The US government is reportedly set to announce wider tariffs on several categories of Chinese goods, including various green products like solar panels and batteries, medical goods, and in particular an increase of tariffs on Chinese EVs from 25% to 100%.

The rumors were first reported late Thursday that tariffs would be extended after a multi-year review of “section 301 tariffs” that had been implemented under the previous administration.

Then today, Wall Street Journal reported that these tariffs would not just be extended, but expanded, with tariffs on Chinese-made EVs quadrupling from previous levels.

Currently, all cars made in China are subject to a 25% tariff when imported to the US, on top of an additional 2.5% tariff that all foreign-made cars are subject to, totaling 27.5%. This large tariff has had the effect of excluding Chinese autos from the US market, as it’s easier to export to countries with lower tariffs first.

However, given Chinese EVs are incredibly affordable, even a 25% tariff might still result in competitive prices. For this reason, it has been considered inevitable by most observers that eventually Chinese EVs would make their way into being sold in the US.

It seems that Biden has also decided that the 25% tariff wouldn’t be enough to forestall the advance, and has decided to instead quadruple it to 100%, meaning that Chinese EVs will effectively sell for double the price they would otherwise if brought to the US. While this has not been announced yet and the White House has declined to comment, an announcement on the new tariffs is expected on Tuesday.

Tariffs have been called for by several entities in the US (and Europe), as Chinese EV manufacturing has rapidly ramped in recent years.

China was originally somewhat slow to adopt EVs – in 2015, EV market share was just .84%, similar to the US market share of .66% and well below California at 3.1% at the time. But in 2023, US market share had risen to a meager 7.6% and California to just 21.4%, whereas China’s EV market share was a whopping 37%, leapfrogging several other leading countries in the process (and it was just 5% in 2020, so the turn upwards has been very rapid over the last 3 years). It caught foreign manufacturers by surprise, leaving ICE car values plummeting in China as consumers are simply not interested.

Despite the massive swing upwards in Chinese EV interest, EV manufacturing has risen even more rapidly. This has left Chinese automakers with more than enough vehicles for the export market, and they have started exporting so many to Europe that they can’t find enough ships to carry them.

Those EVs haven’t made their way to the US yet, but most think that it’s inevitable that they will soon. But with these increased tariffs, that makes it a little less likely that US consumers will gain access to these cheap, high-tech Chinese EVs.

This isn’t the first move that Biden has made to limit the ability of the Chinese auto industry to operate in the US. The Inflation Reduction Act which updated the US EV tax credit included protectionist measures to disallow Chinese-sourced EVs from taking advantage of the credit. To qualify, EVs must be assembled in America and must have a certain percentage of components sourced in the US or US free trade countries, and can’t include parts from “foreign entities of concern” (though there are some ways around this).

The net effect of the regulation is that batteries sourced from China have a harder time getting access to US tax credits, thus reducing their competitiveness in the US market.

GM has a new suite of energy products that allow you to share power between your car and your home, and we got to see them in action.

GM invited us to a swanky house in Beverly Hills to demonstrate its new home energy products, including vehicle-to-home (V2H) backup power that allows you to power your house off of your EV battery.

These products include its new bidirectional EV charger, which it’s calling the GM Energy Powershift Charger ($1,699), and the GM Energy V2H Enablement Kit ($5,600) which comes with AC-DC inverter, Home Hub (the computer which manages loads through the house), and dark start battery (provides a small amount of power as the system starts up and shifts from home to vehicle power).

The systems can be bought separately or bundled together for $7,299. Installation is separate (and costs can vary widely), and GM has partnered with Qmerit, a national EV charging installation company, to make it easier for customers to find an installer.

GM set up its system and brought out two new Silverados to demonstrate both their vehicle-to-load (V2L) and V2H capabilities. One Silverado was connected to the outdoor speakers and screen running the presentation GM gave us on its products, and the other was connected to the house to show what happens when the V2H changes over from home to truck power.

To do so, GM flipped the main breaker for the house, then showed us the process of of the car taking over. It took around 35 seconds – much longer than other battery backup solutions, but quicker than sitting puzzled in the dark, stumbling to find a flashlight, going to the breaker box to flip switches uselessly and then concluding that you’ll be spending the rest of the night reading by candlelight.

But once the takeover happened, the whole party was being powered by the truck. The lights and music in the garage and throughout the house were powered by the truck, along with the kitchen where the hors d’oeuvres were being prepared.

The car is capable of putting out 9.6kW – enough to power most of your everyday needs, but not high simultaneous loads (i.e. don’t run the pool pump and the dryer at the same time as everything else), though all of this depends on how energy-hungry your house is. And the Silverado’s massive 200kWh battery pack can power an average American home for around 5-6 days. GM told us the system was powering about 60% of the 10,000 square-foot house the demonstration happened in.

GM says it is working to reduce the amount of time the switchover from grid to car power takes, but that it will inevitably be slower than home battery solutions (which can respond in only a couple seconds, or even less than a second) because those stay continually energized, whereas the car requires more communication and a wake-up process.

Speaking of home battery solutions, GM Energy also plans to sell one of those, though that unit won’t be for sale until later this year (same with solar integration, which will also come this year). Batteries will be available in 10, 17, and 35kWh packages. The systems are built with stacks of modular units, each 1.7kWh, so the packages come with either 6 or 10 stacked units.

This battery backup solution will take “less than 5 seconds” to take over, though we think (or hope) that GM is being conservative with that. Competing home energy products like Tesla’s Powerwall can take over as quickly as around 200 milliseconds, and we’ve heard of others coming that might be even faster. But the battery wasn’t connected for the purposes of this demonstration.

GM wants to see this product rolled out in as many houses as possible, and in service of that, plans to have V2H support on all of it’s electric vehicles by 2026. It told us that these cars would all be capable of 9.6kW output, so you won’t need a 200kWh Silverado to power your house, you’ll also be able to do it with the $35k entry-level Equinox, or eventually with Chevy’s upcoming “Boltium” next-gen Bolt EV.

This is a contrast to most other EV makers – Hyundai and Kia have V2L on their vehicles, but only up to 1.8kW; Ford has its Intelligent Backup Power system, but only on the F-150 Lightning; Tesla has Powershare, but only on Cybertruck; Rivian wants to get around to offering bidirectional charging, but isn’t there yet – and so on. GM does seem more committed on this front than anyone else at this time.

GM’s electric vehicles will be compatible with GM Energy’s products, though won’t be cross-compatible with other battery backup and bidirectional charging systems in the short term. Eventually there will be cross-compatibility, but first the ISO 15118 standard, which governs Plug & Charge & bi-directional/V2G communication, needs to be finalized, which is taking quite some time (read a little more about that here).

GM also plans to build a virtual power plant, as we’ve seen other energy services companies do, which aggregates the energy available from hundreds or thousands of customers and discharges it to the grid when needed. These can be quite lucrative for owners of battery backup systems, though GM hasn’t decided exactly how it will offer these products to its customers yet, and is exploring various financial possibilities to encourage usage.

That’s important, because the system isn’t cheap. As mentioned above, even without the battery, the whole thing costs $7,299 before installation (installation can be very costly – though that was an exceptional case). That’s quite steep just for the gimmick of being able to run your house off of your car, so offering incentives to make that more palatable will help increase uptake. It’s a bit more expensive than Ford’s competing V2H product, comparable to the cost of home generators, and cheaper than home battery backup systems.

But while it does seem a little gimmicky at first glance, the dream of widespread bidirectional power has been talked about among EV advocates for some time, and could solve a lot of energy issues.

Even just V2H (which allows powering a home, but not feeding energy back into the grid – that’s V2G) can reduce loads when the grid is most stressed, and reduce energy costs for a home by allowing energy arbitrage, charging a battery at times when power is cheap and then running the house off of the battery when power is expensive and dirty. It leads to lower energy bills, and can help grid resiliency by having distributed battery backup in a large percentage of homes.

It’s an exciting possibility, but to get there, we need to get a lot of batteries in homes. And whether they’re stacked on the floor in the garage or parked and plugged in inside of it, GM’s ready to sell you those batteries (*car sometimes included).

You can find out more about GM’s home Energy products at its GM Energy website. At first, availability is limited to California, Florida, Michigan, New York and Texas, but GM plans to expand beyond those boundaries over time.

As passenger mobility becomes electric and more technologically advanced, engineers have developed several components to make car travel easier, more efficient, and, most importantly, safer. One of those emerging technologies is LiDAR, which has several benefits for OEMs who integrate it. Hesai Technologies is one of the leading companies helping make that LiDAR-centric transition possible.

Hesai Technology is a global leader in LiDAR solutions

Hesai Technology ($HSAI) is three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR) specialist with offices all over the globe, including Shanghai, Palo Alto, and Stuttgart.

It currently employs over 1,000 personnel who help research, develop, and manufacture advanced LiDAR technologies for a number of applications, including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in passenger and commercial vehicles, autonomous driving vehicles, as well as last-mile delivery robots and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs).

With over 500 granted patents and another 1000+ pending, Hesai puts a lot of time and effort into its LiDAR research and development, and the result is a growing portfolio of advanced safety sensors that can help pave the way for next-generation vehicles coming to market.

LiDAR remains a viable option for next-gen road safety

As advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving applications become more prevalent, the question of whether to use LiDAR sensors, vision cameras, or both is becoming hot topic of debate and an increasingly important one.

Many OEMs have shifted from LiDAR ADAS and self-driving applications to a camera-based vision approach, but environmental factors like lighting and weather conditions can cause confusion.

The automotive and robotics industries are racing against one another to advance from Level 2 autonomous driving (where the driver must keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel), to Level 3 and L4 autonomy, where the driver is no longer responsible for driving the vehicle. In these applications, Hesai Technology argues that LiDAR, like its ultra-thin long-range ET25 sensor, can make an effective difference while enhancing safety both on and off the road.

The camera conundrum

Cameras have been integral to the development of autonomous vehicles and ADAS vehicles, providing visual inputs like human eyes, and still exist as a viable option to an extent. They can provide valuable color information and visual cues such as traffic light status and road sign recognition.

Furthermore, opting to integrate only one kind of sensor, i.e., cameras, saves on production costs which can be passed along to consumers. 

However, cameras can struggle in challenging conditions. They rely heavily on lighting in a vehicle’s given environment, and their performance can be significantly affected in low light or direct sunlight scenarios, presenting potential safety hazards.

Furthermore, cameras capture two-dimensional images, making depth perception and accurate distance measurement more challenging. These potential limitations underscore the need for more robust perception technology that can provide more information about what’s truly happening in the surrounding environment.

Hesai LiDAR can help enhance safety

LiDAR, such as the AT512 from Hesai, uses laser pulses to scan the environment in three dimensions in real-time. This enables a vehicle’s onboard computer to understand its surroundings, offering a reliable and effective solution to the limitations presented when using camera technology alone. 

Hesai Technology’s LiDAR is unaffected by lighting conditions, ensuring consistent performance day and night, and in various weather conditions, including fog and heavy rain, where cameras can sometimes struggle. This independence from external light sources makes LiDAR an effective tool for self-driving vehicles, ADAS, and robots that require reliable and constant navigation capabilities.

Another advantage of LiDAR is its ability to detect objects with high precision and measure their distances accurately. This capability is crucial for vehicles operating on public roads at high speeds, which need to identify hazards, such as pedestrians, other vehicles, and obstacles, from a distance and react accordingly to avoid accidents.

Companies like Hesai have also made significant advances in how LiDAR can be integrated into vehicles, cost, and data security. For example, Hesai’s new ATX LiDAR can be integrated into headlights for a sleeker, subtle design. Moreover, significant advances in LiDAR technology and how it’s manufactured have made it much more affordable, allowing automotive and robotics manufacturers to incorporate the technology without major cost increases for consumers.

Many people don’t know that as hardware, LiDAR is quite secure as it provides data to the vehicle or robot’s central computer for processing without any ability to store or transmit any data wirelessly because it lacks memory, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or cellular transmitters.

It also cannot collect biometric data, such as facial scans, because it’s a sensor, not a camera. Furthermore, the 3D maps LiDAR creates of the world around it are not detailed enough for said images.

Tech stacks that maximize safety

Although as a LiDAR technology developer, Hesai would argue it offers superior capabilities in object detection and environmental mapping, the company admits its sensors are most effective when used in conjunction with camera systems.

Camera technology has laid the groundwork for the development of autonomous systems, but LiDAR can help overcome the inherent limitations of cameras and ensure the unparalleled safety that consumers and regulators demand. Combined with vision cameras, Hesai’s LiDAR sensors, like the automotive-grade ultra-high resolution AT128 for instance, can offer vehicles a one-two punch in failsafe ADAS technology.

Hesai explains that the integration of LiDAR technology has already shown promising results in enhancing safety across various applications. In the automotive industry, LiDAR-equipped vehicles have demonstrated improved obstacle detection and collision avoidance capabilities, significantly reducing the risk of accidents. With LiDAR technology rapidly evolving, its integration into new applications is quickly becoming more widespread.

The future of autonomous driving is not just about leading the charge but doing so with the assurance that every possible measure for safety has been employed. As the industry moves forward, Hesai Technology strongly believes the combined use of LiDAR and camera systems will be pivotal in achieving the highest safety standards. 

You can learn more about Hesai Technology and all of its LiDAR products here.