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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Electric vehicles may become a new front in America's tech war with China after a US senator called for Washington DC to block Chinese-made EVs to protect domestic industries and national security.
Sherrod Brown, senator for Ohio and chair of the Senate Banking Committee, penned a letter to President Biden, claiming "there are currently no Chinese EVs for sale in the United States, and we must keep it that way."
He warned that "Chinese EVs, highly subsidized by the Chinese government, could decimate our domestic automakers, harm American workers, and give China access to sensitive personal data," insisting the US government must ban Chinese-made EVs as soon as possible, calling it "a matter of economic and national security."
The move comes as the dispute between the two economic superpowers over technology rumbles on, with the US last week sanctioning four more Chinese companies, claiming they were involved with providing chips for accelerating AI to China's military and intelligence users.
Among those added to the Entity List maintained by the US Department of Commerce was Sitonholy (Tianjin) Co, understood to be one of the largest distribution channels for Nvidia's datacenter products in China, thus cutting off supplies of Nvidia GPUs to many Chinese companies.
[...] The number of Chinese cars purchased by US customers is understood to be very low as these are subject to an extra 25 percent tariff on top of the regular 2.5 percent import duty that DC applies to imported vehicles.
However, Senator Brown notes in his letter that BYD already sells an electric hatchback named the "Seagull" for the equivalent of less than $10,000. This compares with the $28,140 that has been reported as the starting price of the current cheapest electric car available in the US, the 2024 Nissan LEAF S.
There is also a national security twist as Senator Brown claims that data collected by the sensors and cameras in Chinese EVs could pose a threat. "China does not allow American-made electric vehicles near their official buildings. To allow their vehicles freedom to travel throughout the United States would be foolish and highly dangerous," he stated.
Senator Brown also claims in his letter that nearly 20 percent of all electric vehicles sold in Europe during 2023 were made in China, citing this as a cautionary example.
The European Commission last year announced an investigation into subsidies in the Chinese EV industry, but there are said to be misgivings in Germany and elsewhere that a ban on Chinese EVs could backfire, with Beijing retaliating by locking Western carmakers out of the lucrative China market entirely.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 18, @12:13AM (5 children)
>international trade is war.
U.S. business (including domestic trade) is more like the Ultimate Fighting Championship, but with less rules about not killing your opponents.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 18, @06:16PM (4 children)
I'm sure that sounded awesome in your head, but murder and negligent homicide are illegal in most of the world, and those cases can even be (and have been) tried in the US. In addition, there are four to five orders of magnitude more rules for US businesses than there are for UFC participants, including plenty of laws and regulations about preventing ways to kill "opponents".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 18, @07:15PM (3 children)
> murder and negligent homicide are illegal in most of the world, and those cases can even be (and have been) tried in the US.
And, yet, Corporations are people - and businesses seek and succeed to bankrupt (kill) opponent Corporations every day, all around the world but especially in the US.
>In addition, there are four to five orders of magnitude more rules for US businesses than there are for UFC participants, including plenty of laws and regulations about preventing ways to kill "opponents".
And, yet, none of those rules (except some rarely exercised anti-monopoly statutes) say anything about putting your competitors out of business through starvation.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 18, @09:51PM (2 children)
They can get married and have social security numbers?
I forgot that corporations eat food too. How silly of me.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 18, @11:16PM (1 child)
Corporations live on (eat) money.
And this all started with: international trade is war.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 19, @03:55AM
I'm not that concerned about feeding corporations then or the wars of international trade. Should I be?