Your Next Car: Made In China, Sold At Walmart

Super-cheap Chinese-made cars could dramatically change the American automobile landscape.

1 minute read

September 30, 2003, 8:00 AM PDT

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech


"If Chinese manufacturers do to cars what they have done to toys, clothes and electronics, a Chinese economy car might just qualify as an impulse item...it took the Koreans 10 years to get their cars up to a quality acceptable to American buyers...the Chinese may get there in significantly less time...By 2010, the country should surpass Germany as the No. 3 auto producer, and some speculate that it will catch the United States by 2020. Last year the price of a car in China fell by 20 percent, and this year it will drop between 10 and 20 percent again...These cars could also have technology that established car companies won't...China has already built its own fuel-cell vehicle...To bring in an entirely new car and keep the price down, a new entrant (to the US market) would have to find an alternative to a dealer network, which both adds costs and takes time to develop. The superlow price of a Chinese car is what might open up new sales venues. Costco and other big-box retailers are a possibility."

Thanks to bud laumer, AICP

Monday, September 29, 2003 in The New York Times

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