Of course Orban seeks for new friends for when the companies of the free world are finally fed up and leave his country.
And obviously he looks for those friends in countries as authoritarian as his mindset.
At least, the Chinese won’t take any of his bs and will have him obediently answering to their commands.
Now we only need to get him out of the EU, so he becomes the financial burden of the Chinese and no longer ours.
Being in the EU is the only reason why China would be interested in putting a BYD plant there.
Now, wouldn’t that be a shame! Being kicked out of the EU a week before that factory’s opening date…
We want to be in EU just you need to get out orban, and maybe his dumb, commie voters, mostly old people who want the communism back. Just hold the EU support until orban falls.
The Hungarian populace has to get rid of him. I know this is easy for me to say as an extern. But there just isn’t any other way. All “we” can do as the EU is to apply constant pressure on him, which so far has always been hindered by a like-minded European ally of his (Poland, now Slovakia?). He needs to be kicked out by his own people.
Ah yes, exactly what we need, more cars. Cars built out of stolen knowledge, by a hostile nation hellbent on becoming the next global hegemon. And we let them do it, happily, for the profits.
I fucking hate capitalism.
Cars built out of stolen knowledge
Genuinely interested. Can you provide some context on this?
I don’t have a specific example at hand right now but ever since we moved to fully globalized capitalism around the end of the 90s China has pursued an explicit policy of forcing every single foreign company who wanted to produce in China to do so in collaboration, meaning they have to allow their Chinese partners access to industry secrets, patents, workflow, and so on. This obviously works well to keep short term profits up, so everyone went along with it, blindly disregarding the long term implications we have to deal with now.
The economic power of China is built on coercing western corps into sharing their developments. Also one of the reasons why chinese products were (and in many cases, still are) shoddy, inferior imitations.
I really find it hard to empathise with a company that outsources it’s manufacturing to China in order to exploit cheap labour and poor environmental protections. It feels like having your IP ripped off by the people you’re exploiting in order to save a buck is fair comeuppance.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I don’t empathize with the corps who moved our labor overseas for profits, and threw their technological advantage - their true long-term capital - after them as well, for a few years of quarterly gains. Fuck them. Shortsighted greed is the essence of capitalism.
That doesn’t make me like china’s strategy any more though. Exactly because they understand how to instrumentalize the corrupt greed of the capitalist class to their advantage are they so dangerous to us.
Our governments are powerless to protect national economic interests because they are all beholden to the short term profiteers of destroying our long term prosperity.
Hostile country? How so? What war did they start?
And you mean they want to replace the current hegemon, which yields a bloody war after another. And if not, it supports them.
We definitely need more affordable EVs with a modern infotainment system, not something designed in the early 2000 by students
We have perfectly good electric trains for decades now and they do have wonderfull infotainment in form of an on board restaurant with beer and WiFi for some time now.
If only those trains were reliable and actually affordable? Personally I prefer taking trains but the prices sometimes are ridiculously high, and then the chances that you end up with a huge delay or you miss your connection can be quite high depending on the country you are living in.
Plus not all trains are electrified, there are quite a lot of diesel trains and I think even if they are electrified the losses on transferring electricity over their lines is pretty big. I am not in favour of using a car, just giving you some perspective.
deleted by creator
50€ train ticket: nope
100’000€ car: oh yes please
Wtf
Actually not all cars cost 100K and a trip of 400-500 km is 120-130€ per passenger, multiply this by three or four, for families then add to the equation the hassle with luggage, logistics, eventual train delays, etc.
Again I also prefer trains as I really don’t enjoy driving but sometimes having a car is easier and more convenient. Plus you can get a perfectly capable car for 10-15K
You can’t get an electric car for 15k that will take four people and their luggage 500km. That would be a tesla model S or X or a Vw ID.7 or a Mercedes GLE, which go for more than 100k.
Train companies provide substantial reduction in ticket prices for children or families.
If you want to use a car because you find it more convenient, that’s fine. But be honest about the fact that it is nothing but convenience and don’t try to find lame excuses.
It is convenient and the whole point of the article is to bring affordable EVs to Europe.
And you know there are other EVs that exist with decent range that cost a lot less, support fast charging and can transport 4 people along with their luggage easily.
Really? Which ones?
If only those trains were reliable and actually affordable?
And, you know… there. Like, available in a spatial sense. If I go to work, it’s either 45 minutes by car or 25 minutes by bicycle, 2 hours by train and another 30 minutes on foot. That’s not counting rain or snow. And that’s not going to change like “poof”, so I own two electric cars, done.
deleted by creator
The problem would be 3h accumulated travel time, so six hours per day?
deleted by creator
Yeah, otherwise that wouldn’t even be a question, you’re right. Back when I lived in a somewhat large-ish town, anything inside the outer ring was usually way faster by bike, but living in the back country those times are over.
We need more affordable, effective and reliable public transportation, not more individual cars weighing tons and transporting only a handful of people.
Ideally it’d be that, but here we are. The next best thing is produce more affordable EVs. Otherwise, China would just take over the world while y’all be arguing about all those ideals.
We need to redistribute land in cities towards the state, instead of allocating in in a market economy and on top we need to we need to build mixed used neighborhoods that make public transport and mobility a rather rare occurance in the first place.
I don’t know whether more mixed neighborhoods would transportation a rare occurance. Rarer yes, but not rare. There are just too many opportunities to travel, from needing to see a medical specialist to visiting friends and family.
Also, while I agree that housing should not be subject to a for-profit market economy, I am also not sure I want to see the state get ownership and more control over people’s living. Local cooperatives seem more appropriate.
Any guesses which location in Hungary it might be?
Next to Szeged, again on fine soil for farming, while Hungary has the highest inflation, especially in food, where the official number is 43% in a year, but in real i can really find a food product that’s price isnt doubled at least in one year…
