China Is Building $10K EVs. The US Has Built a System to Make Sure You Can’t Buy Them

On Jun 13, 2026

At the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival, Ford CEO Jim Farley spoke with unexpected candor about the Xiaomi SU7, a Chinese electric car he had managed to import from Shanghai to Chicago. “I don’t want to give it up,” he said. It was a startling statement from the head of one of the US’s most iconic automakers.

Around then, influencer and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee posted a glowing review of the Xiaomi SU7 Max, a variant with dual-motor All Wheel Drive, a much larger battery, 800V fast- charging, air suspension, and supercar-level acceleration. Brownlee praised the vehicle’s refinement, aggressive pricing, and software integration. The sleek, affordable EV is capable of nearly 500 miles of China Light-Duty Vehicle Test Cycle-rated range.

For viewers familiar with Brownlee’s typically measured delivery, there was something unusual about his delivery in this review. His pauses lingered slightly longer than normal. His tone carried flashes of genuine disbelief. Xiaomi did not simply impress him. It appeared to unsettle him. “It’s not often you see a car with great software, great features, great build quality, great versatility, great range, and a great drive, all stacked together,” he said. “That’s pretty elite.”

Americans watch the rest of the world getting better, cheaper, and sometimes radically more advanced products in real time while being told they can’t have them.

Alas, most Americans will never be able to buy one. Current US regulations effectively place these cars behind a 25-year “wait wall,” an import restriction enforced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It prevents foreign-market vehicles from being legally driven here until they are at least 25 years old, unless manufacturers spend heavily to certify them for US safety and emissions standards.

At the same time, satellite imagery revealed enormous European parking lots filled with surplus vehicles from another Chinese EV manufacturer, BYD—a potent visual reminder of the imbalance shaping the modern EV economy.

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), citing “unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of US persons,” in December implemented a ban on unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), including drones, manufactured outside the US. In March, the FCC banned the sale of new foreign-made routers in the US, pointing to cybersecurity threats posed by vulnerable networking gear.

Americans are also denied cutting-edge batteries and solar technology because tariffs, import restrictions, national security concerns, and industrial policy have effectively fenced off many of the world’s most advanced and affordable Chinese energy products from the US market.

For the first time in modern consumer tech history, Americans watch the rest of the world getting better, cheaper, and sometimes radically more advanced products in real time while being told they can’t have them. Simultaneously, people like me have a “Neo plugged into the Matrix like a battery” sense that they and their credit cards are exactly where US industry icons, notably Elon Musk, prefer them to be.

Some US-Based EV Companies Are at Least Trying

For years, Musk and Tesla have framed electrification in almost moral terms. Tesla’s mission, the company says, is “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Yet, while Tesla pushed upward into higher-margin vehicles like the Cybertruck and refreshed Model S, Chinese automakers flooded overseas markets with aggressively priced compact EVs like the BYD Seagull and Dolphin, rides designed less around luxury branding than mass adoption.

It’s not that some US-based companies aren’t trying. Aptera is a Carlsbad, Calif.-based startup whose radically aerodynamic three-wheeled design looks more like a carbon-fiber fuselage wrapped in solar panels than a conventional car. The vehicle promises up to 40 miles of solar-assisted driving per day under ideal conditions when using Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector.

The design concept energized me, inspiring me to put down a deposit to secure the delivery of my own modern Model T. I hadn’t felt this way about an American product since EV startup Rivian drove two of its revolutionary R1 trucks up from Patagonia to Los Angeles in 2020.

(Credit: Aptera)

Aptera represents the kind of lightweight, ultra-efficient commuter vehicle that could materially reduce fuel costs for ordinary Americans rather than simply replacing one premium vehicle class with another electric one. Yet despite intense enthusiasm from EV advocates, Aptera has struggled to reach mass production due to chronic funding shortfalls, delays in scaling manufacturing, and the reality that US auto markets and regulators favor conventional four-wheel internal combustion engine vehicles.

Aptera all but put a “Hey, Elon!” sticker on their radical prototype, which aligned with Musk’s proclamations that a smaller, efficient, sustainable mass-manufactured car was desperately needed in the Tesla line. The inclusion of an NACS connector fueled my speculation that Aptera was aligned so closely with Tesla’s Silicon Valley engineering-first vision that it might be acquired and empowered by its own Gigafactory. But no takeover announcements were made. Nor did Musk publicly spotlight the company and Aptera’s alignment with his calls for sustainable, affordable EVs.

Elon Musk Is a Heap of Contradictions

Meanwhile, besides the aforementioned Cybertruck, which costs $100,000, Tesla is focusing on the Cybercab robotaxi platform, which is aligned with a broader shift away from ownership toward subscription-style transportation ecosystems in which access is rented, metered, and continuously monetized. The vision feels less like liberation through technology and more like an extension of the increasingly familiar “own nothing” economy.

Musk’s stance on tariffs arguably conflicts with his moral directive that affordable, sustainably driven EVs, wherever they are manufactured, are necessary for humanity’s survival. In an earnings call in January 2024, Musk warned that Chinese automakers producing EVs like the $10,000 BYD Seagull would “demolish” most global competitors if there were no trade barriers.

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Five months later, the Biden administration expanded the tariffs from 25% to 100%, with observers speculating that Musk’s “wink and nod” earnings declaration was an unofficial signal that tariffs were, in fact, what he wanted. (“Neither Tesla nor I asked for these tariffs,” Musk later said when pressed on the issue.) This hostility to Chinese imports essentially kept companies like BYD away.

China increasingly resembles the competitive capitalist system Americans were taught to admire, while the US increasingly appears to embrace the controlled “kickback” economy we were told to fear.

Of course, Musk has wielded extraordinary influence over the Trump administration after reportedly investing a quarter-billion dollars of his own funds to support the Republican Party. Shortly after the election, he stood with President Trump in what amounted to a “temporary Tesla showroom” on the White House lawn. Musk announced no plans to move forward with the affordable EV he promised the world in 2020 (a car he later described as “pointless”). Nor was there any evidence he’d requested that the administration drop the tariffs, removing the barriers to entry for affordable, sustainably powered vehicles, whatever their source.

The disconnect left many critics wondering whether the moral imperative Musk had long articulated, that humanity must rapidly transition to sustainable transportation to survive, was ever more than marketing rhetoric. If he truly believed what he was professing, he could easily bring BYD or Xiaomi into the American Gigafactories with a licensing agreement, fast-track their certifications, and provide Americans with these low-cost EVs.

Critics also point to the sustainability narrative, noting that Musk’s xAI Colossus data center project in Memphis reportedly operated as many as 35 unpermitted methane gas turbines capable of generating roughly 422 megawatts of electricity. Environmental groups estimate emissions of up to 2,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides annually in nearby communities already struggling with air quality concerns.

Trump, for his part, has repeatedly criticized tax credits, subsidies, and regulations designed to accelerate EV adoption. One of his very first actions in 2025 was to eliminate what he described as the federal “EV mandate” and to promote “consumer choice.”

This All Feels Like a Closed-Loop System

Regardless of who requested the barriers, the practical outcome remains the same: The affordable EV revolution Americans were promised increasingly appears to be unfolding elsewhere. Farley has all but given up, transitioning Ford’s failing EV program—hit by billions in losses, slowing consumer demand, high battery costs, and relentless pricing pressure from Chinese competitors—into an industrial battery storage division aimed at capitalizing on rising energy costs associated with AI.

The main challenge is economics. Chinese manufacturers like BYD have spent decades investing in and building vertically integrated supply chains and battery factories. Building a $25,000 EV is possible. Building one in the US, without the decades of advancements and investments China has already logged, and while satisfying shareholders, unions, dealers, and regulators, is a far more difficult proposition.

This all increasingly feels less like a coincidence and more like a closed-loop system. Americans feel trapped in a cycle of scarcity, dependency, and national security concerns used to justify higher costs, fewer alternatives, and more centralized control. It’s hard to stomach the ban on DJI drones and, at the same time, learn that Trump’s sons are vested board members in American UAS companies capitalizing on the foreign-made drone ban.

It’s a strange inversion: China increasingly resembles the competitive capitalist system Americans were taught to admire, while the US appears to embrace the controlled “kickback” economy we were told to fear. I’d like to see us go back to the innovative nation we were promised.

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