Article: Why Slate's CEO Isn't Too Worried About Cheap Chinese EVs

[AZFox]

Everything you said is fundamentally true. However, in practice, it is not applicable.

The Chicken Tax applies to imports- it is a tariff. The S10 (my previous example) was produced in America. If anything, this protectionist legislation benefits the sale of the S10 (and other domestic manufactures). Yet it was still killed? Why?

Because the auto industry thinks it can make more money if that choice is removed.

But it is ingenuine to say that the Chicken Tax is the reason we don't have any light trucks today. It is the reason we don't have some, but not all.

I never said that, and even wrote specifically that it was only partially to blame. Here's what I said that you misinterpreted:

"People want 2-door trucks and SUVs, but they've been held out of reach by the government and the industry."​

How you get "Chicken Tax is the reason we don't have any light trucks" out that is beyond me.

At the risk of repeating myself...

It boils down Systems Thinking concept known as POSIWID: the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does, where the the true purpose of a system can be determined by its actual behavior and outcomes, rather than just its intended goals.

Consider these three aspects of the industry as a system:

• There's a lot of Bureaucracy, both in the government and in the automotive industry.
• There is Regulatory Capture, where the auto industry inmates are, to some extent, running the auto industry asylum, so to speak.
• There is Rent-Seeking Behavior where the auto manufacturers are pursuing wealth by manipulating public policy to their favor, rather than the public's.

Instead of serving the public interest the system serves the interests of the industry.

As a result, and for whatever reason (profits, ultimately), the auto manufacturers have held 2-door SUVs and small pickups out of reach.


So it's a "can't see the forest for the trees" thing happening here, where the forest is a system of machinations that determines what vehicles we can choose from, and the chicken tax is a tree. It's just one of the machinations.

 

[Letas]

Because the auto industry thinks it can make more money if that choice is removed.



I never said that, and even wrote specifically that it was only partially to blame. Here's what I said that you misinterpreted:

"People want 2-door trucks and SUVs, but they've been held out of reach by the government and the industry."​

How you get "Chicken Tax is the reason we don't have any light trucks" out that is beyond me.

At the risk of repeating myself...

It boils down Systems Thinking concept known as POSIWID: the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does, where the the true purpose of a system can be determined by its actual behavior and outcomes, rather than just its intended goals.

Consider these three aspects of the industry as a system:

• There's a lot of Bureaucracy, both in the government and in the automotive industry.
• There is Regulatory Capture, where the auto industry inmates are, to some extent, running the auto industry asylum, so to speak.
• There is Rent-Seeking Behavior where the auto manufacturers are pursuing wealth by manipulating public policy to their favor, rather than the public's.

Instead of serving the public interest the system serves the interests of the industry.

As a result, and for whatever reason (profits, ultimately), the auto manufacturers have held 2-door SUVs and small pickups out of reach.


So it's a "can't see the forest for the trees" thing happening here, where the forest is a system of machinations that determines what vehicles we can choose from, and the chicken tax is a tree. It's just one of the machinations.

Okay, whatever helps you sleep at night. We can keep moving the goalposts til the cows come home.

I guess we all ought to think that Slate is an altruistic company who is bucking the trend of maximizing profits in the name of nostalgia. Their PE backing surely won’t change that.

 

[KevinRS]

Okay, whatever helps you sleep at night. We can keep moving the goalposts til the cows come home.

I guess we all ought to think that Slate is an altruistic company who is bucking the trend of maximizing profits in the name of nostalgia. Their PE backing surely won’t change that.

No, they have seen a few gaps left by those other automakers, in pursuit of ever higher profits through feature creep, and size creep. Those gaps are "affordable vehicle" and also "small truck" and have worked out a way (they hope) to fill those overlapping needs in a way that is profitable.