My Sierra is back in the shop with more BS fit and finish issues.

My loaner Buick Envision (made in China) is damn near flawless. GM can do in in the US but they need to try harder.

 

They absolutely could, but they'll keep crying and say it's "cost-prohibitive".

 

Welp, the domestics have to get their $h!t together. They can, but they have to have the will to do it.

 

I’m sure a huge component of this is that China has an actual manufacturing base that makes everything, and usually pretty nearby everything else—I don’t see a way to compete with that in the west without literally just blowing it up, which it will probably (foolishly) come to at some point.

I’m sure there’s an egghead somewhere with some grand plan for competing with China, but the reality is that there is no easy way to do it without aggressive central planning and there isn’t systemic support or infrastructure to enable that.

My grug brain take on it would be: start a war and obliterate their power generation and physical manufacturing complexes. It turned out pretty poorly for Great Britain vs Germany, but I guess they eventually got what they wanted? (kind of!)

Short of that, they’ll eat our lunch—even with it, they’ll eat our lunch in rebuilding even if they would lose.

 

Yeah, the manufacturing base goes beyond what most people think. My cousin just a few weeks ago, in a conversation about 'light politics' said he doesn't know why we just can't build factories here and in a couple years out-produce china.
-Power availability. I heard yesterday they have over 20 nuclear power plants under construction right now. USA has zero.
-Their industrial power buildout (plants, lines, substations, etc.) For industry, the majority of thiers was built in the last 20 years, the USA is double or triple as old and less reliable
-Logisitcs. China has manufacturing regions set up with not only power, but highways and trains with enough capacity/overcapacity to serve them and they are newer/reliable.

There is a lot more than that.

To compete with China in manufacturing....I'm not saying to totally give up but you have to pick your spots. If you want to go head to head with them in EVERY industry, You'd be spending 100's and 100's of Billions of dollars (if not Trillions), just trying to 'catch up' with them, you may not be successful, and you have to remember they aren't standing still, they are still pushing forward.

 

My very small, two-cents opinion.......the Chinese Communist Party dictates what shall and shall not be built.

Here, in America, there are countless environmental groups, political groups, governmental offices, etc. that stand in the way of progress and growth. Here, opening a new mine is challenged and delayed for years and years, government permits for road construction or nuclear power plants are delayed or refused altogether, necessary new energy pipelines for natural gas are challenged, drilling for more oil and natural gas is resisted; the list goes on and on. No wonder we are falling behind.

I love America, it's the best country in the world, and I am grateful to be an American. Communist China suppresses free speech, has no regard for human rights, and is brutal in its treatment of people, and is a polluter of the atmosphere.
I hate it, and fear its expansion in the world.

We need to protect our environment, and be sensitive to people's legitimate opinions. But, at the same time, we need to have a return to common sense capitalism, which is what built this great nation, or we will fall behind China.

 

My very small, two-cents opinion.......the Chinese Communist Party dictates what shall and shall not be built.

Here, in America, there are countless environmental groups, political groups, governmental offices, etc. that stand in the way of progress and growth. Here, opening a new mine is challenged and delayed for years and years, government permits for road construction or nuclear power plants are delayed or refused altogether, necessary new energy pipelines for natural gas are challenged, drilling for more oil and natural gas is resisted; the list goes on and on. No wonder we are falling behind.

I love America, it's the best country in the world, and I am grateful to be an American. Communist China suppresses free speech, has no regard for human rights, and is brutal in its treatment of people, and is a polluter of the atmosphere.
I hate it, and fear its expansion in the world.

We need to protect our environment, and be sensitive to people's legitimate opinions. But, at the same time, we need to have a return to common sense capitalism, which is what built this great nation, or we will fall behind China.

And while I don’t support all American cultural exports, government policy, or believe we’re even a nation worth emulating in our present state, I wholly believe it’s important to note that falling behind China in a global leadership role would make the world a worse place to live for me and my family.

The world of the 90s and early 00s is very far away from where we are today, but I dream of a future that penitently corrects the mistakes of the recent past while still moving forward and positively innovating new, better, and healthier lifestyles for people.

 

The Americans know how to build good vehicles at reasonable prices; they just don't want to. They want to sell lower quality vehicles at premium prices, so people have to keep buying new cars. It's purely a business model.

 

Very similar to the endless search for fuel efficiency. It can absolutely be done, but too many hands are greased with the current model.

 

My daughter and her family went on vacation to China earlier this year, and they were blown away by the technology that is found everywhere, the cars, local business, just everything in general. They were very impressed with the level of technology and the price of their rental car, to which my daughter jokingly mentioned buy a car over there and shipping it back here to the states.

 

The US is LONG past the possibility of competing with China on industrial scale and expertise. The future relies on smart government investment and pressure to innovate new processes and technologies to get around our competitive disadvantages and slow rate of innovation (before we turn into Europe and Japan). The issue is enormous and complex, but the future isn't emulating China because we simply can't. But we need to stop being too proud to learn from China and accept we have fallen behind because we turned a blind eye. China wasn't too proud to learn from the best industries in the world for decades and heavily invest in it. Now it's time to pay attention.

 

We don't have any Uyghurs to enslave. How do we overcome that competitive advantage?

 

Once again, does the Chinese government dictate what Chinese people are driving or do the Chinese citizens dictate what the Chinese people drive (electric)?
In the USA we the customer generally dictate what we drive and the Auto makers build them.
If the US government started dictating what we drive the probable reaction of the US populace would, the **** you are, get the pitchforks.

 

Once again, does the Chinese government dictate what Chinese people are driving or do the Chinese citizens dictate what the Chinese people drive (electric)?
In the USA we the customer generally dictate what we drive and the Auto makers build them.
If the US government started dictating what we drive the probable reaction of the US populace would, the **** you are, get the pitchforks.

the Chinese are free to buy what is available and in China they have FAR MORE choices than we do in america
and they dont have the misinformation / disinformation campaign waged against EV cars and for fossil fuel consumption
plus in China and many other "global south" countries they are culturally "new" to automobiles so an EV is a new experience same with a fuel car
green plate cars are lower tax VS "blue plate" cars and if you commute in to Beijing blue plates are day of week banned with green plates not so
blue plate = fuel car
green = NEV or new energy vehicle = a car with a plug so PHEV/EREV/and BEV
PPS the USA government does DICTATE what you CAN DRIVE from having safety rules INTENTIONALLY different than every other country and ZERO recognition of other testing methods forcing every car you CAN buy having to be designed and built FOR the USA market
long standing tariffs on pickups forcing them to be made in usa/NAFTA/USMCA preventing many pickup and van choices
China never had BANS on cars imports steep tariffs but loads of makers tried and loads failed
for 20 years the VW santana and Bulck GL8 were top selling vehicles in China

 

The current administration is making things even worse by defunding education at every level and driving up costs for US industries. The US is falling behind China because of their emphasis on funding research and education while the US is cutting education and research. US innovation is driven by academic research and relatively few highly trained employees. China can mobilize millions of engineers and researchers almost overnight. The US doesn't have anywhere near that many qualified workers and is crippling the schools that could help train them. It's also blocking access to immigrants that already have the required skills.

The Chinese government is largely comprised of engineers and the US is mostly comprised of lawyers. China isn't as concerned about legalities, it just gets things done. The US is hampered by legal issues which tend to make everything slower and more costly. The US appears to be abandoning both and now seems to be controlled by people who are educated by social media, want unlimited power and don't care about the law or good engineering. They just want to be tech billionaires or social media influencers. Good luck building an industrial recovery with those skills.

 

The current administration is making things even worse by defunding education at every level and driving up costs for US industries. The US is falling behind China because of their emphasis on funding research and education while the US is cutting education and research. US innovation is driven by academic research and relatively few highly trained employees. China can mobilize millions of engineers and researchers almost overnight. The US doesn't have anywhere near that many qualified workers and is crippling the schools that could help train them. It's also blocking access to immigrants that already have the required skills.

The Chinese government is largely comprised of engineers and the US is mostly comprised of lawyers. China isn't as concerned about legalities, it just gets things done. The US is hampered by legal issues which tend to make everything slower and more costly. The US appears to be abandoning both and now seems to be controlled by people who are educated by social media, want unlimited power and don't care about the law or good engineering. They just want to be tech billionaires or social media influencers. Good luck building an industrial recovery with those skills.

A communist authoritarian regime can just do whatever they want without resistance. Go figure. Not sure i'd fawn over that personally even if it means they get a jump start on this automotive industry transition. None of the "democratic socialists" here in the states have ever had to live under one.

 

There are probably 20 or 30 electric vehicles models sold in the USA right now, cars, SUVs, crossovers, pickup trucks, what do the electric folks want? If you want the government to force electric vehicles on the USA its not going to work.