Chinese Industry News

[Snowman]

China will fail just like all the other non democratic powers have in the past. People want to be free of oppressions and when you give them money this will accelerate. No amount of QA/QC will fix this fundamental need.

Edit:

Link added
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33416.pdf

[CSH]

^^^^We are on the same page, my friend.  I can see a day when manufacturing in NA is virtually nil. 

I agree. NA has a HUGE cost disadvantage compared to developing countries. I was discussing the difference in the cost of bread in India and Canada with my wife yesterday and here are some  figures.

Something like dempsters 100% whole grain bread will cost atleast 2.25$ (85 Indian Rupees)
A Similar Bread in India costs 55 cents (20 Rupees)
I have eaten bread from both countries and i did not find any difference in the quality of the two breads.
A worker manufacturing bread in India will be paid a maximum of 8000 rupees a month. On a 160hr work month (8hr/day/4weeks) that is 50 rupees an hour or 1.33$/hr
A similar worker in Canda will have to be paid atleast 8$/hr.
So the worker in Canada gets paid 6 times more but the cost of bread is only 4 times more.
This obvously means that NA plants and labour is more efficient and productive despite stricter laws to comply to (factory emissions, electricity costs, EI, CPP, Insurance etc)
So we are already more efficient than the plant in a developing country.

Now mutily the numbers above by 10,000 and replace the bread by the car (different products but good enough for comparison) The Car now costs 22,500 to make in Canada and it costs 5,500$ to make in a X developing country.
Any machine, any quality raw material can be shipped to any country so products of same quality can be manufactured anywhere if the product is planned correctly.

So instead of we getting the car for 30,000 (22,500 manuf cost) we can get it for 15000 (5,500 manuf cost+ Import etc etc)
Given this situation as a consumer what will you buy?

It is not if but when developing countries will catch up with the quality.
If China is communist then there are other counteries (Malaysia, India, Thailand, Vietnam) which will do this.

Not only are manufacturing jobs but High End jobs are equally at danger.

India/China churns out 10s of thousands of engineering gradautes / PHD's every year. While all may not be of the quality of a NA enigineer, enough are of the quality to take our jobs and do high technology R&D there.

GE has a technology research centre in Bangalore India where it hires more than 3500 phd's and it pays them on an average 1/10 of what it would pay a phd in US.

N/A is going to lose more and more jobs and will continue to lose them till the standard/cost of labour rises in developing countries becomes par with what we have here. (That will take atleast 100-125 years) to acheive

I do not have a problem with that as long as salaries/jobs in NA do not come down to meet them somewhere mid way. We have the priveledge of good quality of life which should not be compromised (poisonous agricultural products, subquality parts, deteriorating roads, infrastructure deficit  etc) as the price to pay to live in a global economy.

[safristi]

the POOR...sometimes dangerous quality of Overseas goods will become an issue..only 2 to 3% of goods are tested /monitored at present.....and China has already executed their FDA equivalent head (NO HEAD!!!) GUY.....a shirt is harmless enuf  or a pair of sneakers (should cost maybe $25......but i still see them at $100 PLUS...someone is making a killing(pun intended) here)....but foodstuffs NO THANKS...but there is no way to know if your packet of goodies at the Super X Market has Foreign rat turds or poison in it...the seafood that we (mainly US) imports are HEAVILY contaminated from shrimp/fish farms using sub_standard feed and antibiotics in the "PONDS".........   sushi anyone......................hell a nice fish fry down at PORT DOVER today Friday 13th would be SAFER   Brrmmm brmmm....

[sirAQUAMAN64]

Buy American? OK, says Chinese company
Kevin Huang
Automotive News
August 6, 2007 - 12:01 am   

GUANGZHOU, China - Last year, a leading Chinese spark plug company wanted to win more contracts in North America and elsewhere. But to do so, the Torch Spark Plug Co. needed to expand quickly.

The solution: Buy an American factory.

In May 2006, Torch bought the equipment of a Delphi Corp. spark plug plant in Flint, Mich., for $3 million. Delphi had entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2005.

Torch's general manager, Chen Guangyun, says the company in December shipped all of the plant's manufacturing equipment for 15 production lines to Zhuzhou, China, in 90 cargo containers.

Torch is testing the production lines and expects to have them operating by June 2008.

The company's annual capacity will rise to about 230 million spark plugs from the current 90 million.

Chen says the equipment also provides some technical advances, such as the ability to weld platinum spark plugs, not commonly available in China.

Torch first plans to build its overseas aftermarket business and then try to win contracts with more global automakers.

Chen says Torch's spark plugs are about 30 to 40 percent cheaper in China than similar imported products. Torch has about 1,000 employees.

[sirAQUAMAN64]

Consumption at heart of U.S. job losses
April Wortham
Automotive News
August 6, 2007 - 5:26 pm

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Blame China if you like, but the United States is its own worst enemy when it comes to protecting manufacturing jobs, say industry experts.

"It's not what everyone else in the world should do to help the U.S. It's what should the U.S. do to help itself," said John Byrd III, president of the Association for Manufacturing Technology, at the Center for Automotive Research's Management Briefing Seminars on Monday.

The United States lost 3 million manufacturing jobs in the last three years, racking up an $800 billion trade deficit, according to industry statistics. For the first time in history, durable goods imports outweigh exports.

The problem is consumption, which is growing at such a rate in the United States and around the world that U.S. manufacturers can't keep up, Byrd said. And looking at it by industry, the trade gap is greatest in automotive.

"Automotive sticks out like a sore thumb," Byrd said. "Forty percent of the machine tools in the world go into the motor vehicle industry, so I can assure you that we're concerned about what happens in automotive."

And while it's easy to point a finger at globalization, it's actually manufacturers' own efforts to improve that have led to job losses.

Quoting industry statistics, Byrd said 72 percent of manufacturing jobs lost in the United States in the last five years were due to gains in productivity.

"We may not like the collateral damage, but had those changes not taken place, we would not be competitive today in any way, shape or form," he said.

Frank Vargo, vice president of international affairs for the National Association of Manufacturers, echoed Byrd's point. Productivity is outpacing production, he said, with the average American worker producing 27 percent more today than in 2000.

And while the manufacturing sector is recovering from the worst recession in 30 years, recovery is happening far too slowly, Vargo said.

Wages aren't to blame. Germany's average manufacturing wage is 40 percent higher than the United States, yet it exports more durable goods than any other country in the Western world, Vargo said.

Vargo and Byrd both blamed legislation and policy, such as corporate tax rates, employee benefits and litigation. Those, along with other self-imposed pressures, contribute to a total cost burden of 31.7 percent in 2006 on U.S. manufacturers versus those in foreign nations, according to a joint study between the National Association of Manufacturers and the Manufacturers Alliance.

Yet every major industrialized country is cutting its corporate taxes except the United States, Vargo said.

Said Vargo: "We are now the high-priced bread in the world."

[sirAQUAMAN64]

FUTURE PRODUCT -- KOREA, CHINA, INDIA

Chinese are scrambling to sell vehicles in U.S.
Alysha Webb
Automotive News
August 13, 2007 - 12:01 am EST   

SHANGHAI - For China's young and ambitious automakers, the United States is an irresistible new market.

But getting cars there is a daunting challenge. U.S. consumer demands for quality and refinement are higher than in China, and regulatory requirements are tough to meet.

Of course, China didn't become an export powerhouse by giving up. China-made cars will go on sale in the United States, perhaps as early as late 2008.

The first China-made car to be sold here could have a Chrysler group badge. Chrysler has an agreement with Chery Automobile Co. to produce cars for export to the United States in mid-2009.

Here is a roundup of the significant deals in the works to sell Chinese cars in the United States.

Chrysler-Chery

In July, Chrysler and Chery announced they would jointly produce a car for the United States. But first, the two will assemble a car for Latin America and eastern Europe. That vehicle, an existing Chery small car called the A1, will carry a Dodge badge.

Chrysler President Tom LaSorda says a different Chery-made car should reach U.S. showrooms in mid-2009.

LaSorda is mum on which model. But sources say a production version of the Dodge Hornet concept is likely to be the first car produced for export to the United States. Chery and Chrysler are doing a feasibility study on the Hornet, say Chery sources. If produced, the car will use a Chery platform and a Chrysler design.

The Hornet is a long-wheelbase, five-passenger hatchback. It has a tall, spacious interior and rear seats that fold flat, like those in Chrysler minivans. The Hornet is wide for a small car.

The North American press gave the Hornet good marks.

The model for the United States would be priced below the Dodge Caliber. Last year, Chery sold 303,671 vehicles in China.

Hebei Zhongxing Automobile Co.

Many questions hang over Zhongxing's plans to produce cars for the United States.

Zhongxing expects to begin exporting a pickup and SUV to Mexico by the end of this year, says General Manager Xiao Wei. He aims to enter the United States by the end of 2008.

Xiao also says construction of a plant in Tijuana, Mexico, should begin in six to eight months. Zhongxing's U.S. distributor - Chamco Auto, of Parsippany, N.J. - says it wants to complete the 150,000-unit-per-year plant in Tijuana by 2009.

But Chamco has not lined up financing for the $300 million plant. Nor has it acquired property or lined up suppliers. In 2006, Zhongxing - a small automaker even by China's standards - sold only 31,342 vehicles in China.

Chamco is working to sign up dealers in the United States and Mexico.

Geely Automobile Holdings Group

In January 2006, Geely Chairman Li Shufu made a splash when he showed one of his inexpensive small cars in the lobby of Cobo Center at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Then, Geely Automobile Holdings Group was talking about starting exports to the United States by the fall of 2008.

A few months later, the company stopped saying that, sobered by the realities of tougher consumer and regulatory requirements than it anticipated.

But Geely still dreams of entering the United States. It is developing two models for export here and is aiming for 2010, says Rick Zhang, spokesman for Geely International Corp.

Last year, Geely sold 204,431 vehicles in China.

Volkswagen AG

Volkswagen is teaming with Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co., its joint venture with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., to design and build a small sedan based on the Passat for China and North America.

Details of the plan are limited, and Volkswagen China spokesman Kai Grueber says the needs of the China market come first for the car.

But a Volkswagen-badged, China-made car may be sold in the United States in a few years. Shanghai Volks-

wagen is doing the exterior and interior design.

Oklahoma MG project

A group of Oklahoma investors says it has a deal with Nanjing Automobile Group to build the MG TF coupe from knockdown kits in Ardmore, Okla., in 2008.

Marc Nuttle, the lead investor in Oklahoma, is still negotiating the deal. Nuttle said this year that a prototype coupe is likely to be ready by year end.

About 20,000 coupes would be assembled in Ardmore annually, and another 20,000 MGs with other body styles would be imported, Nuttle said.

He has denied reports from the United Kingdom that the Oklahoma project is dead.

Nanjing last year sold 105,542 passenger and commercial vehicles in China.

[safristi]

so correct me if i have this wrong a Chinese company will set up a factory in MEXICO to import to the US...wot is wrong with this Picture..... it's like that 3 peas under a cup CON GAME.... can ya say "shell Game"..

[initial_D]

A Chinese designed car and assembled in Mexico?  Saf, guess you will be the first inline to buy it for $2,995.

[safristi]

Wrong pea was under the middle ONE....unless it's a Caterham Lucky 7..no Deal...Howie... Saf inna Box says do U want Rice with That...

[initial_D]

Should try a different model then, PeeCup ain't your kinda vehicle, you no REDNECk Albertan. 

[safristi]

I could open all those boxes......................and rupture bankrupt maself.......like i'd care....

[barrie1]

I wonder if any of the Chinese cars would pass half of our safety standard laws at all. So far I think the majority of them have failed every crash test going no matter how cheap they are to buy. 

[PJungnitsch]

I wonder if any of the Chinese cars would pass half of our safety standard laws at all. So far I think the majority of them have failed every crash test going no matter how cheap they are to buy. 

This Chery model going through the standard 65 km/hr crash test in April is the worst yet, I think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kQGAK550LE

"The test dummy became so entwined in the wreckage that it had to be removed from the car in pieces; he basically became part of the dashboard and steering wheel. The results were so bad that AvtoRevu called on Chery to immediately withdraw the car from the market. Chery declined to do so."

http://www.autosavant.net/2007/08/cherys-turn-to-fail-crash-test.html

[Allen]

China's Chery finds a Toronto partner for Iran
Solitac secures $370-million deal to build Chinese microcar for Iranian market
MARCUS GEE

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

E-mail Marcus Gee | Read Bio | Latest Columns
August 14, 2007 at 3:49 AM EDT

A tiny, all but unheard-of Canadian auto company has scored an international coup by brokering a deal with China's giant Chery Automobile to make cars in Iran.

Solitac Inc. of Toronto will join with Chery, China's biggest domestic car maker, and Iran Khodro, Iran's biggest car maker, to set up a $370-million (U.S.) plant in Babol in northern Iran.

It is a remarkable feat for a company with just five people in its Toronto office and a nearly invisible profile.

“How do you spell that?” asked the well-informed Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, when told that a company named Solitac had brokered the deal. He admitted he had never heard of it and went to look it up in the APMA directory.

Callers to the company's Toronto number get no receptionist or even company voice mail. Instead, calls go to the personal voice mail of its president, Hossein Bavafa, whose recording gives only his name.

He did not respond to calls yesterday. But the head of its Iranian office, Ali Zara, said Mr. Bavafa and his obscure company dreamt up the idea of bringing Chery to Iran and then spent more than a year sweating out the deal.

“We went to them,” Mr. Zara said of the initial approach to Chery last year. “We started this venture and we are the architects.” He said Solitac decided that there was a gap in the Iranian car market at the low end, which is dominated by a South Korean version of the Ford Fiesta.

It sells for about $8,000 (U.S.). Chery's four-door QQ6 microcar, by contrast, will sell for about $6,000. “We are sure there will be a huge market,” Mr. Zara said. “We can sell more than 200,000 a year, easy.”

He said that when Solitac approached Chery about making cars in Iran, the Chinese company readily agreed.

It took just three months to reach an agreement in principle, another year to hammer out the final deal.

“This is a complicated agreement,” Mr. Zara said. “There were tons of documents. We worked very hard.”

Under the terms of the deal, Chery would own 30 per cent of the Iranian plant, Khodro 49 per cent and Solitac 21 per cent.

Mr. Zara said Solitac is investing on behalf of a group of Iranian auto parts makers, not contributing capital itself. “Our investment is our knowledge,” he said. “We are still very small compared with [Chery].”

The company's website says it has been in business for 22 years, starting off as a mechanical engineering firm serving the Canadian auto parts market.

It was renamed Solitac in 1999, helping international companies “access the North American market by promoting their products across North America, and identifying and importing technological solutions.”

Apart from its Toronto headquarters, it has small offices in Beijing and in Tehran, the Iranian capital.

Chery's president, Yin Tongyao, said in a statement that the Iranian venture “can strengthen Chery's competitiveness in Iran or even the entire Middle East market so as to build up Chery into a ‘Chinese brand in the world market.'”

Chery's sales topped all its domestic rivals' beginning in March, the first time in 20 years that a Chinese company outdid foreign auto makers making cars in China with Chinese partners.

The firm has ambitious plans for international expansion. It already assembles vehicles with overseas partners in Indonesia, Uruguay, Egypt, Ukraine and Russia.

[je]

What a surprise that that Amulet crashes SO MUCH worse than any other car.

I mean they're built basically the same as every other car, this is based on a Mk1 Seat Toledo which is based on a Mk2 Jetta - why is it so much worse than those two cars. They're made of steel, some kind, which shouldn't vary that much for the quality used for auto frames (which isn't engineered to a high degree for cost reasons).

In mine and comrades' experience the big problem with outsourced Chinese manufacture was steel quality build to specification in wear tests - still I can't grasp why this would have crashed so much worse than the cars even from 1984.

[safristi]

..LOSS LEAD'err.............................

[Scaerio]

What a surprise that that Amulet crashes SO MUCH worse than any other car.

I mean they're built basically the same as every other car, this is based on a Mk1 Seat Toledo which is based on a Mk2 Jetta - why is it so much worse than those two cars. They're made of steel, some kind, which shouldn't vary that much for the quality used for auto frames (which isn't engineered to a high degree for cost reasons).

In mine and comrades' experience the big problem with outsourced Chinese manufacture was steel quality build to specification in wear tests - still I can't grasp why this would have crashed so much worse than the cars even from 1984.

Good catch on the SEAT Toledo.  I was about to provide the same info.

The UK's fifth gear TV show did a test where they set to a head on off-set collision between a 1997 or 98 Renault Espace minivan and a 2002 or 2003 one.  The newer vehicle destroyed the older one.  It was amazing the safety improvements made in 5 years.  Other tests in Europe found that cars 5 to 10 years old did much worse safety wise that the newest versiosn of the same models.  You can imagine the difference 22 or 23 years makes. 

[AVToller]

It's amazing that any of us older drivers are still alive after driving those death traps. 

[PJungnitsch]

If you go to this link Sunday to Friday (it's closed Sat) http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/database/nrd-11/veh_db.html

And select 'Query by vehicle parameters such as make, model, and year', you can look up the NHTSA crash test results of vehicles built after 1979.

The report on the 1987 Mazda B2000 that I drive was bad enough in the standard 55 km frontal crash test. Head injury number was 1434 which is well over their 1000 limit, and the chest injury number was 875.

For comparison my sisters 2003 Matrix has a head injury number of 392 and a chest injury number of 0.

BUT, the older model B2000 built before 1986 (same as the old Ford Courier) was also tested, and even at the lower speed they crash tested at in the 70's the head injury numbers for the driver were over 3000. Either it crumpled up like a paper bag or the steering wheel knocked the drivers head off.

[AVToller]

BUT, the older model B2000 built before 1986 (same as the old Ford Courier) was also tested, and even at the lower speed they crash tested at in the 70's the head injury numbers for the driver were over 3000. Either it crumpled up like a paper bag or the steering wheel knocked the drivers head off.

Having briefly owned a '70 something Mazda pickup, I can well believe it.