alt Hacker News>Americans watch the rest of the world getting better, cheaper, ...
If we wanted cheap cars, there needs to be demand to justify building giga factories of EVs.
There just wasnt sufficient consumer demand to justify the giga factory investments
China CAN generate demand for EVs because they have the political ability to
1) force gas restricted cars to only drive on certain days of the week
2) create a brutal lottery to get a license plate to legally drive a gas car
3) provide a bunch of subsidies
The US has only done option 3.
Out govt system literally doesnt have the political will to do these brutal but effective policy changes
Replies
New car sales in Europe in 2026 are approaching 50% EV with essentially none of the above. Europe has had generous EV subsidies in the past, but in 2026 those are mostly (but not completely) gone.
*after further research it seems option 1 is really limited to tier 1 and tier 2 cities(1/3) of the population
4) People in China want to save money on gas, while America prefers to bitch about gas prices, while doing nothing to switch away from gas-guzzling ICE land yachts.
> Out govt system literally doesnt have the political will to do these brutal but effective policy changes
I agree our country needs to really have some sort of revolution for the good of all humanity to force this change and overcome the entrenched interests of these greedy corporations.
Maybe we come up with a plan to drastically solve our energy and industry problems, overcome all obstacles and bring about a wonderful utopia, I bet we could do it inside of 5 years if we just gave enough power to the right people.
We could call it a 5 year plan, and listen we need broad sweeping powers to do it, otherwise malicious actors would try and subvert it. Some people wouldn't like it but that's because they aren't brave enough to do what needs to be done for the good of the workers and the proletariat. Rise up comrade let us implement the glorious 5 year plan that will free us forever from the capitalist shackles.
If we ignore the cultural issues with Americans where some places buying an EV is considered "gay" (because that is inheritently negative to them) then we can easily point to the hostile lobbying tactics and government capitulation via bought congressmen. Go look at the historical hostilities Tesla faced when first trying to take off.
If I still lived in the US, I'd be hesitant to buy an EV because the infrastructure state to state to support charging wasn't great when I was last there. In Europe, you can road trip with your EV no problem.
Let's not entirely blame consumers for not being incentivised enough. Let's face it the US has been actively against EVs. You mention subsidies, haven't those even seen regressions in EV and solar panel subsidies? It's ridiculous.