• OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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    8 days ago

    They won’t even allow us to buy affordable EVs. I’d be thrilled to be able to buy a BYD for $10k, but they won’t let us import them because it’d “destroy the domestic market from so many people who’d buy them,” and the domestic manufacturers won’t make them because “nobody would want to buy them.”

    Even economical ICE sedans are dying, no more Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Mitsubishi Mirage, Nissan Accord or Nissan Versa. There’s literally nothing you can buy new for under $20k, and the used market is affected by that too.

    Honestly a lot of this trade war bullshit is just to keep consumers from buying cheap, environmentally friendly options and try to force us to spend money we don’t have on some enormous gas guzzler. Where’s the option for us broke MFers who just need to get to work?

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        6 days ago

        The cheapest new EV available in the States is the Chevy Bolt at $29k, and the cheapest car in general is the Kia K4 at $23.5k. It’s insane.

        • HerbGrower@slrpnk.net
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          6 days ago

          Cost is a large part of why I didn’t learn to drive, I thought our prices looked insane and for a long time I couldn’t afford it even if I wanted to.

          Now I probably could but I don’t want to, would rather keep that money on making life worth living. I know someone replacing their car, still second hand for their “new” one and the payment numbers I am hearing are crazy. My bike cost as much to buy as that car will every month before they even pay for fuel, insurance or maintenance. Our commute is the same distance too.

          And once it’s the end of the lease? The pricing is designed to push you to buying another car straight away.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago
      1. No BYD or whatever can sell for $10K in the US. Not without dumping, which is what Japan did in the past.

      2. The US consumer is not lining up to buy Chevy Bolt or Nissan Leaf, so the affordability excuse is bullshit because sales of trucks over $60K in booming.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        6 days ago

        This doesn’t answer anything. If consumers aren’t interested in buying cheap EV’s, then let us buy them, because it won’t harm the market. If enough people would buy them to make an impact, then make them domestically. Regardless of what level of demand there is in the US market, you don’t get to have it both ways.

    • sparkyshocks@lemmy.zip
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      8 days ago

      Even economical ICE sedans are dying, no more Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, Mitsubishi Mirage, Nissan Accord or Nissan Versa.

      This is partially the fault of an ill advised regulatory change in the Obama era, where the fuel economy standards became flexible based on vehicle wheelbase size, so that the smallest cars became difficult to actually fit into stricter fuel economy standards. It perversely incentivized bigger and bigger vehicles, so that the smallest cars and smallest trucks fell out of favor.

      It didn’t apply to EVs, and that fuel economy standard was repealed entirely, so maybe small vehicles can come back. But it’ll take a while to undo the damage that the last decade or so has done to the market for small cars and small trucks in the US.

      • Almacca@aussie.zone
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        8 days ago

        I sometimes feel like the entire capitalist economy, and not just in the USA, is running on perverse incentives.

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        It perversely incentivized bigger and bigger vehicles, so that the smallest cars and smallest trucks fell out of favor.

        This was because the US government bailed out Detroit with huge loans in 2008 and had to insure they could get that money back. He also took 677,000 cars off roads in cash for clunkers, to torpedo the used car market and force people to buy that Detroit shit.