In Miami-Dade, a $15K Chinese electric car sparks questions about US politics

Miami Herald

08-05-2025

The idea of the budget electric Toyota bZ3X SUV priced at $15,000 had me hooked — complete with sunroof, no less, perfect for South Florida's sunny days. It's a real thing, sold in China. I read about it in The Wall Street Journal last week.
Imagine a Chinese manufacturing supply chain so efficient that a Japanese carmaker can customize a tech-forward, ozone-preserving, wallet-friendly vehicle exclusively for the world's largest consumer market.
As I write this, amid an unresolved tariff war, I'm eyeing our 3-year-old Subaru with the expiring lease parked in our Miami-Dade driveway.
But there's the cost of such an inexpensive vehicle: The phenomenal capacity of the Chinese supply chain isn't driven by free-market innovation. It's the product of a tightly managed, state-directed economy.
Only in the past decade — 75 years after the communist revolution — has China's challenge to American ingenuity become indisputable.
And the price the Chinese people have paid for that efficiency — in personal freedom and opportunity— is steep: decades of government-led repression and misinformation.
Which got me wondering: What kind of future are we in the U.S. in for, given the breakdowns in governance we're watching unfold here at home?
I'd love to own an electric vehicle I can actually afford — but only if the 'exchange rate' doesn't include control over my speech, my decisions concerning my body or a public climate in which we avoid difficult conversations with friends because politics have become so toxic.
Like many of my fellow baby boomers in Miami-Dade, I've lived my adult life steeped in the idealism of our formative years. And yet, watching the dysfunction of recent months has left me rethinking how some well-intended policies and structures are playing out.
How did uplifting marginalized communities become a flash point instead of a shared goal? How did bureaucracies meant to serve the public become so bogged down? And how, in a country built by immigrants, have we failed to craft a practical, humane policy to address the reality of migration?
I know I'm not the only one feeling frustrated — frustrated by a system in which partisan rigidity often replaces real solutions.
But unless we collectively admit that parts of the system need repair — and stop focusing only on who broke it — our democracy will suffer under the weight of reactive, unilateral fixes.
No matter your political leanings, that's not good for any of us.
We must become better stewards of what's best about this country. That means protecting democratic traditions through thoughtful, bipartisan course correction. Most Americans want the same basic things: autonomy in personal decisions, economic stability and the ability to build a life marked by peace and possibility.
Let's start thinking differently about where we're headed — not right or left, not red or blue. Not as a nation isolated from the world, or trying to dominate it, but as one that can balance global leadership with internal strength and individual liberty.
Think about that the next time you see a nasty campaign ad — or better yet, when you head to the polls.
Elissa Vanaver is the former CEO of the national Breakthrough Collaborative and a former Miami Herald managing editor and HR executive.