The Chinese Are Coming! The Chinese Are Coming!

Word has it that a Chinese company is negotiating to purchase the Hummer brand. Ostensibly to sell the existing inventory and continue building the H3 for a year or so. It would be within reason to expect that at some point the production of Hummers will move to China.

MotorAuthority had a piece regarding a new electric car startup called, Coda Automotive. This is a five passenger sedan that looks vaguely like a Volvo. Hmmm, a little digging shows that a Chinese aircraft manufacturer is involved in this venture, Chengdu Aircraft Company.

A couple of years ago a video of a Chinese car undergoing European crash testing made the rounds on the net. It wasn't pretty and showed that there was a lot of work left to do before folks would trust their families in them. But that will be done.

The Chinese manufacturers have a window of opportunity in the American market if they can get product that will pass US safety standards. There are a ton of dealerships that have had (or will have) their franchises stripped from them. They have the property and personnel to sell and service product. While some of that will disappear before the Chinese cars are approved for sale, there's still time to get in on the next upswing of car sales (which at a rate of 10 million or less a year at the moment has a long way to climb before they're back to normal).

Will the Chinese cars be well received right off the bat. No, not likely, this is a tough market (ask Chrysler ; -). But if they can compete on price initially they'll have the opportunity to compete on features and value later. Think of Kia just a few years ago, or the Japanese in the early '60s.

The Chinese are coming!!