NYT: Biden Calls Chinese Electric Vehicles a Security Threat

[Zoidz]

Some of us are old enough to remember how bad US cars were at that time, and how much the competition greatly raised the standard and improved all vehicles. In the post-gas-crisis era, US car makers continued to make big inefficient vehicles while imports were in general smaller and far more fuel efficient and much better made.

This was a failure of US manufacturing to adapt, just like we are seeing today with EVs. US car manufacturing is failing, on the whole, to give us the best products - in part *because* US manufacturers have been protected. Even though the US, eventually, adopted many of the manufacturing innovations developed by the Japanese back then, it's a shame they still haven't learned more from that period in history.

Agree. But you may also recall that the early Japenese vehicles had their share of quality issues, primarily because the use cases were very different from those in Japan. For example, in the northeast, early imported Datsuns were rusting through in 3-4 years because they did not consider winter road salt conditions. The Japanese manufacturers responded quickly to these issues as those problems appeared. American manufacturers tended to make excuses or stick their head in the sand.

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[VSG]

Agree. But you may also recall that the early Japenese vehicles had their share of quality issues, primarily because the use cases were very different from those in Japan. For example, in the northeast, early imported Datsuns were rusting through in 3-4 years because they did not consider winter road salt conditions. The Japanese manufacturers responded quickly to these issues as those problems appeared. American manufacturers tended to make excuses or stick their head in the sand.

I used to drive a Datsun 510 in New England ... Along with a Chevy Nova of the same era that had rusted out a huge hole in the floor under the driver pedals. We used to call it the Fred Flintstone car ...