Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

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Actually that's not entirely correct. There's no rule about who uses what, anyone can convert between CUP(the official currency) and CUC(the pegged one) at an exchange(1:25 exchange rate) and shops would accept both but of course using CUC is more convenient when paying at a place where a meal costs half the salary of doctor.

I also went to local restaurants, they were extremely cheap but way too basic IMHO(However I think there was a special kind of a restaurant that is intended to be fancy but also for the locals. I was having a proper fish meal and a beer for about equivalent of 5$ in CUP at one of those). However I was told that I can't take any other bus than Viazul(the fancy tourist buses) for travelling between cities. Not that I would want to travel in one of those anyway, definitely not comfortable or safe to travel.

Here is one of the buses that the regular Cubans were traveling: https://imgur.com/a/jIynZMZ

For some reason, communists suck at automobile making.

OH! By the way, apparently CUC was discontinued a year ago in 1st of January 2021.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_convertible_peso

oh, didn't know about the CUC going away! TIL

> For some reason, communists suck at automobile making.

Do you not think that embargoes have some degree of impact on this?

There are two things being confused here. Cuba wouldn't have an auto industry if it wasn't communist, unless it adopted weird protectionist policies- no comparable countries do. Therefore, it relies on imported vehicles. Partly because of the embargo, supply of these is limited- particularly in the case of personal cars, the government had better things to spend limited hard currency reserves on while people could keep the 50s American cars from before the Revolution running (often with the motors replaced with smaller, more modern imported diesels).

However, that 'bus' seems to be a locally modified truck, probably a Soviet-built ZiL-164. There is definitely an argument to be made that the cars and trucks produced under Communism, both in the USSR itself and in client states like East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland, weren't as good as their contemporary Western equivalents for all sorts of reasons.

Do you know of a clear explanation how the US prevents Cuba from getting cars?

A lot of Americans haven't owned American cars since the 70s.

Other Caribbean islands import vehicles that are neither American nor even available in the US.

I know nothing about the auto industry, but South America is not that far away, and apart from tariffs, isn't it demonstrably economically viable to ship things long distances over the ocean? Because people do it, that's where all the consumerism comes from.

The idea that if Cuba can't import new cars from America, then it can't get them from anywhere is just silly. America imports tons of new cars from Asia and Europe, as does every other nation in Latin America. Cuba just imports fewer of them due to financial constraints, as the typical wage is 20,200 CUP or about $780/month.

And Cuba does have some new cars. People focus on the old cars because it's so visually striking (and those cars are so beautiful!) but it's more a marker of poverty than America somehow threatening to torpedo any ship that brings new cars to Cuba, or convincing all the global auto manufacturers to never sell any cars to Cuba. There are modern BMWs, Toyotas, etc in Cuba right now. Just not many of them. Expectedly, BMW is doing brisk business selling much cheaper motorcycles and scooters in Cuba, which is also true of other Latin American nations.

>Do you know of a clear explanation how the US prevents Cuba from getting cars?

It doesn't directly. It just makes it harder for Cuba to obtain hard currency to buy new cars.

No I don't think so. Cars made by the Soviets sucked too. Even cars made by East Germany sucked. They made amazing spacecraft and terrible cars.

Lada cars were actually pretty good, if rugged and lacking comfort. The propaganda against them was mostly that, propaganda. They were good for budget cars [1].

Now, you can argue they were a joint-venture with Fiat and not an entirely original idea (though the Soviets made improvements in ruggedness and ease of self-service), but whatever: cars made by the Soviets didn't suck.

--

[1] from Wikipedia:

> The rugged Lada was popular in Europe, Canada and South America for customers looking for more affordable alternatives to local brands, and sales of the new cars were extremely successful, reaching as far as New Zealand. In the West, their construction was frequently described as cheap and that inspired jokes at the car's expense; nonetheless, Lada "gained a reputation as a maker of solid, unpretentious and reliable cars for motorists who wanted to drive on a budget."

Wikipedia uses as reference Andy Thompson. Cars of the Soviet Union, Haynes Publishing, 2008.

I'm born in Bulgaria, We had plenty of Soviet are cars around up until early 2000's, so I'm very familiar with Lasa, Moskvitch, Tranbant and so on.

They are terrible cars. Some of their aspects, like being very basic is considered a plus by some people and that's about the only positive thing that can be said about these cars. The affordability for the Westerners came from the income difference, these cars were not affordable for for the locals as they had to save money for years to buy one.

Very bad, very unreliable, very inefficient, very uncomfortable cars can be popular only when they are extremely cheep or the only option.

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