Shaun Narine Fredericton, Canada Jan. 14 The North American auto industry is dead. It is a zombie, soon to be the victim of China's vastly superior EV industry. All around the world, countries are adopting Chinese EVs -not just cars, but even more motorcycles and other, smaller, electric powered vehicles. Last year, the US sold about $80 B of hydrocarbons to the world; China sold more than $120 B in renewable energies. In China, the competitive ecosystem is so harsh that the dozens of EV companies have had no choice but to vastly improve their products and cut prices in order to survive. The winners in this struggle are so much better than anything that Detroit can produce that they will and are in the process of sweeping across the world. The end result is that the North American auto industry will survive only behind protective tariffs in North America, unable to compete anywhere else, and forcing North American consumers to buy overly expensive, sub-par vehicles. I'd like to say that Detroit is just another casualty of Trump's economic incompetence and ideological stupidity, but it goes deeper than that. The US could have been leading the charge against climate change and into renewable energies decades ago. Instead, it has been the biggest obstacle to dealing with this existential threat. That speaks to fundamental flaws in the American economic and political systems that have endangered us all. A political system so open to sale to the highest bidder, with no regard for the common good, is destined to fail.

 

$25 Billion. That’s What Trump Cost Detroit.

By Bill Saporito

Mr. Saporito is a business journalist and a former editor at Fortune and Time.