Chinese knock-off cars typically have nothing in common with the original except the outside skin. So a comparison test would show HUGE differences.
Lots of high quality stuff made in China - Ford and, I think, Getrag have a partnership there, make the manual trannys for the Mustang GT. Some initial glitches, but they seem to be fine now.
Of course, lots of junk made there, too…
The night market in Bankok, Thailand is a marvelous place. It specializes in knockoffs. One shopping trip I bought a “Rolex” watch for $20, a National Geographic photographer’s vest (with all those pockets) for $15 (regular $95 plus shipping), a Le Michelle briefcase for $18. They even sold all manner of Caterpillar things like hats, boots, etc.
Louis Vuitton bags and purses sold for around $20 and up; regular $300 and up.
I still have the Le Michelle briefcase, and the “Lolex” (so called by the Swiss ambassador) lasted 8 years and went through 3 batteries.
None of this stuff has anywhere near the quality of the real thing but it drives the French and Swiss crazy.
To put things in perspective, If you look at it from a domestic point of view, the Chinese are practicing unfettered capitalism…even if it is state “inspired” 
In a world that admires making money without conscience, there will always be sellers and buyers of just about anything. . We would be doing the same thing here with cars if allowed. Heck, we sell “junk” food and cigarettes to the ill informed and underage all over the world without conscience for profit . Why are our motives different from theirs ? It’s our laws that are different, not our “yen for a dollar”. A mark, a yen a buck or a pound…selling crap makes the world go round. Just look at the world’s trash piles. One good thing we do here is, we are encouraging manufacturers to at least make junk out of recyclable materials.
I think being formerly (and, on paper, currently) communist probably has a lot to do with
Chinese opinions re: enforcing copyright laws. Intellectual property certainly doesn’t seem to fall within the Marxist mold: a state hesitant to allow personal ownership of REAL property probably won’t knock itself out to defend intellectual property, especially if foreign-owned.
The exact same criticisms in this thread could have been written forty years ago about the Japanese. I looked through the photos and, frankly, saw nothing that was anymore of a copy of anything than Ford’s new front grill is of an Aston Martin grill.
If china can make an acceptable car for a lower price, I hope they can find their way past our overbearing regulatory environment, past out protective tariffs, and into the U.S. And I hope they do so with an entirely new business model, much like Tesla is trying to do. It’s past due time for a “wake up call” in the automotive industry.
The problem is you have to have confidence in the products you buy. If you buy a Goodyear (just for example) product made in a US plant, you have a high level of confidence in the quality you are getting. Buying a no name made in China though gives you no confidence in the product even though it may be just as good. It takes a long time to build a reputation and a short time to destroy it.
My biggest problem with China is their complete disregard for intellectual property. It seems that they will steal anything they can, any way they can. Their attempts to infiltrate corporate and government networks are constant and legendary.
It’s our overbearing regulated environment and safety that gave us cars with longevity. Ie, better cars. China has more limited regulations as far as safety is concerned but uses European emissions standards. .When they are required to build cars that last 80k miles that minimized the rusted Junkers that pollute ground water, and are forced to make cars out of recyclable materials, they will give American cars a run for their money. They do when GM sends parts and later cars back here to be sold under our regs. When their regs improve, their cars will improve.
Before that they fought for our dollars with glitz and high horsepower and new exhaust systems every year and tune ups every 10 k miles, instead of safe, reliable and sane cars. American cars were insanely unsafe until the automobile industry itself agreed to cooperate for order. They cooperated, the govt. obliged. It has been a cooperative effort ever since.
Btw, the idea behind Teslar is to address our environmental concerns and though the regulatory process, they get lots of govt. help. Without whom, Teslar would not exist today.
Automotive technology advanced dramatically between 1909 and 1970 with zero help from regulators. I believe they would have continued to improve. I would be highly reluctant to credit regulatory agencies with automobile technology advancement.
But I also recognize that we’ve had this debate before. Since there’s no way to know what might have happened without regulations, the speculation becomes purely opinion, impossible to prove or disprove.
My opinion remains that while government regulations were originally clearly necessary to clean up the air and waterways, and that did happen, their continuing to get tighter and tighter has hindered technology development rather than helped it. We now have complicated and unrepairable systems made necessary by regulatory levels that drive the cost of cars up to where millions of people who would have bought new cars continue to drive beaters. That’s counterproductive.
Regarding safety, that was originally implemented for purely political reasons, and, as with the emissions regulations, the constant “turning of the thumbscrews” is now doing more harm than good. We’re now dealing with complicated “stability control systems” and other systems the tradeoffs of which (including the added cost) outweigh the benefits.
We know what happened without regulation. We know people died unnecessarily until class action suits help make car companies more responsible and receptive to regulation and eliminated death traps from being produced as crash tests were implemented and cars were made much stronger and safer. We know cars made yearly trips to Midas before emission standards. In exactly the same way now, the dramatic breakthroughs spearheaded by Ford with all aluminum bodies. Why ? Because it’s done to save weight to help trucks meet the mileage regulations that trucks have now been put under. This is a new (relatively ) requirement and the recent advances will also bring diesels to smaller trucks, (GM and Toyota) .The American manufactures of the biggest selling vehicles, full size trucks are moving into the midsize arena they neglected for years…because of the newer fuel economy standards. To deny all of what has happened is to deny history. The car industry developed and implemented all this technology driven by a variety of both market and regulatory forces that worked together, not against one another.
If China wants to sell more cars here or in Europe , they must conform to our and their regulations and make better cars. GM (and other free nation capitalist enterprises ) in China is part of that process. Capitalism on Their soil works better then “bombs” in making changes. We forced the change in countries we defeated in wars. That is not something we want to go through with China. I would rather see capitalism and regulatory requirements for the way our plants over seas run as an impetus to help in some small way, to make changes in China.
Btw, today’s beaters are a lot safer, economical and more reliable thanks to everyone’s cooperative efforts, which included regulated capitalism in the automotive arena, then yesterday’s junk cars.
If we think it’s all right for China to make acceptable cars at lower prices and sell them here without regulation because they can use indentured and child labor and horrible working conditions, then as a consumer, we teach China nothing and we, not just them, become part of the problem.
China, a new business model ? Please think about it.
the same mountainbike I agree. My Oregon registration was getting close to renewal when I lived in California in the mid 1970s Wanting to do the right thing I tried to get my car emission tested. They would not even test it until it had required equipment installed which would have exceeded the value of the car. After that CA registration would have been 5 times that of Oregon. I renewed my $10 per year OR registration and drove on without feeling the least bit guilty. I had read an article around this time concerning a stock 1957 Chevrolet BelAir with nothing more than a crankcase draft tube that passed CA emission standards. I have traction/stability control but don’t need it. I actually know how to drive! I think these nanny systems are taking drivers in the wrong direction. Now they are experimenting with driverless vehicles. Although they may be an improvement over the idiot drivers of today I still don’t trust technology. I can’t trust driverless cars or pilotless airplanes.
The American manufactures of the biggest selling vehicles, full size trucks are moving into the midsize arena they neglected for years...because of the newer fuel economy standards.Actually, just the opposite: because our CAFE targets are weighted by "vehicle footprint," manufacturers are moving AWAY from selling physically smaller trucks, and choosing NOT to bring their foreign market small trucks (ahem, Ranger) to the US.
I’ve seen this discussed; pretty sure I saw it here at least once.
Also, to say “the Feds stepped in, passed a bunch of safety and emissions regs, and things have been awesome ever since” is a Disney-worthy fairy tale. What actually happened was having emissions regs come in, just as the first oil crisis hit, led to the near collapse of the US auto industry. Performance, et. al. went into the toilet to such an extent, a phrase was coined to describe the 2-decade morass: “malaise era.” Fancy driving a 305 Chevy with smog pump and original feedback carb, perchance?
I also think it’s fair to say all this led to the failure of a US automaker; without it, AMC could have at least struggled on to perhaps die another day. Chrysler nearly followed them in.
Things look a lot different with the benefit of 35 years’ hindsight!
Relative to wages, cars cost close to the same now as they did in most earlier decades (since they became affordable to the masses). In cases where they were slightly cheaper to buy, they were usually more expensive over their lifespans because they didn’t last very long. They also had fewer features and were worse to drive, but those extra features haven’t driven up car prices much. Even very cheap cars now have power windows and locks, luxury car features when I was young.
Maintenance and repairs were once cheaper, but far more routine maintenance was required. Gasoline was cheaper, but gas mileage was lower. Most people in their twenties may not be able to buy an average car for the median new car price of about $32,000, but most didn’t buy new cars in the fifties or sixties, either. Neither of my parents had owned a new car before buying the first family station wagon when I was three and they were in their thirties. They were both middle class with college educations and decent jobs. Young people being unable to afford new cars is nothing new.
You are confusing state with federal regulations. People do this all the time and then just "blame the Govt."
When car makers don’t have a nation wide strategy to deal with higher pollution areas, the states are forced to provide add ons that are a real pain then a standardized construction process. It happens when states with high exhaust emission problems like CA want to do something when the Feds move too slowly. States can always enact legislation stronger then the Feds which our state does as well. We have high pollution rates in our southern areas due to the prevailing winds from the manufacturing mid west. We were forced to adopt higher standards too. The alternative…live with higher rates cancer of and respiratory problems…or move. Your choice.
. The central govt. Regs have “caught up” with “some” of CA’s problems in part and all cars deal with emissions better with the side light of being more reliable and economical. If your car makes x grams of a particular pollutant per mile. The easier way to conform to emissions standards for that pollution, may be to make the car more economical overall. If the regulation requires that the car perform that way for 80k miles without maintenance…Voila; a more reliable car. It works also to make China make more reliable cars if they want to sell them here…no more Yugo type cars. Heck, as bad as the Aveo was, it was head and shoulders above 1970’s junk because of regulations; and safer then a Pinto or Vega.
The Chinese, like the Japanese and Koreans, will get it right and within 10 years will be exporting good cars to the West. The original 1975 Honda Civic was really a crappy car, but fun to drive. The 1986 Korean made Hyundai Pony was very substandard as well.
As I mentioned several times before, I have an office and family room full of good Chinese electronic equipment, including my AT&T multifunction phone which is Custom Manufactured in China for Advanced American Telephones. The best selling TV brands are now Samsung, LG, and Sony, followed by Hisense which is entirely Chinese designed and built. A local electronics chains, as well as Best Buy are now starting to sell these.
The Japanese TV makers are slowly being pushed out of the market, with only Sony remaining in the top 4. Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sharp are way down.
Many Japanese brand electronics are made in elsewhere too . They are outsourcing too. Check their labels.
@sgtrock21
“I can’t trust driverless cars or pilotless airplanes.”
You do realize that many airline pilots use autopilot for the bulk of the trip?
I believe the korean air lines . . . ? . . . in San Francisco a few years ago was inlarge part due to the fact that the pilots had delegated too much authority to the autopilot. Perhaps I’m wording it wrong. The bottom line is, they had too much of a hands-off approach, and that played a major role in the crash
"I can't trust driverless cars or pilotless airplanes."Yes, but a human is still on board, making all of the "executive decisions" re: the flight, should something break, the weather deteriorate, a passenger get sick, etc. He's still "piloting" the airplane, regardless of whether he's hand-flying it or not.You do realize that many airline pilots use autopilot for the bulk of the trip?
@dagosa: I actually agree with you, taking the long run view…mandating emissions compliance over 80,000 miles leads to a high level of engine durability in even the cheapest street-legal cars that probably wouldn’t be there otherwise. I just think that’s a gross simplification, based on being 35 years down the road: ask “do emissions laws improve reliability” in 1982 and you’d get a very different answer!
@db4690
The Korean Airline crash was the result in part because the crew deactivation of automatic airspeed control and insufficient monitoring of airspeed, it also worth noting that the instrument landing system’s vertical guidance was not functioning.
Had the crew used the equipment properly, odds are they wouldn’t have crashed, it wasn’t automation the caused the accident, it was poor training.
@dagosa Yes, the Philippines and Indonesia, as well as Cambodia are becoming favorites for sending the less technically complex products out to lower cost regions.
With the rapid rise in Chinese wages, Mexico is now cheaper overall to manufacture such things as electronics. My new Samsung TV says “Hecho en Mexico” on the back. Our 2008 Panasonic was also made there.
The big losers in all this globelization have, of course been the Russians. Gorbachev wanted Russia to become a consumer goods manufacturing and exporting country. Instead, their poor Communist brethren, the Chinese whisked away that opportunity. During the cold war the Russians supplied China with most of it technical expertise.