“Kim, I went to China and drove the BYD Seagull, a $10,300 EV. Incredible. I’d buy one tomorrow, but I can’t here in the U.S. Why not, and what are we doing to compete?”
— Mark in San Diego
Mark, you test-drove the question of the decade. The short answer is national security. The longer answer should light a fire under every automaker in the U.S.
🚩 It’s got a foreign boss
That fun little car is a computer on wheels. Cameras, microphones, GPS, a cellular connection that never sleeps. Now add this: Chinese law can compel Chinese companies to hand data to their government. That’s not a conspiracy theory, that’s their statute.
So Washington slapped a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs in 2024 and banned Chinese software in connected cars. Smart. Nobody needs Beijing riding shotgun on the school run.
FYI, the Seagull isn’t quite the steal. It’s never been through U.S. federal crash testing, and its roughly 190-mile range trails most American-built EVs. The price? BYD builds nearly everything itself, batteries, chips, motors, even the seats, and Beijing’s subsidies shave off the rest.
🇺🇸 What we’re doing about it
BYD’s flagship platform, its $30,000 Han L sedan, adds roughly 250 miles of range in five minutes. Our fastest public chargers push half that power. BYD sold 2.26 million EVs last year and knocked Tesla off the top spot.
Tariffs buy time. They don’t build better cars. Only American innovation does, and we’ve answered wake-up calls before. Ask the Soviets how the space race went.
The comeback is already pouring concrete.
Roughly $200 billion in American EV and battery plants has been announced over the past decade, with about 200,000 American jobs attached. Georgia. Michigan. North Carolina. Tennessee. Kentucky. Toyota’s new $14 billion North Carolina battery plant alone means 5,100 paychecks in one American town.
That vertical supply chain BYD built? We’re building our own, and every car and battery made here keeps your money in American diners and hardware stores instead of sailing overseas.
So, Mark, leave the Seagull in China. The better play is the one we’re making: Build it here, build it better and keep the paychecks on our side of the Pacific.
📩 Send this to someone who works in a car plant or thinks American manufacturing is dead.