Massachusetts man flies to China to find out why the US is blocking their EVs and it doesn't take long to get the answer

A YouTuber from Massachusetts flew to China to test a bunch of different EVs, including the Aridge flying car, and he believes he knows why they’re banned in the US.

The US is trying hard to keep Chinese cars away from its dealers, mostly with import tariffs and various taxes.

This YouTuber may have found an explanation for that.

Although there’s another reason no one wants to talk about.

China is on the rise

At some point in the not-so-distant past, Chinese automakers realized they were never going to catch up to American, European, and Japanese companies by simply ‘copying’ them with cheap but largely inadequate gas cars.

They also realized that no one aside from Tesla was taking electric cars very seriously.

So instead of trying to chase these brands in a field where they were behind, they skipped a generation of technology and decided to anticipate demand by building EVs of all kinds.

Big, small, cheap, luxurious – they did everything.

Brands like BYD, Chery, and Xiaomi were either obscure (BYD and Chery) or busy doing something else entirely (Xiaomi) years ago, and now they rule the market.

Not only that, Chinese automakers also started building hybrids, because they know that certain markets are still hesitant when it comes to EVs.

The result speaks for itself: now it’s European and American brands that are playing catch-up.

The reason why this YouTuber believes these EVs are not available in the US

Massachusetts-based YouTuber Rich Rebuilds has already tested a lot of Chinese vehicles, including the BYD Yangwang U8, the SUV which can famously float and do tank turns, and a hybrid sedan that looks like a Taycan but only costs $45,700.

On this occasion, he actually flew from his ‘HQ’ in Massachusetts to China to drive the Xpeng P7, the Chinese version of the Tesla Model Y, and he even got a chance to see the Aridge flying car in action.

A couple of years ago, Xpeng launched a spin-off brand called AeroHT (now rebranded to Aridge) to build flying cars.

Aridge unveiled a flying car that looks completely normal when the wings are folded, and a Cybertruck-like six-wheeled SUVs that hides a drone in its trunk.

In Rich’s opinion, all of these cars are simply too good, and that’s why they’d create problems for American competitors.

Especially when you remember they’re also quite cheap.

“After actually driving these cars and seeing the factories and seeing the infrastructure and seeing how serious these companies are taking electric vehicles, I don’t think people in America fully understand what’s happening over there yet,” he said.

“China is no longer trying to catch up. China has caught up and that changes things.”

The other reason why these cars aren’t available

We also need to remember that cars are defined by software these days, and that creates new cybersecurity threats we didn’t have before.

You can’t hack a carburetor, but you can easily hack and control a modern EV.

It’s already happening.

We’ve seen brands remotely tuning the power output of powerful EVs.

And not long ago, Norway, Denmark, and the UK discovered the electric buses they were using for public transport could theoretically be shut down remotely by the automaker.

Modern cars rely on servers more than ever.

And if a certain device relies on a server, the location of that server is what the owner should worry about.

If you’re using electric buses in Massachusetts, for example, you want your servers in Massachussets, not Beijing.

That’s the main reason why they’re ‘banned’.

Although, obviously, the fact that some of these Chinese cars are really very good is also keeping everyone on their toes.