IMO price remains the #1 criteria in buying an EV - if Western OEMs don’t wake up, and policies enable them to offer competitive pricing, the rise of Eastern (mainly Chinese OEMs) is unstoppable
...the tariffs are bad for Western OEMs, because they would have less urgency to gear themselves up to meet the Chinese EV supremacy, allowing China, which is already well ahead in EV technology, to grow from strength to strength.
...Western OEMs, backtracking their EV plans, can only hope that the Chinese EV makers compete themselves to death. They however forget that China's capitalism is centrally driven and not the free market they are accustomed to.
...as this thread has said before, would you prefer selling lithium to the Western OEMs or selling to the Chinese at controlled albeit lower pricing? Chinese EV makers would be using Australian lithium and expected to prioritise getting their supplies from their African mines come into production next year.
