Op-Ed: China Has US Smoked on Cars

China has gotten very, very good at making electric vehicles, writes former GM exec Michael Dunne in a New York Times op-ed. Models made by BYD and other brands are as good as any made by Tesla or other Western automakers—and they cost a third of the price. They're so good that if Chinese cars were sold in the US, it might wipe out automakers here, writes Dunne. "China has overtaken Detroit as the center of the global auto industry," he adds. "America can embark on an all-out push to rebuild world-class manufacturing and supply chains, or our carmakers can hide behind tariffs, continue making gas-powered trucks and S.U.V.s and fade into irrelevance."

That "all-out push" is where things get tricky. The Chinese government is believed to have doled out billions of dollars to BYD and other companies over the last decade. "This is state capitalism at work," writes Dunne. "Americans can complain about it all they want, but China isn't going to scrap this model just because we don't like it." He suggests the US follow Beijing's model, acknowledging that the idea of a heavy state hand would be a "tough sell" in DC. "But America has never confronted an industrial competitor like China." Read the full op-ed.