like all the cars that people drive when they get visited by Secret Santa on East Idaho News. Poverty everywhere, that’s the future, especially when the healthcare costs go shooting up next year.

Comment Re:'Big 3' can't compete globally (Score 1) 126

We see, and have seen, growth in markets whether or not there were financial incentives, including as those incentives were phased in and out over time. Incentives don’t explain changes in growth rates very well, nor the large differences between countries. When the UK removed incentives in the dog days of the Tory government, growth continued, and it continued after a new incentive was put in place by Labour.

And pretending that the cars aren’t actually being sold is just the weirdest kind of cope. I don’t know where you are in the world, but I’m in London and can promise you that EVs are absolutely commonplace round here, and becoming more and more common over time. Well over a quarter of the cars on my street are EVs now.

If you’re going to argue incentives skew the market, I’m going to argue that the unfunded externalities of ICE vehicles are a massive distortion in favour of their predominance, and if ICE purchasers had to cover the care costs of the associated morbidity and mortality from tailpipe emissions and noise pollution, they would be ruinously expensive (and that of course excludes their major contribution to climate change costs).

Comment Re:Dumping isn't just selling cheap / subsidisi (Score 1) 126

Nope. Not even close. This is cope & propaganda taking a word with obvious negative connotations and applying it to a situation where it doesn’t apply to make US consumers, who might otherwise be very happy to see Chinese affordable cars on the US market, accept the protectionism.

Dumping has never meant “offer low prices” or even “offer prices below cost”. Doing the former is fundamental to how markets are supposed to work, and the latter is typically completely acceptable, so much so that we are all familiar with the term loss leader to describe one version of it.

I think the term you and others are groping for is predatory pricing, not dumping. Very hard to prove, though. But even then it doesn’t apply to Chinese companies seeking to win in a new geo, because predatory pricing comprises these three things:
1. Seller has significant market power (e.g., a near-monopoly)
2. They’re doing it with the intent of driving competitors out
3. It is likely to succeed in reducing competition long-term

So it’s an incumbent strategy, not a new entrant strategy.

Comment Re:Germans just cannot help themselves, huh? (Score 1) 41

And than you look at the US doing this crap for far, far longer. Bug-planting by law-enforcement has a long, long tradition in the US. The difference is that in Germany, so far, this was completely illegal for law enforcement. Whether this will stand in Berlin remains to be seen, but I doubt it.

Comment Re: Size (Score 1) 195

Do you have trouble with reading comprehension? I specifically answered to "How many countries have banks the size of Credit Suisse?", nothing else. And, as it turns out, that insinuation was complete and utter nonsense.

You are just an asshole trying to move goalposts when your bullshit gets called out. How repulsive.

Comment Re: There is a shortage of radical imams (Score 1) 195

USA: 4,453,908 Muslims. Funny. Incidentally, Germany has more Muslims per capita than Switzerland.

And what does LGBTQ rights have to do with whether "Islam has always been an integral part of the Swiss experience"? Are you mentally challenged?

All I see here is that you are full of shit.

Comment Re:'Big 3' can't compete globally (Score 1) 126

The enthusiasm for electrification among European *OEMs* has waned for several of them, and was never very high to begin with. But not all of them -- eg Renault -- and the enthusiasm among European consumers, as evidenced by sales, continues to grow. After all, market share across Europe for 2025 YTD is about 18%, 4 percentage points higher than 2024. As more non-premium models become available, I expect things to accelerate further. Politicians care more than they should about OEMs and less than they should about consumers, both in the US and Europe.

Comment Re: Dumping isn’t just selling cheap / subsi (Score 1) 126

No, dumpging doesn't mean selling below cost. That's not a definition you'll find in any legal or economic textbook, it's not the definitions used in any laws or treaties, etc. It's a misconception.

Dumping is what I described above. Here's what is written into UK law, for example:
"(2)For the purposes of this Act imported goods shall be regarded as having been dumped—

(a)if the export price from the country of origin is less than the fair market price there (whether the country of exportation is the same or a different country); or

(b)if the export price from the country of exportation (if a different country) is less than the fair market price there"

https://www.legislation.gov.uk... [legislation.gov.uk]

No reference to production costs. All that matters is the export price being less than the fair market price in the country of origin.

Comment Re:Dumping isn’t just selling cheap / subsid (Score 1) 126

There's tons of weird incentives from the Chinese state, for sure. But it doesn't amount to dumping. And of course the US has long provided incentives (and bailouts!) to its own OEMs.

Agree re Toyota / Geely and local manufacture. But obviously the US government is, erm, not very committed to encouraging overseas direct investment in the auto sector at the moment, as amply demonstrated by the Hyundai fiasco, and the specific route you describe ain't open to Chinese OEMs and doesn't look like it will ever be opened.

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