GM

soggy_mattress

I was, yes, but they still aren't exact numbers. In the US, it's something like 8.5x more than the next best-selling manufacturer (GM). Globally, it's \~6.1x the next manufacturer (VW group). My point stands: Tesla, despite horrible political headwind and a divisive CEO, sells multiples over the next best EV manufacturers.

SkyMarshal

Detroit can't become competitive as long as China keeps the Yuan artificially low, and maybe not even then if wages in China remain substantially lower than in the US. The restriction is about preventing further loss of US jobs and bankruptcy of GM/Ford/Chrysler. The massive outsourcing wave of the 2000s and 2010s created immense social instability, hatred and distrust of both US political parties, and the (correct) belief they've both been captured by Wall St and "globalists" who don't care about the US only their own profit margins. It's why America voted in Trump and MAGA took over the GOP, and Socialists are on the verge of taking over the Dems.

felixfortunate

GM, Ford and Stellantis sold over 6.3 million vehicles in the US last year. That's roughly 38% of every new vehicle sold in America. People love shitting on American manufacturers online, but the actual consumer behavior tells a very different story. Americans are still buying millions of GM, Ford, Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler vehicles every year. For comparison, the entire US BEV market was only about 1.3 million vehicles last year. So I'm not sure I buy the argument that exposing Detroit to heavily subsidized Chinese manufacturers and potentially sacrificing domestic volume is somehow automatically going to make them stronger. There's a massive domestic industry here worth protecting. The problem isn't protection. The problem is what Detroit does with it. If tariffs give them time to reduce costs, improve batteries/software and strengthen the domestic supply chain, great. If they spend ten years selling $70k trucks behind a tariff wall while BYD gets better everywhere else, then yeah, we've got a problem.

debrutsideno

Oh the giant AI response. Not my favorite.. On the Ford point, in 2024 the Ford CEO Jim Farley imported a Xiaomi SU7 and drove it for 6 months. At the end he said he didn’t want to give it up. The Xiaomi SU7 starts at around $32,000 USD and if it were available in the USA Tesla, Ford, Chevy, GM and the rest would have a tough time competing at that price. The closest comparison to a standard Xiaomi SU7 is the Tesla model 3. Which starts around $37,000 and has a smaller battery, less power and much worse interior. If I had the option I would probably buy something like the BYD Seal 08. Around $30k usd.

Aggravating_Storm835

I think Cybercab will be begging Uber. Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Hyundai are all launch theirs this year with Uber. GM, Rivian, and Toyota will be in 2027/2028. Ford, Nissan, and Honda aren’t lying down. That’s not even mentioning BYD, WeRide, and MayMobility and others. Retail thinks Tesla and Waymo are the only game in town. At $70k-$200k per vehicle, Waymo won’t be able to manufacture efficiently enough to scale. They’ll probably end up being an AV component manufacturer for people like Toyota who can. Tesla as a stand-alone provider will likely be hurt the most by AV’s. Once AV’s eat 30-50% of their car sales and all the other major OEM’s are on Uber. Ironically, I think Uber sinks Tesla. Not the other way around.

Aggravating_Storm835

I think Cybercab will be begging Uber. Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Hyundai are all launch theirs this year with Uber. GM, Rivian, and Toyota will be in 2027/2028. Ford, Nissan, and Honda aren’t lying down. That’s not even mentioning BYD, WeRide, and MayMobility and others. Retail thinks Tesla and Waymo are the only game in town. At $70k-$200k per vehicle, Waymo won’t be able to manufacture efficiently enough to scale. They’ll probably end up being an AV component manufacturer for people like Toyota who can. Tesla as a stand-alone provider will likely be hurt the most by AV’s. Once AV’s eat 30-50% of their car sales and all the other major OEM’s are on Uber. Ironically, I think Uber sinks Tesla. Not the other way around.

Aggravating_Storm835

I think Cybercab will be begging Uber. Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Hyundai are all launch theirs this year with Uber. GM, Rivian, and Toyota will be in 2027/2028. Ford, Nissan, and Honda aren’t lying down. That’s not even mentioning BYD, WeRide, and MayMobility and others. Retail thinks Tesla and Waymo are the only game in town. At $70k-$200k per vehicle, Waymo won’t be able to manufacture efficiently enough to scale. They’ll probably end up being an AV component manufacturer for people like Toyota who can. Tesla as a stand-alone provider will likely be hurt the most by AV’s. Once AV’s eat 30-50% of their car sales and all the other major OEM’s are on Uber. Ironically, I think Uber sinks Tesla. Not the other way around.

Aggravating_Storm835

I think Cybercab will be begging Uber. Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Hyundai are all launch theirs this year with Uber. GM, Rivian, and Toyota will be in 2027/2028. Ford, Nissan, and Honda aren’t lying down. That’s not even mentioning BYD, WeRide, and MayMobility and others. Retail thinks Tesla and Waymo are the only game in town. At $70k-$200k per vehicle, Waymo won’t be able to manufacture efficiently enough to scale. They’ll probably end up being an AV component manufacturer for people like Toyota who can. Tesla as a stand-alone provider will likely be hurt the most by AV’s. Once AV’s eat 30-50% of their car sales and all the other major OEM’s are on Uber. Ironically, I think Uber sinks Tesla. Not the other way around.

Aggravating_Storm835

I think Cybercab will be begging Uber. Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Hyundai are all launch theirs this year with Uber. GM, Rivian, and Toyota will be in 2027/2028. Ford, Nissan, and Honda aren’t lying down. That’s not even mentioning BYD, WeRide, and MayMobility and others. Retail thinks Tesla and Waymo are the only game in town. At $70k-$200k per vehicle, Waymo won’t be able to manufacture efficiently enough to scale. They’ll probably end up being an AV component manufacturer for people like Toyota who can. Tesla as a stand-alone provider will likely be hurt the most by AV’s. Once AV’s eat 30-50% of their car sales and all the other major OEM’s are on Uber. Ironically, I think Uber sinks Tesla. Not the other way around.

Storm_Chaser06

Let the Chinese cars in, and Ford, GM and Stellantis might finally think about spending money and making good cars.

BlueCowboy3758

GM sales are down in China as of late and Chevy has completely exited their market this year. It's really just Buick carrying them there, along with some Cadillac sales.

AnotherRandomGuy34

I mean it's not like they don't, but for Ford and GM majority of their revenue and profits are still US based. For Stellantis, China is already started to creep in their European market, so not long until they start feeling the brunt. But in general for these three companies ex-North American markets are looking bleak in near and long future.

aegee14

You think Tesla sells well and GM doesn’t in China? Lol.

Significant_Eye_5130

Ford and GM don’t have international markets? Yes they do. In fact Ford sells Chinese produced cars in the US right now.

joebraga2

I think a lot of people are missing the broader point here. This isn't simply “China cheats, therefore Chinese cars are cheap.” Yes, China has heavily supported its auto and battery industries. But industrial policy isn't uniquely Chinese. The US has protected and subsidized its own auto industry too, including the interventions during the 2008–09 crisis and, much more recently, huge incentives for EV and battery manufacturing. The bigger question is what automakers did with that protection and investment. Detroit spent years concentrating on high-margin pickups and large SUVs while affordable cars gradually disappeared from their lineups. Then EVs arrived and many manufacturers tried to repeat essentially the same strategy: large, expensive vehicles with large batteries and high margins. That left a huge opening at the affordable end of the market. Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers invested aggressively in batteries, electric platforms, vertical integration, manufacturing scale and smaller EVs. You don't have to agree with Chinese industrial policy to recognize that this created real technological and manufacturing capabilities. Reducing all of that to “cheating” doesn't explain the product gap. The quality argument is also becoming increasingly difficult to make as a blanket statement. GM itself has spent decades working with SAIC in China, and SAIC-GM-Wuling has become a major part of GM's Chinese operations. Chinese manufacturers aren't simply producing primitive cheap cars anymore. Brazil is particularly interesting because we can actually watch this competition happening in an open market. BYD's Dolphin Mini and Dolphin compete directly against cars from Chevrolet, Fiat, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Toyota and others. Consumers aren't being forced to buy them. They're comparing purchase price, equipment, performance, warranty and operating costs. And now the traditional manufacturers themselves are reacting. GM is bringing products developed through its Chinese partnerships, Stellantis is using Leapmotor technology and products, and other legacy manufacturers are developing cheaper EVs because they know this segment cannot simply be abandoned. So tariffs can keep Chinese-built EVs out of the US market, but they don't solve the underlying product problem. If Detroit wants to remain competitive globally, eventually it has to build affordable vehicles that people actually want to buy at competitive prices. You can criticize Chinese subsidies without pretending that every competitive advantage Chinese manufacturers have today comes from “cheating.” Those are two very different arguments.

joebraga2

That's actually very close to what makes me ask this question in the first place. I'm from Brazil, and we're seeing another version of this experiment here. Chinese automakers are competing directly with the established brands, and they're putting a lot of pressure on the market through price, equipment and electrification. But here's the part I find interesting: keeping those companies out of the US doesn't protect Detroit from that competition everywhere else. GM, Ford and Stellantis have been trying to compete in Latin America for decades. Ford even stopped manufacturing vehicles in Brazil in 2021, long before the current wave of Chinese EV competition here. So the difficulties of American automakers in this region can't simply be blamed on Chinese companies. Now they have another problem: BYD, GWM and other Chinese manufacturers are expanding in markets where American, European, Japanese and Korean brands already compete. That's why I'm not convinced that keeping Chinese cars out necessarily makes Detroit stronger in the long run. It may protect the extremely profitable US market, but GM, Ford and Stellantis still have to face those manufacturers in Mexico, Brazil and the rest of the world. And your Mexico example is especially interesting for that reason. If American automakers increasingly depend on protected or particularly profitable segments at home while losing ground in competitive segments abroad, protection may preserve their US business without actually solving the underlying competitiveness problem. That's the distinction I'm trying to make: keeping Detroit profitable in America and making Detroit globally competitive aren't necessarily the same thing.

IllStickToTheShadows

Yes. Where my family is from in Mexico the vast majority of people switched to Chinese cars in general because they are cheaper. GM, Ford, and Stellantis are basically extinct now except for their trucks used by the government or businesses. If you introduce Chinese cars in the US, you’d cause Detroit to go bankrupt…again

Alarmed_Sky3253

Out of all companies GM is by far the worst at any innovations and any logical decisions.

Pimpwerx

Ford and GM are just going to become the new Lada and Aurus Motors. What? You haven't heard of these prestigious Soviet car brands? Well then, that's your loss. In Soviet Russia, car drives you!

joebraga2

That's a much more reasonable concern than simply saying “Chinese car = spy device.” Connected vehicles absolutely create privacy and national-security questions. Cameras, GPS, cellular connectivity, driver-assistance systems and other sensors can generate enormous amounts of data, and I understand why the US would want strict rules governing where that data goes and who can remotely access the vehicle. But I don't think this is inherently a Chinese-car problem. It's a connected-car problem. The FTC has already taken action against GM and OnStar over allegations involving the collection and sale of precise geolocation and driving-behavior data from millions of American vehicles. So American cars can create serious data-privacy problems too. The important distinction, in my view, is between regulating the data and simply banning the product because of its nationality. If a Chinese automaker wants to sell cars in a country, require local data storage where appropriate, cybersecurity audits, restrictions on remote access, transparency about what the cameras and sensors collect, and compliance with that country's privacy laws. If a particular manufacturer can't comply with those requirements, then that's a concrete security problem. But “this car has cameras and LiDAR, therefore Beijing is mapping everything within 100 feet of it” requires evidence of what is actually being collected, transmitted and accessed. Otherwise we'd have to ask the same privacy questions about every highly connected vehicle on the road, regardless of whether the badge says BYD, GM, Ford, Tesla or something else.

joebraga2

That's a much more reasonable concern than simply saying “Chinese car = spy device.” Connected vehicles absolutely create privacy and national-security questions. Cameras, GPS, cellular connectivity, driver-assistance systems and other sensors can generate enormous amounts of data, and I understand why the US would want strict rules governing where that data goes and who can remotely access the vehicle. But I don't think this is inherently a Chinese-car problem. It's a connected-car problem. The FTC has already taken action against GM and OnStar over allegations involving the collection and sale of precise geolocation and driving-behavior data from millions of American vehicles. So American cars can create serious data-privacy problems too. The important distinction, in my view, is between regulating the data and simply banning the product because of its nationality. If a Chinese automaker wants to sell cars in a country, require local data storage where appropriate, cybersecurity audits, restrictions on remote access, transparency about what the cameras and sensors collect, and compliance with that country's privacy laws. If a particular manufacturer can't comply with those requirements, then that's a concrete security problem. But “this car has cameras and LiDAR, therefore Beijing is mapping everything within 100 feet of it” requires evidence of what is actually being collected, transmitted and accessed. Otherwise we'd have to ask the same privacy questions about every highly connected vehicle on the road, regardless of whether the badge says BYD, GM, Ford, Tesla or something else.

joebraga2

That's actually the historical comparison I had in mind when I wrote the post. Japanese competition exposed a real weakness in Detroit's product strategy, especially when American consumers suddenly cared much more about fuel economy and smaller cars. Detroit eventually improved enormously in quality, but today the Big Three have largely retreated from several mainstream passenger-car segments where Toyota and Honda remained strong. What makes the Chinese situation interesting to me is that the competitive pressure doesn't disappear just because those cars are kept out of the US. BYD, Geely and others can continue competing against GM, Ford and Stellantis in Brazil, Europe, Southeast Asia and other markets. So Detroit could remain very profitable at home selling trucks and large SUVs while simultaneously losing competitiveness elsewhere in smaller EVs, affordable EVs and PHEVs. That's the part that makes me wonder whether protection is buying Detroit time to catch up, or simply delaying the moment when it has to respond to the same kind of competitive pressure that Japanese manufacturers created decades ago.

alexrobinson

Protectionism is a useful tool for infant industries that has been used since the industrial revolution to protect domestic production. The problem is GM, Ford, Chevy and the like are not infant industries, they don't give a shit about the US economy and it's national security beyond their own share prices and profit margins.  As a result of this, any US protectionism is used purely to stifle competition, not to actually innovate or gain a foothold in new markets like it has in China. This is what happens when protectionism is done to prop up failing businesses. You get companies that are unable to innovate because resting on their laurels has become their bread and butter instead of competing.  

VeryStableGenius

The domestic US auto industry is a pickup truck industry that makes cars as a money-losing hobby, thanks to mix of chicken tax (banning imported trucks) and the weird math of the CAFE standards (that makes cheap light pickups technically unfeasible), and the fact that everybody else can make cheaper, better cars. And the fact that rednecks love their F-150s and Dodge Rams, and will into debt to buy them. Pickups are 50% of GM's profits, and 80% of Ford's. Large SUVs are 45% of GM's profits, and 15% of Ford's. Cars are under 5% of each brand's profits. Basically, Ford's and GM's profits already sit in a protected bubble. An influx of Chinese imported cars, assuming the truck/car balance doesn't shift, would seem to hurt the companies that actually sell cars: Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Tesla, BMW, VVW, Nissan. The overlap I see with China's EVs is Ford's SUV division (45% of profits). Ford and GM could innovate more in the mini-pickup category, where CAFE would no longer apply (small trucks would be allowed), but which are still protected by chicken tax.

blindnlearning2see

As an American, I'd rather buy a cheap Chinese EV than a car/SUV, from GM or Ford. There's like 6 actual car models still available for sale in the US - it's all SUVs, trucks, and crossovers. There's like 2 minivan models left. The US vehicle market is so cringe.

RobotChrist

lmao gotta love this dumb takes that are completely ignorant on a subject and end with "you're uneducated on the subject" hahaha First and foremost, I don't have time to correct all the propaganda that you're repeating (everything that you have said is factually wrong), but I'm just going to tell you what's actually happening in the real world: All the western car companies work in China, all of them, all of them are designing, building, exporting and selling in China, even for a couple of them China is their biggest and most important market, for most of them all of their progress in electrification comes from their China's ventures and developments All of these western car makers have Chinese models, they're usually cheaper and more technologically advanced, they sell these cars not only in China, but all over the world, and lately they have been so good that they're the best sellers in the markets they're sold, and not only that, GM is starting to build their Chinese models now outside of China, starting this year they'll build the Aveo and the Groove in Mexico, because they're just better than their US models, and their best sellers by much I could list every western company and how they're growing thanks to their partnerships and business in China, Toyota, VW, Honda, Nissan, Ford, Tesla, you name it. All the propaganda you're parroting is designed to make it seem like China is destroying western car makers, when the reality is quite the opposite, most of them are able to move forward thanks to their Chinese links, but obviously most of them are dragged by their stupid constraints, overpaid executives, bloated portfolios, inefficient logistics, chronic lack of innovation and a long ass etcetera

spendanightinthebox

I think that argument is hugely overblown. The lithium in batteries can be recovered to 90-95% through new recycling practices. Lithium is abundant in solid form in the ground and in liquid form from wells in California, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The oil companies are clinging to disinformation while the walls crumble around them. GM and Ford will lose their global markets and be left with only the USA. The rest of the world zooms past us. Pure electric vehicles are far more efficient and have about 70% fewer moving parts, meaning low maintenance.

joebraga2

Esse comentário do benwinner está formulando o argumento de predatory pricing: vender abaixo do custo para eliminar concorrentes e depois aumentar preços. É uma hipótese possível em teoria, mas ele está apresentando como certeza que seria isso que BYD/Geely fariam nos EUA. Aí dá para responder usando justamente seu teste de localização, sem negar que subsídios ou preços agressivos possam existir. Eu responderia assim, pronto para copiar: That's a legitimate risk to consider, but that's also why I keep proposing local production rather than unrestricted imports. Require BYD or any other Chinese automaker entering the US to build locally, employ American workers, comply with US labor, safety and environmental rules, and make its corporate structure and subsidies subject to the applicable US trade and competition rules. Then the “they're only cheap because China subsidizes exports and pays Chinese wages” hypothesis becomes much easier to test. Brazil is already giving us an imperfect version of that experiment. Chinese companies that arrived here 15+ years ago didn't automatically succeed. Chery struggled badly in its early years but stayed, localized and eventually partnered with CAOA. JAC initially had a much stronger launch, but its passenger-car operation later shrank dramatically. Now BYD, GWM, Chery and Changan are localizing manufacturing in Brazil and employing Brazilian workers, while competing against GM, VW, Stellantis, Toyota, Hyundai and others that also manufacture here. If the business model really depends on permanently selling cars below cost, localization won't magically make that sustainable. But if Chinese manufacturers can eventually make money producing locally while still offering competitive prices, then we have to consider another explanation: maybe part of the advantage actually comes from manufacturing efficiency, batteries, vertical integration, platforms, procurement and scale. That's exactly what I want to find out. I don't want American workers flipping burgers either. I want to know which manufacturing system can employ them while producing globally competitive cars.

joebraga2

That's another reason I think the competition question matters. The issue isn't simply whether Detroit survives. It's also what American consumers are getting for their money. And North American manufacturing already gives us a way to have competition without simply importing everything from China. GM, Nissan and other manufacturers already use highly integrated US-Mexico supply chains. So if the concern is American manufacturing, require Chinese automakers to localize production in North America and meet the same labor, safety and regulatory requirements. Then see what happens to prices. If their cost advantage disappears, we learned something important. If it doesn't, then American manufacturers have a much more fundamental cost and product-positioning question to answer.

joebraga2

One thing I think is missing from this discussion is that Brazil has already been through an earlier wave of Chinese automakers, and it shows that being Chinese, having lower manufacturing costs or offering more equipment does not automatically guarantee success. Chery entered Brazil in 2009, long before the current EV boom. Its first attempt was not particularly successful. The cars could offer a lot of equipment for the money, but the products, powertrains, dealer experience and overall strategy were not yet sufficiently adapted to Brazilian conditions and consumer expectations. Several early models disappeared. But Chery stayed. It built a factory, accumulated experience and eventually partnered with CAOA, a Brazilian automotive group with decades of experience in the local industry. CAOA had previously built its business through Ford dealerships, imported Hyundai vehicles and eventually manufactured Hyundai vehicles in Brazil. The result is that today's CAOA Chery is almost unrecognizable compared with the Chery that entered Brazil more than 15 years ago. And now CAOA is doing something similar with Changan. Changan is a separate Chinese automaker, but CAOA is using its Brazilian industrial and commercial infrastructure to manufacture and sell Changan products here as CAOA Changan. That is important because this competition is no longer limited to cheap imported EVs. Chinese-designed ICE, mild-hybrid, hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles are increasingly competing with traditional manufacturers too. JAC is a useful counterexample because its history went almost in the opposite direction. JAC entered Brazil in 2011 with a huge marketing campaign, quickly established a large dealer network and initially sold quite well. It promised Brazilian manufacturing, but that passenger-car factory never materialized. Over time its light-vehicle operation shrank dramatically and most of that original dealer footprint disappeared. So Brazil has already demonstrated something important: Chinese origin alone doesn't guarantee success. Chery initially struggled, stayed, learned, localized and found a strong Brazilian industrial partner. JAC had a much stronger initial launch but failed to establish the same industrial footprint and eventually became a much smaller player. Now we're watching a much larger second wave. BYD took over Ford's former industrial complex in Camaçari. GWM took over Mercedes-Benz's former factory in Iracemápolis. Renault and Geely are expanding their industrial relationship. GM itself is assembling Chinese-developed Chevrolet EVs in Ceará through products originating from its Chinese ecosystem with SAIC and Wuling. Toyota and BYD have a 50/50 EV R&D joint venture. Tesla complicates the story even further. Tesla is one of America's biggest automotive technology success stories, but its battery supply chain has always been international. Panasonic was fundamental to its early scale, while its later battery sourcing expanded to suppliers including LG Energy Solution and CATL. So the modern auto industry is already much more interconnected than “Chinese technology vs American technology” suggests. And this is why I find the comparison with Japanese and Korean automakers so interesting. Foreign manufacturers don't necessarily remain importers forever. They enter a market. Sometimes they fail. Sometimes they learn. They change products, establish dealerships, find local suppliers, partner with domestic companies, hire local engineers and workers, and eventually manufacture locally. Brazil watched Japanese and Korean companies go through versions of that process. Now we're watching Chinese companies do it. And localization gives us a much better experiment for the question this thread started with. If BYD, GWM, Changan or another Chinese manufacturer loses most of its price advantage after producing in Brazil, Europe or eventually the US with local workers and local regulations, then Chinese wages, subsidies and domestic production conditions were clearly responsible for a large part of that advantage. But if a significant advantage survives localization, then wages cannot be the whole explanation. Battery costs, vertical integration, platform architecture, supplier organization, procurement, automation, manufacturing scale, development cycles and margins all become part of the answer. That's why I don't think the most interesting experiment is simply importing millions of Chinese cars into the US. Make them manufacture there. Make them employ American workers. Make them comply with American safety, labor and environmental rules. Then compare the products. Brazil is increasingly doing exactly that experiment with Brazilian workers. And after watching what happened with Chery and JAC over the last 15+ years, I wouldn't assume the result in advance. Localization can expose weaknesses just as easily as it can expose advantages.

joebraga2

There is another part of this discussion that makes the whole “Chinese auto industry vs American auto industry” framing much less clean than it sounds. Tesla itself is a good example. Tesla is American, but its battery supply chain has never been purely American. Panasonic was crucial to Tesla’s early scale, and Tesla later diversified its battery sourcing to companies including LG Energy Solution and CATL. So even the most successful American pure-EV manufacturer was built around a global, heavily Asian battery supply chain. Brazil makes this even more interesting because we are watching several versions of this industrial integration happen at the same time. BYD took over Ford’s former industrial complex in Camaçari and is progressively localizing production. GWM took over Mercedes-Benz’s former factory in Iracemápolis. Renault and Geely are expanding their industrial relationship in Brazil. GM itself is now assembling Chinese-developed Chevrolet EVs in Ceará. The Spark EUV and Captiva EV come from GM’s Chinese industrial ecosystem with SAIC and Wuling and are being assembled locally. Toyota and BYD have a 50/50 EV R&D joint venture. Nissan has had a major industrial relationship with Dongfeng in China for decades. At some point, asking whether a technology is simply “Chinese” or “Western” stops having an easy answer. And Brazil gives us another interesting experiment: range. If you look only at Brazilian homologation figures, some EVs can look surprisingly short-legged. Cars with batteries in the 50-60 kWh range can receive official Inmetro/PBEV range figures around 300 km. But the Brazilian number is deliberately conservative. Inmetro does not simply publish the raw laboratory result. Adjustment factors are applied to produce a more conservative real-world reference. The problem is that a lot of automotive discussion here then treats that number almost as the maximum distance the EV can realistically travel. Owner experience often looks very different. We now have EV owners driving these cars across Brazil, including mountainous areas and routes that climb from the coast onto the plateau. There are owners and independent tests substantially exceeding the official Inmetro range, and under favorable conditions some results get much closer to WLTP. Larger-battery EVs can exceed 400 km in real use even when their Brazilian homologated number looks much less impressive. Obviously that does not mean WLTP is guaranteed real-world range. Drive at 120 km/h, climb continuously, add headwind, temperature changes or heavy HVAC use and consumption changes dramatically. But this exposes an interesting asymmetry in how cars are discussed here. When a small 1.0-liter ICE car achieves an exceptionally good km/l result, automotive enthusiasts and media are perfectly happy to show what the car can achieve under favorable real-world conditions. With EVs, I often see the opposite. The conservative Inmetro figure gets repeated as the defining range of the vehicle, while owner consumption and independent road results receive much less attention. A much better way to discuss EV range is to show the homologation numbers and then show actual energy consumption. If an EV does 12, 15, 18 or 22 kWh/100 km, anyone can understand what a 40, 60 or 90 kWh battery means under different conditions. That's much more informative than saying “this is a 300 km car” because one homologation system printed 300 km on the label. And all of this comes back to the original Detroit question. Brazil is becoming a useful real-world laboratory because Chinese manufacturers are no longer simply shipping Chinese-built cars here. They are buying former Western factories, hiring Brazilian workers and progressively localizing production. At the same time, established American, European and Japanese manufacturers are increasingly using Chinese partners, platforms, batteries, engineering or complete vehicles. Europe is moving in a similar direction as Chinese manufacturers localize more production there. That gives us an opportunity to separate two things that are constantly mixed together in this discussion. If Chinese manufacturers lose most of their price advantage when they manufacture in Brazil, Europe or eventually the US with local workers, then Chinese wages, subsidies and domestic production conditions were clearly doing much of the work. But if a substantial advantage survives localization, then wages cannot be the entire explanation. Battery costs, vertical integration, EV-specific platforms, supplier organization, procurement, manufacturing scale, automation, development cycles and margins all have to enter the discussion. That's why I would actually find an American-built Chinese EV much more interesting than another imported Chinese EV. Require American production. American wages. American safety and environmental standards. Apply the same rules to everyone. Then compare the products. If an American-built BYD ends up costing roughly the same as an equivalent American-built GM or Ford, we learn something important about where the original Chinese cost advantage came from. But if it can still compete aggressively on price, equipment and efficiency while paying American production costs, then tariffs didn't answer the underlying competitiveness question. They only delayed the experiment.

rossmosh85

If BYD comes in, it will really erode GM and Ford. Ford already is struggling pretty badly. GM is just treading water. Any deal to bring Chinese cars into the US would need to require they are built/assembled in the US. Otherwise they'll absolutely destroy the competition. It's extremely dangerous to basically let China do all of the world's manufacturing

Smok3dSalmon

Look up GM's Ultium platform and Ford's Universal EV platform. This should answer all your questions. No idea what Stellantis is doing, I assume they will die.

joebraga2

One thing I think this thread is showing is that the question is becoming bigger than simply "Chinese cars are cheap because Chinese workers are cheap." Wages and subsidies matter. But Chinese manufacturers are increasingly moving production outside China, which gives us a chance to test that explanation in the real world. Brazil is a particularly interesting example. For decades, the market was dominated by established American, European, Japanese and Korean manufacturers with local factories, suppliers, dealerships and huge brand recognition. Chevrolet was enormously strong, and the Onix spent years as the country's best-selling car. Now the structure is changing. BYD took over Ford's former industrial complex in Camaçari and is progressively localizing production. GWM took over Mercedes-Benz's former factory in Iracemápolis. Renault and Geely are expanding their industrial partnership and investing together in Brazil. And it gets stranger than simply "Chinese companies versus legacy automakers." GM itself is assembling Chinese-developed Chevrolet EVs in Brazil. The Spark EUV and Captiva EV are being assembled in Ceará using products originating from GM's Chinese ecosystem with SAIC and Wuling. Toyota has a 50/50 EV R&D joint venture with BYD. Nissan has a long industrial relationship with Dongfeng in China. Renault is partnering with Geely. So the borders between "Chinese" and "traditional" manufacturers are becoming increasingly blurry. Europe may become an even better test. Chinese manufacturers are actively looking for existing European factories rather than simply exporting everything from China. BYD says that, longer term, it expects to need three vehicle assembly plants and a battery plant in Europe. That is why I don't think the wage argument settles this. If BYD builds cars with Brazilian or European workers and most of its price advantage disappears, then labor costs, subsidies and producing in China were obviously doing a huge amount of the work. But if a substantial advantage remains, we have to ask what else explains it: battery costs, vertical integration, platform design, automation, supplier organization, scale, development cycles, margins, or some combination of them. And this is where I come back to Detroit. The US doesn't have to allow unlimited Chinese imports to test this. Require local production. Require American wages. Require US safety and environmental standards. Apply trade safeguards. Then let the products compete. Protection can give an industry time to adjust. But the important question is what Detroit does with that time. Because Chinese manufacturers aren't standing still outside the US. They're localizing production, buying or reusing factories, forming partnerships with established manufacturers and becoming part of the same global supply chains that legacy automakers use. Brazil is already experiencing that transition. Europe increasingly is too. Renault and Geely, for example, just announced another €319 million investment in their Brazilian partnership. If an American-built Chinese EV eventually costs roughly the same as an American-built competitor, we'll have learned something important about the original Chinese cost advantage. But if it can still compete aggressively on price and equipment while paying American production costs, then keeping the imported version out didn't solve Detroit's underlying competitiveness problem. It just postponed the test.

Smok3dSalmon

Why would they diverge? That’s a false argument. They would fire the CEO for being an idiot. GM in other geographies mostly just makes the same vehicles unless they partner. Most of the partnerships are just to piggyback off the partner’s supply chain.

Wermys

The reason you will NOT see GM be competitive with the Chinese brands in the short term is cost of manufacturing. The moment automatition with stuff like Optimus happens the advantage to having cars produced in China vanishes. But China knows this also which is why they are also building plants overseas anticpating this in other countries. Frankly the bigger question for countries is whether or not they decide to put up protectionist barriers to try and force local manufacturing once automatition makes production outside of China viable. What I am more curious is if some of the larger economies like Brazel, Nigeria etc will start to have its own domestic car manufactureres come to the forfront due to automation rather then foreign car manufacturers whether they are from the US, Japan, China or Korea.

Crayon_Eater_007

|GM 2025 Metric|Amount| |:-|:-| |Free Cash Flow|\~$17.6B| |Pension payments |\~$4–6B| |Dividends + Buybacks|\~$7.7B| It's always the pensions fault, but somehow they can afford tons of dividends & stock-buybacks....

joebraga2

I think several comments here are mixing two separate questions. Yes, China has lower manufacturing wages, industrial subsidies matter, and the US has legitimate reasons to care about trade rules. I'm not arguing that Chinese manufacturers should simply get unrestricted access to the American market. What I'm questioning is the idea that cheap labor alone explains why Chinese cars are cheaper, and that keeping them out therefore solves Detroit's competitiveness problem. Brazil is becoming a useful real-world test. GM, Volkswagen, Fiat and Toyota have been manufacturing here for decades. They already have factories, established suppliers, huge dealer networks, brand recognition and enormous scale. Chinese manufacturers entered with almost none of those advantages. Their cars initially had to be shipped across the ocean, pay import duties and Brazilian taxes, establish distribution and dealerships from scratch, and compete against locally produced ICE cars. Yet they were still able to price BEVs and PHEVs directly against conventional ICE vehicles. And now Chinese manufacturers are increasingly localizing production in Brazil. That makes the labor argument even more interesting, because progressively more of the production cost is Brazilian rather than Chinese. So where does the remaining price competitiveness come from? That's the part I think deserves more attention: vertical integration, battery costs, dedicated EV platforms, fewer components, supplier structure, manufacturing efficiency, scale, software/electronics integration and possibly lower margins while entering a new market. It doesn't mean subsidies and Chinese labor costs are irrelevant. It means they probably aren't the entire explanation. There's also an interesting counterargument several people here have raised: protecting Detroit's highly profitable US market could give GM and Ford the cash and time they need to become more competitive elsewhere. That could work. But then the important question is what they do with that protection. GM can make excellent money selling large pickups and SUVs in the US while simultaneously competing with BYD, GWM and Geely in places like Brazil. If those American profits finance better platforms, lower production costs and more competitive electrified cars globally, then the protected home market is buying useful time. If instead protection allows Detroit to remain increasingly dependent on high-margin trucks and SUVs while competitors gain scale and manufacturing experience in the rest of the world, then protection may simply be hiding the competitiveness problem. That's why I'd actually like to see Chinese manufacturers subjected to the hardest possible version of this test in the US. Don't give them unrestricted imports. Require local production. Require American wages, American safety standards and American regulations. Then let an American-built BYD compete against an American-built GM or Ford. If the price advantage largely disappears, then labor, subsidies and imports really were doing much of the work. But if a locally produced Chinese EV can still compete on price with a locally produced American ICE vehicle or EV, then Detroit has a manufacturing-cost problem that tariffs alone aren't going to solve.

Sea_Bear7754

The big 3 have a world of problems, some their cars, most are not. Ford for example can’t make an EV of Bibi held a gun to their head. GM is fine, FCA can’t make anything that isn’t a Ram 1500.

SigX1

What are you talking about? We will love the GM Trabant and Ford Yugo. That totally worked out for East Germany and Yugoslavia, right?

connly33

GM seems to be trying but it’s painfully clear how bloated and kneecapped they are. They seem to be afraid to dump money into their new platforms as fast as they need to and everyone is afraid of making individual decisions without running it through 37 departments for approval and waiting 8 months for the most basic changes to start being implemented. If a Chinese auto manufacturer decides they need to build a new test facility, make a design improvement, change suppliers or demand different specs on components it’s done in matter of days to weeks. The US corporate structure isn’t setup to make fast decisions. Even me as an individual or small business if I want to get a tool die made, I’m looking at 6 months minimum and $350k USD. If I go to get that same die made in China I can get it done for $15k and I can make daily or weekly revisions by sending new prints directly to the machine shop through WeChat. And if I don’t like the quality they’ll have a new one on the way immediately. In the US it would be a month of back and forth and possibly involve them firing me as a customer.

Treinrukker

GM and other American car makers have received billions, they just don't call it subsidies 🤣🤣

joebraga2

That's actually the strongest counterargument to what I'm suggesting, and I think it's possible. A protected and highly profitable US market could give GM the cash flow to compete much more aggressively elsewhere. GM could make money on trucks and SUVs at home while being forced to cut costs and develop cheaper electrified products in markets like Brazil. My question is what happens if those two sides of GM start diverging too much. If the protected US profits are being used to make GM more efficient globally, then protection may genuinely be buying useful time. But if GM becomes increasingly dependent on high-margin trucks and SUVs in the US while its smaller and more affordable products struggle against Chinese competitors internationally, then the protected market may be masking the problem rather than fixing it. Brazil is why I'm interested in this distinction. GM can't avoid BYD, GWM and Geely here. Chevrolet has to compete for the same private customers, and that is already forcing a different product and pricing environment. So I agree that protection doesn't automatically make GM less competitive. The question is whether Detroit is using the protected revenue stream to become capable of competing without protection later. If it is, that's a successful industrial strategy. If it isn't, then the US market becomes a very profitable shelter while the competitive problem keeps growing outside it.

Smok3dSalmon

You’re talking about GM competing with Chinese companies in international markets and then wondering if banning them from the US is making them less competitive? I think protecting their home market secures their revenue streams while they compete and evolve.

joebraga2

There's another US-specific factor that I think matters here: the American auto market isn't just protected from Chinese competition. It's also unusually dependent on large pickups and SUVs, especially for Detroit's most profitable products. The reaction to Ram dropping the Hemi V8 from the 1500 was a fascinating example. There was enough customer demand for the V8 that Ram eventually brought it back. Brazil has some of that culture too, particularly among wealthier pickup buyers and in agribusiness. Brazilian V8 enthusiasts celebrated its return as well. But the scale is completely different. In the US, the F-150, Silverado 1500 and Ram 1500 are mainstream vehicles, and above them you have the F-Series Super Duty, Silverado 2500/3500 and Ram 2500/3500. That creates an interesting situation for Detroit. Chinese manufacturers have become extremely aggressive in compact cars, crossovers, batteries, BEVs and PHEVs, while American manufacturers still make enormous amounts of money in vehicle segments where US consumer preferences are quite different from most of the world. That can be a strength. BYD can't simply take a successful Chinese compact EV and expect it to replace an F-150. But it could also become a weakness if those highly profitable American segments allow Detroit to postpone becoming price-competitive in smaller vehicles and electrified powertrains that it needs to sell internationally. That's why I keep coming back to GM. GM can make excellent money selling large trucks in the US while simultaneously being forced to learn how to compete with BYD, Geely and GWM in markets like Brazil. Maybe that strategy works. But if the US business becomes increasingly dependent on expensive trucks and SUVs while other markets move toward cheaper electrified vehicles, that's a very different long-term risk from simply asking whether Americans want Chinese cars.

hkmamike

In the dynamic that you laid out, GM actually builds muscles for producing price competitive cars, while keeping the US market more profitable, at the expense of US consumers.

throwaway110c

New GM V8 engines will no longer include a dipstick to check your oil. We've now reached max retardation.

Infamous_Ad8730

Shiller P/E is mostly irrelevant in today's market. It was helpful and meaningful when the big companies were GE, GM, Ford, PG, WM etc. Those businesses had 5-10% margins and investors were only going to pay so much for that kind of profit. Now, the major companies (by far) are NVDA, AAPL, MSFT, META, GOOGL and those companies are running 50-75%! margins, so investors are now willing to pay more for those outrageously higher profits.

realjlj

Margins like that in memory never feel temporary while they're happening. I'd watch how they talk about customer pricing and inventory on the next couple calls more than the GM print itself. Cycle businesses always look like they've structurally improved right before the turn.

Paganly

I love LAC. Been buying chunks every pay cheque since spring. Near production status next year. And, good outlook with a US energy position and GM holding.

effyourAI

What makes you think GM isn’t going to shake down LAC for all that it’s worth? GM doesn’t give a shit about LAC’s stock price, they now essentially own all first phase production of Thacker Pass. Not to mention the U.S. department of energy getting their cut too.

ReDesignMe

Copy pasted from another post. My LAC analysis.  It's green energy but still energy. Pre-revenue yes but you have to look at the bigger picture. Firstly the commodity, lithium, is critical to national security and the project is backed by $3B in funding from DOE, GM, and private equity. Trump likes the project so much he even had his government take an ownership stake in it. I think Trump has messed up badly with the Iran war and will cause some sort of energy crisis when the reserves can no loger suppress the price of oil. This will hand Democrats the next election and they'll preach about diversifying and innovation of energy, just like last time. Regardless of if that actually happens or not, LAC will still go through a re-rate next year as construction ends in 2027 and commercial production begins 2028. All miners go through it, it is verifiable data and the gains are usually between 100-250% as a reward for the project being majorly derisked and start of revenues. Insert the Democrats in office and most likely this is 300-500% by 2030. The play here is simply to wait for the big money to come to you instead of chasing it. It's the same playbook from TNZ that changed my life. You just have to think ahead a little and be patient, that's it.

Valkorion335786

https://youtu.be/P7GM5uu6GII?is=5yT0ur7gYRIReu2S At 3:12

AgitatedStranger9698

SHould've gone Rivian, GM equinox is solid too. But you strike me as a cybertruck kind of guy.

Kpints

Revenue share should be in GM. Stock based comp should stay in. There's a very realistic argument to be made that model *training* costs (not inference) should be capitalized. Do with this that you will

The_Alan_Greenspan

$GM overvalued

Accurate_Flower_4233

GM stock price tripled. 

Particular_Rule304

PANW? Definitely seems the most reasonable of all the big names. \~74% GM with compression only from memory prices is attractive.

POsIDeCTAc

We have already lost it. We are just prolonging the inevitable. It's time to rip the band aid off and force Honda, Toyota, Ford, GM, and Stellantis to compete.

Aggravating_Storm835

You are completely overlooking a lot of big factors: primarily Volkswagen, Mercedes, Hyundai, GM, Toyota, and Rivian. The first three have L4 autonomy. The last three are nearing it. Ford, Honda, and Nissan ain’t rolling over, either. And those are just the legacy giants. Not even counting other startups like May Mobility and WeRide. You miss the fact that the industry is expected to 10x in the next decade and there’s a lot of major producers that manufacture cars for a lot less than Waymo can at their current $70k-$200k per car rate. Most manufacture cars cheaper than Tesla does, too. Tesla only manufactures less than 1.5-1.8 million vehicles a year. Waymo only produces about 2k a year. 100 million vehicles are sold each year. Let’s generously assume both will produce a combined 5 million AV’s each year. 100 million vehicles are currently sold every year and it’s projected that AV’s could reduce that by 30-50%, creating an implied demand for 30-50 million AV’s annually. So even with my generous assumptions, Tesla and Waymo combined can only supply at most 13% of the projected demand. This is why Waymo and Tesla’s efforts to be a stand-alone provider are unlikely to be successful. Even if one happens to be available near you (which appears improbable), maybe you want/need a Mercedes or Rivian. Most likely, you’ll just want the car that is available when you need it and not care if it’s a Waymo or Tesla or anything. That’s where Uber comes in.

Aggravating_Storm835

Why would Ford stop at dealerships? They famously revolutionized manufacturing. Surely they could set up their own store-fronts, right? Yes, but dealerships addressed a lot of issues like local sales infrastructure, financing, trade-ins, warranty work, service centers, and parts distribution that Ford didn’t have to deal with and only costs them a portion of their economics. So it made sense for major manufacturers. You seem to think Waymo and Tesla are the only games in town. They aren’t. Volkswagen, Mercedes, and Hyundai all have L4 autonomy. Toyota, GM, and Rivian, all have L3 and are nearing L4. My guess is that auto manufacturers, which are already a low margins business, will not want to spend $4B developing their own platforms with the hope that could be marginally successful. Nor do I think people will want to own 12 different AV apps. That leaves the obvious door open for an aggregator like Uber. You seem to think it’s AV’s vs Uber like Uber isn’t the biggest player. They will literally have the most AV availability on earth next year. They won’t own any of it (yet). But that’s not necessarily a bad thing until the tech and demand is more proven. I’d hate for them to spend $40B on a fleet only to find out Mercedes has the better product. I keep comparing Uber to Netflix. Do you realize all the arguments you’re making are identical to the ones made against Netflix around 2013/2014 (before they started making their own content). Everyone like you was on here saying, “Disney/Paramount/HBO will all launch their own streaming service and then Netflix will have nothing”. How’d that turn out?

Aggravating_Storm835

You think Uber should get out of ride-hailing? Do you realize how crazy that sounds? Uber is to ride-share what Google is to search engines and Coca-Cola is to soda. Their brand name is synonymous with their industry. And their industry is expected to 10x over the next decade. I don’t think you actually understand Uber’s role or the potential for AV’s. AV’s are coming up at the same time remote work is expanding and increasing housing costs are moving more people towards urban living. Car ownerships costs (vehicle, financing, insurance, maintenance, and parking) right now average $12-$14k a year and it’s increasing 10% annually. That means at the current rate, the cost of car ownership will be around $33k a year in 2036. It’s projected that 40-50% of jobs will be remote by 2035-2040. For those people, we can reasonably expect their driving habits to be cut in half to around 6k miles a year. That means they’ll be paying over $5 per mile. Uber costs only $1.10/mile (with drivers). Mature robotaxi’s project to cost 50-80 cents per mile. So the thesis is car ownership goes the way of owning DVD’s/CD’s and Uber becomes the Netflix/Spotify of transportation. Do you think Toyota, GM, Volkswagen, Honda, Ford, and Hyundai are going to abandon/significantly reduce their auto manufacturing? Do you think they’ll all successfully launch their own networking platform? Or do you think they’ll become like film studios, who license their content to Netflix, use Uber as their new “dealership” to connect cars with riders? Just like Netflix, I expect more competition. Maybe Waymo and Tesla will be among them. But I have doubts. My guess would be Tesla is at the most risk. Amazon has the most potential since they already have a massive logistics network. But just as Prime Video didn’t sink Netflix, I don’t expect Zoox to sink Uber.

Aggravating_Storm835

You realize Volkswagen, Mercedes, and Hyundai have L4 autonomy right now, right? Uber has major partnerships with all three and are testing hundreds of their AV’s on the Uber network this year. Toyota, Rivian, and GM are developing it right now. Uber has partnerships with Toyota and Rivian (Toyota is actually a stakeholder in Uber), and still have a relationship with GM after their Cruise program ended. Most likely scenario: robotaxi networks replace a large chunk of consumer car sales in the next 10-15 years. At which point, Uber becomes like the Netflix of cars, an aggregator of taxi’s from other providers and, since they have all the demand data, are likely to purchase their own fleet from various OEM’s and deploy them based on where what type of vehicles are most popular/needed. I don’t think you (or the market) appreciates just how far ahead Uber is in this game. Having cars is nice. But 200M monthly users is where the money is. People often assume everything any Mag7 touches turns to gold, but that’s far from true. Remember Google+? Amazon Spark? Goodreads? Tesla’s battery-swap stations? Tesla’s 1 million robotaxi fleet by 2020? Amazon’s Fire Phone? Metaverse? Shit, remember the first time Amazon tried to compete with Uber when they launched “Amazon Destinations” and “Amazon Restaurant”? They lasted about 6 months.

Aggravating_Storm835

They’re currently getting them from Rivian and Lucid. Uber also has a long partnership with Toyota. I like Uber’s flexibility more than Zoox, Waymo or Tesla. General Motors expects to have hands-off/eyes-off driving on the road by 2028. Toyota, Mercedes, and Volkswagen are also developing their own with a less certain timeline. Ford and Honda have tried but appear further behind. So I can see two possible scenarios, both of which are good for Uber. Scenario 1: Uber becomes like Netflix, both an aggregator for other AV providers and a provider of their own fleet (original content), which will be purchased from Rivian, Lucid, GM, Toyota, Volkswagen or anyone they want. Scenario 2: If AV’s become the future, car sales are likely to decline 30-50% in the next 15 years. This would be ruinous for most auto makers. If this is the case, Uber probably won’t be the loser in the AV movement. I suspect it will be car dealerships. In this scenario, Uber essentially takes the place of dealerships: the person connecting the car to the customer. Toyota, GM, Volkswagen, and anyone who wants to remain in the car business builds AV’s to use as Robotaxi’s on the Uber network. Uber may even provide fleet management services and make it a seamless transition for OEM’s. Scenario 1 provides more total revenue and profit potential. Scenario 2 keeps Uber lean and has greater margin potential. I think the whole market misunderstands Uber’s position. Either they take off and Uber benefits or they don’t and Uber still benefits.

onsokuono4u

The postwar-advantage part is true and it's Econ 101, but the rest of your post skips a lot... US manufacturing output is near record highs in dollar terms. What collapsed was manufacturing employment, and automation ate way more of those jobs than China or Korea did. A modern US factory makes more stuff with a fraction of the headcount from 1970; that's productivity, not just "getting cooked." Also the electronics/auto framing cherry-picks the losing categories. Nobody's buying American TVs because the US basically ceded consumer electronics decades ago — no tariff wall, no industrial policy, nothing like what protected autos. Meanwhile the US still dominates the categories WWII destruction has nothing to do with: aerospace, semiconductor equipment (ASML/TSMC can't build fabs without Applied Materials and Lam Research), ag equipment, defense, pharma, chemicals. Those aren't relics of 1946 — they're current comparative advantage. And "no one else cares for American cars" undersells it. GM sold more cars in China than in the US for over a decade. Tesla is the best-selling car brand on earth in dollar terms in several markets. Ford/GM chose to retreat into trucks/SUVs domestically because margins are fatter there, not because nobody wanted a Focus. TL;DR: the war-recovery story explains the *shape* of the 50s–70s boom, but by the time Sony/Samsung/TCL show up it's competing with automation, deliberate corporate offshoring, and different countries specializing in different tiers of the stack, not one long slide off a WWII cliff.

NavyDean

Lol, buddy heard about China wanting to replace all the shuttered US car plants in Canada with their own plants and now he gets jealous and wants in on it. Stellantis, GM and Ford better smarten the fuck up before they get wiped out by the competition.

Expert_Context5398

It's not the app that is the issue. It's the billions in fees that self-driving companies will NOT want to pay Uber which Uber will need to become sustainable. What self-driving company that engineered a marvelous revolutionary technology will say to themselves, "But let's stop at the app and connect with Uber instead... we want to pay them billions of dollars in fees." No sane company will do that worth a lick. You comparing social media companies to a self-driving app is a bit ridiculous. Social media apps are free. Facebook can succeed alongside TikTok because while being direct competitors, to the consumer, there is no benefit to only picking one. For a consumer looking to hail a ride, the cheaper option will be directly with the self-driving company because again, no fees to Uber. Once they experience a driverless vehicle at a cheaper price, they'll ditch Uber. They no longer need it. To a consumer, there is no reason to ditch say, TikTok, to use Facebook. IDK anyone who said PayPal was going to kill Visa. Amazon was never designed to beat Walmart. It was designed to beat local stores that don't offer good prices. Walmart offers great prices. I'm not understanding your regulation argument nor do I understand your better vehicles argument. GM/Toyota/VW are vastly behind in self-driving technology so who are they licensing the technology from?

moorhound

>**Trump signals he would allow China to build cars in US** >"If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here, I'd be okay with it. Japan does it, but they hire our people," Trump told Fox News in an interview. >"What I don't want is them to build in Mexico and build it inexpensively and ship it across the border," he added. F DED, GM DED, STLA DED, TSLA DED, KIA/HYUNDAI DED Gyna absolutely dominates in the "boring suppository-shaped crossover" category, and that's the only thing that makes money in America

Aggravating_Storm835

I’m old enough to remember when people were certain Google+ was going to kill Facebook. Turns out it’s easy to launch an app. It’s very hard to build a regular user base. History is full of these examples. “Amazon is going to kill Walmart”, “PayPal is going to kill Visa”. I think you (and the market as a whole) have the Uber thesis exactly wrong. AV’s are an opportunity for Uber, not a threat. Waymo/Tesla AV’s can fall behind or fail to meet regulations in many markets. If GM/Toyota/Volkswagen (or whoever) comes out with better vehicles, Uber can purchase a fleet from them much more easily than Waymo/Tesla can build and maintain Uber’s network.

Keter_Regretter

lol Ford and GM being green today is how you know this is about hiding the impact of oil prices

deekster_caddy

From an investing standpoint, I like GM and Ford, also solar like FSLR has been doing well lately, and XOM still pays dividends... I also hold some Rivian and grabbed some more Lucid while it's really cheap, that's a gamble. I won't buy TSLA unless they get rid of the lunatic running it, but many have done well with it.

Aggravating_Storm835

You mean the cybercab that Elon promised 1 million on the road by 2020? Or the cybercab that Elon promised coast-to-coast autonomous driving by 2017? Eventually, people will realize the guy is full of shit. \#1 Uber is buying AV’s cheaper than Tesla can manufacture them. \#2 even if Tesla managed to mass produce enough to compete with Uber, they’d still have to also produce the networking platform to compete with Uber’s 200 million monthly users. This is much more difficult than building/buying cars. \#3 Uber is operational on every continent except Antarctica. The biggest burden to AV’s is government regulation. If Uber wants to launch a European fleet, they are very likely to acquire one from Volkswagen, who is already road certified. If they want a North American fleet, they can acquire one from Ford/GM/Rivian. If they want a Chinese/Japanese fleet, they can acquire one from BYD/Toyota. Tesla is very unlikely to do any of that. \#4 Tesla/Waymo hype is no more of a threat to Uber than HBO/Hulu/Paramount was to Netflix. In fact, it could benefit them. Netflix’s threat was never other streamers, it was getting people to cut the cable. Similarly, Uber’s threat is getting people to “cut the car”. If car ownership continues waning, the TAM will grow so ridiculous, that Uber could lose 2/3rds of their market share and the share price will still 10x in the next 10-15 years. The real threat to Uber is if manufacturers can find a way to sell cars people both can afford and actually want to own.

Form1040

Yeah, JK Galbraith was writing in the a few decades back that companies like GM and Sears had so much market power that it was literally IMPOSSIBLE that they would ever be dislodged from their positions. How f'n wrong can a man be?

Interesting-Effect56

Maybe in the US, Canada will eventually look more European and Asian. A lot less Ford and GM

ScheduleSame258

Thats been the case for the last 5 decades - Boeing, GE, GM, Ford, GS, MS, JPMC, BoA. These are all too big to fail

JabCrossE4E5Quark

Their financials are still garbage (and somehow not even getting better as they start to scale), have no real path to being even GM positive in the next 12 months, and have a ton of debt and shares OS. A 50% pump off a tiny Google order of 20M thats FOUR YEARS OUT is insane. I sold out a couple weeks ago and am not buying back in.

Hockeyshot39

Many CEOs have promised things and haven’t delivered, the CEO of GM, in 2021, said that they would outsell Tesla’s and electric vehicle vehicles by 2025. It happens, but the fact is they’ve delivered on many promises, Reddit seem to have been all over Tesla thing the cyber truck never be released or manufactured yet here it is

Legitimate_Row7803

I'm following Inogen, there is a potentially upside Verdict: Favorable Risk/Reward — Q2'26 (released Aug 6 after-market) was a "less bad" print: revenue $95.1M (+3.0% YoY), international +14.8%, adj EBITDA positive $2.4M (+15% YoY), GM 45.5% (+70bps), positive operating cash flow $2.9M, cash pile $106.8M against zero debt. Market reacted negatively (−3.10% to $6.25) focusing on the −$0.15 EPS miss and US channel softness, but the fundamentals moved the right direction. Valued via SoTP with prudent segment multiples (US declining core 0.35x EV/Rev + International growth engine 1.0x + net cash + Yuwell + Simeox option), base FV lands at $12.50/sh — vs price $6.25, an implied +100% upside. Cash + Yuwell alone ($134M) covers ~80% of the current market cap; the operating business is priced at nearly nothing. Info only, not financial advice. https://www.dianalitics.com/companies/INGN

omg_cats

Says you - they say differently. Regardless net rev is up 25% yoy. People here are missing the forest for the trees: this is not a new idea. The 2008 bailouts also took equity and warrants. Some were winners (AIG) and some were losers (GM).

nathanwilson26

The main problem is Rivian designed trucks that are expensive to build. They lose $3,000 per vehicle sold, Tesla makes $5,000 per vehicle sold. Even GM makes $2,000. Selling more trucks isn’t going to save rivian, since they would need to completely redesign their trucks and their manufacturing to be profitable. Cyber truck even as a sales flop is a manufacturing success since it’s a proof of concept for 48v architecture and gigcasting, both will reduce manufacturing costs.

InterestingPause9940

Nike has hit a rough patch…they’ll be back. Same people saying it’s a loser are ones who said AT&T, Boeing, tobacco companies (BTI, Altria, etc), CVS, Estee Lauder, Ford, GM, Bank of America, Harley Davidson, Intel, Kohls, QSR, Vale, Verizon, and on and on and on were losers…only to see them get their acts together and rebound nicely…some by double in less than 3 years. Nike gonna do the same thing. For that matter you might as well scoop up McDonalds right now too…and LULU. None of these are going away and they’re all on their heels at the moment. But just like all the other blue bloods they’ll get their footing and be back to prospering soon enough. Maybe it’s 1 year…maybe it’s 2, but they’re not gonna stay down…and then all the scaredy cats who were doom and gloom and kicked it while it was down will be nowhere to be found and the rest of us who keep it simple with Buy Low and Sell High will be building vacation homes named “Just Do It”!!!

Nelsonsrightknacker

Hopefully we can see a Ford, GM, Samsung , Apple etc versions and these things get going really soon because I can't wait - sick of driving with lunatics in Toronto.

waitingOnMyletter

He is, he’s great. Him and I have a good relationship l, he has a good relationship with my kids. He tells great War stories, he has no issues telling them which is the exact opposite of what Tv tells you (sometimes to my wife’s distaste but w.e. haha). He and my mom had a great lifelong marriage. My truly dad lived “the American dream”. And he earned it, two wars, three kids, worked at GE for like I don’t even know … many decades, at least 30 years or something. Then sometime at GM, and then Coca-Cola before retiring. I’m just indefinitely jealous of his bull shit trading strategy working all the time. It pisses me off lol

waitingOnMyletter

Honestly it’s been my whole life with this shit man. He has some other wicked trades but nothing like that. He has his original shares from GE framed. This was like back in the 60s - 70s when they mailed you the paper copy. He also has like paper copies of Coca-Cola, and GM. His “never sell” mentality is like the pro typical “boomer buys fuckin bonds and never sells them” meme. That’s straight up him. He bought a bunch of meta stock when the plummeted after the “meta” name change. “Seems like that’s where the world is going. Who knows could be a B&O railroad or could be the Reading railroad”. Well turns out it ran up even though they didn’t invent the metaverse. He’s not like some oracle but if you buy a bunch of shit your darts hit the board, sometimes they hit the bulls eye.

BalmyBalmer

This is why Ford and GM are building plants in Canada.

Oceanbreeze871

How is he gonna end trade? Just tell GM that they can’t export vehicles anymore.

AutisticGayBear69

GM

Spac55

Why Trillions dollars car EV companies, when they recall like, F, GM, TM

Spac55

EV is not always get free ride buzzers TSLA recalled 3 million vehicles like GM, F.

Spac55

TSLA recalled 3 million vehicles like GM, F.

TheLastGoodRiot

Impressive. Like Boeing and GM impressive. 🤔

Suspicious_Chart5817

Even simpler than that, even if someone absolutely nailed in the 1920s or 1930s that cars would upend everything about our lives and invested in all the obvious big names before they got big an investor today would be absolutely broke. Their chief win would be maybe Ford if we count it and GM; and then alongside that would be a dozen or two dozen loser companies who changed how we live and got tons of people rich but were still bad investments for most investors

TheSource777

Neutron is economically infeasible compared to starship. Starship will be launching so often they will cover all orbits neutron can. Neutron will be limited to projects propped up by the government and direct spacex competitors. The economics also affects its payload plans like flatellites. Wil it survive? Yah. But surviving the way GM survives as an inferior car company protected against superior Chinese cars.

imustbegthequestion

It's a shame the world has distilled to you're easiest either fabii frankish, gaulish, Indian, nubian, phoneician, eurasian, finish, Dutch, AeNGLiSH, Irish, Calabrian, bandy bantu... Pirate... Cannibal, foreigner, Malagasy. Asian. Marco Polo. CC. CC. c. Ccc.CCC.CSC.SCC.SEC.TSA.SSS.SSG.GS.GM.JPM.GS.MS.WFTFUSB.RYBCD.L.HSBC.UBS.HBI.HBI.HBI.M.M.M. AND ALL OTHER WORKS of Satan. Such a shame. 26,000.0000 years and we're still at step 5. +/- 7,300 years. Til tik tok we only got 60-2000 years to fix the water sanitation crisis. Think quantum arc hydrogen fuel oil Lucid automobile cell.

Spac55

AI companies burning cash Whoever pay, they sing for them $F investment in $RIVN $CRM . Investment in Anthropic, cash burning business Doesn’t mean their old technology is getting transitioned to new technology, $CRM. they might get punished more like $GM $F

Spac55

$F investment in $RIVN $CRM . Investment in Anthropic, cash burning business Doesn’t mean their old technology is getting transitioned to new technology, $CRM. they might get punished more like $GM $F Not up like $TSLA

Immediate-Run-7085

You seriously comparing GM to tech startups?

artbystorms

"Not so long ago" So like 120 years ago? US Steel was first Billion dollar company in 1901. GM crossed $10B in 1955. The S&P500 had a total value of $172 billion when it was founded in 1957, meaning many of the top companies had already crossed $1B.

artbystorms

How....old are you? GM was worth $10 billion in 1955. Many companies were worth billions by the 1960s....

Ok-Adeptness-5834

This is not uncommon. Lots of companies of expensive machinery offer this type of financing to its customers, like GM or Caterpillar. It’s been around for as long as commerce itself