Warren Buffett's Chinese Cars Will Start Killing The US Auto Industry As Soon As This Year

The Business Insider ^ | 1-13-2010 | Industry As Soon As This Year

[artaxerces]

“No US industry can compete against workers in 3rd world countries willing to work for $1 a month.”

If an unskilled, under-educated American worker cannot do better than a 3rd worlders, then he should be content with that 1 dollar, or do something else....such is life. Or do we subject paying incompetent people more just because they are Americans?

[BenKenobi]

Remember that China is younger than the US right now, but in 20 years, this will reverse.

If it takes them 20 years to get it right, their labour costs will have skyrocketed anyways.

China is doomed, between the vise of population control and poverty.

[Hot Tabasco]

It begins and ends there. Safety, reliability, longevity, quality, even usability are not factors.

They once said that about Japanese cars........

And FWIW, look at the impact of the Korean vehicles Kia and Hyundai.............

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

...look at the impact of the Korean vehicles Kia and Hyundai.............

Every day I laugh at the saps who bought one...

[jiggyboy]

“poor quality” — already asked and answered.

[driftdiver]

Look at the sales of other foreign car producers. They cannot sell squat in the US until their product is equal to or better than American cars in quality. Price isn’t everything as Kia, Daewoo, Nissan, Toyota, Renault, Yugo all found out.

[driftdiver]

“No US industry can compete against workers in 3rd world countries willing to work for $1 a month. “

Nor can 3rd world countries compete on any other area thats critical to production.

Labor rates in India have gone up a great deal.

[Abundy]

mark for later

[bert]

You are correct however you presume the quality will be inferior. We don’t know that yet, especially for the highly engineered cars.

[driftdiver]

“You are correct however you presume the quality will be inferior.”

Sure, the quality could be better than Toyota or Mercedes. Really it could!!

[Happyinmygarden]

Only time will tell. However, the incredibly fast rise of Christianity in China (in secret, largely) is perhaps a signal that things are changing at a fundamental level.