And the Tesla factory in Shanghai also gets Chinese subsidies.

The subsidies to Chinese EV companies isn't direct anymore. Most of it is in the form of tax refunds. The biggest "subsidy", though, is the incredible pipeline China has built to feed the industry. Their industrial policy has created an huge ecosystem capable of feeding batteries and components into their EV industry at a price point and scale that no other country can compete with. It's been an incredibly effective industrial policy.

I get what the OP means about the destruction of our auto industry but we can only hide behind that for so long. An ineffective and noncompetitive auto industry won't be able to scale up during a war either. I hope our industrial leaders and politicians are using tariffs and other trade barriers to the US car industry only as a temporary reprieve while we scale up our ecosystem too. Otherwise we run the risk of becoming one of those countries that keeps outdated domestic companies alive just to say we have those companies. Without export discipline and the ability to compete effectively on the global stage, domestic companies are just zombies kept alive by domestic subsidies. They won't be able to help us in the event of a war with a peer adversary.

Tesla's US subsidies mainly came from a ATVM loan from the DOE back in 2008/2009, repaid back in 2013 -- Ford ($6B) was the largest recipient. The DOE had/have other auto/EV/battery subsidies, equally available to foreign domestic producers/recipients, which is what the global subsidies standard requires. No special, or "specific" subsidy favoring Tesla over others (or local companies over foreign competitors). America's consumer purchase EV subsidies prior to the IRA were also neutral without preference to any "specific" company, industry or country of origin.

China's NEV subsidies were/are illegal and Chinese EVs are countervailed in many developed countries (eg, the EU, Turkiye, Canada, US) because they are misapplied in three key ways.

i. forced tech transfer: no subsidies or market access unless hybrid/BEV/batteries tech transfer to China since 2011; violates China's 2001 Accession Protocal (see Section 7, Non-Tariff Measures); litigated before the WTO by the EU (WT/DS549)

ii, local content requirement: no subsidies or license/permit to operate in China unless automakers' EVs used Chinese batteries made by Chinese local "champions" only, namely CATL, since 2015; all foreign battery producers effectively banned and all EV producers forced to switch to local battery suppliers; violates Article 3(a) Prohibition of the Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) Agreement

iii, export subsidies: subsidies given to MIC exporters to under price/under cut foreign competitors in markets abroad; EU Commission's counter measures: 2024/1866 and 2024/2754.

Tesla China benefited significantly from China's NEV subsidies and is likewise also countervailed in the EU, at the import tariff rate of 7+%. Tesla no longer imports EV from China in the US/Canada.

All US car companies rely on US govt subsidies

> No idea if this is made up

It's an AI generated answer. That's always the problem so you shouldn't be using it as a factual information source.