Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance • Hacker News Board

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#271

Post by StilesCrisis » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

BobaFloutist wrote: post #202

pshirshov wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poor public charging infrastructure in Germany Dunno, had a trip through it last year, there are more than enough chargers. Some of them were literally free. I have 70kWh battery though. Also, I paid much less than 40k for my chinese SUV. The software is buggy though, a random reboot on motorway doesn't feel nice.

Does the random reboot affect the motor, lights, defogger, signals, anything else absolutely essential to driving? Don't get me wrong, I'd be annoyed and unsettled if the sound system or gps or whatever rebooted while I was driving, I'm just curious just how dire it is

American safety standards require that the car be more-or-less entirely functional without the infotainment system.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#272

Post by crooked-v » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #174

xp84 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GM has a ton of EV models and has been doing a ton of EV investment, R&D, etc. How can you say they’re somehow not EV enough? I think this article’s author is an absolutist and believes any company that doesn’t go 100% EV regardless of market demand is stupid. I think that’s irrational. And I love my EV. But it’s going to take 20 years or more for the entire country to even get to a place where all your suburbanites…

5,000$ dollars! Do you mean to tell me that most people do not have any spare space on their electric panel for an extra 220v plug? I didn’t but that’s because my house was owned by cheapstakes who saved 100$ by installing a slightly smaller panel that few electricians I talked to had ever seen. That can’t be most people?!

Places with natural gas heating/stove are more likely to run into the issue because the builders never planned for any of the 'important' appliances to need 240V plugs. My new (old) house had exactly that problem once I started looking at replacing some older gas appliances.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#273

Post by bluebarbet » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:15 PM UTC

themafia wrote: post #232

tren_hard wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see a future integrated feature among cars brands doing this with their cameras. Teslas in your area on the road are already monitoring everything, then flag available street parking spots so autopilot cars looking for parking are dispatched to the nearest one. No need for drones if you already have a sufficiently large fleet of cars on the road.

Why wouldn't we just wire up all the parking spaces with sensors and then have a city wide parking app just for this? That seems far more efficient and safer over having a fleet of parking scout drones randomly flying throughout the city.

The correct answer seems to be: because our economic model requires that new junk be constantly invented in order that we have something to buy. Alas.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#274

Post by sroussey » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:15 PM UTC

adrian_b wrote: post #177

bakies wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their homes don't have electricity?

Many people live in apartments and they do not have a garage. You cannot connect a cable from your home at the 10th floor to a car that may be hundreds of m away.

There are companies selling streetlight replacements with chargers. They may get a lot of business in the next decade.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#275

Post by gregorygoc » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:20 PM UTC

nxm wrote: post #237

rsynnott wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which should in itself tell you that VW can compete on price if it has to.

VW is too slow and bureaucratic to compete with China

FUD

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#276

Post by 8note » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:20 PM UTC

nxm wrote: post #239

speedgoose wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I include the cost of the current wars?

Or bulk of NATO's defense costs, which Europeans refuse to contribute to

from the impacts of the straight of hormuz closing, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine - electrification and removing dependence on oil and gas is a major defense cost.

any spending on EV adoption should be considered part of the NATO commitment

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#277

Post by cucumber3732842 » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:22 PM UTC

tw-20260303-001 wrote: post #153

mapgrep wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've shown your words to be meaningless. You said the U.S. car brands were "completely irrelevant" outside the U.S., here you admit that's wrong. You move the goalpost and change your assertion to something entirely different. But there is no reason to think this statement has any factual basis either. You're just talking out of your &ss.

They said “nearly”. Ford is the only American brand selling numbers in Europe, maybe nect to Tesla.

GM sells a whole bunch of stuff they just don't put a bowtie on the grill in Europe or Asia because they have other brands they use there.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#278

Post by epolanski » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 11:03 PM UTC

demosito666 wrote: post #251

epolanski wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the same thing I said. Protectionism can help when you want to develop an industry. But it never works for mature ones.

EV cars is not a mature industry.

Isn't it?

Tesla is literally the first mover.

Volkswagen group sells 30 EVs. Both Mercedes and BMW have 8.

Stellantis has at least a couple dozens.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#279

Post by epolanski » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 11:05 PM UTC

pqtyw wrote: post #240

epolanski wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not an opinion. You’re welcome to go read China’s own self-published strategic plans on this or a litany of news and policy journals discussing this. I didn't say they don't prop their carmaking, battery or ev industries. I said that I don't buy the argument it's bad for us. > They don’t need to sustain it really, globally they’re already poised to win which is why US, EU, Japan are going to have a lot of impo…

> Exports amount for 50% of german economy and 30%+ of Italian one. And in China its barely 20%. But most of German and Italian exports go to other EU countries so its not exactly a fair comparison. Not quite the same but not that different to trade between different US states.

China is the biggest market of German cars.

Re: Western carmakers' retreat from electric risks dooming them to irrelevance

#280

Post by kubb » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 11:14 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #214

kubb wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has worked plenty. The US built its entire industrial base behind tariff walls in the 1800s. Japan protected Toyota and Sony until they could compete globally. South Korea did the same with Samsung. And China itself got there through decades of protectionism and subsidies.

That's the same thing I said. Protectionism can help when you want to develop an industry. But it never works for mature ones.

Tell that to American steel tariffs, which have been renewed by every president from Bush to Biden. Or European agriculture, protected for 70 years and still is. Or Japanese rice farmers. These are about as mature as industries get.