EV Trade War Could Spread to Luxury Cars

Europe’s politicians have no easy options for dealing with Chinese electric vehicles.

Slap a 100% tariff on them, as President Biden did last month , and China can easily retaliate against the more than 300,000 luxury cars it gets annually from the European Union. Let Chinese EVs into the EU with the current 10% tariff, though, and Chinese companies have an open road to take market share, given impressive technology and a roughly 30% cost advantage.

This week, the European Commission is expected to announce the results of a nine-month investigation into Chinese EV subsidies . Its most likely course of action is a cautious middle ground—a 25% to 30% tariff that would make European EVs broadly competitive with lower-cost Chinese imports. This could still trigger retaliation, but the EU’s executive body has to do something to protect an economically and strategically important industry.

This political reality only looms larger after this past weekend’s elections for the European Parliament, which rewarded right-wing populist parties in France and Germany. In the coming months a new European Commission will review the policy response to the EV investigation. Arguments for going easy on cheap Chinese EVs , because they help Europe’s climate goals, will presumably take a back seat to economic protectionism.

Just how much market share Chinese cars might take in Europe, at least in the short term, is debatable. After years of modest gains, they accounted for roughly one in 10 new EVs sold in Western Europe in the third quarter of 2023, according to Schmidt Automotive Research. But their share fell back in the final three months of the year, when France excluded China-made models from its subsidy program. High discounts on Chinese brands also point to stalling progress.

Many European consumers might not be ready for proudly Chinese brands such as BYD. The bestselling “Chinese” brand in Europe by far is MG, which is historically British but now belongs to China’s SAIC. Even it wasn’t one of April’s 10 bestselling EV models in the EU, according to data provider Jato Dynamics.

Many more Europeans would no doubt be converted to Chinese brands by the rock-bottom prices advertised domestically in China, which is in the throes of a vicious price war. But BYD launched its vehicles last year at surprisingly high prices, perhaps mindful of the EU’s investigation as well as the potential to juice its margins to compensate for a tough home market.

Still, the long-term threat posed by Chinese-made EVs in Europe is clear, and the EU won’t take any chances. One consequence of higher tariffs will be more local production. BYD is already building a factory in Hungary, while Volvo Cars will start producing its new EX30 in Belgium next year, rather than shipping it to Europe from China as it currently does. Tesla , which makes its Model 3 for Europe in its factory near Shanghai, will probably need to follow suit.

Other consequences will depend on China’s response. The China Chamber of Commerce to the EU said last month that Beijing was considering a 25% tax on imported cars with large engines. China’s current tariff on vehicle imports from the EU is 15%. This move would hit Porsche in particular as it makes about a quarter of its revenue in China and produces all its cars in Germany.

The irony is that investors previously assumed luxury cars were relatively insulated from the threat of Chinese EV imports. Last year, the market was instead worried about the competitive challenge to mass-market manufacturers such as France’s Renault . As politicians in Paris and Brussels responded, concerns shifted, contributing to a gaping divide in stock-market performance: Porsche’s stock is down 37% over one year while Renault’s is up 55%.

In the end, some kind of truce that keeps trade flowing is likely. The EU is more dependent on exports to China than the U.S., ruling out the kind of isolationism Washington is moving toward. That might be a reason to worry more about Renault again, though the French company appears to be making progress in cutting EV costs.

This points to the only sustainable European response to Chinese EVs: matching their technology and cost structure, at least as far as local differences allow. Higher tariffs can only buy a little time.

What’s more important than being a good employee right now? Looking like a good employee in the eyes of AI productivity trackers that more managers are using to evaluate their teams.

Employee-monitoring systems are especially popular at tech companies and are also used by other white-collar firms that want to probe how people spend company time. The scary thing: You might not even know you’re being watched because many states don’t require disclosure.

Metrics can include performance data that is undoubtedly relevant, such as sales results. But it also can employ dubious proxies like keyboard strokes and how often your computer screen goes into sleep mode.

We generally accepted, or at least understood, heightened surveillance during the work-from-home era. Back then it seemed reasonable for bosses to keep tabs on employees they couldn’t see.

Yet the oversight has only escalated, and tensions are rising, too.

A group of former Meta Platforms employees alleges in a lawsuit that the company used a “constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems” when it began laying off about 10% of its workforce in May. Meta says humans make termination calls.

However that case shakes out, a couple of things are clear. Companies eager to gauge which employees are locked in now have sophisticated AI monitoring systems at their disposal. And they believe they have leverage in a tepid labor market.

So while we may chafe at having our worth reduced to numbers on the boss’s productivity dashboard, we have to play the game as it’s being played. Here are some tips, based on conversations with people who make employee monitoring systems—and others who game the systems.

Be meticulous about your calendar

Calendar integration is one way that productivity trackers have gotten more advanced and, ostensibly, fairer.

Let’s say you make an old-fashioned phone call or attend an in-person meeting. Your Outlook or Slack status may switch to “away,” making you appear as inactive as if you were taking an extended coffee break.

Employee monitors like one made by a company called Insightful cross-check your online status with your calendar to see whether there is a valid reason for your apparent inactivity. If that call or meeting is on your schedule, then the system will recognize that you are busy offline. If nothing is on the books, it could look like you’re slacking off.

Hit the activity sweet spot, around 80%

Let’s not go any further without addressing the underlying question: How much downtime is permissible during the workday? After all, people have been scared to let managers see anything non-work-related on their screens since personal computers first arrived in offices.

No one knows this better than Roger Wagner, who is widely credited with creating the first “boss button” in the early 1980s. He designed a keyboard shortcut to instantly display a spreadsheet if the boss walked by your cubicle while you were playing a computer game. Boss buttons have been features of countless diversions since. (I confess to using one built into a March Madness streaming app.)

Wagner, the founder of computer-education company 1010 Technologies, says his original design was a joke—more of a commentary on overbearing managers than a cover for lazy employees. Good bosses understand workers need mental breaks throughout the day, he says.

This matches what I heard from Insightful Chief Executive Ivan Petrovic. He says customers that use his company’s workforce-management platform don’t expect employees to stay on task 100% of the time.

“On average companies are aiming for 60% to 80% of your time being utilized for work during the day,” he says.

Go ahead and exhale. It’s probably OK to watch an occasional YouTube video at your desk.

And if you’re going to artificially inflate your activity level, be careful. Hitting 90% could look suspicious.

Get physical

So don’t leave your mouse jiggler on all day. Choose the right one if you must resort to shenanigans.

There are lots of software applications that mimic the movements of a computer mouse, so you can appear to be working while away from your desk. There are also devices that plug into computer ports and do the same thing.

Corporate cybersecurity systems increasingly block these apps and devices, and productivity trackers claim to be able to detect them. But some workers swear by mouse docks, like one made by Tech8 USA, that keep cursors moving. The company originally made mouse-moving software but now focuses on physical jigglers.

“People are drawn to mechanical solutions because they’re so simple and don’t require software,” says Tech8 Marketing Director Sam Matthews. “As monitoring technology becomes more sophisticated, that distinction has become even more relevant.”

Use AI, but not too much

Another popular metric for employee-monitoring systems is AI usage. Companies want to know who is embracing new tools, and it can be tempting to think more is better.

“There’s a performative aspect where employees overblow their usage of AI so that they appear relevant in the organization,” says Andrea Derler, principal researcher at Visier, which helps companies track and analyze employee work habits.

In a recent Visier survey of 1,000 U.S. workers, 48% admitted to exaggerating their AI usage.

This is already an outdated strategy. Using AI for everything used to score points for experimentation. Now it can seem wasteful because many companies are watching AI token spending more carefully.

Look, productivity theater has always been part of work. Most of us aren’t trying to cheat the system, but expectations are changing so quickly that we need to be savvy about what the latest employee trackers are looking for.

Sometimes it takes a little gamesmanship to get full credit for our contributions.

EV Trade War Could Spread to Luxury Cars

Investors used to worry about an invasion of Chinese electric vehicles into Europe. Tit-for-tat tariffs would instead hit Porsches heading to China.

As AI productivity trackers reshape workplace evaluations, employees are learning how to manage calendars, activity levels and AI usage to ensure their contributions are recognized.

Be meticulous about your calendar

Hit the activity sweet spot, around 80%

Get physical

Use AI, but not too much