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Posted on 03/28/2008 8:08:09 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
(OSHAWA, Ontario) -- ......The company has since eliminated brand distinctions between engines, saddling them with names unlikely to inspire songwriters, like Ecotec, Vortec and Northstar. But some owners of the Chevrolet Equinox, a “compact” sport utility vehicle built in North America, might be surprised to learn the origin of the engine under their hoods — it’s made in China.
Last year, China exported more than $12 billion in auto parts, up from less than $2 billion in 2002 — the majority to North America. The increase in exports has added to the problems plaguing North American suppliers. Most famously, Delphi, which is seeking to emerge from bankruptcy, has closed dozens of plants and moved some production overseas to become more competitive, including to China.
Soon China will be exporting whole vehicles to North America. Last year, Chrysler signed a deal with China’s largest car company, Chery Automobile, to supply a Dodge subcompact.
One of the most important steps on China’s long march to becoming an auto exporter was the little-noticed arrival of the humble engine inside the 2005 Chevy Equinox.
“This is the first Chinese-made engine going into this market,” said Eric A. Fedewa, vice president for powertrain forecasts at CSM Worldwide, an automotive analysis firm. “It was an experiment to see if G.M. could use its facility in China to take costs out of a vehicle.”
G.M. neither promoted nor hid the fact that the Equinox engine (and that of its twin, the Pontiac Torrent) is made in China. The car’s sticker notes 55 percent of its content is make in the United States and Canada, 20 percent in Japan, 15 percent in China and the rest from elsewhere. But no sticker tells consumers the engine is built at Shanghai General Motors......
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Fill it up......an hour later it needs to be filled up again.
Painted with lead paint, for sure.
God, the worst of both worlds: GM engineering and Chinese manufacturing!
General Tso’s Motors.
And that was a low speed test (I think 40kph).
We simply cannot afford to let China further damage our auto market.
And I’ll bet at least a few will think this is great because Chinese workers aren’t in a union.
Equi-NOT.
Hey, don’t knock the lead paint, the lead in the paint provides most of the structural strength.
No thanks.
Or the obvious....Chevy Chow Mein.
Sad part is that those “Chinese” motors are holding up better than the UAW-built ones. Why is that?
Really? That’s strange, there are a lot of old GMs still on the road. How long have the engines been built by Chinese slave labor?
Communism isn't a union?
Chopstix for bumpers in that head on crash test. Front hood collapsed like an accordian. No Chi-crap vehicles for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F06LjugtIUo&feature=related
New Chinese Car Crash Test Disaster - 2007 Brilliance BS6
I have a good idea of what the “BS” stands for. :-)
About 8 years or so now.
And I’m not talking about comparing different engine types, either. I’m comparing the same engine (the Atlas family) that is built in both China and the US - the Chinese ones are holding up longer.
There are many who maintain that GM’s decline began when the stuck a Chevy engine in the Oldsmobile. People who LOVED the big OLDS Rocket V-8 ( were mortified when they opened the hood. And GM said nothing about it. That effectively killed Olds..I mean, why pay thousands more for a gussied up Chevy..??
All you have to do is train to be a contortionist.
The new model to be introduced next year is called the “Noodle”. It is in partnership with rickShaw Motors.
General Motors will be renamed General’s Chicken Motors. /:
WAIT TILL THEY START BUILDING THE MOTORS IN OUR MILITARY’S HUMMERS??
How do you say RECALL in Chinese?
Says who?
I had a Rocket 455 that would pass everything on the highway except a gas station.
I recently rode in a Chery SUV which seemed like a crude Toyota RAV4 knock-off. It had the worst fit and quality of any vehicle I can ever remember riding in. Interior panels and consoles were loose or literally falling off. When the heater was set to “defrost” and “hot”, only cold air blew out of the dash toward the passengers with none going toward the windshield. And this was a nearly new car! Needless to say, I doubt I would ever buy or even ride in any vehicle with any major component made by that company again. Partnering with Chery may well end up being GM’s last mistake.
Um... GM didn’t build the HMMWVs. They did make the engines for them.
However, the HMMWV’s next engine choice is likely to be a Cummins or International.
Says GM themselves.
I never really paid attention to crash tests, and I was horrified at the performance of the Chinese cars. Interestingly, in the “Related Videos” column, they had videos of Lexus and Toyota Corolla crash tests.
Yeah, that put EVERYTHING in perspective.
But to be fair, the Chinese aren’t manufacturing the body of the car, right? They’re just supplying the engine.
Of course, I may soon see videos of Chinese car engine fires...
As opposed to videos of UAW-built Ford engine fires? :P
I'll admit, I do take chances on a motorcycle occasionally, but I'd never risk my life or a family members in something that dangerous.
This is the part I love. I can't imagine why they wouldn't promote it. I mean, made in China is synonymous with quality isn't it?
64 KM/H.
64*0.621372=39.767808
“But to be fair, the Chinese aren’t manufacturing the body of the car, right? They’re just supplying the engine.”
Right, which make all the China-bashing comments related to the crash test kind of pointless doesnt it?
Chrysler penned a deal with Chery...to build a subcompact for Dodge. I can just see it, a smaller, cheaper Neon with the fit and quality of a model car made by a drowsy three-year old.
But no sticker tells consumers the engine is built at Shanghai General Motors, a joint venture of G.M. and the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, a Chinese company.”
In pure Communism/Socialism/Marxism/liberalism no private property is allowed.
As you can see GM is a private American company and they are partnering with a Chineese private company.
Capitalism = private property, freedom, liberty, human rights.
Socialism = government ownership only, no human rights, oppression ,starvation and oppression by an all powerful government that owns everything.
Capitalism works while socialism doesn’t.
No one spends other peoples money as carefully as they spend their own money. so if you want efficiency,prosperity, and something that works then you will want capitalism/private property.
I’m a capitalist and I’ll support it over the growth of government (3 trillion annual federal budget and rising) and government laws and regulations.
What is amazing is that this engine has been made in China since the Equinox was first put on sale in late 2004. The first batch of cars were notorious for smelling like rotten eggs, due to the engines.
Any check on Edmunds.com would reveal all this.
We don’t need no stinking Chevy with a Chinky engine.
I guess when the doors pop open it makes it easier to remove the corpses.
Doug, I admire you and agree with you on most things but the things destroying our automobile industry are the labor unions and unnecessary government regulations. Without them, there would be no reason to go outside for production.
It's still GM- American owned, sort of- they are just located in China paying cheap Chinese labor. Of course it would be better if they were paying for American labor, but the unions have made that increasingly unaffordable.
With GN being a multi nation giant, maybe we should just get rid of them completely, and start a new 100% American owed and operated car company that uses 100% American labor....
Nobody would be able to afford to buy one of those cars though, and it would be pretty tough selling those cars to foreign markets.
I guess we could simply lock down the borders and not import anything, make all our own products and sell them to our own people. But there's only so much industry and business 300 million people can keep in business, and that would make us like the former Soviet Union.
Let me know when you figure out the perfect solution that makes all other countries buy our goods without us having to buy theirs, and forcing companies to do all their business within American borders while still making a product that is competitive in the world market place.
How long will it be before we don’t make anything in America?
I think it has less to do with the unions and more to do with shareholder dividends. Granted, the auto industry has been in decline for years and not adapted well to global competition.
But the shoe factorys, steel, clothing etc is about all off shore now. Exactly what are we manufacturing in America now? And don’t forget. Red China is still a communist country. Still oppressing people. Confiscating peoples wages. Still no private property ownership.
We are fools to depend on China for anything but a knife in the back first chance they get. If we don’t vote with China at the UN Security council at some time, will they cut off our parts supply?
We know what depending on foreign oil has done to our economy. Remember the OPEC oil embargo?
If we sell off all of our manufacturing capacity to china we lose the ability to support a national defense mechanism. I don’t care if china makes things cheaper. They aren’t going to pay for our national defense. We are foolish for selling out. Many jobs need to remain in America NO MATTER THE COST.
Well played.
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