alt Hacker NewsFlyover country has several times the population of California. It’s vital to the success of American manufacturers that their products sell well there too.
Flyover country has several times the population of California. It’s vital to the success of American manufacturers that their products sell well there too.
Nah. You go where the purchasing power is, and that is not poor rural America that is evaporating [1]. K Shaped economy. That’s related, but distinct from the fact that American auto makers are already dead. They collectively wrote off $50B in EV investment to turn away from EVs, and GM just created a $20B multi year stock buyback plan while not investing more in electrification. That is an active choice to allocate that capital to profits instead of investment to build EVs.
The future is affordable, well built Chinese EVs. They already have the capacity to build 50M EVs per year, more than half of global total light vehicle demand. They are currently exporting ~12M/year, and constrained only by there not being enough marine car carriers available to ship more. They are building more car carriers to ramp exports to the world. How long would it take the US to learn how to build 10-20M EVs per year? A decade, probably more, on current trajectories, during which Chinese automakers will continue to ramp. “Build the machine that builds the machine.”
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586250
(the US sold out its future in this context for globalization and shareholder returns, unfortunately)