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My personal take is that the Chinese car makers have somewhat missed their opportunity to introduce their own brands to the US market. Due to the pandemic and C
by qzw 4y ago
My personal take is that the Chinese car makers have somewhat missed their opportunity to introduce their own brands to the US market. Due to the pandemic and China's own policies, the tide is now against them. But Chinese companies do own a number of western brands (Volvo, MG, etc.) and those can continue to be viable or even grow and expand.
> The US, both by regulatory standards and consumer expectations, puts a lot of demands on the content of cars.
When Buick began selling a lot of cars in China, they had to improve the quality of their interiors in order to live up to the standards of the Chinese car buyers! It actually led to them also improving the interior quality of the cars they sold in the US. But it was too little, too late for them here, so the Buick brand now only exists in the Chinese market. They recently announced a 100K+ USD luxury minivan in China that would be ridiculous overkill in the US:
https://jalopnik.com/buick-century-returns-as-an-ultra-luxury-minivan-for-c-1849780333 https://jalopnik.com/buick-century-returns-as-an-ultra-luxur...
The mid/high end Chinese market is just as demanding as the rest of the world, and maybe more so in some respects. So many Chinese carmakers already know how to make cars that are up to US/EU standards.
- odysseus 4y agoIn this luxury minivan, “Inside, if you opt for four, there’s a full wall partition separating you from the driver“ I’ve been wanting this for years with noisy kids on long road trips.
- vr46 4y agoYou could just buy a old police van cheaper, plus, you know, cop motor, cop suspension...
- digitalcancer 4y ago> https://jalopnik.com/buick-century-returns-as-an-ultra-luxury-minivan-for-c-1849780333 https://jalopnik.com/buick-century-returns-as-an-ultra-luxur... Jeez, that site is the equivalent of digital cancer. When you scroll down a video highjacks half of the screen on mobile and you CANNOT even close it! Of course it also autoplays. Disgusting.
- qzw 4y agoOh yeah, it's pretty terrible without ad blocking. Seems like car related sites are all similarly bad when it comes to ads.
- digitalcancer 4y agoThis was with ad blocking on...
- abawany 4y agoTry theautopian.com - most of the good (imo) contributors from the above moved here and the site so far is relatively cancer free.
- atdrummond 4y agoBuick still exists in the US.
- qzw 4y agoWow, you're right! I had thought they got shut down in the US for some reason. But I see they're down to just three models.
- rasz 4y agoGM bailout had stipulations to shut down overlapping brands, Pontiac and Saturn got the axe.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoBuick only survived in the US because of the Chinese market. Otherwise Saturn should have been the survivor.