"For the environment… "
Most cars sold in the EU are still combustion engines. Replacing them with EVs would make enviromental sense and China giving state money to make EU EVs cheaper is not that bad a move.
Problem is obviously that the EUs automotive industry has to compete, but that can be done by matching subsidies as well.
Personal EVs are not a solution. We need less cars overall, not replace combustion with EV. EVs still significantly contribute to pollution, noise and car-centered infrastructure. EVs are just the car industry’s way of continuing business as usual without changing anything and is not environmentally friendly.
The only solution is more and better public infrastructure, more bikes and walkable cities, where the important things are either close by or sufficiently accessible by public transport.
That works in small rich countries. There’s just so much area outside of big cities that we need to address as well.
And EVs are still better then combustion engines. Even better the EU is not going to be able to match Chinese subsidies. So the EU car industry is going to die and replaced by Chinese cars. However those will have a much harder time lobbying for car focused infrastructure. Just compare Germany and the Netherlands for example. One has a massive car industry and the other does not.
There is literally nothing stopping you from doing this, while also transitioning people away from petrol cars to much, much cleaner cars.
Not everyone is privileged enough to live in a city. Especially not one that has great transport links and lots of stuff nearby.
Cars will be around for decades, whether you (or I!) like it or not, so it makes sense for them to be as low-impact as we can make them.
