Make American Automotive Great Again

🚗💨 The Chinese EV Dream America Can’t Touch…

and Why That Might Be Okay

By AdvocateWriter-Em & his trusty AI sidekick Dexter | March 2025

"Imagine a car that charges in 12 minutes, costs under $15,000, and runs cleaner than anything on American roads today."

That’s not some utopian prototype. That’s a BYD Seagull, a fast-charging electric vehicle already hitting streets in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. It’s part of a wave of ultra-affordable Chinese EVs — like the BYD Dolphin, XPeng G6, and NIO ET5 — that offer:

800V fast-charging tech
LFP batteries that last longer and cost less
Autonomous features and OTA updates
And prices starting as low as $11,000 to $15,000

So why aren’t they here, lighting up American roads?

🧱 Tariffs. Big ones.

The U.S. currently levies 27.5% up to staggering 100% in tariffs on Chinese EVs, and I we can bet Trump is going to hold over that Biden price point, effectively pricing them out of the market. Critics call it protectionism. Others call it fear. But from the outside looking in, it feels like America is shutting the garage door on an EV revolution it desperately needs.

Imagine a future where:

You charge your car from home, off solar.
You don’t need a gas station, ever.
Your entire EV setup costs less than a used Corolla.

Sounds like a dream, right?

Hold that thought.

⚠️ Reality Check #1: Fast Charging Isn’t Free — or Easy

Chinese EVs boast 10–80% charges in 12–15 minutes — but here’s what it takes to deliver that in real life:

60kW to 120kW of electrical power
A generator the size of a trailer or
A commercial DC fast charger drawing as much as a small warehouse

For comparison:

A standard U.S. home outlet (120V) delivers ~1.4kW
Your $500 gas generator might deliver 1.8kW at best
That’s 2–5 miles of range per hour

So sure, the car can charge fast. But without the infrastructure or a mobile power station? It won't.

🧠 Reality Check #2: Labor Costs Make the Price Look Unfairly Good

Chinese EV makers like BYD vertically integrate everything — batteries, semiconductors, even glass — to drive prices down further. That’s incredible business efficiency, but not something American factories can ethically mirror.

So when U.S. lawmakers slap tariffs on those cars, they’re not just playing defense. They’re:

Protecting American jobs
Upholding labor standards
Ensuring the playing field isn’t tilted by exploitation

💥 The Dream Is Real —

But So Is the Cost

Yes, China’s EVs are fast, affordable, and technically impressive.

But real-world fast charging requires industrial-level power that most U.S. homes, towns, and off-grid setups can’t currently support — and building cars that cheap means sacrificing labor and regulatory protections we’ve fought decades to secure.

Sometimes, a “cheap” car comes at too high a cost.

We can admire the technology, and even learn from it — but letting these cars flood the U.S. market without checks or conditions could crush American automakers before they’ve had a chance to catch up. Of course there is the consideration that to Make American Automotive Great Again they need to win over the public trust and treat them fairly in disputes. Americans could after-all demand the Tariffs lifted in a major statement to our Government we are sick and tired of being kicked around by the to big to fail mentality.