A CHINESE made BUICK! Get your warranty slip handy

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Originally Posted By: wemay
Also an old post but interesting....

Lexus Rules Out Building Cars In China On Quality Fears -MotorAuthority

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1100776_lexus-rules-out-building-cars-in-china-on-quality-fears

Just give it some time.
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
The Chinese will make what ever the customer specifies, junk or quality. When it comes to high tech and quality they can be a match for anything made anywhere in the world. Blame the customer that contracts for the products/work for junk, not the Chinese.

That said, control of the whole supply chain is difficult to do. John Deere isn't having great luck with their Chinese and Indian tractors and they must have a fairly high specification of quality, in order to keep their reputation intact to justify their prices for their green paint...
Maybe things are changing, but 5 years ago their were still companies in the oil and gas industry that would specifically state that there be nothing sourced from China or India at all in a project.
The cost saving wasn't worth the hassle of having some high pressure pipe in the middle of a off shore rig in the middle of no where fail...
Its possible a China Buick will be fine, but if they use a lot of local suppliers for critical items, GM better have a good testing program set up to detect the odd bad batch of widgets before they get installed.



I know of at least a couple companies that send hundreds of engineers to China to QA and teach the labor how to make high quality products, with part of its design team in China. Yes it is possible to do it but no, it is not going to be a turnkey solution.

The same can be said for US companies, I've seen enough low quality design / engineering / production in the US by US labors, engineers, designers, and were done this way because the management was too cheap or too blind to build the products right (Lights of America).

These days you have to go with a company you trust, rather than blindly with the country of origin.
 
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Lexus is in a different situation.

Lexus is competing with BMW and Mercedes, already made in China and exporting from China. Lexus is banking on the reputation that it is made in Japan and reliability is excellent because of the "100% Japanese" reputation, rather than the brand image, design, style, handling, etc against the Germans.

If you are building on an image that is 100% made in Japan, you'd probably not make it in the US as well because US made is not up to the standard of 100% made in Japan.

I've never heard of people complaining about MBZ / BMW making cars in China.

Meanwhile, I test drove a Made in Japan Nissan Juke almost a year ago that I'd stay 100% away from, because I can see it is already starting to fall apart.
 
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Originally Posted By: PandaBear
If you are building on an image that is 100% made in Japan, you'd probably not make it in the US as well because US made is not up to the standard of 100% made in Japan.

Lexus ES is made in Lexington, KY.
Lexus RX is made in Cambridge, Ontario.

Quote:
I've never heard of people complaining about MBZ / BMW making cars in China.

Are any of the ones sold in the US made in China?
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Lexus is in a different situation.

Lexus is competing with BMW and Mercedes, already made in China and exporting from China. Lexus is banking on the reputation that it is made in Japan and reliability is excellent because of the "100% Japanese" reputation, rather than the brand image, design, style, handling, etc against the Germans.

If you are building on an image that is 100% made in Japan, you'd probably not make it in the US as well because US made is not up to the standard of 100% made in Japan.

I've never heard of people complaining about MBZ / BMW making cars in China.

Meanwhile, I test drove a Made in Japan Nissan Juke almost a year ago that I'd stay 100% away from, because I can see it is already starting to fall apart.



Exactly! +1
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear

Lexus is competing with BMW and Mercedes, already made in China and exporting from China. Lexus is banking on the reputation that it is made in Japan and reliability is excellent because of the "100% Japanese" reputation, rather than the brand image, design, style, handling, etc against the Germans.


Except they're not. Lexus is in no way competing with Audi, BMW, or MB in China. Of those three, MB sells the fewest vehicles... and it's still about four times what Lexus sells.

Lexus is about on par with Cadillac... but Cadillac has a significant plan that involves ambitious new products that are locally built.

Re-read the article and move away from the headline and on to the second, equally significant, reason given:

Quote:
“There’s too much quality risk in China to produce there,” Lexus International President Takashi Yamamoto said. “The company also still has to improve the brand’s awareness and standing among consumers.”

Takashi, whose background is in engineering, added that when these hurdles are overcome production of Lexus cars in China is likely, though he said this might take “several decades.”


Executive-speak for "there are not enough sales and the growth is too slow to justify the capital expenditure to begin production."

Not mentioned is China's lingering aversion to Japan. The Chinese have long memories, especially about what happened in WW2.
 
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
That may just be a racist attitude at work. Remember, pretty much all iphones come from China along with many other items. It's really up to the manufacturer to control the supply chain and to maintain QC. There's no real story here.


How is this racist?
 
Man, I'm thinking the car will be just fine.

I've seen/sat in a few GM cars from china- no different than the ones built in the US.

Of course, Let's just over hype it....


Oh, and let's not forget it will get built here after they see how it does and finds it a home....
 
Average worker in China earns around 55,000 Yuan a year, roughly 7,700 in US dollars....of course GM will pass the savings on to you....
 
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Originally Posted By: dlundblad
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
That may just be a racist attitude at work. Remember, pretty much all iphones come from China along with many other items. It's really up to the manufacturer to control the supply chain and to maintain QC. There's no real story here.


How is this racist?



I will refer you to my previous message and you can tell me if the original post qualifies:

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Let's look up the definition of racists:

1. A belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.

So the automatic assumption that because it's made in China and will automatically be of inferior quality could be considered racists.

On the other hand, if you don't automatically assume it will be inferior but are willing to wait to see what happens, then maybe you're not racist.
 
Originally Posted By: CourierDriver
Average worker in China earns around 55,000 Yuan a year, roughly 7,700 in US dollars.

And that is a very deceiving number, being an average of a small % of well paid executives and a large % of white collar workers who make just a little over minimum wage. Average yearly income of white collar worker in manufacturing industry is somewhere around half of the figure you mentioned.

However, wages in China have been rising quickly, about 350% during the last decade. But I guess when Chinese labor becomes too expensive, manufacturing will just move to another lower wage country.

http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/wages-china
 
Originally Posted By: MrHorspwer
Originally Posted By: PandaBear

Lexus is competing with BMW and Mercedes, already made in China and exporting from China. Lexus is banking on the reputation that it is made in Japan and reliability is excellent because of the "100% Japanese" reputation, rather than the brand image, design, style, handling, etc against the Germans.


Except they're not. Lexus is in no way competing with Audi, BMW, or MB in China. Of those three, MB sells the fewest vehicles... and it's still about four times what Lexus sells.

Lexus is about on par with Cadillac... but Cadillac has a significant plan that involves ambitious new products that are locally built.

Re-read the article and move away from the headline and on to the second, equally significant, reason given:

Quote:
“There’s too much quality risk in China to produce there,” Lexus International President Takashi Yamamoto said. “The company also still has to improve the brand’s awareness and standing among consumers.”

Takashi, whose background is in engineering, added that when these hurdles are overcome production of Lexus cars in China is likely, though he said this might take “several decades.”


Executive-speak for "there are not enough sales and the growth is too slow to justify the capital expenditure to begin production."

Not mentioned is China's lingering aversion to Japan. The Chinese have long memories, especially about what happened in WW2.


So what I'm getting from you is: MBZ and BMW are doing fine made in China and Lexus is not despite made in Japan / US.

Chinese Japanese rivalry doesn't explain why so many other Japanese brand being made in China (Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, etc) already.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear

So what I'm getting from you is: MBZ and BMW are doing fine made in China and Lexus is not despite made in Japan / US.


MB and BMW are doing well... along with VW/Audi and General Motors... because they invested in Chinese manufacturing capability. That is the only way to get ahead in China. Build strong JV partnerships and get out from the import tax by building in-country.

Here is a list of October 2015 top sellers in China:
http://chinaautoweb.com/2015/11/best-selling-new-sedans-suvs-and-mpvs-in-october-2015/

Not a single Lexus cracked the top 100 in passenger car sales. BMW, MB, Audi, and even Cadillac managed to.

In reference to the vehicle being imported to the US, the Buick Envision is the #6 selling SUV in China, selling more units than the Honda CR-V and nearly twice as many as the Toyota RAV4.

Another cool thing to look at is Baojun. Baojun is born from a tie-up between SAIC, GM, and Wuling called SGMW. Traditionally, they've produced commercial trucks and vans (the Wuling Hongguang is the #1 selling MPV in China with 67,000(!) units sold in October) under the Wuling badge (exported as Chevrolets). Baojun is their attempt at creating passenger vehicles for third-tier and smaller cities. While big Western names dominate sales in first-tier cities like Shanghai and Beijing and even second-tier cities like Tianjin, residents of third-tier cities cannot afford them and typically turn to domestic Chinese brand vehicles. The Baojun 560 and Baojun 730 are each the #2 seller in SUVs and MPVs, respectively. These smaller cities (this is relative... third-tier cities still typically have more than 4,000,000 residents) is where much of the future growth in China is going to come from.
 
Wolf359:

Are you willing to admit that not all 'racists' are white?

Remember Sharpton calling whites 'interlopers' despite blacks not opening businesses in Harlem?

Remember Jesse Jerkson calling NYC...Hymietown?

'Racists' come in all colors and if you won't admit that then you aren't being honest....just like our mainstream media.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
However, wages in China have been rising quickly, about 350% during the last decade. But I guess when Chinese labor becomes too expensive, manufacturing will just move to another lower wage country


The Wall Street Journal had an article a while back about China outsourcing to Vietnam to cut costs.
 
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Originally Posted By: dlundblad
Originally Posted By: Wolf359
That may just be a racist attitude at work. Remember, pretty much all iphones come from China along with many other items. It's really up to the manufacturer to control the supply chain and to maintain QC. There's no real story here.


How is this racist?



I will refer you to my previous message and you can tell me if the original post qualifies:

Originally Posted By: Wolf359
Let's look up the definition of racists:

1. A belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.

So the automatic assumption that because it's made in China and will automatically be of inferior quality could be considered racists.

On the other hand, if you don't automatically assume it will be inferior but are willing to wait to see what happens, then maybe you're not racist.


I don't think he feels that a buick made in china is inferior because of the ethnicity of the Chinese.
Perhaps he does not like the business practices of the Chinese manufacturers or the quality control there.
Or perhaps he does not want to support the economy of a communist country.

That does not make him a racist.
 
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