The Chinese Are Coming: Live at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show

DETROIT -- The show here is abuzz with the imminence of mainland China producing cars to be sold in the United States market. Here's what we can say with certainty: They're coming alright ... eventually.

When they get here, like Korean and Japanese cars before them, new Chinese rides will represent seriously low-end, inexpensive products (and we've been hearing a lot about those lately). They'll need to build a distribution and parts network, a body of dealers, recognition from the American car-buying public, plus a market share--however small.

When the Chinese auto companies do get product here, most of their dealers, like their predecessors (and I include the Japanese, Koreans, Yugo and a couple others in that category) will be low-rent operations and probably a third or forth nameplate run by the same dealer principal.

What we don't know yet is exactly what the cars will end up like. Most of the manufacturers exhibiting here at the show aren't ready for primetime, at least in terms of fit and finish (click through the slide show below for my analysis of reveals from China's "Big Three"). In actual fact, if I had had a car repaired at a body shop after an accident and it came back as poorly finished as these beauties, I'd refuse to accept it until it was redone. And these are the show cars, folks. A few Chinese rides looked good enough, at least for vehicles that probably will sell for 20 percent less than the competition.

Another giant speed bump for Chinese manufacturers is the huge cultural and business gaps between the Far East and the States. Nothing made that more obvious than the painfully awkward press conferences and virtually unreadable press materials provided here. The first Chinese car company that hires an American press agency to manage their press relations here will have a huge advantage.

Remember Yugos? No? Good. They were a Yugoslavian-made early-80s re-pop of an early 70s Fiat 128 sedan, made with refurbished Fiat tooling. And they were cheap. After an early buying binge, American buyers stayed away because they were so awful. Well, there turned out to be a few diehards who had something to prove about how frugal they were--sort of an automotive wearing of a hair shirt in penance for a lifetime of Oldsmobiles and Buicks. The novelty soon wore off, and Yugo disappeared.

The Chinese aren't going away. Will you be able to buy a Chinese-made car in 2008? Probably not. 2009? Probably not. If the old Chevy is getting long in the tooth, you may as well shop for a new car now rather than waiting for a new Changfeng (rhymes with Wang Chung for you Warren Zevon fans).

I predict that they'll follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. It took the Japanese about 15 years from their first entries to secure a decent chunk of the U.S. car market, and a little longer for trucks. It took the Koreans a little less. The Chinese should take even less than that. They have huge advantages in labor costs, and virtually no expenses for things like health care for workers. Pollution controls for their factories are still primitive or nonexistent. High-tech items they can't produce on their own yet, like fuel injection and ABS systems, they can buy from vendors like Bosch and Siemens--which a lot of car companies already do.

Should the American car companies--including Toyota and Honda, which make most of the product they sell in North America here in the States--be worried? Yes, they should.

Not every Chinese manufacturer is that far behind the curve technologically. BYD showed a 2-mode with proprietary battery technology. Geely announced a system to prevent loss of car control after blowouts that automatically slows a car after a sudden drop in tire pressure. (Although I dare say that explosive blowouts are not a major concern on American roads, it's still interesting to see them thinking ahead instead of just devoting themselves to playing catch up).

The manufacturers' resources vary all over the map--one company's house of cards that gives dealers and suppliers a piece of the company in return for being willing to do business for no money for awhile. They're severely undercapitalized--another is already making hundreds of thousands of cars for the Chinese Domestic market, and only needs to develop a saleable product to be in the hunt.

But bet on it: In a year or three, we'll be previewing new vehicles from China.


Geely showed a couple of midsized sedans, and at least the fit and finish was acceptable. But in spite of the fact that Nissan sells plenty of trucks in the U.S. that meet American emissions and crash standards, they're not willing to predict how soon they'll have a vehicle--any vehicl--available in the States.

Their mantra for this show was a unique system of managing blowouts at speed, which apparently is something that happens fairly often in China. All vehicles on the U.S. market have tire pressure sensors. Geely's system uses data from the sensors to trigger the ABS, to slow the vehicle automatically when there's a catastrophic loss of tire pressure. Supposedly, this will prevent the driver from losing control of the vehicle.

That's all well and good, but I see a couple of problems (aside from the fact that catastrophic, instantaneous tire failures are fairly rare here). I've had several tire failures at high speed in my racing career, and there was never any real danger of losing control of the vehicle. In fact, braking to a near-stop would have been a poor option at the time if I was in heavy traffic. As far as I'm concerned, it's the answer to a question that nobody answered.


This is a blatant knockoff of a Japanese pickup, and it's actually pretty well done, fit-and-finish wise. They've got 60-some dealers already signed up, with plans to have 150 dealers. The vehicles have yet to be homologated for emissions, a complex and expensive process. Mustang Guru Steve Saleen has signed on to shepherd the Chamco herd through that homologation. Well, Saleen managed to certify his S7 supercar, but then he already had a Mustang as the basis for it to start. It might be a little tougher with a vehicle manufactured several thousand miles away. They're talking about having vehicles on the ground here in a year, but I don't believe they'll be able to do it except in a token fashion. That would make them the first, however, which will guarantee them a place in history.


Changfeng was here last year, and the quality of the show cars has improved a little, but they still have a long way to go. Most of their press conference seemed to be more ceremonial than informative, with brief addresses by such luminaries as the Wayne County, Mich., chief congratulating the Changfeng chief on his imminent business venture. Which leads me to question why a county in Michigan whose business culture is dominated by the Big Three domestic car manufacturers would find himself on stage with an upstart foreign competitor--but the whole thing was pretty strange. The vehicles they unveiled are probably not what they're going to be selling in the US, and they have no firm timetable that they're willing to commit to as to when they will be selling here.

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