Liam Denning

America’s automakers enjoy the refuge of an anti-Chinese wall. But so do foreign, non-Chinese automakers who also sell vehicles in America, especially if they manufacture here. This means Chinese competition is exerting pressure on US dealer lots already; indirectly, yes, but it’s likely to intensify. Detroit’s defensive moat is less impenetrable than it might seem.

Four years ago, Americans were reeling from painfully high pump prices and pundits warned the incumbent government would face a protest wave in midterm elections. Sound familiar?

The automobile changed our world and symbolizes prosperity and personal freedom for billions of people. Making automobiles, meanwhile, is a miserable, grinding affair.

The automobile changed our world and symbolises prosperity and personal freedom for billions of people. Making automobiles, meanwhile, is a miserable, grinding affair.

China is addicted to making cars, and it is dragging down the entire industry.

President Donald Trump has spent most of the year on a war footing, and not just in Iran. He has repeatedly invoked the Defense Production Act, passed in 1950 at the outbreak of the Korean War, to advance his energy policy goals of elevating fossil fuels and sidelining clean technologies.

One rationale for merging SpaceX with Tesla is that the ever-busy Elon Musk could do just one earnings call per quarter instead of two. Hardly decisive, perhaps, but the conceit of prioritizing his preferences is salient enough. Talk of combining Space Exploration Technologies Corp. with Tesla Inc. overshadowed the quarterly calls of both companies this week. The results, however, illustrated just how odd this merger would be.

Despite the mass extinction event known as the second Trump administration, cleantech lives. Renewable energy deployment is breaking records, even in the US, and more than one-in-four of every new passenger vehicle sold worldwide now sports a socket. This reflects two things. First, neither President Donald Trump nor the US, powerful as they are, can negate basic scientific and economic forces. Second, Trump’s own actions have strengthened those forces.

Automakers are “technology” companies on a purely semantic level: The internal combustion engine is one of a select few inventions that truly define modern life. It also dates back to the 19th century, so automakers are not, by and large, regarded as technology stocks. General Motors Co. seems set on changing the wisdom of the crowd on this. Its latest step in that direction involves relocating from the New York Stock Exchange to Nasdaq, with its silicon-inflected aura.