Even with the new 100% tariff on electric vehicles imported from China, BYD would still have the cheapest EV in the US. According to a new report, BYD’s lowest-priced EV would still undercut all US automakers at under $25,000.
After discontinuing the production of vehicles powered entirely by internal combustion engines in March 2022, BYD has been at the forefront of the industry’s shift to EVs.
Honestly in my opinion it is time to remove all tariffs on EVs under 25k and let anyone who wants to fill that slot in. American car manufacturers refuse to fill the market need.
For better or worse, there are multiple ways of measuring “American Made”. An alternate measure, which probably matters more in this conversation, is “how many people that worked on <product> are American residents”. Here’s a study that tries to rank each model by how much it contributes to the US economy
The vast majority of the development (engineering, planning, purchasing/supply chain, quality, after sales, etc) effort for Honda and VW is overseas, along with most other non-domestic brands. This extends beyond their own employees to their tier 1s. Many OEMs use suppliers that are located geographically close to their development centers.
None of this excuses the domestic OEMs for their abandonment of cars, their endless march to higher and higher average transaction price, or their quality records.