The Red Brick Times

The Cleveland Auto Show has been in town this week (at the IX Center at Cleveland Hopkins Airport). The fitness instructor at the Community College was talking with one of his students about the jaw-dropping prices of "Big-Three" cars. "I bought my last new Buick in 1997," he said, "and the prices have just about doubled." He was also discussing who had the highest horsepower ("That one has over 432 horsepower," he quoted reverently). The US consumer is not yet ready for fuel-sipping and efficient tinymobiles. But here come the Chinese cars. Their labor rates are miniscule, but they still need to import the majority of assembly components like engines and transmissions, which, when coupled with traditional high import duties, make cars expensive to build in China. That will change as they reduce rates and build their own component manufacturing plants on-shore. Ford could vanish as a domestic producer, to be re-introduced as an import. What's in a name, after all?
Posted 8:57 AM by Andy (1) comments

       Comments:

Or wait for the Smart car from Daimler-Chrysler. Lots of them in Europe.

# posted by  Andy : February 28, 2007 9:40 AM
 
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