For shoppers who want to buy an electric car but have been put off by the steep price tag, the news this week that President Biden has hiked tariffs on Chinese-made EVs to shut them out of the U.S. market is not good. It means that Chinese-made EVs won’t be sold in the U.S. any time soon and American consumers won’t have access to affordable models, such as BYD’s Seagull, which sells for $12,000 in China. Similar EVs available in U.S. at the moment cost three times more.
is in this position at all. China is winning the EV race because the government poured money into the development of zero-emission technology, knowing that EVs are the future. While China was looking forward, U.S. automakers spent much of the last decade trying to delay EV production mandates and investing in bigger, more expensive gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks.