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This isn't about keeping Chinese cars out. It's about deciding what kind of auto industry the United States wants to have and who gets to control it. For years, Chinese cars were largely an afterthought in the American auto industry. They were often viewed as cheap, low-quality products that posed little threat to Detroit. But that perception has begun to change. Today, Chinese automakers are producing vehicles that industry executives say are increasingly competitive on technology, quality, and price. Companies like BYD have rapidly expanded around the world, winning customers across the globe, including heavily in Europe and Latin America. And while these Chinese vehicles aren't sold in the United States, lawmakers and automakers are already treating them as a serious challenge. Now Congress is considering legislation that would go beyond tariffs and effectively shut the door on Chinese vehicles, software, and components before they ever gain a foothold here. 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Joining us now is Lauren Fix, one of America's best known automotive experts who's been tracking this growing debate over Chinese vehicles and what their rise could mean for the future of the American auto market. Lauren, thank you so much for joining us. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, there's a lot going on in the automotive world in the past. I think it was kind of quiet. People just drove their cars, but there's so much going on in the world. And I think a lot of people are missing what's really happening and the impact it's going to have on everyone. Yeah, more people are starting to really pay more attention to this. Now Chinese cars have been dismissed in the past. Elon Musk famously mocked them at one point. What changed and why are American automakers suddenly taking Chinese cars so seriously? Well, there's actually an interesting history behind it. The Chinese manufacturers knew that they couldn't beat the Americans when it came to regular combustion gas engines and they couldn't beat the Germans when it came to diesel engines. They just had it down pat and in order to beat them they would have had to have better fuel economy or something special and it was very difficult to do. So they came up with the concept of creating electric vehicles, creating a story. But before they created the story, they literally purchased most of the mines that have all the rare earth minerals for the batteries. So if you own the supply chain, you get to own the industry. So they created electric cars and they didn't start off so great, but then they really started to ramp up because they can move quickly. They don't have unions. They don't have all the cumbersome issues with their government. The government was supporting it and because that they knew the only way to take over the auto industry, which is the one industry they haven't taken over is push these electric cars, bring the story, whether you believe it or not, about that we're running out of fuel. We don't have enough diesel, which is not true, but it's a great story to get a bigger grasp on the industry. And then once they started taking over, it went really quick because the government subsidized every sale of every car. So while you're in Germany and you look at a beautiful Audi and it's $40,000, I can buy a BYD for about $30,000 and the consumer says, that's a beautiful car. I can get this vehicle and save a lot of money. But what they were really doing was hurting their own country and their employees and the supply chains and the economy of the country. And that's worked its way, not just into the entire world, but it's starting to work its way into the US, but there's going to be some people trying to stop it. We'll see how that actually unfolds. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. But first, are these Chinese cars actually good in what are the brands? We're not trying to promote them here, but what are the brands that are the major Chinese manufacturers? Well, the biggest one, I think probably the best of them that seems to really have a grasp on creating great quality products is BYD. BYD is all over the place. They actually make buses that are sold here in North America. You might see it not even realize it. They are the largest company. They have been subsidized by the Chinese government. Again, that's how they get ahead because you come in lower prices, people are interested. You'll see companies like Neo, Cherry, a lot of some of them actually own other companies like Vova was owned by a Chinese car company. But you wouldn't know that. Polestar is the sister company to that. And when you start realizing that they're already here in North America, they're already building components and parts and they've taken a lot of our supply chain under previous administrations. The goal was to push all this off-shoreings, all these parts and pieces and beautiful center screens and wonderful displays and software all came from China. So they already have a foothold here and under President Trump he's been trying to push it away, which is actually good for supply chains here in the US. It's good for the economy. It's good for jobs. It's not necessarily so good for the car manufacturers because they want to keep the costs down. And the other thing with the Chinese cars is there's no unions. So when they're building cars, their costs are dramatically less. And that's why getting parts and pieces and components from other countries and bringing them here can be a problem because it literally impacts our economy. Yeah. So what actions have been taken? You mentioned Trump. We've all seen the tariff wars. There's 100% tariff on all electric vehicles from China. How is the president handling this attempt by Chinese companies to take over more of the market? Well, for a while, Canada was actually on board. They had 100% tariff on all Chinese cars, just like we do here in the US. Recently, I guess it's more political and a little gamesmanship, Canada is going to let 49,000 cars into the US, which also opens up some interesting things because those cars won't be allowed into the US. So you could buy them in Canada, but you can't own them here in the US. And that also goes through with Mexico. They're selling Chinese cars there today. You can drive them across just as a guest and visiting, but you can't own them here in the US. You can't register them within the state. So what President Trump has done is left the tariff in place. And if you want to build cars here in North America, great. Build a plant here. Not all the car brands like that, by the way. There are many car brands that are pushing against that because the Japanese and the Koreans have invested heavily here in the US, mostly Hyundai Corporation. They've got a steel plant they're putting in outside of New Orleans. You've got plants. I was just at the Savannah plant for Hyundai, huge facility. And they use some Chinese components, but they want to use Korean parts. So again, you've got a little bit of each country fighting a little bit because when they came to this country, remember, Hyundai had an OK car. Now Hyundai makes a fantastic car. They make luxury cars like Genesis and they've really taken over. So you're seeing the interesting part of this. So if China wants to build plants here in the US, use UAW workers, have the same costs that we have here, then President Trump's willing to hear them out. So that could be interesting. But China's already working a backdoor route. Yeah, what is that? And also, are there national security implications to all this? Absolutely. So there are some interesting things you may not realize. When you get in your vehicle and you want to sync your Bluetooth to your phone, you get in and it takes your information. So do you want to put your address book in? We've all done that, right? But with the Chinese cars, it literally takes everything off your phone. And when I was test driving one of their vehicles, I was told by one of the internals who's from the US, don't leave your Bluetooth on because it'll literally take everything off your phone including your passwords and everything. So that's a big security issue and every consumer can understand that. But when you're driving around the US roads, it will literally take all that information and send that back to the home base, which is China. So that opens up doors. So when you pull in your garage and your Bluetooth is on your phone and it's on your car, guess what? It's also on your Wi-Fi in your home. And all that data from your home is now being sent to China as well. So that's the big thing. A couple senators are jumped on board and trying to put some policy in place to stop that. But also they're taking over and they have for years used parts, parts that you would put on cars, center screens, hard parts like suspension components, wheels and tires. They really come in to infiltrate our industry and try to own the auto industry. So the legislation that we mentioned at the top, Senators Bernie Moreno and Alissa Slotkin introduced this bill. A lot of American automakers do support it, labor groups, etc. Some do. Some don't. Yeah. So why are they doing this? What's the heart behind this bill? What Senator Bernie Moreno out of Ohio wants to do and he's from the auto industry and that's actually how I know him. But what's interesting is he understands that the impact to jobs, the impact to our economy, the impact to manufacturing here in the US is quite dramatic. If China were to come in and all their parts shipped in, the problem is it would be lower costs, good for consumers initially, but the cars and the quality of the parts are good. They're not as good as what we're getting from other brands. So the thing is it's going to be a lot of, I will call them not necessarily, more disposable type cars. Cars that are cheap enough that you go, I'll just get another one. And they have that problem in China and also in Russia that is pretty exclusively with Chinese cars and they've got a lot of problems. In Russia they have a lot of, so that'll tell you it's not a great car. It's not something you'd want to own. So China is trying backdoor ways to get in. So there is a company called Leap Motors. Leap Motors has a partnership with Stellantis. Stellantis used to be Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, Jeep, all the brands that we kind of know. Well that's no longer a domestic car company. That is a car company that's based out of Belgium and their relationship with China has been in place for a while. So they're now going to let Leap Motors build SUVs here in North America. And I've been reporting on this for quite a while that this could be a problem because you are now letting China in here. And that's going to be a big problem because it's going to affect the UAW because the UAW wants jobs. They want more people on the unions. There are some brands that are kind of interested in working with China. It would be like Ford and General Motors where other brands like Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Honda are not interested. The Germans don't want that here because the impact is dramatic. Look what's happening in Germany. Most of the people that live there work in the auto industry. And when you have a problem with no jobs, that's going to lead to some other issues. So we're starting to see the infiltration, shall we say, of Chinese influence. Some of it will go through. Some of it can be blocked through legislation. So is it realistic to keep Chinese cars out of the US long term or is this really about kind of buying time for American automakers to catch up? That is an excellent question. I don't know if Chinese electric cars are going to do well here, no matter what the price is. I mean, Slate's coming on board here with $20,000 cars. There are cars that will be starting to come in from other automakers around that lower price entry point around $20,000. I know Honda is working out of Toyota is working on Hyundai and so forth. But I think what's really important to note that these vehicles will make their way here. They're already here in Volvo. Volvo is made in South Carolina and they're there. And some of the components that BMW uses, the largest SUV factory in the world for BMW is in South Carolina and they actually employ more people than anyone else in the state. So you're starting to see an influence already. I think that has to be done under controlled situations. Eventually they will be here. Are they the best cars to choose? Well, not exactly on a global basis. I'm seeing that they're cool and they're high tech and people love them initially, but they also have issues. And we have to remember that if you have a car with a problem, you're going to go to a dealer. And if there isn't a dealer infrastructure here, either they're going to buy a dealer group or brand like Stellantis or we're going to have to see them create their own dealers, which would mean they're going to have to go under our franchise laws, which will definitely cost these cars, make these cars more expensive. Right. Now, at the end of the day, is this really more about cars or is it more about who controls the next generation of technology in manufacturing and the supply chain as you started off talking about maybe being the most essential factor here? Actually, it's an excellent question. I think that it is, it's going to be something we're not going to be able to stop. We know this. I think all the car brands know that the supply chain is going to have a partnership, having more product produced here. The thing is some of these companies are already owned by Chinese companies and they're here right now, whether it be the cameras, the infrastructure. The one thing that worries me and this is a slightly different subject, but important to note is the kill switches, the all these demands, these block cameras, everything that's all part of the auto industry now. A lot of that is Chinese made. So we really need to be aware of what we tell our elected officials, the legislators, hey, before you just go and let everybody in, let's try to put some controls on this because it's going to impact everyone and not just those people that own cars, maybe you don't own a car, you live in a big city. It's going to impact you because it's going to affect the economy as a whole. It's kind of overwhelming how complicated all of this is. There's so many component parts literally and sort of figuratively. Lauren, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. That was automotive expert Lauren Fix and this has been a weekend episode of Morning Wire. The grill is shot. The chairs are held together by optimism. And what happened to the rug? Sounds like your outdoor setup is not ready for patio season. Fix it all with Wayfair. Shop Wayfair for grills, rugs, furniture and more. 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