Biden Offers $1.7 Billion to Help Factories Build Electric Vehicles
Biden Offers $1.7 Billion to Help Factories Build Electric Vehicles
A Jeep plant that closed last year will be among those that will benefit from federal grants meant to help automotive manufacturers and protect jobs.
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Its about time. Tariffs on imports isn't enough by itself to spur domestic manufacturing, it just creates creates space in the market for native companies to grow into. Actually growing that manufacturing base requires resources.
Lets do solar panels next.
Why not subsidize by increasing the tax credit for consumers? Domestic companies that choose to turn that margin into profit, rather than supplement R&D costs, deserve to fail.
Once the factories come online and there's domestic product to buy, that will probably become an important component of the strategy to bring manufacturing back home.
On the other hand, tax credits don't benefit everyone who might want to buy an EV. For example, government agencies like the USPS would save nothing on the taxes they don't pay, but they would benefit from lower prices brought about through economies of scale in domestic manufacturing. Non-profit 501(c)(3) and not-for-profit 501(d) corporations likewise find tax credits to be unhelpful.
There is already domestic product to buy though, why wait for these specific factories?
The secondary (almost primary) problem is that the tariffs aren't guaranteed long term. You can't spend 5 years building a billion dollar electric vehicle manufacturing facility in the US and then have the tariffs lifted and China undercut the hell out of you because their batteries are locally sourced and they pay their employees $2.75/hour.
I think there was solar panel subsidies but they got rid of them because it got cheap. Essentially those that didn't get subsidies would just not enter the market because they would be competing in a market where others had a big advantage. They are hoping other companies now see it as viable. I have no opinions on this, I'm no economics major or anything.