mrbb wrote:
good question, my reply is not that so straight forward. China, presently, is presenting tesla alot more free market freedom than in america and EU so far.
1. look at all the negative press by the media and mud slinging from democrat attacking elon musk. Even the government SEC and NHTSA are very biased against tesla and elon musk. Tesla has none of that from china. In fact, when the fake lawsuit against tesla on brake failure. Once tesla proved from the recorder data as false, chinese official help tesla shut her up very quickly. What i'm saying is china is currently treating tesla more kindly than america.
Chinese woman suing Tesla for defamation goes to trial: plaintiff - Global Times
2. sure china has crazy poltics like zero covid that shut down giga shanghai for a month. Yes but we must also look at how german red tapes have delayed giga berlin opening by at least 6 months (using giga texas for comparison).
3. elon musk fear more on america heading toward socialism more so than china turning socialism, that's is why he want to buy tweeter, not wechat or tik tok.
4. there is always risk operating in a communist country but if tesla is building a 2nd giga shanghai, tesla must feel pretty safe to double down in china. The payout of of giga shanghai factory is 1-2 years is my very rough guess. Worst case scenario, if CCP confiscate tesla's asset in the future, as long as tesla produces EVs for more than 2 year for each giga shanghai factory, tesla ain't losing much as china labor, efficiency, sourcing of raw material can't be beat compare to austin, berlin, even giga indonesia (IE, highest profit margin percentage). China will not interfere with tesla for at least another 5 years IMO, because tesla bringing in Euro and USD, trickle down competition and leaky technology transfer to Neo, Xpeng, Li, BYD, etc. Competition drive innovation, that is why we will hear new battery innovation will come from china. China know tesla is developing inhouse technology that would help china, one way of another. For being not democratic, china ain't interfering tesla but actually want tesla in china to be successful. In summary, on the business side, china is very capitalistic, more so than in western nations.
greendaze wrote: Too simplistic. The numbers are worth more than sentiment. For example UAW numbers only 400k members . Tesla just under 100K and they don't all make cars . Also Tesla is way more efficient using far less workers per unit . Tesla can only survive with democracy ? China is a communist dictatorship.