A little news story I came across. I just do not believe that the U.S. consumer will by a China made auto. We buy everything else from China but I don’t think automobiles are going to make the list. I can hear the U.A.W scream now. This is China,remember they are the Reds.
Well, I won’t be buying one but there are those who will. I remember as a kid when no one wanted to buy Japanese cars. And not that many years ago most U.S. buyers had total disdain for Korean cars. The quality of both countries cars improved over the years and now Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, and even Kia are selling like hotcakes. Give it a few years and cars from China and India will likely sell here in large numbers.
Here in St. Louis where two Chrysler plants are idle and slated to be permanently closed, a Congressman is making noises in D.C. about forcing Chrysler to reopen them and close plants in Mexico rather than have federal bailout money from U.S. taxpayers fund the closing of U.S. plants and subsidizing out of country production. Should be interesting to see how it plays out with the bankruptcy. A neighbor two door up the street is one of those out of a job when the second Chrysler plant closed.
I wonder if this is part of the master plan to resurect GM? You are right some people will buy them but first I want to see GM supply the Chinese market before bringing the cars here. I really don’t think we will have a choice about these cars being produced in China and sold here because of how much U.S. debt China owns. Letting a U.S. car maker put their lable on a China produced auto could be considered payment for all the money China is loaning the U.S. It is out of the consumers hands.
GM already sells Korean built autos in the US. What’s the difference?
Read the “I bought a Cobalt” post from yesterday. To some a car is a car and only the price matters.
Chinese cars will sell. Slowly at first, but they will sell.
Buick is hot in China, so GM is already supplying the Chinese market with cars.
And as I recall they also have exported US production cars to China, I may have that wrong.
In any case I live in a very big world. My world includes not just my neighborhood, but my city, state, country and world. Maybe some day it will include other worlds, but I don’t expect to live that long. Rather than complain about buying products from a country I may not like, I would rather look at the products.
My guess is going to be that the initial products will be poor quality and not really meet the needs of the US market. In time like other countries, they will learn what is expected in the US market and somewhere along that path we will find that the people of China are OK. Just like we have found that the people of Japan are OK.They make some really nice cars there. My dad who has been working over 10yrs there decided on a lease of a US domestic brand and says build quality is incredible. Beautiful caddy(stretch STS) like an Audi A8L that is not even sold in the US called the Caddilac SLS:
http://www.supercarnews.net/2007-cadillac-shanghai-gm-sls-chinese-version
GM is moving the workforce overseas…while Nissan, Toyota, Honda and Hyundia have been INCREASING it’s workforce here in the US.
Part of GM’s recovery plan as submitted to the US for approval is to move 40% of it’s workforce overseas within 10 years.
I don’t think any unions involved with Nissan, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai.
GM is already supplying the Chinese market BIG TIME! GM cars are called Buicks, and the bigger models are much sought after by the Chinese as official government cars. GM makes different size cars there, including a rearwheel drive Buick designed in Australia, similar to the Pontiac G8.
Years ago Tom McCahill praised Mercedes cars to the sky and made fun of Japanese cars, then called Datsuns and Toyopets! Fast forward to the present, and all Japanese manufacturers and many Korean cars have a higher reliability rating than Mercedes.
There are still people who believe the Koreans are country bumpkins, while watching re-runs of MASH on their widescreen Samsung (Korean) high definiton TV while their popcorn is being made in an LG (Korean) microwave.
The quality gap between Chinese and US cars will disappear in 6 years and from then on Chinese cars will likely be BETTER than US cars.
I don’t think any unions involved with Nissan, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai.
SO???
Most of the parts are already made in China. It only makes sense. They can save a lot of money by shortening supply lines, and I will be happy to take advantage of those savings when I am in the market for a new car.
It’s kind of funny. Did you know my Harley-Davisdon motorcycle boots are made in China (all three pairs)? Did you know that all those Harley-Davidson t-shirts are made in China? Don’t get me started on the parts used to make those Harleys. Just take a stroll through a H-D dealership one day and take note of where all of their merchandise is made.
Those of you who buy your products based on where they were made are fighting an uphill battle. While you may have enough money that you can pay extra for products made in your country of choice, the vast majority can’t afford to be so selective. For most people, a decision to boycott items made in China means sacrificing some other expense.
Personally, I don’t choose my merchandise based on the political affiliations of the country of origin. If I did that, I couldn’t feed and dress myself each day. It would be prohibitively expensive unless I dropped off the grid all together and became a dirt-poor, but self sufficient farmer who wore clothes made of old feed bags. But wait, those feed bags were probably made in China too.
I have recently been looking at how we measure “standard of living.” Basically, it is a measure of how much you can buy for each dollar you make. It is also a measure of how much money it costs to fill basic needs like shelter and clothing. So, when the costs of goods goes up, standard of living goes down. If you want to decrease your standard of living by payng more for your goods, that is fine, but that is a highly personal decision that most of us are not willing to make.
For one China is a communist country, business would sell there soul to the devil to make a buck. They work for a bowl of rice, no environmental standards, no freedom, need I go further.
The idea behind bailing out GM was to save 90,000 decent jobs…If GM is going to flood the market with cheap imported cars, supporting them with tax money is an outrage. The jobs will be lost in any case…
Global Trade only works when Global labor laws are in place. It’s not “Free Trade” when multi-national corporations manufacture in slave-labor countries and sell in high-income countries. That’s exploitation, not free trade. As we are witnessing, the “high-income” importing country quickly becomes a low-income country as its economy collapses because of debt and job losses…
To complete my thought US automakers go abroad to avoid using the overpriced UAW they locked themselves up with. Hopefully the reformed Chrysler and possibly GM can divorce themselves from the UAW and keep jobs local.
The foreign producing locally makes avoided unions and high cost labor so it is more viable to start factories up here.
China is flooding the U.S. market with small engines now for lawn mowers,weed whackers,snow throwers,etc.
Its only a matter of time before American car manufactures are history. Thats the plan my friends. You can thank Washington for all this,you know the almighty buck! Oops,i meant Yen.
Just Look how well Japanese cars done.
I’m a firm believer that GM/Chryco and Ford can build every single car here in the US and still be very competitive. MANAGEMENT is 90% of the problem,…NOT the UAW…I agree the UAW has to make changes…but moving to China is NOT the UAW’s fault.
Not exactly. Here’s UAW’s account of which cars are made with UAW/CAW workers. Note 2 Toyotas are on the list.
Agree; Buick sells more cars in China than in the USA!
Remember the Zenith “handcrafted” (handwired, “The quality goes in before the name goes on!”)television set ads? That was because Zenith (although they had good quality)did not have mechanized processes, and their manufacturing technology was hopelessly out of date, and combined with high cost union labor, was a no-win situation.
The rest is history; Korea is now the world’s largest manufacturer of microwave ovens (invented in the US by Raytheon and Amana)and China makes nearly all the low end TVs. Our Panasonic Viera 50" flatscreen is “assembled in Mexico” from parts imported form the US, Japan and China.
IBM used to make all their PCs and “Thinkpad” laptop computers in Boca Raton, Florida; now they are called “Lenovos” and are made in China.
GM has a history of importing cars from other countries and “branding” them as their own. And also of having GM designs built in other countries. If it turns out to be a decent vehicle at a cheap price I’d have no qualms about buying it.
The automotive world is truely global. And this is what that means.