World News

"We took zero action to compete and relied on protectionism and other forms of corruption to stay in business knowing that China was pulling ahead, we refused to plan for the future and harvested all the money for our owners instead and now we're fucked unless you bail us out! Not the owners, of course, who could afford to bail us out, they will continue siphoning money even though they're clearly incompetent, we need your taxes" ... How about no?

Maybe you should have kept up and innovated instead of just trying to stifle your competition and enshittify your products idiots.

Compete or die

"We insisted on fossil fuels and now Chinese electric car companies are eating our lunch, boo hoo"

Cry more fat capitalists

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the shareholders‽

That's capitalism.

¯\(ツ)/¯

Back in the 80s, American cars got really, really crappy, and that's when Honda, and Toyota, and later Hyundai, Daiwoo, and Kia were able to get market share. American car companies got their shit together, and started making cars that could compete again. So here we are a few decades later, in the same spot.

These scummy Capitalists get a taste of luxury, and they start getting lazy, while the Asians continue to crank away like they're in last place. In the past, the Capitalists finally wised up, and got back into the game, but the current crop are so breath-takingly ignorant, that I doubt they could even recognize that they're in trouble. If someone were to try to explain it to them, they'd probably just attack back.

The Japanese and Koreans will get their shit together. America won't.

China will soon, or prolly has already, be the number 1 country. US oligarchs are just focussed on getting richer instead of trying to advance humanity technologically.

OH NO! THE FREE MARKET IS WORKING BUT NOT IN OUR FAVOR!!!

Then stop being greedy fuckers

Good these are companies that fought the transition to EVs every step of the way. Toyota in particular. Which was ironic after releasing the Prius

How many of those companies spent literal billions of dollars on stock buybacks to inflate share market price over the last decade instead of investing in the people and facilities and products to remain competitive. Even if there is dumping I doubt it's anywhere near the combined spent on share price inflation buybacks & savings instead of investing in the workers and business, these companies enjoy unjustified tax breaks and subsidies from their governments as well.

This is a the economy being equated to wealth/investor class problem. Workers in and around cities want cheap affordable evs & charging infrastructure for renters, mechanics and parts producers want to build and work on affordable evs. People who own stocks expecting growth returns and executive compensation want to sell 10 cars a year for a trillion dollars each if they could.

I dunno how the Japanese and Koreans will do, but I 100% guarantee that the American companies will do absolutely nothing, whine about it to their child rapist in chief and then get a massive government bailout paid for by ordinary Americans.

I cannot wait to see legacy auto disappear. It’s about time they failed. It’s fucking absurd that the most expensive piece of tech I own has a 15fps display with touch response rate measured in seconds, rather than milliseconds. They did this to themselves.

Legacy auto did nothing to compete with Tesla software, and they came out over a decade ago.

Oh, and they took the ‘10 bailouts and did fuckall with them. They didn’t take the bailouts and make a suddenly better product.

that he did not spot a single human worker on the supplier's floor.

I know that workers cost money to have but eveytime I read something like this I wonder if the corporations take into consideration the decrease in the number of people who may be able to purchase the product in the first place.

Well I guess your high paid CEOs and executives really fucked up then, right? That's exactly what you were saying? Because everyone else saw this coming from miles away, and we have been clamoring for these kinds of cars for a long ass time, even small gas cars are hard to find now. So what are those guys paid such high salaries for if they are so completely dense...?

Herp my derp look who is mad about the "free market" now?

Don't come crawling to us for bailouts this time

I would bet that Chinese auto manufacturers aren't taking 6 billion a month out of their company to pay shareholders in stock buybacks. Maybe reinvesting in the company to remain competitive is in fact, a good strategy.

Oh no my portfolio... Seriously, there's something called competition, it's been around for a long time. If Chinese companies continue pushing ahead while US companies remain complacent then that's just what will happen. These older car manufacturers have had DECADES to prepare for the newer battery tech to design and build good affordable BEVs, but they just didn't.

This is what happens when billionaires try to steal the future. Read about the General Motors EV1. Oil companies have fought against the development of EV charging infrastructure in the US.

Don't charge $100,000 for a regular fucking vehicle?

Seriously, all the useless expensive shit they add to vehicles to make them unmaintainable data miners is why they're going to get slaughtered.

Give me an electric pickup with 4WD and crank up windows. Preferably no radio. I'd buy one of those Slates in a heartbeat if it were 4WD, as much as I hate Jeff Bezos.

Okay, so you're getting out-competed in the market. Pay proper wages, invest in innovation instead of executive salaries, and take a slimmer profit margin to help your customers.

I've been wanting Honda to make an affordable all-electric car for years. Based on how BYD is selling, I'm guessing I'm not the only one.

Instead they keep making bigger and bigger, gas-guzzling vehicles, with bells and whistles we don't need, saying that's what sells and they can't make an electric vehicle they're happy with.

Well, too bad. It seems I've bought my last Honda, sadly, because my next vehicle will not burn gasoline.

automation across all levels of production

Maybe its true. Regardless, article sounds like anti-worker propaganda to me. China is gonna eat our lunch! Better take a pay cut, and be glad you're not laid off!

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.

That’s the problem with disrupters, people are so involved with dismissing them that they don’t see what’s happening. For years it was all about cheap Chinese labour then turn around and discover that it’s really all about robotic factories and slick organisation. Throw in EVs and it’s the same but worse.

"Detroit Motor City". I.e subsidizing losses.

Of course you could apply protectionism, but that wouldn't be fair and would set a public precedent on the global markets.

But yeah, the petroleum lobby really managed to screw us sideways. All those anti EV, anti solar and anti wind campaigns.

It is perhaps the biggest, oldest, slowest moving and most fraudulent of bailouts in all of history.

We are just that stupid.

Aw, Capitalism not working out for you car manufacturers? Awww, that’s too bad.

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.

This continues to baffle me. Europe, the US, and likely even Japan was never going to be able to win the race to the bottom on price. China understands its supply chain and mineral strengths and has optimized its entire production towards churning out good (or good enough) EVs at scale.

Still, the US could continue to wall China out of its market with massive tariffs while also promoting alternative cheaper vehicle options, a large portion of which should and could be EVs. But the US hasn't even done that... Domestic manufacturers have run screaming from EVs, seemingly ceding the entire field to China.

While Toyota and Honda at least have an acclaimed history in low cost and efficient vehicles, Ford is literally 1/3rd the the reason the US doesn't manufacture sedans anymore, with the other 2/3rds being GM and Chrysler.

I actually witnesses them layoff their entire sedan division in real time when they announced the end of the fusion. I'm pretty sure it was mostly liquidated by the time covid hit.