American and European cars had a bit of cachet in China and it...

American and European cars had a bit of cachet in China and it was looking like it would be a great market for them. But the rise of EVs has changed that, according to the article linked below, anyway. It's looking like a repeat of the impact of Japanese cars in the US, where the Camry became really popular, but there was very little market for American cars in Japan because the yanks couldn't or wouldn't make a car that appealed to the Japanese. The Americans bleated about protectionism and trade imbalances, but the real problem was that their product was crap. Now Chinese car buyers are choosing locally made cars and it appears they won't look back.

The Chinese only need a foot in the door and they will be repeating the pattern, making cars Americans really want to buy. A Tesla will be like an iphone or maybe Betamax. Now the EV equivalent of Android/VHS is almost upon us. ICE will be Super 8 or a landline.

Overall it's bad that in Australia we hardly make anything and we import so much crap from China. But in this case there is a small silver lining in that we can choose the cars we want and not worry about protecting our own industry. If I was a silly youtuber I could probably make videos about how the US legacy car industry is DOOMED, and I could pull a funny face for the title screen and get a million subscribers. Maybe a more sensible video would predict a messy trade war ending with a whole lot of joint ventures between US and Chinese carmakers, but in reality I think we are in for a turbulent, unpredictable future of disruption and I don't know enough about the industry. Also youtube overall is nauseating to me, I deleted my google account along with facebook, X, and all the rest, so I won't make that video.

https://insideevs.com/features/719015/china-is-ahead-of-west/