It's one thing to copy a styling element - it's another when you can bolt YOUR fender to the car you're copying.

 

They will be available in the Automotive section of Walmart.

 

You mean like the Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Matrix. Or the Chevy Equinox and Pontiac Torrent or Holden Monaro and Pontiac GTO. I could go on.

I digress.

 

 

This is not the same circumstance though. Each company has a full understanding of the situation, and has agreed to share their car on another platform with a sister car from another company. There is no such agreement with these Chinese cars.

 

No.

 

Not to mention, only one of those was a joint venture between two competing companies (Vibe/Matrix). His other examples (Torrent/Equinox, Monaro/GTO) are all from the same company. Not exactly the same as if some Chinese upstart buys an Equinox, tears it down, and then makes a vehicle looking almost identical and builds it themselves.

 

THey don't even have to do that. We're over there (as well as the europeans) teaching them how to build cars. How many joint ventures are there?

 

95% of the autos sold in China are made by foreign companies or Joint Ventures.


http://businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnfl...8659_db053.htm

 

and over 85% of US consumer goods are made in China.

You buy things labelled "made in China" every day.

This one hits a little close to home, because I wrote a business plan outlining the way to manufacture automobiles and motorcycles in China and make a mint selling them everywhere else.

They have these small "mom and pop" set ups. Small family owned companies that make like 10-20k units a year. They sell these cars for about 5000 to 10,000 US dollars each.

And yes, they copy. They have exact copies of Toyota 4runners, etc.

But what they do not have is,

Globally accepted business practices
design talent
engineering talent

The laws in China are very different and many times not enforced unless the chinese person you are workign with feels ripped off, then you go to jail for 6 months before getting to talk to your lawyer. if that person has enough money, you may not get out of jail. Look up the Company Apex on Forbes.com

Once they get the right person over there to set up a company, they will be huge.

How huge?

Imagine if Toyota got it right in the 50s instead of the 80s.

They have labor that will work for less than 100 dollars a month. You can build and equip a factory for a couple of million as opposed to a couple of billion over here.

If they had an american businessman go over there and assemble a team of engineers designers and leaders, they would become absolutely huge.

Imagine a company that can manufacture a complete automobile for under 5000 US dollars. And these cars while yes they are cheaply made, they would be comparible to say a 90's Ford Festiva. But their leather interior higher power (usually still 4 cyl or sometimes a V6) cars go for 10-13k.

Now imagine if they had a team to design the car to be more powerful, much more attractive, etc, say a rwd 4 door with V8 and 380hp and awesome looks, and they sold it for 20k in the US.

As for Malcome Bricklen, he is doing ok with it so far, but he was forced to come up with 250m to buy out part of the companies he is working with. Now if it succeeds, he is going to benefit much more than they will. But they are typical in thinking they can not make the cars up to par for the US, and so want to get their money before any risk is taken.