European & US car makers seem to be in retreat. European car makers are lobbying the EU to relax laws pressuring them to hurry the transition to EVs. The current US administration wants to pretend the switch to EVs isn't happening, and gasoline will go on forever. This stance will doom the country's car industry on the global stage, and eventually at home, too.
Some people complain about Chinese manufacturing dominance through shady and unfair practices, but they won't be able to when China owns the global car-making industry in the 2030s. All the warning signs were clearly signposted, and willingly ignored.
Are European & US car makers staring death in the face? 18 of the Top 20 EVs sold worldwide in August 2025 were Chinese.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
21 Comments
This is what happens when a new technology emerges and you incessantly drag your feet on adopting and developing it.
The established car makers in many western countries (and Japan) seem to prefer spending money on lobbying so they can keep making ICE cars as long as possible over spending money on actually innovating and preparing to fully switch to EV.
These companies are committing suicide and I have limited sympathy for them and hope nobody bails the out with taxpayer money when the time comes.
Europe is taxing EV’s at rates ranging from 7.8%(Tesla) to 35.3%(SAIC). BYD, Polstar & most others are around the 17%-21% range. At those rates, European producers have some advantage but many of the imports are still competitive. European producers will have time to get better and improve their price/quality offering.
The US has a flat 100% rate (rumoured to soon increase to 247.5%!). At those rates, only US made EV’s are competitive, even at significantly higher production costs than foreign competitors. This will ENSURE that US manufacturers don’t face the pricing and quality competition that the market should produce & as such their products will remain over-priced and under-equipped.
There’s only so long that US consumers will put up with paying twice as much than the rest of the world while receiving inferior vehicles. So I would say that the US tariffs virtually guarantee the US motor vehicle manufacturing industry will die or at least be annihilated to such a degree that they’ll be bought out in future by their foreign competitors.
Not yet. As long as Americans need their big trucks, SUVs, and high performance cars, the manufacturers have nothing to worry about. And the fact the current administration is hell bent on the US going back to the dark ages.
Yes they are. China, Japan and S. Korea usually eats most of the car market of a country once they enter it.
Thing is that they are massive improvements than whatever european Brand brings here. In Brazil for example: Even with heavy lobby, BYD and GWM stabilished themselves in the nation and pratically broke Ford, is trying to break GM and Stellantis is having a not-so-fun time having to play catch with rebranded Chinese models and awful Semi-Hybrid frankeinsteins of Pulse and Fastback that costs the same as a BYD dolphin and BYD King.
Just this month Renault, the creator of the abomination known as Kwid, decided to double down on it with a Dacia fully eletric model that broke the R$99.990 barrier for Fully eletric cars….that does 180km of range.
Yes 180km. For incredible R$20000 more you get the BYD Dolphin Mini with 280km of Autonomy at Worse.
For the same R$99.900 you get the same Dolphin Mini 2025 used, with the 280km of autonomy.
European and US car makers are more than capable of creating great EVs if they wanted to, look at Tesla, Porsche, Lucid, etc. But their markets need to want to buy them. Need to balance protecting domestic jobs/industry vs. importing cheaper products. From a technology perspective, I’d be more concerned about Japanese automakers.
They only have themselves to blame, and I say this as a European. They’v kept overcharging for EV’s even though the production cost of batteries have dropped drastically making it easy for Chinese auto makers to flood the market with brands like BYD.
If they want to have any hope of surviving in this market they have to adjust their prices and as we know from the current US administration tariffs does not work.
Compete or die.
Edit for links:
https://www.freeingenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/g202-LionBatLearn-site-learning-lithium-ion-batteries-economies-price-decline.png
https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/23807.jpeg
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/FOTW_1272.png
Last one pertains specifically to cars and comes from the Department of Energy.
Production cost have gone down much more than consumer prices have dropped for EV’s.
Hopefully all German firms are staring death in the face for dumping shitty, chronically defective cars on us for decades now.
The Americans as well, particularly GM, but Ford is up there, so is whatever Chrysler is inside Stellantis for purposely making shit cars for decades and covering it up.
How many decades now can engines have chronic timing chain problems or rubber oil pump belts submerged in oil, or bad transmission metallurgy
Predatory tactics. I’ve seen plenty of sources that a lot of Chinese branded cars are subpar in quality.
Domestic industry suicide.
Aren’t they largely doing it largely on price? If so, when the Chinese government is willing to heavily subsidize the industry AND have access to much cheaper labor, I’m not sure what the scenario was going to be that didn’t get us here…
Chinese car makers are in a race to the bottom selling crappy cars to third world countries
In Scandinavia where infrastructure for charging cars is being developed as the size of the ev fleet grows second hand electric cars are being imported from southern Europe where charging is not easily available. So once more it’s partly a problem of ineffective governance.
So people are pivoting back towards hybrids. Makes sense.
If on the other hand China has the technology and production base to supply emerging economies with cheap autos, fine. But we in Europe should support our own industries.
I have to laugh a bit at the notion of EU and US car makers being doomed by Chinese manufacturers.
At the end of the day, Chinese manufacturers are still reliant on EV infrastructure being built and market access to sell in any market.
And that infrastructure is complex and expensive. The EU is building it actively, but they will only allow Chinese competition to a certain degree.
Then you have the US, the US has absolutely shitty EV infrastructure and a shitty electrical grid, and on top of that so many Americans hate EV’s. So I doubt the infrastructure required for EV’s to thrive will be built anytime soon, and unlike the EU, the US isn’t likely to force Tesla to let other brands charge at their stations anytime soon either. So it’s very difficult and incredibly risky for a Chinese manufacturer to truly take huge market share in the US.
Oh and India, they don’t have the infrastructure either, and they sure as shit won’t be accepting China, their main rival being allowed to build it or dominate the market within India.
Japan and S. Korea? They can build their own, they can make the infrastructure work out, but they don’t trust China much.
Indonesia? Too poor.
Australia? LOL
Africa? Maybe if China builds the infrastructure for them.
South America? Same as Africa.
China can only truly dominate if they’re allowed to do so within the territory of others.
The switch to EVs as a wholesale changeover isn’t guaranteed. The market is reluctant to them, and the legislation is not for EVs specifically but for emissions. Various manufacturers are therefore investing in clean fuel, as their bet on the future of motoring (at least in the mid-term future).
Even if this is wrong and electric does win overall, that doesn’t mean August 2025 is the predictor of which brands have market share in the next 5 years.
if there weren’t import controls / tarriffs on BYD, nearly every legacy car manufacturer would probably be out of business. BYD electric cars are insanely cheap, we’re talking 15-25k. I think Ford is smart, they’re building cars for car enthusiasts, not for people just looking for transport. But honda / hyundai / toyota / GM would get crushed if the US allowed BYD to import their cars.
If the EU and the US government think it’s in their national strategic interest to support their own EV industries and associated supply chains then they will risk voter wrath and effectively block the import of Chinese EVs via tariffs, safety requirements and outright import bans. China may try to complain to the WTO about unfair trading practices but I’m sure the EU and US would bet that by the time the WTO can rule against them and ENFORCE those rulings that their own industries will have grown up enough to properly compete.
This is not just about EVs. It’s about the electrical stack and supply chains that enable countries to make their own drones and other commercial electrical products of the future.
Unfortunately it’s unlikely, as others have pointed out these are very walled gardens. It’s more likely that some of them will survive due to continued government interference preventing competition which would’ve seen them fall. Ironically both the situation and their likelihood of continued survival both significantly due to their own lobbying.
China is monetizing on a good system with a bad product. The common lithium batteries are the best we can do atm but it’s the next leap that will dominate. And we are sitting on it already. Just letting China waste its time and resources.
Every new innovation has been better than the last. A battery powered car now, as it stands is a step backwards. Fewer miles is not going to win this race. Gonna need a vehicle that can get 750-1000 miles per charge. That’s what’ll it take. China selling their cars with 150-180 miles range is just a fad.
What does that world sales list look like when it’s broken down by region? Are most of these Chinese EV sales in China or are the Chinese EV sales high across the world?
The EU is definitely not letting this happen in the EU. The best-selling brand in the EU is VW. Chinese auto makers are no. 9 and 10 on the August 2025 list.
Can you be a bit more over the top dramatic? Thanks in advance.