The Chinese auto industry will bury us...

[Drake Tungsten]

Although not in the way you were probably thinking.

Chinese 4x4 gets zero in safety test

The first Chinese car to be sold in Europe has scored zero — the worst-ever score — in safety tests.

The JiangLing Landwind was displayed at the Frankfurt Motor Show last week and is expected to arrive in British showrooms within months. It is already on sale in Holland, Germany and Belgium and has been billed as the vanguard of a new invasion of Chinese vehicles.

The two-ton 4x4 scored zero stars in crash tests last week by the ADAC, the German automobile club, which carries out tests for Euro NCAP. “It had a catastrophic result,” said a spokesman for the ADAC. “In our 20-year history no car has performed as badly.”

Testers calculated that a driver would be unlikely to survive a head-on collision at 40mph, and in a side-on collision at 30mph the driver would suffer severe head and chest injuries due to a lack of side protection.

“This car seems to belong in the 1990s in terms of engineering,” said Chris Patience, head of technical policy at the AA Motoring Trust. “We will wait for the official Euro NCAP results, but if it really is that bad we hope people will think very carefully before buying this car.”

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22749-1783784,00.html

One can only hope that their manufacturing of military vehicles is as incompetent.

[Ted Striker]

I don't think China will ever be a competitor in the world auto market. Maybe they will have a domestic market, but their best bet is to be a Kia or Hyndai.

The Japanese and Germans own the auto market, and will always own the auto market.

Economies of scale and cheap labor don't work out as well when dealing with things like cars.

[Asher]

GM's sales are down 24% in September; Ford's 16%.

[Ted Striker]

WOW

They are basically on life support

As much as I'd like to see at least GM disappear, I'm scared of what it would do to the economy

[Harovan]

Most things I hear about the Landwind hereabouts are jokes. So yes, it's still crap. It may find some buyers mainly in rural areas though, since on tours on dirt tracks over the fields security concerns are secondary, while the price is nice.

[Mao]

It seems to me that Kia and Hyundais actually aren't bad at all. I mean, their warantees outlast many others on the market (I believe it may even be the best), but they're just a joke because of their weakness and...well...Korean-ness

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
I don't think China will ever be a competitor in the world auto market. Maybe they will have a domestic market, but their best bet is to be a Kia or Hyndai.

The Koreans are probably where the Japanese was in 1970's. The Chinese, 1960's.

They will catch up.

[DaShi]

I wonder who picked the gorilla option.

[Combat Ingrid]

http://paultan.org/archives/2005/10/08/jiangling-landwind-x6-crash-test-by-tuv/

Great quality!

[Combat Ingrid]

For comparison: Volvo crash (at 64 km/h; landwind video was 54 km/h)

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Mao
It seems to me that Kia and Hyundais actually aren't bad at all. I mean, their warantees outlast many others on the market (I believe it may even be the best), but they're just a joke because of their weakness and...well...Korean-ness

The quality of Korean cars has been increasing quite quickly of late, they've won some awards for not breaking down often and being easy to maintain recently. Same goes for a lot of Korean industries, Samsung electronics used to be jokes that mostly just got sold to the local market and the third world but now they compare very nicely to what Japanese brands produce. I guess that's from realizing that they can't compete with the Chinese price-wise so they had to up the quality.

[Mao]

Originally posted by Bosh

The quality of Korean cars has been increasing quite quickly of late, they've won some awards for not breaking down often and being easy to maintain recently. Same goes for a lot of Korean industries, Samsung electronics used to be jokes that mostly just got sold to the local market and the third world but now they compare very nicely to what Japanese brands produce. I guess that's from realizing that they can't compete with the Chinese price-wise so they had to up the quality.

Makes sense I guess.

Now, this Chinese car...if it's actually this dangerous, why's it allowed to be sold? It actually passes regulatory safety tests? I wonder if China should just aim its international autos towards the Third World, so every African tribal chief can have a car or somesuch. It may eventually go the way of Korea, but not yet...

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Mao


Makes sense I guess.

Now, this Chinese car...if it's actually this dangerous, why's it allowed to be sold? It actually passes regulatory safety tests? I wonder if China should just aim its international autos towards the Third World, so every African tribal chief can have a car or somesuch. It may eventually go the way of Korea, but not yet...

Harder to market to the third world with cars than with electronics. I'm sure they'd rather have a ten-year-old Japanese used car than a new Chinese one in most cases, and its hard to compete with used...

[Mao]

Originally posted by Bosh


Harder to market to the third world with cars than with electronics. I'm sure they'd rather have a ten-year-old Japanese used car than a new Chinese one in most cases, and its hard to compete with used...

True enough, but what about price-wise? China may still be able to undercut a used car in price.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Mao


True enough, but what about price-wise? China may still be able to undercut a used car in price.

I doubt it, especially not the stolen ones (which is what happens to most cars that're stolen in the first world).