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Automobile industry outsourcing doesn't seem to cause quality problems. Audi has been producing cars in China since at least the 1980's. MB and BMW have been producing cars for about a decade and half. Toyota and Honda have been making cars in China for nearly a dedcade. Buicks built in China over the past decade and half are reputed to be much better put together than those built in the US; incidentally, even Buicks built in the US in recent years have been topping consumer surveys, and these new models are based on products developed over there (Buick sells far more cars in China than in the US). Volvo is rather late to the game if it doesn't have factory there already.
There is a perception problem with Chinese-brand cars. We should keep in mind that unlike the Japan, Korean and Indian markets, domestic brands account for much less than half the cars sold in China. Most cars sold in China are import brands, somewhat like the US with vast domestic production of import brands, only the import brands represent even greater market share over there and they never had their own "Big-3." While we may joke about the flimsiness of Chinese domestic branded cars, those do not represent the majority of cars sold in China, which are Audis, BMW's, MB's, Buicks, Toyota's and Honda's, more often the full sized models. The flimsy domestic brand cars fill a special low end market niche there due to the relative lack of a used car market: when you have a new car market that has grown 20-50% a year for two decades, there is obviously a dearth of used cars compared to current market demand. So the same consumers here in the US that would fit the profile for a used car buyer with $5-10k to spend (more like US$10-20k due to higher price for cars in general over there) wouldn't be able to find used cars to buy over there because the local car market had only been 2million units a few years ago compared to today's 10+ million size. That's why there are those cheap domestic car brands catering to the low end of the market. IMHO, as Chinese market mature, those vendors of cheap small cars will be dead very quickly as used "proper" cars will eat their lunch. In the market for "proper" cars (new car buyers instead of would-be used car buyers in a normal market), the market there actually prefer safer and larger cars. For example, Audi A6 outsells A4 there by a huge margin, unlike practically everywhere else in the world; Honda makes the large Accord only for the US and Chinese market, and the small (TSX) Accord for all the other markets. IMHO, part of the reason behind the large new 9-5 is significantly due to the Chinese preferring their Buick Regal/Insignia to be the size of the A6, Toyota Crown (a bigger version of our Lexus ES) and the big Accord sold over there.
BTW, Accord is a $50k car over there; the last 9-5 was a $60-70k car over there. The Chinese consumer's reputation for finding cheap substitutes for everyday consumables doesn't seem to translate to big ticket purchases. Perhaps they are (mistakenly) perceiving big ticket purchases as some sort of "investment" instead of just another type of consumables.
posted by 76.118.39...
, Thu, 13 Jan 2011 05:52:09
, Fri, 14 Jan 2011 07:24:46
, Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:20:43
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