In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Saturn was an import?
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Saturn was an import?
RevRico said:In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Saturn was an import?
It was an attempt to break into the lower priced car market that didn't stay around.
RevRico said:In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Saturn was an import?
He didn't specify import
I kinda like the looks of that, at least for an suv.
I have a feeling they will succeed eventually in the US. China can crank out some high quality products when they want to (my iPhone which I'm typing on is pretty great) and I think once people start reviewing the car apart from the brand it will come out that some of them are quite good.
Now if they could make a small light sports car for cheap I think we would have to start making excuses to not have one.
MadScientistMatt said:RevRico said:In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Saturn was an import?
It was an attempt to break into the lower priced car market that didn't stay around.
"Mad Scientist" Matt Cramer- DIYAutoTune.com
The original Saturn (1991-2002) was very successful. Sadly GM didn't develop new products for the brand and just rebaged stuff as Saturns after that.
There is a surprising amount of Chinese content in American cars. We had a guy on the Solstice/Sky sites that was swearing that he would never buy anything but American and his cars had no Chinese content. I told him to take a look inside his alloy wheels next time he bought tires - it says "Made in China", and a fair bunch of other parts also were sourced there, Japan, and Mexico.
They had to pretend that Canada is really part of the US for their US content figures or they wouldn't show very well. I had a guy that swore he would never own a car made anywhere but in the US and he gave me a hard time about my stuff, which is mostly old British but with a smattering of others as well. I told him that his Camaro had been assembled in Canada, while my BMW was made in South Carolina and so was more American than his car. He wasn't happy.
In an increasingly cosmopolitan manufacturing world, chances are that just about any new car may have 'foreign' content.
PS - some of the guys in our Jaguar club get pretty heated when we refer to their newer models as being a 'Currymobile'. I say tough Tatas!
Even EVs are going to require service and repair. Cars still get in accidents. Recall the recent topic on Holden/GTO that had expensive parts to fix?
Chinese approach has always been lower-cost lower-lifetime throw-away products. This might work for $20 tools, but not $20,000 cars.
A two door hatchback with more than enough power to scoot and a manual trans?
Tempting, but still no.
MadScientistMatt said:And here are the failures that I can remember - every one of these has either planned to bring a street legal vehicle to the US in the basic, affordable transportation category, and either hasn't delivered so far, or imported vehicles for a while but have now folded operations US. There's probably several others I've forgotten. Even the Japanese have a couple that didn't make it. I'm only counting brands that appeared in the US and then disappeared in my lifetime (I was born in 1978).
- Crosslander
- Daewoo
- Daihatsu
- Mahindra (managed to bring over their Jeep clone without making it street legal, but not their pickup truck)
- Oka
- Saturn
- Stirling
- Suzuki
- Wheego
- Yugo
- ZAP
It's a tough market even without the political baggage.
Not to be a pedantic Jerk, but...
Suzuki came over in 2006 and was smacked HARD by the financial recession; their bikes still have dealerships and service here. Daihatsu has one engine and is owned by Toyota as the manufactuer of their Kei cars. Daewoo, Wheego, Yugo and ZAP all had terrible quality control- ZAP in particular had to recall their entire fleet of 3-wheelers for destruction because they literally were rusting before leaving the factory.
Parts and cars might be made in China and shipped here to the US but Quality Control and the material it's made of is far superior to what any of the Chinese car makers have! So NO, I wouldn't buy a Chinese car, ever! Remember the YUGO??? Hell, even FIAT cars STILL suck, and it's their second time here in the US! You think they'd learn something after the first time.
It will all depend on if they can maintain a quality product.
Many will question buying stuff from China, sure, but for a much longer time we have been hammered to buy stuff, and the more we buy, the better person you are. To spread that down market, buying Chinese stuff isn't that important anymore.
Cheap matters for a little while. And perhaps China can sustain little to no profit on cheap cars. Lord knows the rest of us can't. Helps when capitalism is the enemy in that respect.
In terms of being legal, China has been quickly ramping their rules to be among the most strict in the world, so I would expect them to be ok.
I have a 2017 Volvo S60 and a 2019 Volvo V60. So the answer is YES, I would buy a Chinese car.
The S60 was 100% made in Chengdu, China, and the fit and finish are excellent. In fact, as the long-wheelbase S60L, it wouldn't even exist without the Chinese domestic market. The V60 was made in Torslanda, Sweden. The build quality is also excellent, but no better than the Chinese. The engineering and design teams are in Sweden, China, and the US. The entire company is Chinese-owned.
My E46 was built in South Africa, albeit in 2003, not 1983. So there's that.
But I firmly believe that economic pressure and worldwide attention will make the situation in China better. I do not think that in China's case embargo and boycott are likely to have the desired effect. In smaller countries with smaller economies, desperation can set in and cause either regime change or revolution. But China is large enough to shrug us off unless we make it to their advantage not to. The communist regime in China needs to end with a whimper, not a bang. Trade and investment will erode their power base closer and closer to irrelevance.
GIRTHQUAKE said:Not to be a pedantic Jerk, but...
Suzuki came over in 2006 and was smacked HARD by the financial recession; their bikes still have dealerships and service here. Daihatsu has one engine and is owned by Toyota as the manufactuer of their Kei cars. Daewoo, Wheego, Yugo and ZAP all had terrible quality control- ZAP in particular had to recall their entire fleet of 3-wheelers for destruction because they literally were rusting before leaving the factory.
Which is why I'm skeptical of the "Hyundai managed to start off in the US selling terrible cars, improved them, and look where they are today!" line of reasoning. Hyundai succeeded at that, but there's a long line of others that tried the same approach and either went belly-up or never managed to launch in the US. And there were several other failed brands from other issues besides quality that Chery could stumble into - wrong product mix for the market (Suzuki, Daihatsu) or failure to update their product (Saturn).
GIRTHQUAKE said:Suzuki came over in 2006 and was smacked HARD by the financial recession;
I'm quite confused by this. Suzuki entered the US market in the 80s. What did you mean by they "came over in 2006?"
Regarding the original question: didn't Chery try this once before? I wonder what's changed that will make this attempt actually happen.
In reply to dculberson :
Sorry I meant cars, not bikes. Suzuki is an odd example because they still have a market here, just not in 4 wheels.
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Well, we have to open and honest about what really causes some of these brands to fail to figure that out- VW with the Beetle easily could have, but as AteUpWithMotor mentions in his massive writeup they had parts and availablity everywhere so they were incredibly cheap to service despite technologically being in the 1930s. Hyundai only in ~2009 stopped using the Mitsubishi 4G-63 and origionated the massive "100,000 mile warranty" in the 90s, targeting people whom remembered when most factory warranties were in months and how lemon laws came about.
So to answer the thread question... Chery is gonna have to push against the "Chinesium" image while ALSO going after a market segment that isn't readily focused on AND stay in-line with current ideals- no small feat, especially when the market is flooded with SUVs and to stand out from the pack you need to be as different as possible OR an EV. I think it'll have to be something like an AWD Hybrid with a crazy ownership plan for normal people to even *look* at it as a second car, let alone trying it out as their only one. Maybe focus heavily on leasing?
GIRTHQUAKE said:In reply to dculberson :
Sorry I meant cars, not bikes. Suzuki is an odd example because they still have a market here, just not in 4 wheels.
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
Well, we have to open and honest about what really causes some of these brands to fail to figure that out- VW with the Beetle easily could have, but as AteUpWithMotor mentions in his massive writeup they had parts and availablity everywhere so they were incredibly cheap to service despite technologically being in the 1930s. Hyundai only in ~2009 stopped using the Mitsubishi 4G-63 and origionated the massive "100,000 mile warranty" in the 90s, targeting people whom remembered when most factory warranties were in months and how lemon laws came about.
So to answer the thread question... Chery is gonna have to push against the "Chinesium" image while ALSO going after a market segment that isn't readily focused on AND stay in-line with current ideals- no small feat, especially when the market is flooded with SUVs and to stand out from the pack you need to be as different as possible OR an EV. I think it'll have to be something like an AWD Hybrid with a crazy ownership plan for normal people to even *look* at it as a second car, let alone trying it out as their only one. Maybe focus heavily on leasing?
So all those swifts and suvs etc just magically all appeared in 2006?
Suzuki was selling the Samurai in the late 1970s in Canada.
Not sure when the US got it but I'm pretty sure it was the early 80s.
GIRTHQUAKE said:In reply to dculberson :
Sorry I meant cars, not bikes. Suzuki is an odd example because they still have a market here, just not in 4 wheels.
But they brought cars over here starting in the 80s too. The Samurai was their first entry, but if you discount SUVs, the Swift followed soon after. They had been selling cars here for over two decades by 2006.
To the human rights guy: Which one of those countries that you listed that produces cars has over a million+ people in concentration camps?
To the original question: Not at all. I could go on a tangent why and the topics go from stealing intellectual property, lack of quality control and assessment, terrible engineering practices (unless they have their hand held by their manufacturing partner from another country), the way they are doing business in the SCS and Pacific Rim, and the list goes on.
Read the book: The Hundred Year Marathon and it'll open your eyes a bit
No, but not because of the "Chinese" part. I just doubt a chinese manufacturer will ever make the kind of car I want to buy. Never cared for any chinese knockoffs of cars I didnt like in the first place.
I don't want my car stealing all my personal information, listening to my conversations and sending all that to a database controlled by the government.
Wait, doesn't that leave out every new car made?
I'll happily spend $17.00 on a Chinese motorcycle headlight but definitely not $27,000 on a Chinese car.
This thread makes me want to go rewatch Gung Ho.
In reply to dculberson :
Oh, so they were on their own by 2000? I didn't know when they were out of the GEO brand. Learn somethin' new erryday, thanks!
Chery attempted to start importing cars several years back. The crash test footage was terrifying, made crashing a car from the 50's look safe.l The car didn't crumble,it sort of exploded without the fire and smoke.
In reply to car39 :
GIRTHQUAKE said:MadScientistMatt said:And here are the failures that I can remember - every one of these has either planned to bring a street legal vehicle to the US in the basic, affordable transportation category, and either hasn't delivered so far, or imported vehicles for a while but have now folded operations US. There's probably several others I've forgotten. Even the Japanese have a couple that didn't make it. I'm only counting brands that appeared in the US and then disappeared in my lifetime (I was born in 1978).
- Crosslander
- Daewoo
- Daihatsu
- Mahindra (managed to bring over their Jeep clone without making it street legal, but not their pickup truck)
- Oka
- Saturn
- Stirling
- Suzuki
- Wheego
- Yugo
- ZAP
It's a tough market even without the political baggage.
Not to be a pedantic Jerk, but...
Suzuki came over in 2006 and was smacked HARD by the financial recession; their bikes still have dealerships and service here. Daihatsu has one engine and is owned by Toyota as the manufactuer of their Kei cars. Daewoo, Wheego, Yugo and ZAP all had terrible quality control- ZAP in particular had to recall their entire fleet of 3-wheelers for destruction because they literally were rusting before leaving the factory.
Suzuki was selling their cars in the US, under their own name, long before 2006. I'd like to say as far back as the late 80s or very early 90s.
Daewoo was/is GM of Korea, at least that it is what it looked like from here - they got their foothold in the US building captive imports that were Korean-built Opels. (Front drive Pontiac LeMans was an Opel Kadett) They got their asses handed to them in part because of shady dealership practices. Something about deliberately only hiring college-age workers for their sales staff and making it come out of their pay if a car sold for under MSRP.
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