oh god! Anything but those affordable, decent enough EVs! I couldn't handle a car that spies on me like every single other internet-capable consumer electronic does!
the real fear is that in some war scenario a country like China could flip a switch and turn millions of self driving cars into mass murder machines. they could even claim to have been hacked. the reality is that all of the self driving systems should be vetted like NASA level for security and robustness etc.. but of course that would slow development and raise costs to become uncompetitive.
can Elon Musk be trusted with everyones lives? can he prove it?
I think that the real fear is that the US would loose that manufacturing capability. Cars, and the technology/factories, to produce them are a pillar for both the US economy and military. Loosing that capability would be problematic for the US.
Yeah maybe this would have made sense in... The 50's?
Everyone has nukes nowadays. If even one of these EV's is half as dangerous as a Tesla, I'm sure the army of american racists will ban them to hell and back.
And if things ever escalate, China loses their biggest golden goose, the american market, only hurting themselves in the process
Okay, then just write it into law that "China can sell cars in the US, but those cars don't have the capability to do x," (in your case, be self-driving). No one is benefiting from a complete embargo on affordable EVs but the executives of Ford, GM, and Stellantis
There's tons of competition in NA from companies located all over the world.
What China is trying to do is decimate the market by undercutting everyone long enough that they can put them out of business, which is why they're trying to sell them way below cost. Let's see them compete here only using the same subsidies that everyone else gets because once they accomplish their goal, the situation is going to be much worse for us than it is now.
Quite the opposite is happening. EVs from the same make usually are sold at 50 to 100% markup outside of China. It seems more like the international market is subsidising Chinese EVs instead.