US drivers are annoyed by a lack of affordable electric cars, while Chinese automakers are manufacturing cheap EVs by the millions.
美国司机对缺乏负担得起的电动汽车感到恼火，而中国汽车制造商正在生产数百万辆廉价电动汽车。
Geely Automobile Holdings’ Zeekr electric vehicles bound for shipment to Europe. Photographer: Bloomberg 吉利汽车控股的 Zeekr 电动汽车发往欧洲。摄影：彭博社
By Kyle Stock 凯尔·斯托克 2023年9月22日
EV variety is easy to find outside the US. Where American drivers now have about 50 electric cars to choose from, Europe’s array is almost double that, and China’s nearly triple. With that variety come more small and midsize options, and more cars with price tags that won’t break the bank.
电动汽车品种在美国以外很容易找到。美国司机现在有大约 50 辆电动汽车可供选择，欧洲的数量几乎是这一数字的两倍，中国的近三倍。随着这种多样性的出现，更多的中小型选择，以及更多价格标签不会让你倾家荡产的汽车。
Ask any US automaker and they’ll say this is mainly a profitability problem. To pay for investments in electrification, carmakers are first focusing on trucks, SUVs and other premium models. That same tension is at the center of the United Auto Workers strike, which is pitting factory workers looking to preserve pay and benefits in an EV world against carmakers who say they can’t go electric, meet union demands and stay in the black.
询问任何一家美国汽车制造商，他们都会说这主要是盈利问题。为了支付电气化投资，汽车制造商首先关注卡车、SUV 和其他高端车型。同样的紧张局势也是美国汽车工人联合会罢工的核心，这场罢工使那些希望在电动汽车世界中保留工资和福利的工厂工人与那些声称自己无法实现电动化、满足工会要求并保持盈利的汽车制造商展开了对立。
China, meanwhile, has become a global powerhouse in electric cars: It’s expected to account for about 60% of the world’s 14.1 million new passenger EV sales this year, according to BloombergNEF. Many of those options are small and affordable; some are downright cheap. Take BYD’s Atto 3, a small, front-wheel-drive crossover with one of the most advanced batteries in the game. The Atto 3 costs [just $20,000](https://carnewschina.com/2023/03/13/byd-atto-3-again-became-the-bestselling-ev-in-israel-in-feb-2023/#:~:text=As a comparison%2C the starting,38%2C000 EUR (40%2C500 USD).) in China and starts at $38,000 in the UK and Europe. But not a single Atto 3 is headed for the US market.
与此同时，中国已成为全球电动汽车强国：据彭博新能源财经报道，预计今年中国将占全球 1,410 万辆新乘用电动汽车销量的 60% 左右。其中许多选择规模较小且价格实惠；有些非常便宜。以比亚迪的 Atto 3 为例，这是一款小型前轮驱动跨界车，配备了业内最先进的电池之一。 Atto 3 在中国的售价仅为 20,000 美元，在英国和欧洲的起价为 38,000 美元。但没有一台 Atto 3 会进入美国市场。
Why not? The answer is part logistics and part politics.
为什么不？答案部分是后勤，部分是政治。
Although the US has a strong track record of mainstreaming foreign cars — Toyota is one of the country’s most popular brands — the challenges of entering such a competitive market are hard to overstate. All foreign automakers do so at a disadvantage, starting with a 2.5% tariff on most imports. But in two categories that disadvantage is substantial enough to almost entirely stamp out foreign competition: pickup trucks and cars made in China.
尽管美国在外国汽车主流化方面有着良好的记录——丰田是该国最受欢迎的品牌之一——但进入如此竞争激烈的市场所面临的挑战怎么强调都不为过。所有外国汽车制造商在这样做时都处于劣势，首先对大多数进口产品征收 2.5% 的关税。但在两个类别中，这种劣势足以几乎完全排除外国竞争：皮卡车和中国制造的汽车。
Starved For Choice 渴望选择
While the number of electric vehicle models has surged in China and Europe, few of those cars have made it to America.尽管中国和欧洲的电动汽车型号数量激增，但很少有这些汽车进入美国。
Source: BloombergNEF 资料来源：彭博新能源财经
Since a 1964 spat over European tariffs on poultry, the US has levied a 25% tax on imported trucks, now known as the “chicken tax.” That surcharge largely cleared the road for Detroit’s truck titans — at least until Japanese brands established US factories to get around it — and today means tricky economics for any foreign automaker looking to crack the lucrative American truck market.
自 1964 年欧洲对家禽关税发生争执以来，美国对进口卡车征收 25% 的税，现在被称为“鸡肉税”。这项附加费在很大程度上为底特律的卡车巨头扫清了道路——至少在日本品牌在美国建立工厂以绕过这一附加费之前是这样——而如今，对于任何想要打入利润丰厚的美国卡车市场的外国汽车制造商来说，这意味着棘手的经济问题。
Your guide to the future of cars, from reporters around the world.来自世界各地的记者为您提供的汽车未来指南。
The China dynamic is more recent. In 2018, just as China was starting to crank out a wave of compact EVs, US president Donald Trump implemented tariffs on about $370 billion of imports from the country each year, including a 27.5% tariff on cars made in China. That policy persists under the Biden administration. In Europe, by contrast, the tariff on Chinese cars is 9% — low enough for those machines to at least trickle into the market.
中国的动态是最近才出现的。 2018年，正当中国开始掀起一波紧凑型电动汽车浪潮之际，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普每年对来自中国约3700亿美元的进口商品征收关税，其中包括对中国制造的汽车征收27.5%的关税。在拜登政府的领导下，这一政策仍然存在。相比之下，在欧洲，中国汽车的关税为 9%——低得足以让这些机器至少进入市场。
“If you have a 20% to 25% cost advantage, it makes sense to go to countries where even after the tariff you are price-competitive," Aakash Arora, a managing director in Boston Consulting Group’s auto practice, told Bloomberg News.
波士顿咨询集团汽车业务董事总经理阿卡什·阿罗拉 (Aakash Arora) 告诉彭博新闻社：“如果你有 20% 到 25% 的成本优势，那么去那些即使在关税之后仍具有价格竞争力的国家是有意义的。”
Electric Car Exports From China Have Soared Over Past Year 去年中国电动汽车出口猛增
Western Europe is the biggest market 西欧是最大市场
Source: China's General Administration of Customs 资料来源：中国海关总署
(Shows exports under HS 870380)（显示 HS 870380 下的出口）
But tariffs are just the first hurdle for a global car company looking to crack the US market. Most Chinese cars haven’t been engineered with US safety regulations in mind; just going through those protocols is an expensive and elaborate process. Then there’s the cost of building a retail network and some sort of safety net for servicing cars and backstopping warranties.
但关税只是一家跨国汽车公司想要打入美国市场的第一个障碍。大多数中国汽车在设计时并未考虑到美国的安全法规；仅仅通过这些协议就是一个昂贵且复杂的过程。然后是建立零售网络和某种用于维修汽车和支持保修的安全网的成本。
Dave Andrea, a principal at Michigan-based consultancy Plante Moran, compares the US auto market to a siren song: compelling until you get close enough to see the risks. “It’s a big market, but not a growing market per se,” he says. “And you have to displace existing manufacturers, existing brand loyalty.”
密歇根州 Plante Moran 咨询公司的负责人戴夫·安德里亚 (Dave Andrea) 将美国汽车市场比作一首海妖之歌：令人着迷，直到您足够接近才能看到风险。 “这是一个很大的市场，但其本身并不是一个不断增长的市场，”他说。 “而且你必须取代现有的制造商和现有的品牌忠诚度。”
More: Why Europe Is Pushing Back Against Chinese EV Blitz
更多：欧洲为何抵制中国电动汽车闪电战
Newcomers must pour enough money into marketing to get some semblance of name recognition — a tall order for foreign companies and EV upstarts alike. California-based Lucid Group, a startup that makes the longest-range electric car in the US, saw brand awareness as important enough to spring for a commercial during this year’s Oscars (at an estimated cost of $2 million).
新来者必须在营销上投入足够的资金才能获得一定的知名度——这对于外国公司和电动汽车新贵来说都是一项艰巨的任务。总部位于加利福尼亚州的 Lucid Group 是一家生产美国续航里程最长的电动汽车的初创公司，该公司认为品牌知名度非常重要，因此在今年的奥斯卡颁奖典礼上拍摄了一则广告（预计成本为 200 万美元）。
Even established foreign brands struggle for relevance with American buyers. “You could argue Fiat has been a bust in America,” says Kevin Tynan, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Mitsubishi’s done nothing, Isuzu’s gone and Mazda’s probably hanging on by its fingernails.”
即使是知名的外国品牌也很难与美国买家建立联系。彭博资讯 (Bloomberg Intelligence) 分析师凯文·泰南 (Kevin Tynan) 表示：“你可以说菲亚特在美国已经破产了。” “三菱什么也没做，五十铃已经消失了，而马自达可能只能勉强维持下去。”
If Chinese carmakers were somehow able to overcome tariff economics, dealer-network logistics and marketing hurdles, they would still face another challenge in the US. There may be a decent chance of American consumers going for a Chinese EV, but there’s almost no chance of US politicians supporting an auto-market evolution that benefits Chinese companies over American ones.
即使中国汽车制造商能够以某种方式克服关税经济、经销商网络物流和营销障碍，他们在美国仍将面临另一个挑战。美国消费者可能有很大机会购买中国电动汽车，但美国政界人士几乎没有机会支持汽车市场的发展，使中国公司比美国公司受益。
“Trump put [the China tariff] on there honestly in a fit of pique, but it’s going to stay,” says economist Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute. “In Washington right now, they’ll go after anything that looks like it’s got a Chinese component.”
彼得森研究所高级研究员、经济学家玛丽·洛夫利表示：“特朗普一怒之下诚实地对中国征收了关税，但它会继续下去。” “现在在华盛顿，他们会追查任何看起来有中国成分的东西。”
A flavor of this tension is already playing out in the European Union, where Chinese brands accounted for an estimated 8% share of EVs last year, according to an EU official. In a bid to ward off a flood of cheap imports, the European Commission on Sept. 13 launched an investigation into China’s EV subsidies. President Ursula von der Leyen said prices for Chinese electric cars are “kept artificially low by huge state subsidies,” which “is distorting our market.”
这种紧张局势已经在欧盟上演，据一位欧盟官员称，去年中国品牌在欧盟电动汽车市场中所占份额估计为 8%。为了避免廉价进口商品大量涌入，欧盟委员会于 9 月 13 日对中国的电动汽车补贴启动了调查。总统乌苏拉·冯德莱恩表示，中国电动汽车的价格“通过巨额国家补贴人为压低”，这“扭曲了我们的市场”。
Chinese Electric-Car Sales in Europe Grow From Low Base 中国电动汽车在欧洲的销量从低基数开始增长
Source: Jato Dynamics 资料来源：Jato Dynamics
Note: Data is for battery and plug-in hybrid passenger cars and excludes EV imports from China by Western brands. 2023 sales are January through July
注：数据针对电池和插电式混合动力乘用车，不包括西方品牌从中国进口的电动汽车。 2023 年销售额为 1 月至 7 月
For the US EV market, what comes next hinges in part on the UAW negotiations. This year through August, US factories made about 7 million cars and trucks, according to Bloomberg Intelligence data, almost two thirds of which came from union plants.
对于美国电动汽车市场来说，接下来的走势部分取决于美国汽车工人联合会的谈判。根据彭博资讯的数据，今年截至 8 月，美国工厂生产了约 700 万辆汽车和卡车，其中近三分之二来自工会工厂。
If the carmakers concede to the union on higher pay, Tynan expects they will in turn negotiate for a smaller, more flexible workforce, which would lock in fewer car models, fewer cars and higher prices. “If I can sell less and make more, that’s the whole point,” he says.
泰南预计，如果汽车制造商在更高的工资问题上向工会让步，他们将反过来通过谈判获得规模更小、更灵活的劳动力，这将锁定更少的车型、更少的汽车和更高的价格。 “如果我能卖得更少，赚得更多，那就是重点，”他说。
In short, Detroit is drifting further and further from the starter car, while factories in China are specializing in it. Just don’t expect the latter to solve for the former anytime soon.
总之，底特律离入门车越来越远，而中国的工厂则专攻入门车。只是不要指望后者很快就能解决前者。
