Today's NYT has some very bad news for our automakers.

[KlatooBNikto]

The article on the Business Day section (4/22/2005) says that several Chinese manufacturers will be exporting their first wave of autos as early as 2007.Bob Lutz, GM's Vice Chair is saying that China is determiend to capture a significant share of this market.Chrysler is investing in an assembly operation in cooperation with a Chinese automobile company to export autos to the US.

All of this couldn't come at a worse time for GM and Ford. If China enters the market at the low end of the price range,Toyota,Honda,BMW occupy the high end.US automakers are going to feel squeezed.

And this is only the beginning.As China moves up the food chain and India also enters the market within the next five years, we might as well say good bye to Detroit.

[okieinpain]

1. my company has a chinese test model. sucker looks just like

toyota knock off.

[punpirate]

4. Wonder how many components on it...

... are labeled "Nippondenso?"

[Warpy]

5. Well, there are only so many ways

to put a passenger compartment, an engine, and drive train on top of four wheels. The Chinese are just sticking with what they know will sell.

[jedr]

10. This is a late post but, would like to hear more about this car.

If you get back to this ...please give more details...thanks

[xchrom]

2. countries have a right to produce the goods they want.

but other countries have a right to protect their workers and core internal economies.

[jean]

3. doesn't our oily admin care? The people need affordable cars in order

to keep buying their gas!

[Snotcicles]

6. They won't need dealerships either they can sell them at Walmart n/t

[Jane Austin]

7. I said goodbye to Detroit last fall.

After forty years of owning and driving American cars out of loyalty to American workers, I traded in my Dodge Caravan for a Volkswagon Deisel Passat wagon.

The price was moderate, it has every bell and whistle, it holds two crates for my dogs, it handles better than any car I've ever driven, it's wonderfully peppy, AND it gets 35-40 miles per gallon, city and highway.

I doubled my gas mileage overnight. And American auto makers just keep fighting the CAFE standards.

Pathetic.

[Taxloss]

8. A Chinese company is picking over the bones of

the UK's last car maker, Rover. And a Romanian company. How humiliating is that?

[K-W]

9. Our economy is so amazingly stupid.

It cant get out of its own way.

[AlCzervik]

11. us car makers and GM in particular lack imagination

and they don't listen to the consumer. GM has boiled down to SUVs and the once reliable elderly crowd no longer buys their sedans anymore, they now buy Camry's and Avalons.

[yorgatron]

12. Lutz is a putz.

how much are they paying that idiot to ruin GM?
GM complains about paying pension plans and medical benefits,but they always seem tom have plenty of money for the CEO and other executives that are running the place into the ground :mad::grr:

[AlCzervik]

13. their brand names are shit now-Oldsmobile gone, Buick and pontiac

will be gone, they'll sell of Saab which they never should have bought to begin with, Saab is a good car but it's a niche market and they did nothing for that brand, like 0 dollars in marketing which is a real shame,so pretty soon all they'll have left is a few caddy sedans, SUVs and fucking Hummers. As for their shameful blaming the workers which imo they are doing i think it's a disgrace.

[Bozita]

14. but, but ... GM has a bunch of new SUV models debuting next year

Lotsa big ones.

Execs are preparing for their bonuses.

[high density]

15. Why doesn't GM give us some decent cars that we want to buy?

Their current lineup is pretty damn sad.