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Jaguar and Land Rover Angle For Production In China
First time accepted submitter ourlovecanlastforeve writes "Those of you still hanging on to Jaguar and Land Rover as the last vestiges of the truly British automobile in the States may find yourselves grasping at straws as Chery announces a nearly two billion dollar joint effort with the auto brand to move production to Changsu in China." Anyone still hanging on to that idea might also be interested to learn that Jaguar and Land Rover are subsidiaries of India's Tata, maker of the low-priced Nano.
The linked blog article reports roughly 20% of the full story. In actual fact, the UK factories are maxed out and employing more and more people, and only production destined for the Chinese market is being moved to China as part of this joint venture.
Jaguar are selling more cars now than ever before. In part due to Tata's good management. The brand has been reinvigorated rather than been killed off.
China is the world's largest car market having recently overtaken the US. So it makes sense to move some production facilities there.
Give credit where it's due and be thankful that a savvy operator like Tata gave new life to these otherwise dying car brands and stop your old world bias.
China will give you the build quality you ask for. People go to China to build cheaply, so "cheap" is the most important parameter. Then they get all confused when "cheap" (cost) ends up being "cheap" (quality).
The iPhone had more trouble with poor design (antenna issues) than any build issues. "Cheap" wasn't the primary concern for Apple. Flexibility and capability were higher. I've not seen anything on the Apple Foxconn products that indicate quality issues.
I've never figured out why the public buys the "china is poor quality" when the products are designed, sourced, sold and supported by Wal-Mart (or whoever) and they suck, so Wal-Mart just says "china" and everyone seems satisfied.
Learn to love Alaska
It's an industrial revolution - it was no different in UK during ours. It's just easier to document in the 21st century. China is gradually creating a middle class, and will work itself out of the current boom. Regulations will come in, wages will increase, pollution will become more of an issue.
JLR is actually doing rather well at the moment. The vehicles are UK designed, and JLR is taking on large numbers of staff in the UK to do more design work. I know several ex-colleagues who went to work there.
It is because of the growing Chinese market, that some assembly of vehicles will be added in China, not due to the costs in the UK.
Now that British/American style management has been removed from JLR, there is much better long term planning, and much stronger investment in the product line.
If I was working for JLR, I'd much happily work under Indian management, rather than the mediocre bean-counting 'business degree' incompetents, who ran all of the indigineous British car industry into the ground.
Of course, matters are even worse in the United States. The US car companies still have this type of management, and are completely bankrupt hulks, with terrible product lines. I am shocked, on every visit to the United States, just how bad their vehicles are.
In a sort of way, I did buy my car based on the nationality of its brand.
I like Italian cars a lot, from the high-end ridiculous supercars and in particular all the way down to their basic, characterful people's cars, like the original Fiat 500. But we have owned a number of Fiats in my family and I know all to well about the reliability and rust problems that have always plagued them.
So when I saw they had started building cars in Poland, I took notice. Contrary to popular belief, Poland is a proud, hard-working, honest and straight-forward nation with a history of solid (if unsophisticated) engineering. It was only during WW2 and the Cold War that Poland took a serious nosedive, but they've certainly been doing everything they can to get themselves out of the shadow of combined Nazi+Soviet oppression.
I have been driving my Polish-built Fiat for nearly 5 years now and I have not had a single problem with it. Mechanically, electrically etc. it has been completely flawless.
So yes, I bought my Italian car because it was built in Poland.
Eat the rich.