Volvo's smallest EV is here... and it's inexpensive?

[BlackBart]

My B-I-L told me he's quite interested in the EX30.

[BlackBart]

A good primer on the complicated tax credit rules for EVs. Depending on income, price, battery source, where assembled, etc etc. Or you could lease. Or you can get a credit on used. Or you can make do with what you have. I’m not sure the Volvo qualifies, with Chinese batteries, and not assembled in the US.

[BlackBart]

I just read something new. The US has imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese EV's to keep them from flooding our market like they're doing in Europe and like they did with cheap solar panels (which crushed US solar panel production).

Volvo is therefore accelerating the move to produce the EX30 In Ghent Belgium. No word on if this will flip the low-price benefit of this particular car on its ear.

"Today Volvo Car USA is informing retailers and EX30 pre-order customers that due to changes in the global automotive landscape, the U.S. introduction of the EX30 will be delayed while we ramp up production at our plant in Ghent, Belgium, with a 2025 target delivery date to be announced," the spokesperson said."

[matthew1]

They stopped taking orders (US) about two weeks ago.

[BlackBart]

What do you think of the new Polestar 3, which is bigger and probably wayy more expensive than the EX30? Has the same sort of tablet-based dash and controls.

[BlackBart]

Dear Gawd, they START at $73,000!

nevermind

[scot850]

This is really unfortunate that his has happened to the XC30. However, this is similar to the 1960's and 1970's in Europe when quota were set for Japanese products for similar reasoning. This continued into the 1990's with computer chips not manufactured inside the EU.

Neil.

[matthew1]

Volvo got caught in a geopolitical riptide. China manufacturing can be a siren song. "Get your products made cheaply and quickly"... and it works great, until it doesn't.

China remember is a bit of a punching bag for US politicians. That in and of itself is its own siren song. "Score some cheap and quick political points!" It's a handy political lever to pull: overnight a US president can hike tariffs ten percent, a hundred percent, a thousand percent, whatever the whim.

It's unfortunate the XC30 got stomped by a 10-foot political wave.

Already it was facing an uphill battle because it doesn't qualify for federal tax rebates.

[If you reply to this with your thoughts on automotive manufacturing geopolitics, please keep it as clean as you can. No names, no finger-pointing. We're flirting with an MVS no-no that I admittedly broached here.]

However, this is similar to the 1960's and 1970's in Europe when quota were set for Japanese products for similar reasoning. This continued into the 1990's with computer chips not manufactured inside the EU.

Neil.

Interesting.

[BlackBart]

I do recall that they flooded our market with cheaply made solar panels, which were SO cheap that it killed many US solar manufacturers. They were not efficient, but they were cheap. My wife’s brother was an engineer for a Colorado tech start-up that was developing super efficient panels making more than 1 watt per square foot. Their investors vanished, everyone was let go.

So my biased conundrum here is
A - buy something cheap from a possibly crooked company with deep financial ties to a crooked govt. or
B - Buy that same product from the same company, but it’s manufactured in a country with real wages and protections. There's money spent on plant and production and labor, the profits of course go back to China.

Is that out of forum bounds?

[matthew1]

Perfectly fine.

I don’t know a lot about solar manufacturing, but I’ve read enough to know it’s Wild West.

Companies go public, insiders make a fortune, then 12 months later it’s Chapter 11. Tariffs go up, tariffs go down, spin the wheel.

As an investor I wouldn’t touch solar with a ten foot pole.