Ask any auto industry observer what is needed to return cooling electric vehicle sales to their once-scorching growth, and you’ll get the same answer: affordable models. With too many high-priced EVs fighting for the limited number of buyers who can afford them, it seems glaringly obvious that lower-cost vehicles are the path to renewed growth. So which automakers are stepping up to meet this challenge? Considering how obvious the opportunity seems to be, there don’t seem to be many takers.
Should we start considering a reality where the same happens with BYD? The initial political impulse to limit imports of Japanese vehicles did nothing to blunt America’s demand for them, but only raised prices and profits that Detroit promptly blew on stock-pumping gimmicks rather than technological progress. And it led Toyota, Honda and Nissan to bypass tariffs by building the vehicles they sold to Americans in America, creating robust manufacturing segments here and over one million jobs.