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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.
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.
I think that China is holding all the aces here, right? Doesn't hurt China if the world's car manufacturers pull out (less competition in the market for their domestic manufacturers).
Seems to me like something the US should have done a long time ago.
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.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
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.
n/t
Lots of typical knee-jerk reactions to this story. Most automakers do not have EV and car battery manufacturing facilities in China and China has reduced or removed subsidies making imports much less attractive. It seems, after a bit of quick basic research, that the slowdown request is to allow non-chinese car companies time to be able to ramp up the ability to product EVs on a large scale in China. It's not a plot to stay on old tech or to derail EV cars.
https://electrek.co/2017/05/08...
http://insights.globalspec.com...
https://electrek.co/2017/04/27...
https://cleantechnica.com/2017...
Likely Tesla hasn't complained because they are wrapping up their first manufacturing partnership in China and probably expect to be able to meet sales requirements.
http://fortune.com/2017/06/19/...