China carmakers eye US market

Source: BBC News

From a basement at the Detroit auto show, directly below the main show floor, several Chinese auto companies are displaying an impressive array of cars whilst eagerly eyeing the American market.

Cars made in China are set to go on sale in the US within months, industry observers predict.

"You might even see some early guys this year," says Angus MacKenzie, editor-in-chief, Motortrend.

The number of Chinese models on display at the show should be enough to spook the established automotive firms.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7188848.stm

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China is showing a striking range of vehicles. :rofl:

All wrapped up in a lead painted shell. But, that's a safety feature. The body is made out of depleted uranium.

they'll probably be so cheap that they'll sell anyway. Same applies to the cheapie that Tata in India are producing to sell for $2500.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7180396.stm

Is nothing but a failure. Full of promises but short on delivery...

Jaguars : http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aagvBdy3dykY&refer=home

but if it's only 5k then it's worth the possible risks. amiright?

Toys, clothes, etc...all seem to be cheaply made. Seems mass production is their forte, however, quality isn't.

You will be shocked... Don't believe the shitty photos in the OP... Here is a Chinese crossover vehicle (Chery) from the Dubai Autoshow.

Is that what you refer to as a crossover vehicle ?

Here's the Chery website : http://www.cheryglobal.com/ Yes - they do have some attractive cars. I only posted the Noddy car because it looked so funny. Reminded of some of the cars Nissan produced years ago to meet kinda specialist demand like the escargot /snail :

They simply steal design ideas from other companies, real creative....You can buy all the Chinese cars you want...more cheap crap made with child labor

What does this "Chinese" car remind you of...

but in the late 50s and early 60, "Made in Japan" meant cheap junk. We had shown them how to mass produce, but omitted the QA support. They seem to have learned the lessons very well. I suspect the same will be true with China in a few years. Some of the Chinese manufacturers have all ready had their noses bloodied by poor quality. They, like the Japanese will learn from their mistakes.

I think you're right. Appears to me that Chinese manufacturing has borrowed almost all the tricks of mass manufacturing with one exception-- it seems Crisis Management & PR Firms to more easily dupe the consumers-- like our manufacturers do.

Every one eventually has their day in the sun. We had ours, and I think the tide is turning-- within 50 years I imagine that the Pacific Rim will have replaced the U.S. as the industrial capitol of the world.

"Seems mass production is their forte, however, quality isn't."

...much like the U.S. We simply have better Marketing, PR and Crisis Management firms to allow us to more easily justify our illusions of American made products

I own a toyota right now, but you'll never see me owning a Chinese-made automotive. Their manufacturing standards are crap, IMO.

Engineers from Japan, Germany, Korea, and the US... I remember people saying the same thing about Japanese cars in the 1970's and we all know how well that went.

I can tell you, at this point, they are crap. They use poor quality metal. I don't really care where the engineers are from. Until they improve the quality, I won't consider them.

Have you worked on a Chery, or a Great Wall truck?

so they may have gotten better.

engineers, etc to make a mid-1990's Toyota truck. It's almost a bolt for bolt replica and you can't freakin' kill those.

I agree the replacement parts that are coming as made from China are no good. However, keep in mind there are many companies there now making parts and everything else to foreign spec. The companies have now translated that into better stuff and more precision.

Have said that, they are about where Korea was in say about 1995. However, within 5 years they will be caught-up.

it's cheaper too.

$5000 for a civic type of car should be sold like hot cakes.

As long as those crash-test videos are floating around on YouTube, nobody will buy those cars.

Comparison of Chinese, Japanese, and European cars in crash tests: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dimg2n2Azwg&feature=related
And because it's not there, the infamous 2006 Jianling Landwind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Ts94rjr4M (here's a Ford Explorer for comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcSlC5SK4QE)

China doesn't have the same automotive safety guidelines that we do in the U.S., and their people don't have independent safety testing groups like we do here, so their cars aren't designed with the same level of safety in mind. Those videos are graphic demonstrations of that fact. Under U.S. law, as long as the vehicles contain the required safety equipment, those can both be sold here.

And Chery is one of the companies coming to the U.S.

we had good cars made by well trained engineers and workers. These folks are going bankrupt from the layoffs... losing their credit ratings and their houses... Crapping up the financial markets so now Everyone gets boned because corporations cant get the liquidity they need to run their businesses...Leading to more layoffs in other sectors so more people get laid off... so they, too, can go bankrupt...

Oh yeah, and I forgot the corporate greed that accelerates this whole process...

So we will be poor like the Third World and buy crappy products and have no domestic market.
Auto market will accelerate the whole process. Housing and auto drive many other secondary markets ie paint, glass, plastics, etc. The decline of these two industries will really hammer all of us hard.

SHIT!

Kind of like putting lipstick on a pig.

NPR article here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17984516

The Nano isn't an attack on our existing car market, but is instead trying to establish a new market where one currently does not exist. It's a car designed for the desperately poor who would otherwise turn to old polluting used cars. Given the choice between relegating the driving poor to a smog belching, 15MPG 20 year old car, and a brand new ultra-compact that gets 50MPG and does it cleanly, I'd prefer to see the Nano. This isn't a market that the American companies are interested in, so it really doesn't impact auto industry jobs either.

So bring on the Nano. You'll get no complaints from me.

My complaint with the other cars is that they are a direct attack on the existing car market, and will be attempting to supplant higher quality American and Japanese built autos with inferior and unsafe competitors. Not only will the Chinese cars put American workers out of a job, but they'll make our roads less safe at the same time.

The Nano doesn't come with that baggage.

Something I would see in a circus.

and this:



and this:


(and that's just a small sampling from one company - Chery).

mikey_the_rat

The first car looks remarkably like a Mitsubishi Eclipse, and the last one looks like a new Scion xB with a Dodge Caliber grille.

mikey_the_rat

It says get ready to find out...

bad foreign policy lost us customers around the world. He is the reason for high gas prices in the first place.

Especially the mini-van that looks like a Toyota knockoff. Very popular with self-employed Egyptian cab drivers, who buy their vehicles on credit and have to hustle enough passengers to make the payments.

(If you ever come to Egypt, do NOT ride in a mini-van. Every week I see several of them in horrible crashes.)

I guess Chinese cars can't be any worse than the 2 million little antique Lada taxicabs running around Alexandria. Those things are a real hoot.

They all have a huge, knee-banging Russian taxi-meter hanging in the passenger footwell, complete with Cyrillic writing. None of those meters have worked since Breszhnev was alive, but they are still in the cars. Probably along with an American antique, a "disco light show" stereo attachment from the 1970's. Those don't work either.

Neither do the radios, brakes, lights or suspensions. (Some of these vehicles have an amazing amount of play in the front ends. They just sort of wander down the street from one side to the other.) The one part of the car always guaranteed to work is the horn.

Many Egyptian cab-drivers chain-smoke and the Lada windows are often stuck in the "up" position. No problem. You'll get plenty of ventilation from the rusted-out floorboards.

One day I was getting out of a Lada taxi and the passenger door wouldn't open. Since my window was fortunately stuck in the "down" position, I just reached outside to open the door.

While I was fumbling for the door button, a whole strip of chrome side-trim came off in my hand. I gave it to the driver, who just shrugged and tossed it into the back seat.

Check their crash test results before even considering getting one.