From Thailand to Brazil, a surge of imports from Chinese electric vehicle (EV) producer BYD has the familiar pattern of being followed by the destruction of domestic automotive jobs. The UK is unlikely to be the exception. This week’s news that Britain has become the number one market for BYD should ring alarm bells. Our domestic automotive producers, that have already announced thousands of job losses this year, are unlikely to emerge unharme.
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Chinese EV producers have a track record of flooding previously open automotive markets in Thailand, Turkey, and Brazil, with supply quickly outstripping demand. The domestic automotive industry then pays the price of increased Chinese market share with job losses and factory closures.
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[In Brazil], in the same month that BYD’s car carrier arrived in the country, Brazilian prosecutors announced plans to sue BYD and two of its contractors for ‘slave like conditions’ at a factory site. BYD has previously said it has ‘zero tolerance for violations of human rights and labour laws.’
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Seeking to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted, Turkey and Brazil have imposed tariffs on foreign EV imports and introduced other restrictions with limited effect in resurrecting their domestic automotive industries. The UK will soon face a similar choice between erecting tariffs and increasing taxpayer support to keep its domestic automotive sector afloat, or letting it wither further on the vine.
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What jobs? Britain doesn’t make anything.
All our working age people are rotting at home, on the streets or mooching off the ever-shrinking welfare, and all our job listings are fake.
Our government exists to sell the country off to palantir.
Least we could do is have less fucking gasoline in the air without funding that twitter apartheid guy, but no, nevermind all that, not even shitty paternalistic cuntservative countries can sell us stuff, we don’t want more things or better things, we can’t build a hole in the ground and fill it with water, we can’t build a road nevermind repair one or lay down some rail tracks, we can’t buy cars, no no no - we’re British, thank you, we want to have it the worst possible, no less will do.
Let’s rot and instead give billions more to the elderly, like France where they’re now making more monthly than workers who pay taxes to fund pensions and care for the elderly they’ll never themselves see, in exchange for the privilege of paying old people’s mortgages, so the elderly can use their infinite wealth and free time to champion for noble causes like racism, transphobia, corruption and voting for the worst option possible in every election without fail.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) says:
With more than 183,000 people employed in manufacturing and some 796,000 in total across the wider automotive industry, we account for 13.4% of total UK export goods generating £108 billion of trade.
Addition:
A task force led by Brazilian prosecutors said it rescued 163 Chinese nationals working in “slavery-like” conditions at a construction site […] where Chinese electric vehicle company BYD is building a factory.
The [Brazilian] Labor Prosecutor’s Office released videos of the dorms where the [Chinese] construction workers were staying, which showed beds with no mattresses and rooms without any places for the workers to store their personal belongings.
Officials said [BYD contractor] Jinjiang […] had confiscated the workers’ passports and held 60% of their wages. Those who quit would be forced to pay the company for their airfare from China, and for their return ticket, the statement said.
Prosecutors said the sanitary situation at BYD’s site in Camaçari was especially critical, with only one toilet for every 31 workers, forcing them to wake up at 4 a.m. to line up and get ready to leave for work at 5:30 a.m.
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That’s fair enough. No idea why you linked the other sources though, that’s not really relevant to the topic at hand, though obviously horrible.
Oh noes! Whatever will we do if we can’t keep building ridiculous emotional support trucks like land rovers??
I fucking haaaaaaaate cars, but I’ll take a fleet of smaller, cheaper EVs over the filthy, dangerous, antiquated, artificially propped-up monstrosities we’re dealing with now.
Can we be wary of other foreign cars in that case, too?
Turkey did what? Don’t they already have 240% tax on vehicles?
