EU, China will look into setting minimum prices on electric vehicles, EU says
reuters.com
The European Union and China have agreed to look into setting minimum prices of Chinese-made electric vehicles instead of tariffs imposed by the EU last year, a European Commission spokesperson said on Thursday.
Good news. But the reason they were able to dump these EV cars on our markets was because they were getting subsidized. Global markt domination and all. (Like their Belt & Road thing).
I still think free trade should prevail. Even if China is unfairly subsidizing their EV makers it should be allowed to make that mistake because China would be subsidizing European consumers and helping our energy transition and making their own industry less innovative and more dependent on subsidies. Doubtless there would be issues for European car industry but it needs to renew itself anyways and we should be looking at the overall benefits and making sure the EU market is open for trade, competition and innovation.
That is an okay middle ground TBH
Tariffs and minimum prices are both paid by the European consumers. Tariffs would go to the EU, minimum prices go to China.
Yeah, but if the tariffs would have stayed in place, we would have potentially caused a trade war with China, isolating us against the US and Russia.
If the minimum prices would have not been set, we would have lost additional industrial capacity, and while I loathe VW and BMW leadership, I feel for their workers.
Yes, some EVs will be more expensive, but compared to those other outcomes, it only affects people buying new cars.