That’s all true, but you are leaving out an important piece of information that, at least for AliExpress, the VAT is already included in the price and there’s no additional customs processing fee.
Yeah, you have to try real hard to get a customs processing fee on a package from AliExpress. Customs literally can't keep up with the fire-hose of packages coming in from China, so the current deal is that they, AliExpress, charge and pay VAT and the packages just come through unscathed.
Order something from the US into Europe? Expect to pay customs most of the time. From Great Britain post-Brexit? Ditto. China? Rarely.
Any business outside the EU can register for the EU One Stop Shop scheme and charge the VAT directly and avoid fees. Many small time US sellers probably just don’t want to bother, but big platforms like AliExpress centralize it https://skat.dk/en-us/businesses/vat/vat-on-international-tr...
"Dont want to be stuck in the morass of EU red tape" is more like it.
Not that US red tape is any better, mind you, but suffice to say that unless you have massive scale, registration schemes will make you ROI negative unless you are making >100k in sales per month from the country in question.
Some even require registration by region. For example GER vs UK vs FR and rest a while back, all needed separate registration. And the paperwork is usually in the home coun try official language. Ha joke is on you when you start getting tax authority messages. They arent saying bonjour!
It’s all about the VAT collection. I order frequently from Amazon Japan. They add the 25% VAT directly at the moment of purchase and deliver by DHL to Denmark without any extra handling fees. So it’s not about china, but about the company doing the paperwork required for the VAT collection instead of you doing.
I get stuff delivered from the UK to the EU very regularly and all competent sellers handle VAT and duties just fine without additional processing fees. Smaller companies don’t always bother, though, but most of the time I don’t have to pay customs because everything is declared properly.
> But the processing fee for customs is usually 20-40 USD. Which can exceed the cost of the package in the first place.
It depends on who you are buying from. This is the order of magnitude of the fee if you let the shipping company handle it. It is extortionate and they do it because at this point buyers don’t have a choice if they want their stuff.
Companies that are used to dealing with foreign customers handle taxes themselves and don’t charge processing fees.
Even universal tariffs with no exceptions is a problem.
Many things cross US/Canada/Mexico border in the process being manufactured. And tariffs will stack up.
Many advanced products (tech/chip, etc) are not entirely made in any single place. Some stuff is imported, and some is exported again, and tariffing the world, will also make the world tariff you.
I think this is all around bad. Best case scenario the US has elected a president who decided to burn all political capital, alliances and credibility in search of a slightly better deal.
Doing this sort maximum pressure economic extortion style policies, *might* getter you a slightly better deal. But at what cost?
Can EU countries buy US military equipment, when it turns out that the US will withhold support for equipment we've bought and paid for, in order to pressure a democracy, fighting for its existence, into surrender.
Trump may get a win in the headlines, because everyone thinks he'll go away if he get a win.
> Can EU countries buy US military equipment, when it turns out that the US will withhold support for equipment we've bought and paid for, in order to pressure a democracy, fighting for its existence, into surrender.
Why would anyone buy US military equipment that's either "10%" handicapped on purpose, or remotely disabled whenever the US changes its feelings about the users of said military equipment?
He's already gotten what he wanted from it and bragged about it: so many leaders of different countries calling up and kissing his ass. He's certainly not going to give any of them what they wanted, and now they all have the taste of his ass in their mouths. At least they have something in common with Elon Musk, now.
There's many sayings about diplomacy, though I understand the reality is much more mundane.
One that comes to mind is "a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip" — like all good quotes, attributed to a wide variety of famous people.
Competent governments send arse kissers to those who need pampering, and send blunt to those who need to see bluntness. But (in a competent government) these things are uncorrelated with the actual negotiation position — "speak softly and carry a big stick" etc.
Trump being bellicose to everyone at the same time is a sign of his own incompetence.
I belief his story about dozens of countries calling him about as much as his story of him taking a cognitive test and having every single answer correct. Or his doctors statement that said that there has never been a healthier president than Trump.
Yeah, this is a man who literally says he has the greatest memory in human history but then constantly says he can't remember stuff a day or two later or coincidentally was living under a rock and has no idea what's going on in his cabinet.
Worth looking at the actual deals. The initial talks with Canada and Mexico resulted in reported "deals" and "wins" that were actually just confirmations that the deals negotiated under previous administration are in fact happening.
Speed limits for towing smaller trailers mostly derive from safety concerns about overloaded or imbalanced trailers being unstable at high speeds. A battery-only trailer with little or no cargo space, designed and certified in conjunction with specific tow vehicles, could easily be safe enough to operate at highway speeds.
I think the main reason why we don't see anyone seriously pursuing the battery trailer idea is that it would be an expensive niche product. It would have to be mostly a rental-only product, and offer few advantages over simply renting a more suitable vehicle.
Obviously a trailer would not be a clever idea, but Nio already has cars with swappable batteries, for short distances you could just install a battery pack which is maybe 20% battery and 80% empty space
Having done a long trip in an EV, in a very inhospitable location (the USA, without access to Tesla chargers), I'm not convinced there is an EV range/charge time problem. I think it's mostly in the minds of the public. Hence I'm skeptical that the changeable battery pack is a solution to any problem.
My experience was that you end up stopping to charge a bit more often than you'd stop to fill up gas, but factoring in stops for bathroom and food, it's really not a significant difference. There just needs to be more chargers (to avoid queuing for an open one), and chargers that are more closely spaced (every 50 miles like gas stations instead of every 100+ miles). Then today's EVs will be just fine for long trips. Not completely perfect, but perfectly adequate, to the point that it won't be worthwhile buying an ICE vehicle just to have it for long trips.
It’s enough of a pain in the ass to swap summer and winter tires, and that’s something that (some) people only do twice a year. I can’t imagine people wanting to swap battery packs (either themself or by making an appointment at a service center) before and after every long trip.
Ideally they could just come to my home or workplace and swap the batteries out there while I am doing something else (if it is going to take longer than 30 mins)
Both upthread replies seem to evidence approximately the same level of effort to me; "It won't be faster" isn't wildly less effort than "what if it will be faster?"
Nio has fewer Nio battery swap stations operating in the entire world than just the state of New Jersey has filling stations (not dispensers, entire stations).
Nothing in the video above made me think "oh wow, that looks like that process will be a lot faster than filling up!" and several segments made it seem like there would be more time involved in just getting the car into and out of the battery replacement service bay than filling up takes. (Nio's claim of a 2.5-3 minute battery swap seems to be measuring only the swap time while the car is stopped in the bay.)
That's all before we consider the travel time to one of the stations (which is unlikely to be as close to your trip as a typical filling station because of the rarity of stations), time waiting for the car [or cars] in front of you to complete their swap (which if Nios ever became popular would likely be longer than waiting for one of the typically eight or more dispensers to free up at a filling station), nor to account for the "all long range batteries are out of stock at this location, because it's the Friday before Christmas and everyone is road tripping to visit family" NACKs that are liable to occur in a Nio-only battery swap system.
For me the killer line in the video that will make it hard for Nio to solve all of these is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w&t=270s : "Building these stations is incredibly expensive and it's no secret that Nio is losing a staggering amount of money right now..."
My point is, it may be interesting if it’s faster than filing up. Now, is it likely? Not at the moment, as you correctly pointed out.
Can I guarantee it will never happen? No. Hence my comment. It was not about stating what will happen or not, I don’t feel this type of prediction has any reliability. Millions of people smarter than me get it wrong every day, especially the very long term ones are almost always wrong.
I doubt it.. I suspect that most of us would trade just as poorly if we knew Q results ahead of the announcement :)
Because it maybe up a bit or down a bit, but that's all going to measured relative to assumptions the market has and those assumptions aren't public either.
That seems to be the current strategy, and I happen to appreciate it.
I'm pretty mad a the US for fucking up the entire world right now, but I also realise that acting on that anger is a bad idea. I appreciate the EU having some long discussions while the emotions fade.
But the processing fee for customs is usually 20-40 USD. Which can exceed the cost of the package in the first place.
So when possible I always shop within the EU, or maybe the US.
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