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Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

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Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#41

Post by mopsi »

mattas wrote: post #38
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #17

What makes a car ‘made in China’ (therefore over 100% tariffs) vs ‘assembled in the USA’ (therefore no tariffs)? The battery, engine and everything else is absolutely Chinese made. I don’t know how much assembly there is honestly but i feel the Geely, err i mean Polestar was a little close to that line. I will say the laws around this indicate just how ridiculous tariffs can be. There’s always some line to press up a…

Reminds me of this. There's a whole industry around reverse engineering tariff classifications to find ways to minimize all-in manufacturing cost. For example, let's say you sell air purifiers. Option 1 is to import an air purifier and pay the 25% tariff (or whatever the actual duty rate is) on air purifiers. Option 2 is to import a widget that gets classified as a fan (with 5% duty) and import a widget that gets cla…

To add to this, sneakers with a barely visible fuzzy fabric bottom are one of the best examples of tariff engineering: https://www.gazetc.com/blog/2010/08/sneaking-through-us-cust...

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#42

Post by catlikesshrimp »

kev009 wrote: post #32
mullingitover wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our cheap exports: competitive, free markets maximizing efficiency and delivering value to consumers Their cheap exports: sinister pump and dump

I think a national security argument is much more sound than an economic one, although costs are externalized in a way that isn't obvious, i.e. ecological disaster that shipping everything around the world and back (components, assemblies) is, and hollowing out a local supply chain takes virtually no time while the impact or limits of it are hidden until abrupt breakage (i.e. covid-era shortages on basic supplies, wa…

What about the telephone switches?

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#43

Post by walrus01 »

mixologic wrote: post #37
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #17

What makes a car ‘made in China’ (therefore over 100% tariffs) vs ‘assembled in the USA’ (therefore no tariffs)? The battery, engine and everything else is absolutely Chinese made. I don’t know how much assembly there is honestly but i feel the Geely, err i mean Polestar was a little close to that line. I will say the laws around this indicate just how ridiculous tariffs can be. There’s always some line to press up a…

Read up on the "chicken tax" for how long the auto industry has navigated weird assemvly games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

I think my favorite part would be where they were unbolting entire seats and feeding them directly into industrial shredders.

"Ford imported all of its first-generation Ford Transit Connect models as "passenger vehicles" by including rear windows, rear seats, and rear seat belts.[1] The vehicles were exported from Turkey on ships owned by Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL), arrived in Baltimore, and were converted back into light trucks at WWL's Vehicle Services Americas, Inc. facility by replacing rear windows with metal panels and removing the rear seats and seat belts.[1] The removed parts were not shipped back to Turkey for reuse, but shredded and recycled in Ohio.[1] The process exploited the loophole in the customs definition of a light truck; as cargo does not need seats with seat belts or rear windows, presence of those items automatically qualified the vehicle as a "passenger vehicle" and exempted the vehicle from "light truck" status. The process cost Ford hundreds of dollars per van, but saved thousands in taxes.[1]"

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#44

Post by wmf »

catigula wrote: post #14

[flagged]

They're banning Polestar cars that are designed in Sweden (I guess) and made in the US... because the car's Google firmware is Chinese-owned. This case isn't about saving jobs (that's what tariffs are for); it's a misguided attempt at privacy regulation.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#47

Post by BlaDeKke »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #42
kev009 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a national security argument is much more sound than an economic one, although costs are externalized in a way that isn't obvious, i.e. ecological disaster that shipping everything around the world and back (components, assemblies) is, and hollowing out a local supply chain takes virtually no time while the impact or limits of it are hidden until abrupt breakage (i.e. covid-era shortages on basic supplies, wa…

What about the telephone switches?

Notice how many brands there are, produced all over the world.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#48

Post by kev009 »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #42
kev009 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a national security argument is much more sound than an economic one, although costs are externalized in a way that isn't obvious, i.e. ecological disaster that shipping everything around the world and back (components, assemblies) is, and hollowing out a local supply chain takes virtually no time while the impact or limits of it are hidden until abrupt breakage (i.e. covid-era shortages on basic supplies, wa…

What about the telephone switches?

Scroll down the list and look how many there are and where they were manufactured. Economic efficiency would mean only a few vendors.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#49

Post by WarmWash »

The entire article doesn't once stipulate that the grounds for banning a Chinese owned car is having telemetry that phones home to China.

Maybe Volvo still does and it's a mystery why they can still sell here. Maybe Volvo doesn't and there is no story here.

But if the car talks to China and gets updates from China, the US doesn't care if it's built here.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#50

Post by uproarchat »

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #26
delichon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be better if the AI censorship was lawless, rather than authorized by the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, since that would allow the Article III branch of the federal government to be a defense against it. The lawfulness makes it worse.

The same kind of thinking was used on encryption algorithms in the 90s.

Only a few of us are big enough to fit an LLM on a tshirt
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