this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2025
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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.’

...

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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[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 hours ago

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.

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

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.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 points 8 hours ago

Can we be wary of other foreign cars in that case, too?