Thanksgiving week in Indiana always tells a story. Highways fill with families, pickup trucks, and the hum of engines that shaped the state’s identity for generations. The American car has been more than transportation. It has been freedom, pride, and a ticket to the middle class.
That is why a quiet shift in the global auto market should matter to every driver on I-65 and every family thinking about their next car payment. Americans are now paying the highest electric vehicle prices in the world, even though cheaper, cleaner options exist almost everywhere else. Families feel the squeeze through sticker shock, rising interest rates, and the hidden tax of tariffs layered into the price of nearly every imported component. Families know something is off. The question is how much longer they are willing to carry the burden.
A Tale of Two Markets
A recent report from Politico followed the rise of BYD, the Chinese automaker whose electric models are spreading through Brazil at astonishing speed. Their best-selling model, the Dolphin Mini, retails for the equivalent of $22,500. It is fully electric, modern, reliable, and within reach of middle-income buyers. The same class of EV in the United States often costs $35,000 to $40,000 before fees and financing.
BYD opened more than 200 showrooms in Brazil in two years and even took over a former Ford plant that American manufacturers abandoned. Workers gained jobs. Consumers gained choices. Prices fell. The energy transition accelerated. This is the type of competition that markets are supposed to deliver.
The U.S. has taken a very different path. Tariffs on Chinese EVs and their components are designed to push production back home. The problem is that tariffs do not make American cars cheaper. They make alternative options more expensive, which is why U.S. consumers now shoulder a substantial “America-only premium.”
The Rare Earth Advantage
China did not luck into this position. It planned for it. Clean energy relies on rare earth elements for magnets, motors, and batteries. China invested heavily in this extraction and processing supply chain decades ago. Today it controls most of the world’s refining capacity. That upstream dominance allows Chinese manufacturers to produce EV components at far lower cost.
When Chinese firms can refine the minerals and build the motors in the same industrial system, the final vehicle becomes cheaper than anything U.S. manufacturers can offer. Blocking finished EVs at the border does nothing to solve the materials imbalance. It only shifts the cost from the companies to American families. Rare earths power the clean-energy race. China is holding most of the cards.
Tariff Fatigue Is Real
Voters are tired of paying more for everything. Tariffs on steel, aluminum, batteries, and EVs make the U.S. feel like its own high-cost island. These policies were sold as protection for industry but have become a drain on consumers. The broad use of tariffs has made it harder to defend the few that might actually help national security or supply-chain stability. A tariff meant to look tough on China becomes a tax on the middle class.
Global competitors see the opposite trend. Brazil, Indonesia, India, and Pakistan view cheap clean tech as a historic opening. Solar panels dropped in price by more than 90 percent over the past decade, largely due to Chinese manufacturing. Nations are seizing the opportunity to electrify, industrialize, and create jobs. China builds factories. Local workers gain income. Consumers gain access to affordable, clean transportation. The United States, meanwhile, debates how to keep prices high.
The Environmental Cost of High Prices
Electric vehicles are not luxury goods. They are public-health and climate tools. When prices fall, adoption accelerates. When adoption accelerates, emissions decline. Simple cause and effect.
European policymakers are learning this lesson the hard way. Their own tariffs on Chinese EVs may protect domestic automakers, but they also raise the cost of climate progress. As one environmental researcher noted, refusing cheap, ready-to-deploy clean technology may be among the greatest threats to climate action. If Brazil can put affordable EVs in the hands of middle-class families, the United States should ask why its own market keeps pushing them out of reach.
A Question for American Drivers
Indiana is a car state. America is a car nation. The holiday season is filled with stories about road trips, reunions, and the independence that comes with a full tank or a charged battery. But a quiet question is growing louder. How much longer will Americans be willing to pay thousands more for the same car? Tariff-heavy industrial policy has costs, and those costs fall directly on working families. The world is moving toward cheaper clean energy. The United States is paying extra to resist it.
Thanksgiving is a moment to reflect on fairness. If families are expected to support the transition to cleaner vehicles, the government owes them a path that does not require paying more than the rest of the world. Prosperity does not come from walling off competition. It comes from innovation, affordability, and a willingness to adapt.
The rest of the world is already shifting gears.