Assuming "the west" includes the US, the biggest companies in the US have very long investment timelines, much farther than the next quarter. Tesla, whose business includes making cars, lost money for 10+ years as a publicly listed company.
“Wall street” (or “the west”) is getting far more on Tesla’s long term ability to grow net income than on Toyota’s.
> ... because investors aren’t ok with an investment that might take a decade to pay off.
Sure. Why not? I'm happy making investments that take decades to pay off, I want to have access to machines when I'm old. What happened to all the investors who intend to live comfortably in their old age?
They got bought out by investors with shorter-term ambitions, because our economy is set up to reward short-termism, so those people end up with more capital (= market power), and this compounds over time.
Saving $10k per annum and earning 10% on it will make you 1.6 million dollars after 30 years.
If you can get 20% instead, you'll have 11.2 million.
If you somehow managed to get 30%, you'd end up with over 87 million.
This doesn’t take more than about 30 seconds of review. The CCP is making long term bets and demanding the private sector do as they’re told. It’s been obvious for a decade that renewable energy is the future. It’s been obvious that electrification of cars is happening whether legacy manufacturers like it or not.
The west can’t see past their next quarterly earnings result, and doesn’t have the stomach to make the long term investments the CCP has demanded of their own manufacturers.
Even Ford, who by all accounts is fully invested in electrification and is all in, has started to pull back because investors aren’t ok with an investment that might take a decade to pay off.