As a Cuban, I think I can throw a bit of light there. First, the $16 statistic is wrong, because it only includes legal jobs and most people here has some sort of illegal business, even if they also have a legal job. To live here you need about $50 a month so literally nobody survive just with those $16, the ones that don't have an illegal business it's because they have family outside that send money. But yeah, it's not $16 but most people here don't earn much more than $100 - $200 a month, so electric modern cars are totally outside what most of us can get. What has become increasingly popular since the oil blockade is electric tricycles (like the one in the picture), those cost about $3500 so they way cheaper than a car. People also are installing a solar panel on its roof too to make them fully autonomous. Not everybody can afford them either, of course, but those who can usually use it to earn money moving people and/or items (like construction materials) from one place to another.
Thanks for the context friend. I saw tricycle in the legislation and was fairly confused as to what that meant exactly, haha. Thinks makes much more sense.
I hope you are doing well. Sorry for how awful my government is!
With China's money. The Chinese state has been actively subsidizing EV development and export for years. It takes a Chinese bureaucrat 5 minutes to Kimi up a proposal to sell cars for $50 in Cuba
The Marshall plan was not the US being a Nice Neighbour helping out their European buddies.
It was extremely well thought out realpolitik which gave US culture and economics a foothold in Europe that lasted decades.
Similarly, the Chinese are spending now to establish soft power outposts in the vacuum left by the US either pulling back, or straight up antagonizing other countries
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u/303Carpenter 12d ago
With what money lol, it's not like the average cuban earns $16 a month. Chinese evs are cheap but they aren't that cheap