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Automakers Are Asking China To Slow Down Electric Car Quotas (electrek.co)

New submitter Kant shares a report from Electrek: The auto industry is once again attempting to slow down the rollout of electric vehicles. Virtually all automakers, except for Tesla of course, have sent a letter to the Chinese government in an attempt to have them drastically weaken their zero-emission vehicle mandate. As we previously reported, China, the world's biggest car market, has somewhat of an aggressive ZEV mandate that would force automakers to have zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) represent 8% of new car sales as soon as 2018 and quickly ramp up to 12% by 2020. Now Germany's WirtschaftsWoche magazine (via Auto News) reports that the American Automotive Policy Council (AAPC), which represents Chrysler/Fiat, Ford, and GM, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), which represents all major European automakers, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) and the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA), have all sent a joint letter to China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology to ask for several significant changes to the mandate.

The "six recommended modifications" include slowing the rollout of the mandate by 1 to 3 years, reconsidering the penalty system if they don't meet the quota, having credits not only for all-electric cars but also plug-in hybrid cars, and basically making the whole mandate weaker so that they don't have to produce as many electric cars.

10 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. Fuck them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    China should just give them the finger.

    People buying new cars in China are the more effluent class who can afford to make some contribution to the environment. Mandating ZEV quota helps push more buyers to consider ZEV.

    Sell more ZEV or just get out of the market.

  2. China: "No." by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think far too many people in the world are used to the Americans. They are easily hoodwinked and their legislators are easily bribed with contributions to their election campaigns or to a Foundation of some kind. Moreover their politicians, with a few exceptions, do not have their country's or people's interest in mind and instead pursue a globalist neoliberal agenda. China is a different kettle of fish altogether.

    The world is in for a big fucking surprise when China simply declines to play ball. They have their country, their rules, and anyone who wants to come into their market will abide by their laws. It's going to be a big shock to a lot of people who have never before encountered such an attitude. The next 3-5 years are going to be full of this kind of thing in industry after industry. Sucking up to them like Hollywood does putting Chinese actors in their films for no reason, or like Zuckerberg did trying to speak Mandarin, doesn't work, either. They see through it a mile away. They have more respect for people who love their own countries and don't take any shit from them. It's no coincidence that the word kowtow came into English from their language.

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    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  3. Ultimately it could be good for all of us by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ultimately it could be good for all of us. If China stick to their guns it will accelerate electric vehicle production and development, cleaning the air for everyone. The only caveat is that clean power production has to keep up.

    1. Re:Ultimately it could be good for all of us by Bandraginus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You can clearly see that China is playing the long game here. And it's a really obvious play, too.

      * Scale up production (economy of scale) so that nobody else in the world can compete with your tech at consumer prices: Check
      * Ramp up R&D to own all the IP around the tech: Check
      * Become energy independent by leveraging that economy of scale domestically (of course, using all those sweet import dollars to fund it): Check
      * Fast-track converting all transportation over to said tech: In progress
      * Lorde over the world while evilly stroking your white cat.

      This is all everything that the US (and other western countries) are *not* doing. This is exactly where the US should have positioned itself 10 years ago, setting itself up to be in the box seat for the next 50 years, but they just can't see (as a collective) beyond the next quarter.

  4. Re:Good by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are their domestic car makers held to the same quotas? (fairly, so only counting actual cars and not forklifts, mopeds or small delivery vehicles). If so, I don't see the problem.

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    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  5. Re:Good by AHuxley · · Score: 4, Insightful

    China is winning and the automakers are begging for their old tech to be accepted for a while longer.
    Its like the new emissions standards of the 1970's and having a production line of old cars to sell.

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    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  6. Re:Good by Bandraginus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not young, not American. I live in Australia, the land of the "Australia tax", so we have a defacto import tariff. And no, we hate it.

    I'd almost agree with you, but this isn't a tax on the place of origin. All manufacturers are on a level playing field here. If the world's car manufacturers can't compete with China's domestic manufacturers on high-tech cars, then that's a pretty damning indictment of the free market economy to produce great products.

    Actually, as a consumer I'm pretty excited about this. This should deliver the kick up the ass that the world's manufacturers need to produce cars that the world actually wants.

  7. Re:Good for China by NReitzel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree.

    China is in the same place UK was in in the 1950's. For those of you too young to remember and who have not read, the famous Coloured Fogs of London (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London) killed between 4000 and 12000 people in 1952. Oddly enough, the cause of those events was the same then as it is now in China: burning of coal.

    China is getting aggressive towards cleaning up their act. Car makers don't like it because it means that they must replace tooling which from their point of view is very expensive. Of course, having people sick from air so dirty that some people can't breathe is expensive also, but that's ok since the carmakers don't have to carry that particular expense on _their_ books. Pesky accountants, don't you know.

    Many US cities had serious problems in the mid-20th century. One that has been in the US news lately is Youngstown, Ohio, as an example of a once great industrial center. Unfortunately selective memories neglect to include the fact that Youngstown of the mid-1940s was a poster child for industrial pollution (http://wytv.com/2014/10/27/mahoning-river-has-dirty-history/). Fixing things is always expensive yet somehow people always seem to prefer to create huge problem and then have to clean it up later.

    The Chinese are trying to stave off much bigger problems. More power to them.

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    Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.

  8. Re: Why am I not surprised? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Huh?

    You need to put batteries somewhere. And with petrol engine cars, there is simply no place for them.

    Tesla hasn't found a place to put the batteries?

    His point that you missed was that you can't just stick an electric motor and lithium ion batteries in an existing car and expect it to perform well.
    You need an entire car platform purpose built for it, which is what Tesla (and others) have done.
    That takes years, hence why they want a delay.

  9. Re: Why am I not surprised? by denis-The-menace · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They had plenty of time. They even killed the electric car market to kill the EV1.

    Tesla comes out and they have special laws to prevent selling direct from the manufacturer.

    Now there is a new law that THEY didn't write that THEY don't like?
    If I were China I'd tell them to stuff it.

    --
    Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration