CHINESE CARS AND TRUCKS HITTING THESE SHORES --- NOW!

THE CHINESE ARE COMING,
    THE CHINESE ARE COMING!

Written March, 2006 for Gannett's DESERT SUN newspaper

Hop in the Chery and come on over! Wife got that car? Then fire-up the Great Wall and let’s do lunch! Kid got that one? No problem, the Geely is warmed-up and ready to go! (Photo -- "Brilliance" sedan).

     Never heard those names? Those above-named cars are all made in China, and the companies which make them promise high quality, low prices, extensive warranties and solid resale values. Well, maybe.
     Only a few years ago, made-in-Korea Hyundai cars bore out what many American consumers expected as far as that nation’s industrial product quality. A TV or radio from there was one thing; cars another altogether.

Hyundai’s original 1986 model for America, the Excel, was poorly-made and became a popular joke topic for late-night TV comedians.
             But Excel was inexpensive, had a modest warranty and Hyundai dealers were eager to rack up sales. Too eager; Excels were sold to too many people who had trouble sending in payment coupons on-time. In just a few years, it seemed every Hyundai on the road was beat-up, spewing exhaust smoke, with dented body panels, bald tires, a bad paint job, and invariably parked by the side of the road. (Photo -- China's Chery A5).

And those were the good ones.

     So Hyundai, with help from Ford, which by then owned big chunks of both Hyundai and Japan’s Mazda, went on a Japanese-style “quality circle” campaign throughout the gigantic corporation. Hyundai then started making news not as the butt of jokes, but by offering a 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty starting in 1998. The fixes worked and Hyundai set sales records which stand to today.
             In order for any import car company to build models in China, that company must partner with an established Chinese car-builder, many of which share private ownership with a local or the national government.

And that could be good news for quality.
            China is, in effect, importing the quality lessons  learned from companies around the globe, while gearing-up to export their own Chinese-badged cars and trucks worldwide.
           General Motors and Ford are both making money in China, Mercedes-Benz and BMW can’t build cars fast enough for the growing Chinese middle class, Volkswagen has truly become once again “a people’s car” in China, and Ferrari has already opened ten dealerships in the great Middle Kingdom. (Photo -- "Great Wall" pickup truck with cab).

In an automotive sense, China has gone from the 19^th century to the 21^st in a mere decade, so we should expect some major bumps in the road; not insurmountable, but major nonetheless.

A new company formed by automotive entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin had a chance to be first in the USA to import cars from China.

Bricklin first brought Japan’s Subaru (made by Fuji Heavy Industries) to America and followed-up that winner with the unfortunate Yugo, and also tried to build and market his own gullwing-style sports car (which failed).

He recently formed Visionary Vehicles to import Chinese-made Chevrolets to America. He’s taken many millions of dollars in deposits from established American car dealers hoping to be among the first to sell what Bricklin says will be under-$10,000 cars.

There are many smaller players in the China game, too. According to USA TODAY, David Shelburg, 75, of Scottsdale, Ariz., has signed up dealers in California and Arizona to sell China-made vehicles. But Shelburg has been trying to sell Chinese-built cars in the USA for 10 years and has been sued by unhappy dealers who say they never got vehicles to sell and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Photo -- "Nanjing/MG ZT" sedan).

China has a tremendous opportunity to create a missing under-$10,000 price point for American car-buyers. If quality is part of that purchase, we’ll all be learning a lot of new car and truck names in the near-future.

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