Edited by t o n y q u i r o g a / r a y h u t t o n (England) / j u e r g e n z o e l lt e r (Germany) pag e 2 6 > One Man’s Junk A few of the oddballs and desirable cars that died as a result of “Cash for Clunkers.”
pag e 2 7 > Bambola di Carta Here’s your chance to help Fiat and Chrysler’s main man get dressed for success.
pag e 2 8 > eBay 101
A few pointers on how to sell a car without looking like a complete moron.
China Gets Rolling
> A look At tHe big plAyers in wHAt will be tHe world’s lArgest CAr mArket.
by j e n s m e i n e r s
he U.S.’s leadership of the world car market has finally come to an end. China is now where the action is, like it or not. Just one generation ago, when hard-line Maoist communism was the reality, individual mobility in China meant grabbing a bike and pedaling. Now the roads are crammed with cars, even though less than three percent of the 1.3 billion Chinese own their own vehicles. The Chinese market is growing at an astonishing pace. From producing 30,000 passenger cars 20 years ago, production has risen to an estimated 8.3 million passenger cars in 2009; i l l u s t r a t i o n by s e a n M c c a b e
total sales (including trucks, cars, and commercial vehicles) were expected to reach 12.6 million, which would make China the world’s largest automotive market. And this ferocious growth is not over: Shanghai-based analyst Jochen Siebert expects passenger-car production to grow to 9.5 million by 2012, with sales reaching 14 million units. From 2001 to 2005, China built 15,350 miles of expressway, which now totals 25,480 miles. The U.S. has more than 46,000 miles of interstate, but by 2020, China may top that. Foreign carmakers looking for a piece of the Chinese pie must tread very carefully. The government requires those companies to team up with a Chinese partner. The first Western carmaker to gain a substantial foothold was Volkswagen in the 1980s, partnering with Shanghai
Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC). The VW Santana, which we knew as the Quantum 25 years ago, is still sold in the People’s Republic. GM’s Buick brand, a popular car with the Chinese elite before Mao’s emergence, sells more cars in China than in its homeland. These alliances carry enormous cultural and corporate baggage. Despite having a partnership with VW, SAIC-VW and FAW-VW don’t seem to trust each other enough to put together a common purchasing policy; VW has a common purchasing policy for all of its other brands throughout the world. Another issue is that intellectual property rights in China are not always respected, resulting in copycat products. Here’s a look at the current players in China, and what they bring to the game.
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