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Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

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Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#61

Post by ronsor »

chvid wrote: post #58

If you go to China you will see plenty of KFC, Starbucks, Apple, and Tesla. American companies that all make billions out of the Chinese market. Yet the US government seems happy to play games like this; there must be someone thinking - hey the shoe could soon be on the other foot? Maybe we should cool it a bit ...

Those are the exceptions that prove the rule. It's very difficult for US or Western companies in general to do business in China without opaque restrictions, corruptions, and share ownership hoops. If the US is playing games, then it's closer to kids playing soccer on weekends; China is already in the pro leagues.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#62

Post by queenkjuul »

Kon5ole wrote: post #56

I would be more terrified if they didn’t spare a manufacturer who designs and makes cars in Sweden and the US since decades just because the majority owner is Chinese.

Polestar designs cars in Sweden and builds then in the US for many years, it's still strange

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#63

Post by chvid »

ronsor wrote: post #61
chvid wrote: post #58

If you go to China you will see plenty of KFC, Starbucks, Apple, and Tesla. American companies that all make billions out of the Chinese market. Yet the US government seems happy to play games like this; there must be someone thinking - hey the shoe could soon be on the other foot? Maybe we should cool it a bit ...

Those are the exceptions that prove the rule. It's very difficult for US or Western companies in general to do business in China without opaque restrictions, corruptions, and share ownership hoops. If the US is playing games, then it's closer to kids playing soccer on weekends; China is already in the pro leagues.

The simple story is: If you go to China you will see US brands everywhere. If you go to the US, you will see Chinese brands nowhere.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#64

Post by AnthonyMouse »

delichon wrote: post #19
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #8

The feds also controlling who has access to AI models. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48692995 It's all just this lawless personal fealty shit.

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.

Some people have been pointing out for decades that granting unchecked discretionary powers to the executive branch is a hazard. Now there is an executive using them to do things a lot of people don't like.

Are the people who don't like it going to withdraw those powers the next time they have the opportunity? The main alternative is more of this.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#65

Post by Anoian »

WarmWash wrote: post #49

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.

The audacity of the USA to do this to the entire world but banning anything foreign that does it to them.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#66

Post by AnthonyMouse »

DangitBobby wrote: post #55
fsckboy wrote: post #39

> Polestar is done in the U.S. market. Its sister brand Volvo, owned by the same Chinese parent company, was spared. No one has explained why. The U.S. Federal Government is meddling with the automotive industry, the free market, and capitalism. I'm not saying "trust the government", not at all. But meddling in China trade is absolutely not meddling with the free market.

How is preventing a Chinese brand from selling here not meddling in the free market?

"Free market" implies regulators aren't picking winners and losers etc. If China subsidizes their export industry to make manufacturing in other countries uncompetitive then it's already not a free market.

Ideally what you would want is to get China to stop doing that, but now propose a mechanism to get them to.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#67

Post by Markoff »

chvid wrote: post #63
ronsor wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are the exceptions that prove the rule. It's very difficult for US or Western companies in general to do business in China without opaque restrictions, corruptions, and share ownership hoops. If the US is playing games, then it's closer to kids playing soccer on weekends; China is already in the pro leagues.

The simple story is: If you go to China you will see US brands everywhere. If you go to the US, you will see Chinese brands nowhere.

Really, you will see TCL (and Hisense) nowhere in US? I recommend visiting any store selling TVs.

Same goes for Thinkpad/Motorola, but I guess there at could argue these are not original Chinese brands.

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#68

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

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…

Radiolab[0] had a story about this involving "toys" vs "dolls".

  "Dolls," which represent human beings, are taxed at almost twice the rate of "toys," which represent something not human - such as robots, monsters, or demons. As soon as they read that, Sherry and Indie saw dollar signs. it just so happened that one of their clients, Marvel Comics, was importing its action figures as dolls. And one set of action figures really piqued Sherry and Indie's interest: The XMEN, normal humans who, at around puberty, start to change in ways that give them strange powers.

  So Sherry and Indie went down to the customs office with a bag of XMEN action figures to convince the US government that these mutants are NOT human. That argument eventually became a court case that went on for years.
[0] https://radiolab.org/podcast/177199-mutant-rights

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#69

Post by stephbook »

WarmWash wrote: post #49

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.

Do you have an official announcement this is the case or are you just making excuses for this administration?

Re: Feds Killed Polestar and Spared Volvo

#70

Post by dybber »

natch wrote: post #18
mukbangpervert wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: it is because a major Republican donor wants Chinese cars banned, because they beat the living shit out of his offerings on quality and value. It is silly to credulously pretend that the excuse about Chinese software has even a whiff of legitimacy.

It's hard to parse this without concluding that you are perhaps unaware that Volvo is Chinese.

They need to balance between the Silicon Valley oligarchs desires and the MAGA voters possible reactions. Banning Volvo would probably not be well received by MAGA, at least Trump would need a bit more time to build the case that these vehicles are now unreliable.
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