111–120 of 170 posts
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There's a big difference between receiving an amount of government subsidy, and the government funding almost everything with nearly no budget limits. The former is definitely true, though China is not the only country engaging in such a practice. The latter claim needs sources to back up. If you look at the Chinese chip industry, then you see that a lot of money comes from the private sector. Huawei, Xiaomi, etc are…
> If you look at the Chinese chip industry, then you see that a lot of money comes from the private sector. Huawei, Xiaomi, etc are investing a ton of money in semiconductor companies. Where do you think those "private companies" got the money to build their businesses? Notice also that it's domestic (i.e. controlled by the Chinese government) "private companies" doing this. China isn't allowed to just nakedly subsid…
By... selling stuff to people?
I'm sure they get government subsidies, but that's not all of their money, or even a majority.
> so they have to do money laundering like that in order to get away with it
I'd like to see some proof that 1) they launder money and 2) that it's in significant enough amounts as to allow companies to adopt a kill-the-rest-of-the-world strategy.
The latter part of your post basically boils down to "action X is evil when they do it, but not when we do it, because we're the good guys and they the bad guys". Where's the proof? Has China actually killed competition via years of state-funded undercutting, or is it just speculation that they might?
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I'd like to see this documented history. You mentioned electronics, but have they raised prices?
The trend in electronics prices is to decline over time, so you get the same result by not reducing prices as much as the ongoing reductions in cost. Check how much a piece of consumer electronics costs in China vs. the US. They could charge the same amount.
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You mean, like manufacturing electronics? It takes about 1MWh to manufacture a laptop, the same energy needed to drive a Tesla for 3000 miles. https://www.networkworld.com/article/2229029/computer-factor...
Did you account for how much energy to create the Tesla as well?
As you point out, it gets a lot more complicated when you start adding up how much energy it takes to make a Tesla (or any other EV).
Really, if we actually wanted to make motoring sustainable, we would all be driving 60's era Fiat 500s or Honda C50 mopeds. They cost very little to make, in every way, are very fuel effecient (even with their very old engine designs), and discourage long journeys.
That won't work though, because there's too much money to be made from EVs.
30% above supply at what price? (shrieks in economist)
The free market has a bit of a problem here: A new state of the art fab can cost many $Billions and takes a good 5 years to go into production. Not a lot of companies have this kind of cash on hand or the ability to wait that long to achieve profitability. Also much of the current fab capability (TSMC, Samsung for example) is located in some geopolitically unstable places (Taiwan, South Korea). There's lots of risk t…
But for some reason, this doesn't happen as much as you'd expect.
Then raise the price until it’s too expensive for the extra 30%. Problem solved.
Equipment companies are running at an all-out sprint to ship fabrication equipment. Applied Materials, the world's largest by revenue, has 1,390 open positions. #4 Lam Research has 570. The equipment space is brutally cyclic, akin to the oil services industry. Revenue can jump as much as 60% year over year, only to plummet 40% the next. It's always worrisome to see these macro-trends, feasting now, but famine sure to…
This will create a massive overinvestment in the sector where China will build capacity to meet its own need and gain independence of US controlled supplies.
At the same time western countries will invest massively in the sector to keep its technogical lead.
A lot of this is people now over-ordering since they can get stuck by a shortfall. As soon as the crunch passes, there will be a big drop in demand while people burn down their inventory. Normally, planning is 18-26 weeks out and nobody really worries. Now, planning is 52+ weeks out, and people are stockpiling.
This is known as the Bullwhip effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip_effect
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So probably 10MWh to build a Tesla, before even driving it?
just for reference 1kg of aluminum raw material,not alloy, not processed, not packed, not transported - just mined is over 40KWh. In that regard even the raw materials for the car are orders of magnitude over.
Really, if we actually wanted to make motoring sustainable, we would all be driving a 60's era Fiat 500 or Honda C50 moped. They cost very little to make, in every way, are very fuel effecient (even with their very old engine designs), and discourage long journeys.
That won't work though, because there's too much money to be made from EVs.