US senators want Biden to go further in blocking Chinese EVs
Just as the EU is considering tariffs on Chinese EVs imported into Europe, three US Democratic senators are urging that the Biden administration hike import tariffs on Chinese EVs to address national security risks.
In the US, American drivers have about 50 EVs to choose from, with Europe having about double that. But in China, it’s a pure embarrassment of riches, with 235 different models to choose from, filling every niche, whim, or price range. And of course, we’ve been covering the price war in China here at Electrek, with prices on BYD vehicles dropping to extremely low prices, even as low as $10,000, which can leave Americans feeling frustrated – when will we get truly low-cost EVs?
Answer: Probably not soon, at least if it comes from China.
As it stands, Chinese EV makers are bypassing the US due to trade barriers that already impose a 25% tariff on their cars, introduced by Donald Trump during his presidency. And now pressure is building to increase that even more, to completely block the possibility of a Chinese EV brand taking hold on US soil.
And Europe is serving as a warning sign, certainly for legacy automakers. “Allowing heavily subsidized Chinese vehicles to enter the U.S. marketplace would endanger American automotive manufacturing,” said a letter from Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, first reported by Reuters.
“Artificially low-priced Chinese EVs flooding the U.S. would cost thousands of American jobs and endanger the survival of the U.S. automotive industry as a whole.”
In Europe this week, the European Commission says it has found evidence that China has been “unfairly” subsidizing the EVs it exports to Europe. Possible “remedies” on the table include retroactive tariffs on Chinese EVs. Meanwhile, Chinese EVs are arriving by the shipload as European automakers are struggling to stay in the game.
The European Commission says China hasn’t been playing fair in that its government has been paying subsidies through direct transfer of funds, which the EC says tips the balance in China’s favor and leaves European automakers out to dry. Of course, China’s access to cheap labor and cheap batteries, where it dominates the supply chain, also increases its gains.
Probe into EV national security threat
Last week, the Commerce Department opened its own formal investigation into whether Chinese vehicle imports pose a threat to US security in that the huge amount of data they collect could be sent to China.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that electric and autonomous vehicles are “collecting a huge amount of information about the driver, the location of the vehicle, the surroundings of the vehicle,” reports Bloomberg. “Do we want all that data going to Beijing?”
Of course, the US has already been tightening up restrictions. Last December, the US Treasury Department released a new list of guidelines for federal subsidies that excluded vehicles containing battery components manufactured or assembled by a “foreign entity of concern” (aka China). As of 2025, vehicles whose batteries contain certain “critical minerals” extracted or processed in China will also be ineligible for the tax credit.
But some lawmakers say this isn’t enough, with Raimondo adding: “If China is subsidizing the vehicles in a way that puts American workers at a disadvantage we have to do something about that.
This isn’t unprecedented, of course. Back in 2022, the FCC cited national security as the reason for banning the sale of communications equipment from Huawei and ZTE and restricted the use of some China-made video surveillance systems. A number of European allies have banned the use of Huawei’s 5G equipment. Not to mention DJI being blacklisted for federal use in the US.
Biden lays low on EVs in State of the Union address
In last night’s State of the Union address, Biden’s last before the election in November, he sidestepped his EV policies and refrained from boasting about his achievements at accelerating EV adoption in the country and establishing a homegrown battery supply chain, which are major points of contention in a tense election year.
“I’m taking the most significant action ever on climate in the history of the world. I’m cutting our carbon emissions in half by 2030,” he said succinctly, only adding a quick mention of his goal of building a public EV infrastructure.
Biden’s $7.5 billion EV infrastructure plan has been a crucial part of his policies, which includes adding 500,000 publicly available chargers by 2030 – and ensuring they are working properly. Meanwhile, EV sales have quadrupled in the US, with the number of publicly available charging ports rising by nearly 70%. Today, more than 4 million EVs are on US roadways, with the goal for half of the country’s car sales to be electric by 2030.
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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