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Comment by GardenLetter27 | Hacker News Reader

So is Europe though. We even copied the US with the fixed fee on imports now plus an extra percentage fee coming in 2 years.

Meanwhile Chinese EVs are banned, and even Tesla FSD is banned in most of Europe.

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Chinese EVs aren’t banned in the EU (to my knowledge), but have an import tax that brings their total price roughly to the level of western products. BYD is special amongst them, because they build cars in Hungary.

In Czechia businesses can get ~17000€ per EV, free vignettes for EV, cheaper price for charging if you get photovoltaic panels, also donated ~8000€. No wonder that sales goes up when our taxes sponsor EV manufacturing outside EU. And simultaneously automotive in EU dies.

I'm glad FSD isn't allowed in Germany. A camera-only system is a long way from what I'd consider safe. Just as a reminder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJL3htsDyQ

This is a ridiculous edge case.

The real comparison is compared to most human drivers - distracted on their phones and smoking cigarettes, drunk driving or high on marijuana or laughing gas, etc.

This highlight the core issue of vision-only self driving: it falls apart when visibility is bad or confusing. Tesla FSD struggles with something as common as driving towards the sun at dawn/sunset.

Limit FSD to southbound roads, problem solved!

Probably northbound only. Sun at noon is low enough in northern Europe that it's not much different from sunset/dawn

Edge cases.

LIDAR wouldn't help in case of water/rain, quite the opposite. It does help for funny painting.

Outdated fact? Recent years' lidar shouldn't have much issues w/ rain

Completely untrue, Tesla FSD is approved for Finland, Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia, Slovakia and Latvia. Chinese cars like BYD, Xpeng etc are everywhere too.

European car manufacturers are sleeping on FSD. Why would I buy a non-FSD car if there's not much price difference?

AFAIU only Ford and Tesla have it currently?

There is no Tesla Full self driving in europe.

BMW can self drive on autobahns in europe.

Can one buy a Mercedes or BMW today in Finland that can drive hands-off? Not meant as a rhetorical question. I thought that it's not possible but I might be wrong, am not an expert.

Tesla can be used in Finland supervised aka tesla needs to see that you look at the street. BMW and Mercedes can drive hands-off and eyes off on german autobahns.

So none of them can do it properly anywhere :D

Mercedes has self driving that unlike Tesla has gone through proper safety testing and can be used at higher autonomy levels.

Camera-only systems like the Tesla cannot handle some weather conditions and should not allowed on European roads.

But not in France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Poland, Italy, Ireland, etc. - thus not in most of Europe.

Basically the smallest EU countries.

I agree that Chinese EV cars are all over Europe.

> Meanwhile Chinese EVs are banned

Maybe I misunderstand you, but I don’t think this is true. On the contrary: AFAIK there isn’t a single European country that does this.

Which countries are you thinking of?

The main issue is the tariffs and certification - like there is a literal hard cap on the total number of imports. It is getting better now though as BYD has the factory in Hungary at least.

It's crazy that the EU criticise Trump for the ridiculous tariffs, but then do near the same thing themselves.

And unlike Trump, we cannot vote them out.

>The main issue is the tariffs and certification - like there is a literal hard cap on the total number of imports.

Tesla benefited <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-19/tesla-vol...> from Canada cutting import duty on Chinese EVs, by grabbing most of the slots.

> Meanwhile Chinese EVs are banned

Are you actually in the EU? If so, are you blind? Chinese EVs self-evidently are not banned.

Looking at your comments, which each and every one of is anti-EU and somewhat similar, I am almost convinced you are, in fact, a bot. And if you're not, then you have a clear agenda and given this very comment, just spread lies.

In my neighborhood in London, roughly half the cars I see are Chinese EVs.

UK doesn't have the same tariffs the EU applies though...

Is Britain more relaxed than the EU around imports?

What? I see BYD electric cars everywhere in Switzerland/Italy where I usually hang around

> Meanwhile Chinese EVs are banned

What? BYD, NIO and others are to be found everywhere in Germany. I literally see one parked on the other side of the street looking out of my window right now.

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