The auto industry will often talk out of both sides of its mouth on this issue. They'll say we need these very high tariff walls to make sure these small, cheap electric vehicles can't just come in and completely take over the market, and then they'll say, actually, we don't offer those vehicles in North America because they don't sell. Which one is it?
In Europe there is some degree of Chinese competition. I'll quote the Stellantis CEO, Carlos Tavares, who asked investors in February 2024, as they were introducing a budget EV model in Europe:
Do we want that the Chinese carmakers take a significant share of the U.S. market in the next 20 years, or the next 10 years?
He asked:
How do we prevent that from happening beyond all the protectionist decisions, which are out of my reach? Well, by making our consumers happy.
There are the Stellantis Citroën ë-C3, available in Europe as of this year, at a price of 23,300 euros, which is about $34,000 Canadian; the Stellantis Fiat Panda, also in a similar price range; and the Renault 5 E-Tech. I have a whole table of these models that are being introduced in Europe by incumbent automakers who, whenever they are interviewed by publications like Bloomberg or others, and when they are introducing these models, say they're doing it to fend off the threat of Chinese competition.
What we worry about is that if we take an approach that completely shuts out competition rather than establishing a level playing field based on an actual subsidy investigation, we risk continuing the pattern of very high prices for electric vehicles in North America relative to in other markets like Europe.