Everything is made in China

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by E365
My iPhone is made in China. It's by-far the most high tech, well engineered thing I own.

You also better not fly on a newer Boeing or Airbus if you're afraid of China. Chinese parts on those too! So scary!

Well - there's certainly a lot of junk that's made in China. I don't necessarily trust the design if it was actually done in China. But contract manufacturing in China is another thing. As I mentioned earlier, it's Foxconn, Quanta, or Asus - Taiwanese companies setting up factories in China. They run a tight ship, like Michelin or Honda. I wouldn't worry about the build quality of anything made in one of their factories, whether it's in China, India, or Eastern Europe. Now I personally wouldn't trust something like one of those Chinese designed "hover boards" where the battery charging systems are so bad that they tend to catch on fire.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by das_peikko
Originally Posted by E365
My iPhone is made in China. It's by-far the most high tech, well engineered thing I own.


And it's made by little Chinese girls that are so overworked and so depressed --- that they had do set up catch nets around the top floor their dormitory to prevent them from succeeding in their suicide attempts.

That's not really the plan. Those factories bring in tons of workers from the countryside, whose master plan is typically to work for a few years, come back with money to their hometowns, and then maybe set up a small business.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Rest assured that 100% of the additives & the great bulk of the base oil used in US engine oils are conceived, developed, manufactured & blended in the US.

Really? When Pennzoil and Quaker State are really just part of Royal Dutch Shell these days? Or Chevron Oronite with development in the US, France, and Korea? Castrol was always a British brand. Also Lubrizol with a presence around the world, and BASF obviously a German company?

Was that sarcasm?

 

[SonofJoe]

Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Rest assured that 100% of the additives & the great bulk of the base oil used in US engine oils are conceived, developed, manufactured & blended in the US.

Really? When Pennzoil and Quaker State are really just part of Royal Dutch Shell these days? Or Chevron Oronite with development in the US, France, and Korea? Castrol was always a British brand. Also Lubrizol with a presence around the world, and BASF obviously a German company?

Was that sarcasm?


Sarcasm? Moi??

No, it's all God's honest truth. One thing that a lot of people don't understand about the lubes business is the criticality of freight costs. If you're say shipping blue jeans from China to The US, the cost of freight is miniscule relative to the retail price. If you're cross-hauling over based detergent, for example, from Europe to The US (or vice versa) the cost is VERY significant. As a consequence, so-called supplier 'swap deals' are relatively common in the industry where components are regionally 'exchanged', to some pre-agreed formula, to minimise overall freight cost to the benefit of all parties.

The upshot is that global lubes is now a highly regional business, where everything is more or less regionally sourced, regardless of whether the name on the can is American, British or whatever.

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted by PimTac

That has been happening for quite a while already. Thailand has a huge manufacturing base. Vietnam is excelling in clothing and hard fabrics. India, Bangladesh, and on and on.

Thailand is huge in rubber goods - some high-end pushbike and motorbike tires are made in Thailand, as are wetsuits and certain other, ahem, rubbers. I think Western Digital is consolidating all hard drive manufacture to their plant in Thailand which is the world's biggest HDD plant. Vietnam is seeing more manufacturing of non-textiles as is Cambodia. Canon and Nikon are making printers and cameras there, Samsung is making Li-Polymer batteries there. The Taiwanese bike ODMs(Giant/Merida/Kinesis) are setting up shop in Cambodia in case Trump does make good on Chinese tariffs.

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted by nthach
Originally Posted by PimTac

That has been happening for quite a while already. Thailand has a huge manufacturing base. Vietnam is excelling in clothing and hard fabrics. India, Bangladesh, and on and on.

Thailand is huge in rubber goods - some high-end pushbike and motorbike tires are made in Thailand, as are wetsuits and certain other, ahem, rubbers. I think Western Digital is consolidating all hard drive manufacture to their plant in Thailand which is the world's biggest HDD plant. Vietnam is seeing more manufacturing of non-textiles as is Cambodia. Canon and Nikon are making printers and cameras there, Samsung is making Li-Polymer batteries there. The Taiwanese bike ODMs(Giant/Merida/Kinesis) are setting up shop in Cambodia in case Trump does make good on Chinese tariffs.




Thailand is way beyond rubber. Most automakers have a plant there or a parts manufacturing facility there. Washing machines and dryers, air conditioners, kitchen appliances large and small, furniture and more. The location does not rely much on its natural resources in these cases.

We owned a LG washing machine and a refrigerator of which the brand I've forgotten. Both assembled in Thailand. Never had any problems with them. Just like in China, the quality depends on the company running the facility. Toyota, Panasonic and Whirlpool will put out quality products in overseas plants for example.


It was mentioned previously that tools from Taiwan are not of good quality. I would argue against that. Taiwan puts out some excellent products. Tools and knives are a couple of examples I own that are from Taiwan. Both are excellent.

If a company wants to produce cheap junk they can do that anywhere.

 

[emg]

Originally Posted by E365
My iPhone is made in China. It's by-far the most high tech, well engineered thing I own.


A lot of it comes down to quality control. Chinese factories can make high-quality products if a company like Apple has people ensuring they do so. Or they can churn out cheap crap that breaks after three days, because who cares what happens to it once it's sold? And, yeah, I avoid things that are made in China where possible, for that reason.

At the very least, I want a Western company that's willing to put its name on the box; I was looking for a replacement 12V battery last night and pretty much all of the options I found online were no-name Chinese vendors whose products will probably either fail or catch fire in a few weeks.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by emg
Originally Posted by E365
My iPhone is made in China. It's by-far the most high tech, well engineered thing I own.


A lot of it comes down to quality control. Chinese factories can make high-quality products if a company like Apple has people ensuring they do so. Or they can churn out cheap crap that breaks after three days, because who cares what happens to it once it's sold? And, yeah, I avoid things that are made in China where possible, for that reason.

At the very least, I want a Western company that's willing to put its name on the box; I was looking for a replacement 12V battery last night and pretty much all of the options I found online were no-name Chinese vendors whose products will probably either fail or catch fire in a few weeks.

Like I said earlier, the quality is ensured by Foxconn. There are very few suppliers who can run an operation as efficiently with as high quality as Foxconn. They're not strictly the low bidder. And the big thing is keeping secrecy. A company like Apple does deal with the occasional leak, but often there aren't any leaks of future released products, and Apple will announce a product and it's in their stores the same day.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Rest assured that 100% of the additives & the great bulk of the base oil used in US engine oils are conceived, developed, manufactured & blended in the US.

Really? When Pennzoil and Quaker State are really just part of Royal Dutch Shell these days? Or Chevron Oronite with development in the US, France, and Korea? Castrol was always a British brand. Also Lubrizol with a presence around the world, and BASF obviously a German company?

Was that sarcasm?


Sarcasm? Moi??

No, it's all God's honest truth. One thing that a lot of people don't understand about the lubes business is the criticality of freight costs. If you're say shipping blue jeans from China to The US, the cost of freight is miniscule relative to the retail price. If you're cross-hauling over based detergent, for example, from Europe to The US (or vice versa) the cost is VERY significant. As a consequence, so-called supplier 'swap deals' are relatively common in the industry where components are regionally 'exchanged', to some pre-agreed formula, to minimise overall freight cost to the benefit of all parties.

The upshot is that global lubes is now a highly regional business, where everything is more or less regionally sourced, regardless of whether the name on the can is American, British or whatever.

You said development though. That's not that hard to develop chemicals around the world, if the manufacturing is going to be more regional.

In my industry I've worked in development with people all over the world. Sometimes that makes for some long nights on the phone, or more recently via internet meetings.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted by WyrTwister
I read we / the USA rebuilt much of the industry in Germany & Japan , after WWII . Then it came back to bite us in the behind ! :-(


You can look at it that way, or you can look at it from the perspective of having a wealthy rival neighbor to your arch rival on your side. What makes you think that if we abandon Japan and Germany, they will not turn soviet?

 

[SonofJoe]

Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Rest assured that 100% of the additives & the great bulk of the base oil used in US engine oils are conceived, developed, manufactured & blended in the US.

Really? When Pennzoil and Quaker State are really just part of Royal Dutch Shell these days? Or Chevron Oronite with development in the US, France, and Korea? Castrol was always a British brand. Also Lubrizol with a presence around the world, and BASF obviously a German company?

Was that sarcasm?


Sarcasm? Moi??

No, it's all God's honest truth. One thing that a lot of people don't understand about the lubes business is the criticality of freight costs. If you're say shipping blue jeans from China to The US, the cost of freight is miniscule relative to the retail price. If you're cross-hauling over based detergent, for example, from Europe to The US (or vice versa) the cost is VERY significant. As a consequence, so-called supplier 'swap deals' are relatively common in the industry where components are regionally 'exchanged', to some pre-agreed formula, to minimise overall freight cost to the benefit of all parties.

The upshot is that global lubes is now a highly regional business, where everything is more or less regionally sourced, regardless of whether the name on the can is American, British or whatever.

You said development though. That's not that hard to develop chemicals around the world, if the manufacturing is going to be more regional.

In my industry I've worked in development with people all over the world. Sometimes that makes for some long nights on the phone, or more recently via internet meetings.


In my experience, Americans & ONLY Americans develop oils for The US. The plants are there. The labs & test houses are there. The various committees & industry bodies are there.

Well meant advice from uppity outsiders is politely listened to but usually quickly dismissed. Woe betide the unfortunate foreigner who passes a problem engine test first time after they have failed it 200 times! Instant career blight with accusations that you are 'bad team player'!

 

[PimTac]

Originally Posted by PandaBear
Originally Posted by WyrTwister
I read we / the USA rebuilt much of the industry in Germany & Japan , after WWII . Then it came back to bite us in the behind ! :-(


You can look at it that way, or you can look at it from the perspective of having a wealthy rival neighbor to your arch rival on your side. What makes you think that if we abandon Japan and Germany, they will not turn soviet?





Very good point and well said. Unlike some countries the US was never a conqueror. The example of Japan is a good one. Instead of taking over we extended a hand to help them up. Today, Japan is one of our best allies if not the best.

 

[Bluestream]

Originally Posted by FordBroncoVWJeta
A couple of the new Buick's are directly from China.

The Chinese love Buick's. Had a very good reputation from before the revolution. I think China is the largest auto market now. GM sells lots of Buicks

 

[Bjornviken]

Dupont

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted by WyrTwister


I read we / the USA rebuilt much of the industry in Germany & Japan , after WWII . Then it came back to bite us in the behind ! :-(

It was Deming that helped instill quality in Japanese manufacturing after the war. KYB rebuilt themselves by making shocks for the Mitsubishi-built Jeeps for the Allied forces.

I think the American chemical and oil companies all had a stake in IG Farben(BASF/Bayer/Hoechst/Degussa) until WWII. And then we took over the American arms of those companies until the 1980s-1990s.

 

[AC1DD]

Something that no one here has touched on is the HUGE amount of corruption that pervades Chinese business culture,
even foreign companies that want to play in China have to pay serious bribes. Of course that also can result in
so called high quality products being compromised.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted by das_peikko
I draw the line at tools. I don't buy any tools made in China or Taiwan. Either USA or Germany for me.


Own any Milwaukee cordless tools? 100% Chinese. Japan makes some very well made and beautifully finished high quality tools. The Japanese and Germans invested a lot in steel mills and tool development in Taiwan, you see a lot of their tools meeting DIN norms.

Taiwan is quickly becoming a first world tool manufacturer, I am not afraid at all of their higher end products. Taiwan basically owns the air tool market and even send ebauche kits to be final finished and/or assembled by the buyers in their own countries.