Posted by David Sherman on Saturday, August 04, 2007 at 12:20:04 :
In Reply to: Re: It's Official, welcome home Chrysler! posted by MoparNorm on Saturday, August 04, 2007 at 10:08:26 :
The only question with China is whether they'll be selling Chinese-branded cars in this country or if Ford or GM will OEM them under their own name. At the low end of the line, there's no way to avoid going to China for production, just like for everything else.
From what I read, the Chinese government knows all their newly-rich (that is, rich enough to afford something better than a bicycle) people are going to buy cars, and they know they don't have near enough oil to fuel them all, so they're pushing hard to build high-efficiency economy cars domestically. At the same time, they're in places like Sudan and Iran locking up all the oil production they can get. I expect that whatever economy car China builds for domestic purposes will be the basis for whatever they export to this country, and with the production volumes so high as they'll have to be to supply cars for a country of over a billion people who never had a car but want one now, their cars will be very cheap. My guess is we'll first see them OEMed by Ford or GM, since it would be hard for the Chinese to build a sales network from scratch. But yes, if Chrysler fails, China may buy the remains just to get a sales network, a US legal structure, and maybe factories in which to snap together 2 or 3 subassemblies so they can say it's "made in America".
Follow Ups: