Honestly this was always idiotic to begin with. European car lobby was whining that Chinese green and renewable tech is too high quality and we can’t compete. Fucking invest more into green and renewable tech, you know, just like China did to end up in the lead.
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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Until car companies have slave labor, control of the world's rare earth minerals, and a bottomless pit of money comparable to the Chinese government for both R&D and consumer subsidies, that's completely impossible.
China isn't doing this for altruistic reasons, they're leveraging their position to put every other automaker in the world out of business. They're cozying up to China currently because the US is being run by a lunatic and they need powerful allies.
Choosing lawful evil as ally and dumping chaotic evil from the party.
control of the world’s rare earth minerals
China's dominance isn't really because China has exclusive access to known reserves of it. It's because China dominates the processing industry for these. I'd guess that at least some of that is probably due to more-permissive environmental regulations.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/23/nx-s1-5475137/china-rare-earth-elements
Many so-called rare earth elements are actually quite common, and they are mined globally, but China has a near-monopoly on refining them for use in everyday electronics, like smartphones and speakers, as well as for crucial defense systems, like fighter jets.
https://rareearthexchanges.com/news/how-china-processes-rare-earths-what-review-really-shows/
Environmental performance differs regionally—higher impacts at Bayan Obo (legacy tailings, fluorine management), lower-impact circuits in Sichuan, and improving in-situ protocols in the South. Nonetheless, wastewater, ammonium-nitrogen, and tailings management remain significant sustainability challenges. And we know the devastating state of Myanmar’s heavy rare earth mining operations.
Canada is lowering Chinese EV tariffs because that orange madman is trying to destroy Canadian and Mexican auto sectors.
If he wants to shit in his own hat, we’ll help him pull it well down over his ears.
They probably figured given Dieselgate resulted in a slap on the wrist, they might as well persue cronyism, rather than competence.
Aside from the issues that the article notes, I am skeptical that this is gonna work from a business protection standpoint, if protectionism is the state's goal.
Say the issue is that VW cannot make EVs in Europe competitive with BYD in China. Labor or environmental regulation costs drive their costs up. Say BYD can make a car for 75% of what VW can.
The EU says "okay" and sticks a price floor in the EU Customs Union at whatever VW is selling at.
Ah, now the playing field is level! Or...is it?
Yes, BYD can't undercut VW on prices now. But it still has that cost advantage. What BYD is going to do is to spend that extra money on adding more desirable features to their car. So now, at the price floor, you're going to have a lackluster VW model and a really spiffy BYD model. Okay, maybe VW can ride on their reputation for a bit, but at some point, if BYD is consistently putting out better cars at a given price point, that's gonna affect consumer views.
What I expect it will do is reduce the number of people buying EVs at the lower end of the market, where VW wasn't making an entrant, so now those consumers will probably be getting a conventional vehicle instead of an EV.
No, BYD will and is spending that money on advertising.
Tesla is still king in a lot of ways, but let's even take any of the Korean brands, they wipe the floor with BYD when it comes to tech, range and quality.
BYD doesn't even have 1 pedal driving. You and many here might not be experienced with EVs, but that's a cardinal sin.
Yet you see any media on BYD, and not a peep about it? Curious is it not? Replace the name with xiaomi, as there's always one cuck in these comments promoting them. Handles so bad, they're making China ban flush handles. THAT'S how bad it is, they're also prone to overheating even on their ultra models and catching fire at a scale, it's making news. But hey, you go onto any comment section and you hear nothing about it but whole lot of anti Tesla slander.
Lucid and Rivian are the only ones chasing after Tesla tech and they're still a decade behind looking at the recent lucid model.
Tesla gets a lot of political hate, but we shouldn't dismiss the technological advances they made so every other brand gets to ride it out on their ancient shit (VW group).
I want a car like my 21 plate model 3, I don't give a fuck if it's European or American or Asian, as long as it's not shady and not Chinese propaganda. My search continues, nothing comes close to convienience of Tesla and 91k miles in, I'll continue running it till the wheels fall off.