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Chinese-Built Cars Are Coming To the US Next Year
cartechboy (2660665) writes "Made In China." It's a sticker we all know too well here in the U.S., and yet, it seems not everything we buy is made in China. To date, there haven't been Chinese-built cars in the U.S., but we keep hearing they are coming. Now it seems it's about to become a reality, as Chinese-built Volvos will be arriving in the U.S. as early as 2015. The first model to arrive will be the S60L. The payoff for Volvo if it manages to convince buyers that its cars built in China are just as good as those currently built in Europe is vast. Not only will it save on production costs, but it will help buffer against exchange rate fluctuations. Volvo's planning to make China a manufacturing hub, and that makes sense since it's now owned by Chinese parent company Geely. But will Chinese-built cars be just as good as European-built cars, and will consumers be able to tell the difference?
Anyone want to make any bets on how long they're being sold here in the U.S. before someone dies in an accident because it was made with sub-standard parts, or poor quality control?
Don't mod me down as a troll or flamebait, either, because it's not like there isn't a history of low-quality crap coming out of China.
Doc Brown: No wonder this car failed. It says "Made in China".
Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in China.
Doc Brown: Unbelievable.
But how is a "folks' wagon" or "Fix It Again, Tony" any worse than something you have to "Fix Or Repair Daily"? You go somewhere in an F-O-R-D, and you come back in a D-R-O-F: Driver Returns On Foot.
I'm told that Chinese manufacturers make things exactly as flimsy as their client wants them. Pay more, get more. Did Nintendo consoles lose their Tonka Tough reputation when Nintendo moved manufacturing to PRC?
Actually, the Chinese will build to any spec. If they can build it on the same quality requirements for cheaper, you tell them you want it to your quality spec and you pay less.
This is unlike Germany, where the only quality level is "high", and you pay for German manufacture. German manufacturers won't provide you with a lower cost-tier and a lesser-duty-cycle product.
By the by, quality is the degree to which a deliverable satisfies requirements. A car that falls apart after 5 years isn't any higher quality than a car that runs for 50 years, if you're going to replace either in 5 years anyway. If the former is much cheaper to own and maintain for the first 5 years than the latter, then the former is of higher quality; if the latter is cheaper to own and maintain, then the latter is over-engineered and can be stripped back to last 5 years and cost much less, better satisfying quality requirements.
Many of us want cars which will satisfy a low total cost for acceptable function. The car should last longer to avoid a new expensive purchase, and require minimal maintenance to retain its important functions (reliability, safety, comforts, emissions, and so on). Our quality standards are the cheapest thing we can get for the presumed function and comfort level, which is why economy cars are so popular in the US: they don't save very much on gas, they don't drive as well as something with a V6 or V8 and a sports suspension, but they're cheap and they tend to have a good duty cycle (even GM's ecotec engines are built to last, never mind the newer non-Ford engines Mazda has been putting in the 3).
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Growing up in the mid-late 80s, I vaguely remember the US having a total freak-out session about the Japanese taking over. I was a kid, but I've also been told that things like MBA programs did anything they could to jump on the Japan bandwagon, training people in Japanese management techniques, manufacturing processes, etc. People were absolutely convinced that there was some magic that the Japanese people and economy had that absolutely had to be emulated. Even before the 80s, having the Japanese car companies come in and encroach on the Big Three's turf was a huge mind-shift.
I wonder if China is going to succeed where Japan failed sometimes, but I also know we've been down this road. There's no real secret to their success in manufacturing:
- They have a huge population, and most of them are not averse to factory work. (We've taught 2 or 3 generations now in the US that manufacturing is a dead end job.)
- A strong, authoritarian central government in China has control over the people and key industries, and can make instant decisions to bolster growth with zero debate. They can also crush dissent -- can you imagine how much easier life would be in the US without the president having to fight Congress over everything?
- As we've seen, environmental laws aren't enforced the way they are here. Even the most laissez-faire among us can recognize that China has pollution problems.
The one thing I see that's different from the 80s is that people in general in the US aren't as well off as they were. Even back then, there were still a few industries that provided lifetime employment at good wages. Same thing goes for retirement -- pensions were still available to some people, so they didn't have to be paranoid about retirement. Now, everyone needs cheaper and cheaper stuff. China is the home of cheap manufacturing and will continue to be for quite some time. Until people feel more confident and can spend actual income rather than incurring more debt, convincing people to pay more for a higher-quality product is going to be a tough sell. And that's where I think China might have an opening -- what Japan did for high end manufacturing in the 70s/80s, China is doing to the low end to some extent.
I own a European made Volvo (I think it was made in Belgium.) It's almost 10 years old and has 120K miles on it. The engine will run forever, and the car is fine except for the things you would expect to start wearing out around the 10 year mark (belts, bearings, engine mounts, etc.) Volvos are (were?) designed for extremely long service life, kind of like Toyota Land Cruisers. It'll be interesting to see if the new owners keep the quality the same.
One thing's for sure - the next 10 years will be very interesting. I come from the Rust Belt, and being a Rust Belt 80s kid was no fun. Now the god of almighty free market efficiency is coming for the last decent manufacturing jobs. Even more worrisome is the loss of white collar employment, you know, the stuff we studied for so we didn't have to work in a factory. Unless the economy does a complete shift of some kind, we're going to have to get used to extremely high sustained levels of unemployment.
Just fyi, Geely makes the current iteration of the famous London Black Taxi Cab.
The build quality of modern vehicles has little to do with where it is made. The vast majority of assembly is done by machine (with the exception of Porsche and some other high end cars that are still built largely by hand). What determines reliability is how the cars are engineered.
Painting with very broad brush strokes, here is my experience with cars:
Japanese cars: Simple design, minimalist engineering, extremely reliable and cheap to operate
European cars: Complex design, somewhat over engineered, reliable but expensive to maintain
American cars: Poor design, not durable (in my experience), not very reliable but cheap to fix
Quick anecdotal evidence: I was taking my car in for some routine maintenance and they are giving me a drive home in the customer shuttle (a Chrysler PT Cruiser). I look and notice that it has about 80.000 miles on it and ask the guy driving it if it has been reliable. He tells me that they had to replace the motor mounts 3 times so far. 3 times! That, folks, is inferior design. My Honda has 110,000 miles and the original motor mounts. Original engine and tranny for that matter. Runs like a Swiss watch.
I'm not suggesting that all American cars are junk but I travel a lot and rent a lot of cars and my perception is that Japanese and European cars are far superior. I have driven nearly everything on the road.
What astounds me is that Chevy can build a fantastic car like the Corvette and yet nearly everything else is sub par. Ok, the new Malibu is a big improvement...I'll give them that. Ford? Well, the Mustang finally got rid of the live rear axle suspension. Now they are only about 10 years behind every other sports car on the road. Chrysler? They have some innovative designs but the quality continues to be horrible on balance.
None of this is a knock on the assembly workers. If the cars are well engineered they will last, whether they are made in Japan, Europe, USA or China.