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U.S. Dealers In Full Panic Mode After Canada Green-Lights Chinese Cars (www.thedrive.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/boycottus@lemmy.ca
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[–] 3 points 6 months ago (1 child)

Japanese businesses are excellent

The Zaibatsu model has different incentives, particularly when they're jockeying for position with American internationals on their own turf.

They're very good at undercutting American industry. But I'd consider the Japanese cartel model flawed in other ways - miserable places to actually work for, agonizingly patriarchal, debilitating drinking/drug culture, zero work life balance, and the pay is shit.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)

    That is true. But I mean branching out is something that Western companies should not be afraid of. EV and renewables are no brainers; but legacy firms in the fossil fuel industries are spending millions to prevent change and would rather see the world burn.

    Although, to several Western company's credit, they do branch out. Many European energy utilities have mostly diversified away from fossil fuels. The state-backed Danish company, Orsted, completely got rid of their fossil fuel mix, and transitioned 100% to renewable. But Trump cancelling their projects in US East Coast ruined their short term profitability. In any case, Orsted is firm with their full transition to renewable energy.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    EV and renewables are no brainers; but legacy firms in the fossil fuel industries are spending millions to prevent change and would rather see the world burn.

    When you see reports come out from fossil fuel companies, they quite literally describe "$X trillion of hydrocarbons in the ground".

    Many European energy utilities have mostly diversified away from fossil fuels.

    Europe only really has the Baltic as a reserve. They've been cut off from much of the Middle East by decades of war.

    So, unlike the US, which has become an oil exporter for the last twenty years, Europeans either went woke or went broke.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago*

    Those fossil fuel companies are trying to invoke the greed in us, but for most people it's not really working with respect to climate change. I won't consider myself an optimist, bu the fact that renewable energy and EVs are growing says that people really do care.

    In theory, the "invisible hand of free market" ought to pick out the most innovative and profitable companies, while those who refuse to keep up with the times vanish. But in practice, the legacy companies, despite their business model becoming obsolete, don't want to go away quietly. They spend money to spread misinformation to put down cutting edge technologies and business models, despite growing market demand like green technology.

    Even if fossil fuels still has some value, is it really worth it in the long run to extract them and cause mass extinction? Who will be the customers when society collapse? As someone asked before, "what if we improved society for nothing?"

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