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Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

electrek.co

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Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#201

Post by mullingitover »

rootusrootus wrote: post #166
drcongo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese EVs are already way ahead of most western EVs - really, you need to see some of the cars the likes of Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Denza and Xpeng are releasing.

Could you explain some specific ways in which they are ahead?

In the case of the Xiaomi SU7[1]: you name it. Pretty much every conceivable way. Performance, comfort, electronics, styling, build quality. Xiaomi is on par with Apple for electronics and they actually followed through on making the car Apple wishes they made. Sells for around 40k, so on par with a Model 3, but absolutely embarrasses anything Tesla makes.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdSusCDZcDg

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#202

Post by pornel »

dsfdsfdsffdsfs wrote: post #5

Good. This could force Tesla's hand to make super cheap EV. Musk and crew know how to make cheap stuff - they've chosen high margin for Tesla however.

Tesla will instead announce $20K AI-powered flying cars on Venus instead, available next year.

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#203

Post by jp191919 »

Marsymars wrote: post #194
FractalParadigm wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep in mind that the US auto industry is also very much a Canadian one. As someone who's worked in the auto industry (in Canada) I have to 'hard disagree.' The big three have proven time and time again that we (Canadians) are second-class citizens when it comes to how they operate the facilities built here. Even before any of this nonsensical tariff nonsense, billions in government money has been given to the like…

Hey now, I bought a Mexican-made pickup.

Me too.

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#204

Post by bahmboo »

alemanek wrote: post #38
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a country with 42 million inhabitants this doesn't seem like a big change even for canada, let alone for the global economy.

It’s just the beginning is my guess. If BYD or CATL commits to a factory /assembly in Canada I would expect limits to be raised on this as progress is made. Or if this goes well we could see limits raised as China drops Canadian product tariffs further.

My gut reaction is there is no way China is setting up vehicle manufacturing or assembly in Canada because the American President would go absolutely nuts. Canada is increasing ties and joint ventures with Canada but manufacturing would be a bridge too far for our little man in the White House.

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#205

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #74
justonceokay wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah there was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car. It’s tough to convince most price-inelastic people they shouldn’t buy a car that is 1/2 price, even if it has fewer features. Edit: to be clear I meant that the US did not compete, not that they could not compete

> Yeah thee was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car. This is patently false. The US could have competed with China if it had maintained investments spinning up battery manufacturing and downstream systems to build EVs at scale, while subsidizing EVs (fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per year [1]) and…

I've always gotten the impression that China is becoming a technological manufacturing powerhouse because of massive investment by the Chinese government, whereas America is falling behind because the government giving grants to corporations is incredibly unpopular because of the belief that the investment is just going to get pocketed by the CEO and board of directors and spent on stock buybacks rather than the development the people and the government wanted to see.

Even if the money is spent properly, it's still highly criticized. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people complain that Tesla was only successful because of massive government grants.

Am I off base here?

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#206

Post by culi »

bluGill wrote: post #107
footy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Torontonian that last part is honestly what I'm most excited about. Massive American cars simply do not belong in most of our streets in this city, and if this starts the long process of getting them out that's going to be amazing. I've seen Cybertrucks zooming down streets that are about a Cybertruck and a half wide and it's an untenable situation.

Massive trucks are useful for construction. You should get better transit so less people have cars.

Here's a video I wish I could make every American watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

It provides a deep-dive video into the history of how we got to the situation we're in today with American cars exploding in size. It actually has its origins in Obama-era legislation for emissions standards that made an exception for "light trucks". SUVs are legally classified as light trucks so the industry has massively pushed these tanks onto the consumer promising more safety.

It has led to a dramatic decrease in public safety and pedestrian deaths that is unique to the US. One contributor to these deaths is literally parents running over their own children in their own driveways. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT IS HAPPENING IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY.

The video goes over the visibility issues with these trucks, how our safety regulations fail to account for them (light trucks only need to be tested in collision with other light trucks) and also covers how modern trucks have the same carrying capacity as pickup trucks from 30 years ago (the main thing that's increased is the hull and cabin size) while being harder to use for actual work since the bed is higher offer the ground

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#207

Post by overfeed »

czhu12 wrote: post #121
dsfdsfdsffdsfs wrote: post #5

Good. This could force Tesla's hand to make super cheap EV. Musk and crew know how to make cheap stuff - they've chosen high margin for Tesla however.

Tough part with China is that Tesla could fully replicate all chinese EV businesses and still be more expensive without government subsidies and currency devaluation.

Tesla already manufacturers and exports cars from China.

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#208

Post by numbsafari »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #17
ortusdux wrote: post #6

"Canada has agreed to allow an annual quota of 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the country at the tariff rate of just 6.1%" https://electricautonomy.ca/data-trackers/ev-sales-data/2025... "Canada recorded 45,366 new zero-emission vehicle registrations in Q3 2025, accounting for 9.4 per cent of all new vehicle registrations in the quarter, according to the latest report from Statistics Canada." "Of the total, 26…

In a country with 42 million inhabitants this doesn't seem like a big change even for canada, let alone for the global economy.

This is a “0 to 1” change in international relations. This doesn’t bode well for Trump’s trade war.

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#209

Post by toomuchtodo »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #205
toomuchtodo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah thee was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car. This is patently false. The US could have competed with China if it had maintained investments spinning up battery manufacturing and downstream systems to build EVs at scale, while subsidizing EVs (fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per year [1]) and…

I've always gotten the impression that China is becoming a technological manufacturing powerhouse because of massive investment by the Chinese government, whereas America is falling behind because the government giving grants to corporations is incredibly unpopular because of the belief that the investment is just going to get pocketed by the CEO and board of directors and spent on stock buybacks rather than the deve…

Nope, you are spot on. The broad argument is "Engineers are in power in China, lawyers in America." I see the US as no different as when Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged; everything about making and building takes a back seat to line go up. Well, you can't eat, live in, build with, or go to war with line go up. The stock market is not the economy, nor your industrial and manufacturing base. But it keeps going up, so everything must be fine, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_China_2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_Assets_Supervision...

Dan Wang: 2025 Letter - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46454413 - January 2026 (323 comments)

(Dan Wang’s book, Breakneck [https://danwang.co/breakneck/], is excellent and I highly recommend on this topic as others do in the above thread)

Re: Canada slashes 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to 6%

#210

Post by Marsymars »

brianwawok wrote: post #110
toomuchtodo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah thee was never any competing with china, our industry just relies on our market using different values to purchase a car. This is patently false. The US could have competed with China if it had maintained investments spinning up battery manufacturing and downstream systems to build EVs at scale, while subsidizing EVs (fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per year [1]) and…

Chinese autoworker makes what, 5k USD a year? Vs 50k+ for union autoworker in the US? How can you win that battle?

You're off by a notable amount I think, but that doesn't account for the meat of the price difference anyway.

Chinese manufacturers have an average labour cost per vehicle of $585. American manufacturers have an average cost of $1341.

You can't buy an equivalent American EV for an extra $756.

Source: https://afia.pt/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/labor-cost-per-ve...

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