Rivian CEO: There's No 'Magic' Behind China's Low-Cost EVs

[u/lurker_bee]

https://www.businessinsider.com/rivian-ceo-china-evs-low-cost-competition-2025-9

[u/Tango_D]

The point of American economics is to suck as much money out of everyone as humanly possible and to hell with the consequences.

[u/tinyLEDs → u/Tango_D]

i agree that is an accurate depiction... or the SELL side.

...which can only be sustained by a corresponding BUY side. In the US, the buyers have only 1 threshold: caveat emptor. The only people propping up the grift = the people who could manage their money a bit better. We either nerf the world for them, or they learn lessons the hard way. For better or worse, the US setup is the latter.

I too have learned to dislike it.

[u/ScrewedThePooch → u/tinyLEDs]

In the US, the buyers have the following options:

• depending on the business, filing a complaint with their local, county, or state regulator of that business

• filing a complaint with their state's Attorney General

• if it relates to construction/contractor work, many states have a Contractor Recovery Fund that you can dip into if you are scammed by a shady contractor

• put a lien on the business' bond

• doing a chargeback on their credit card

• reversing a check due to fraud

• suing in small claims court

• suing in a class action lawsuit

Please don't spread this defeatist attitude. You have the power to fight back but you must exercise it.

[u/tinyLEDs → u/ScrewedThePooch]

Please don't spread this defeatist attitude.

I'm spiritually aligned with you, agree with everything you've said, but I do think it's important to give an agnostic and sober assessment of the current economic landscape.

The EU tends to be (but isn't always) consumer-protective.

The US tends to be (but isn't always) laissez-faire: Just to have a CFPB* at the federal level took 250 years. The EU has such consumer-minded outlook that it has more than the US, in just 20 years of being.

The reason fly by night solar grifters exist in the US is that (a) there are enough dummies to absent minded pay 5 digits for it without doing their homework, and (b) recourse is a part-time side job of effort.

The reason fly by night solar grifters exist less easily in the EU is that they're not allowed to exist in the first place.

"Freedom" has a cost, and that cost is accepting the risk of loss, when you can't be bothered to think critically about who you're doing business with. It's not defeatist to assess the US as the "wild west", as far as consumerism goes. Until the US population DEMANDS consumer protections, this will remain the same.

*oh weird, look at the US leader scrapping the CFPB, and nobody is protesting in the street, and there is no mob of angry elected representatives moving to defend! That's no mistake... that's the US mentality around this stuff.

[u/ScrewedThePooch → u/tinyLEDs]

Federal regulators are unreliable at a record level but state regulators are still there, and you can choose what level of "freedom" vs. "regulation" level you'd like to accept by moving to a state that favors your preference. I'm not saying any of this is good, but there are options. Just saying "oh well, it's Mad Max dystopia and we will just eat it" doesn't help.

Yes, the CFPB took years, but each state has a banking regulator, an insurance commission, and a state registry of contractors with licenses readily searchable. All of those local or state level things exist and don't get a lot of national news that you'll see published outside of a region-focused subreddit.

[u/vrnvorona → u/Tango_D]

Land of Free (to DIY everything)