[Ovmsdev] Trade War impact

[Mark Webb-Johnson]

FYI: We are starting to see an impact from the US/China trade war, with OVMS as collateral damage. This is currently affecting OVMS in two ways:

Imports of OVMS modules, cables, and antennas, into USA, are starting to be hit with a 25% tax.

I don’t have any workaround, and it would cost way more than +25% to get these manufactured elsewhere (even if all the components didn’t come from China in the first place). So, this tax is now being passed on to consumers in USA.

We are experiencing difficulties getting the US Hologram SIMs into China.

I realise that this is an inconvenience for the users, but we have no alternative at the moment. So, from this week until further notice, OVMS modules purchased from Fasttech won’t include Hologram SIMs. These can be purchased directly from Hologram themselves:

      https://store.hologram.io/store/global-iot-sim-card/17 <https://store.hologram.io/store/global-iot-sim-card/17>
      (You can also order on amazon https://www.amazon.com/3-in-1-Global-IoT-SIM-Card/dp/B07GY2S8QK#ace-2093936695 <https://www.amazon.com/3-in-1-Global-IoT-SIM-Card/dp/B07GY2S8QK#ace-2093936695>)

OVMS modules purchased from the official distributors (either Carl Medlock in USA, or Open Energy Monitor in EU) will still include the Hologram SIMs.

I have updated the user guide documentation to clarify this.

I’ll let you know if the situation changes.

Regards, Mark.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openvehicles.com/pipermail/ovmsdev/attachments/20200708/b93f3d9b/attachment.html>