I’m sure they can handily win the lower end of the market though. And yes I’m aware many western manufacturers are shit tier quality.
Having a totally local, integrated supply chain pays dividends in a lot of ways, as does leading in production volume. Tim Cook also gave that interview where he was just talking about the incredibly deep bench of industrial talent that you just can’t find outside China at this point - that labor cost wasn’t why they produced there.
- Japanese consumer goods were perceived as junk until the tipping point was reached, and then they were perceived as high-quality, easily equalling or surpassing Western goods. That took ~30 years (1950 to 1980, say). Older readers will recall the controversy over Akio Morita's (Morita-san being the founder of Sony) statements in the book "The Japan that can Say No" (edit: see [0]), which seems strangely prescient in the sense that it ignited a lot of (US) debate around dependence on foreign semiconductors.
- Then there was Taiwan, again, a 30 year cycle from about 1970 to 2000. Taiwan used to be known for cheap textiles, consumer dross, and suchlike. Not now...
My point is that the way to get better at products is to make them and make them and make them, and eventually an export-led country reaches a tipping point where the consumers flip over, and their perception changes.
Regardless of where they are perception wise, the long term lesson is clear - local manufacturers may ride the "quality" bandwagon for a while, but ultimately it's a losing strategy.
ICE cars, and manufacturers who don't gave an EV strategy are already inside their Kodak moment. It's fairly obvious that at some point "all" cars will be EV, just like "all" cameras are digital. Those who remain ICE only will fade into obscurity.
Unfortunately the politicians in the US right now are driving a narrative away from EVs (and Tesla has become semi-toxic). Which in turn affects local manufacturers planning near term sales. By the time the mood swings it may be hard to catch up.
Or maybe not. Maybe they come late to the party simply skipping a bunch of iterations, going straight to great, cheap, reliable. Time will tell I guess.
My last few cars have been Hyundai's. Unfortunately my driving habits don't allow full EV driving, but I did go with one of their (non-plugin) hybrids.
And almost all of my family has moved to Hyundai over time. The pure US car companies have been dumping out total crap for the longest time, it's an easy sale for almost anything else.
I've got one from 2011 that I'm still driving myself, and aside from one minor thing, I've not had a single problem with it, despite putting it through its paces.
Even though China can compete at the top of many markets, they still also compete at the bottom, which taints their reputation.
China is clearly supporting Russia in Ukraine. China is clearly making plans to invade Tiawas (that alone makes them just as bad as the US, even if it hasn't happened yet).
Your empire is decaying and it's going to keep lashing out up until it's completely gone.
China conducted one several-week war against Vietnam and annexed Tibet, both over 50 years ago. Other than the longstanding dispute with Taiwan, who are they threatening? Some quibbles over a few Himalayan mountains with India?
Two wars.
According to Chinese claims, the number of soldiers killed was 32 on the Chinese side and 65 on the Indian side in Nathu La incident; and 36 Indian soldiers and an 'unknown' number of Chinese were killed in the Cho La incident.[8] "
War might be overstating it a bit, "incident" might be more appropriate, but we can round up in the spirit of comity.
So adding it all up, the Chinese had 1-2 small foreign wars per decade in the 50s-70s, zero since 1979. It still doesn't justify the phrasing "threatening all their neighbors" in 2025, aside from Taiwan specifically.
In the case of the line of control with India, it's reached the point where they're having ritualized fistfights at high altitude for pride, that's just comical. It's not threatening.
Simply put China is an unrecognized superpower at this point with the investments they've already made. The amount of infrastructure they've built in a decade dwarfs what the West has done in decades.
European companies are trying even harder to outsource to China.
In the past months I’ve seen an increase and it feels like almost everything is made in China, from books to Christmas trinkets to clothes and kitchen utensils, it’s a pain the ass to find locally produced goods.
This has a lot to do with the energy crisis triggered by decoupling from Russia, which was never properly put into context and evaluated from an economical perspective.
When Americans discover again how crappy their cars are compared to what's available elsewhere, like we did with Japan, there will be a reckoning once more. And again American cars will become the laughing stock they really are.
In the meantime, this incredibly short sighted protectionism will end just like the last round did. Further hollowing out our industrial base and permanently giving away large parts of a massive market.
And I'm sure all of the people involved in this insanity will want a bailout too.
No, that's not what happened. Japanese manufacturers made cars in the US, to match US tastes. Japanese cars as sold in Japan, were not models Americans would buy.
>In the meantime, this incredibly short sighted protectionism will end just like >the last round did.
It'll end with...Chinese cars made in US factories w/ American workers? Chinese V8 pickup trucks failing to win market share against the US competition?
The Japanese made cars for the US that were different than local cars, but they were also different from what the US was making.
Honda started selling cars in the US in 1970, with their quirky, tiny, Japan-made N600.
The Civic didn't happen until 1973, and it was also a Japanese-built car. Bigger than the N600 but still very small by American standards, it was the right car at the right time for the oil crisis the US was beginning to face. They sold a lot of Civics to Americans, despite the strong anti-Japanese sentiment around that time.
It wasn't until 1982 that Honda started building cars in the States, with the introduction of the Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio that began building Accords.
But even then: They still didn't build all of the USDM Accords in Marysville; many were still built in Japan and imported. It took additional years for the transition to fully occur.
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That's 12 years from the time that they started selling cars in the US, to the time when they began to build their US-market cars in the US.
(If 12 years sounds like a short period of time, remember: We've only had the Tesla Model 3 for about 9 years now.)
If you read Calvin and Hobbes you can learn that Taiwan used to be known for making... shirts.
For my primary tools I'll have hundreds of hours of use I still buy the more expensive brands, but on tools I'll use much less commonly I'll pick up a Chinese unit in a heartbeat for 1/10th the price.
Maybe Jeep? Very popular, dogwater quality. They take nearly half of the Consumer Reports “top 10 worst cars on the road” almost every year.
It’s a theory for sure, but I don’t think that’s a common strategy for modern capitalism.
That notwithstanding, Xiaomi cars are nicer than Teslas. They're called "the Apple of China" for a reason.
In some cases:
Target - in 2022 we enhanced our starting pay again, offering a range of $15 to $24 per hour
UAW wages at the big three automakers start at $18 and top out in the $30's. Meanwhile, UAW jobs at suppliers can start as low as $14/hr. You're probably not going to get 20-30 hours of overtime a week at Target, though.
Only 150,000 of the 380,000 UAW members are employed by the big three.
You also have union skilled trades jobs (electricians, millwrights, etc) that make more than production workers but Target pays their electricians etc more than the retail workers as well.
Sometimes it’s the carrot and sometimes it’s the stick but the policies remain the same.