Here’s hoping that we’ll see Volvo’s safety and quality reputation proliferate throughout China’s young automotive industry, if the deal goes through.

so ford will abandon the premium segment in europe? or will be as stupid as gm and try to bring some us brand (like lincoln) over there?

First rule of life: survival. That will be agenda for 2009, 2010, and even maybe 2011.

Well… so much for Volvo’s legendary safety record. All chinese cars crumple and/or explode at the slightest impact.

This is aBAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD, move not just for ford, but for american car companies, japanese car companies, Koren car companies, german car companies, french car companies, australian car companies, english car companies, and any other country that produces cars…. The only thing keeping china out of the markets was their safety (well and reliability, but thats an easy fix compared to safety) problems, tin can cars. giving them Volvo, shoot or any car company that has established safety records in the usa or europe SPELLS PROBLEMS, No other company in the world can compete with the low labor prices of China! no one! this is a bad move!!!!!!!!! If china gets volvo, its just a matter of time they are on every shore being 25-30% cheaper than any other ‘competing’ car out there….. and we have problems now? damn this is a bad sight to see

So we can have even more products which have the little stamp MADE IN CHINA on them? Great, like we didn’t have enough already….

The Chinese will never get their quality up to standards… and we all know it. Look at the stuff they import already… it’s junk and the American people know it. Veeride is absolutely right in the statement that this will hurt us… but honestly America is moving rapidly towards a service sector only economy. In another 25-50 years there won’t be anything that is “Made in USA” it will all have been outsourced to someone else. The only jobs that will be left will be in the service sector. Furniture and Textiles have already all left… and automobiles are on the way out.

@raineman: “The Chinese will never get their quality up to standards…”

wat? volvo, audi, and others are building cars in china today! are they of crap quality? what is crap may be the things chinese companies design themselves. now they will buy that expertise. the result? goodnight, us auto industry!

Why does eveyone assume Chery will buy Volvo, shutter all its plants in Europe, and shift all production Southeast Asia?

The Chinese are smart enough to know that the value of Volvo is the fact that it is a Swedish designed, European built, entry-level luxury car, which has come a long way from its roots. Ford (and Volvo) have been looking to take Volvo further upmarket and along comes someone with the dominance in the mammoth Chinese car market to bring the cash.

Wealthy savvy Chinese won’t buy higher-end Volvo designed and “Made in China”.

At best the Chinese market will get Complete Knockdown Kits of European built products destined only for assembly in China. I don’t know if anyone knows this but most Mercedes S and E-class models sold in Mexico and Latin America are CKDs assembled in a Mexican plant.

Last I looked Tata hasn’t moved Jaguar production out of Great Britain, nor has immediate plans to. The XF is selling quite well (given the economy)and Jaguar has a new XJ series and a supercar in the pipeline.

It will take the geometric increases (15% per year) in private car ownership in the China and Indian markets to keep these niche European ( and conceivably American) automotive concerns going.

Unfortunately this is just the way it is. It isn’t a bad move for Ford because they are beginning to focus on the brand. They are starting to make the name worth something again in the US. They made some extremely tough decisions but because of their foresight they are now benefiting from being slightly ahead of the curve. They are talking in terms of the future when most others are just trying to live through the present. The sale of volvo just simply allows them to get some cash back out of a brand that really isn’t added to the profit margin.

As far as China entering the car market around the world. Volvo isn’t going to change anything. If American’s don’t want Chinese cars then don’t buy them.

As far as the US going to only a service economy… At this point in our history in this “depression” or “recession” depending on who you talk to, we are at a point where everything is being redefined. No one can really look at anything and say oh yeah America’s going there the fact is if we want to be competitive in Manufacturing then we can be. It simply takes thought and ingenuity. Stuff American’s pride themselves on. Who knows what America will look like in 25-50 years.

Athens, i understand what you say, but like the way ford has built up their Safety creds with volvo technology, chery could move that quality of safety engineering into one of there looks kinda like a onlder toyota cars……….. volvo will still be volvo,however the sh*t chery’s willl not be such sh*t when they get 3 or 4 or 5 star crash test results, versus the 1/2 star they would get now! So its more for the lower half to get better………

Just to clarify I agree with “ATHENS” I didn’t mean Volvo was going to be Chinese I was simply saying if they try to use it to bring their cars over here then you still have the choice to buy or not to buy. IF everyone buys a bunch of them then we’ll put all the decent companies out of business that is how capitalism works…

Awksm, if the car is 35% cheaper than the non chinese version, that will make up alot of minds on what car to buy….whats that saying? money talks bull**** walks! think about the cheaper japanese cars in the 70s the korean cars in the 80’s and even the YUGO, that car sold and was a piece of sh*t, but it was cheap, and us americans are cheap! well most of us, alot of the leftlanenews guys and gals may be exempt…..I bought a used car last year, and i wanted to spend 11-12k get one with warranty left still. i bought a ford focus 2006, everyone was like why, i said i liked the car, and i wanted to show that i support ford and us cars….I coulda got a civic, a coroll…….zzzzz.zzzzzz.zzzz….a, or maybe even something from subaru….but i bought a ford….It is my third focus, the first one was a zx3 from mexico, fun fun fun, then a used 2000 sedan, that was a mistake,, but it was cheap… now i have an 06 with the 2.3 duratec motor…. kinda a poor mans mazda 3……. I love the us car companies…. however…….. americans normally think ur a fool to buy american, thats why there losing market share……. Cali is dominated by imports! DOMINATED! and its weird to think the largest ford dealer is in Cali….. thanks for the time to ramble,slow day in real estate here in Mi

When you hear that someone lost the shirt off their back because the took everything they owned and gambled it away at a craps table in Vegas, does the average “Joe” feel sorry for them.

Then you take the large industrial concern, which makes consumer goods for the masses, and gambles its viability on products that require inexpensive fossil fuels to power them. Those inexpensive fossil fuels are no longer inexpensive. So we are supposed to “feel sorry for them?”

Folks, you have to BALANCE security and economics. If you have a gangbusters economy, but no strategic capability then you will get no respect (e.g. China in the late ’90s and early 2000s). Sometimes, not all the time, but, sometimes you must look after your strategic needs at the expense of your economy. Even if we turn around the U.S. economy tomorrow, it will all be for nought if we have no manufacturing base. We all know that an appreciable portion of America’s victories in WWII can be attributed to a strong manufacturing base. Ask yourself where that manufacturing base is now. Oh yeah, China. And what country does the Pentagon worry the most about long-term? Oh yeah, China. We all hope our relations with China trend more towards the types we have with Britain and Canada, but we have to hedge our bets.

Every single manufacturing loss is a nail in the coffin of the U.S. ability to militarize the state. If you think we will never see a WWII style escalation again then you have no reason to worry. Perhaps the following link will give you pause (remove the spaces):

htt p://ww w.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/09/us.navy.china/ind ex.h tml

I believe in the free markets as much as the rest of you. I dislike the idea of supporting inefficient industries. However, at the end of the day, car companies build military vehicles in times of large-scale mobilization. If Ford cedes safety technology to Chery (which has every right to try and enter the U.S. market) then they are sowing the seeds of their own defeat in 20-30 years. We will all live to see the day when American car companies account for no more than 8-10% of ALL U.S. car sales. And do not kid yourself that this was the sole result of the actions of the Detroit 3. There are a number of trade imbalances and predatory policies that have hastened their decline. We need a manufacturing base even if it is only as a hedge. Hopefully we have nothing to fear from the Chinese. I promise you, however, that the Chinese are preparing for possible conflict.

well…..American is always on stand by for conflict….it makes “possible conflict” from Chinese nothing.

this is the end of the Western car industry. Prepare to welcome our new Chinese overlords.

Stupid USA for thinking ANYTHING in China happens without politburo control.

veeride: couldn’t have said it better myself.

elviososa-

Sounds like the isolationist rhetoric of the 1930s. No one worried about America’s war-fighting abilities then. No one worried about Japan’s war in Asia. A few American military planners were worried about the deteriorating U.S. military infrastructure in the S. Pacific, but they were reminded that the economy had to be tended to first. The end result? Quick losses to the Japanese. Even the Philippines, long thought to be one of our greatest Pacific bastions, was lost seemingly overnight. There is no replacement for steady management of your strategic needs, which includes the health of U.S. manufacturing and, in particular, the U.S. car companies. There is a reason the Pentagon writes up reports on how quickly the D3 can retool their plants for wartime needs. The results are increasingly alarming. I promise you that the U.S. is not as efficiently “on standby” as you seem to think. We worry about the economy in terms of quantity, but we are neglecting the quality of our economy. Central planning = bad; however, there must be some consideration of the strategic needs of this country. It took years for a heavily industrialized U.S. to gear up for WWII production. Ask yourself how quickly you think we could gear up to match those needs today when we have LESS of a manufacturing capability. Do you think we could even meet the task at all?

p.s. Again, I am not anti-China. The Chinese have every right to compete economically. It is not, however, wrong for us to be equally shrewd in our own economic planning.

Politics aside, it doesn’t matter if it’s made in china as long as it’s safe and much cheaper, there are plenty with Walmart mentality who’ll line up.

This would be the beginning of the end for Volvo. Look what the Chinese did to Ssangyong. They stripped out the technology and then they gave the Koreans the finger. They’ll do the same to the Swedes at Volvo. Volvo would have 4-5 years left running on fumes, and then they’d be a Chinese company.

Plus, from a marketing standpoint this would be awful. Despite their attempts to position the cars as sporty, Volvo’s sweet spot is still the latte-sipping, leftie, nature-loving middle class families and young professionals who don’t want to get a BMW or Mercedes. Families and guys and gals with Ipods, interested in safety and what the brand stands for. And it sure doesn’t stand for more cheap crap from China, even if that perception would be unfair to the cars. The image hit the brand would take from a Chinese acquisition is substantial and irreversible. Just like Apple would lose a good chunk of their sales the day they are acquired by a Chinese company, if that ever happens.

Athens, I have a bridge to sell you.

gugusolidu-

Nail on the head. My family drives a lot of Volvos. If the sale goes through then Volvo won’t even be on my list of considered cars.

For quality,who knows, China may also produce the highest quality cars, but for purchase Volvo, Officials from Chery said that , they didnot plan to.

Lion, we think alike We were looking at the next gen S60 as the most likely replacement for the wife’s current Volvo, but Volvo won’t even be on the long list if they’re sold. I’m in Northern California and I see plenty of Volvos in my neighborhood. I know I’m not the only one in my neighborhood who thinks like this.

gugusolidu:

Besides all those I-Pods, I-Phones and Apple I-Macs…. well they are built in China.

Lenovo, the Chinese firm which purchased IBM’s PC division, turned it around from the condition was left in by IBM hands. Sales have nearly doubled. And Lenovo’s Think Pads are considered the top notebooks in the market.

And none of you better be flying the new Boeing assembled 787 Dreamliner because the alumimum alloy floor girders are being forged in India.

At least 30% of the 787 Dreamliner will be made of parts fabricated in Asia.

Try this one on for size: 80% of global commercial ocean going vessel construction takes place in either Korean and Chinese Shipyards.

For those who won’t consider any automotive brand partly or wholly owned by a Southeast Asian concern, our choices may not be so plentiful 10 years from now.

Athens, there’s a big difference between assembly and design/IP.

gugusolidu:

We are talking about countries that have developed atomic weapons programs and space exploration programs. The have civil engineering projects in mass transit and urban construction that will soon make Manhattan seem – small potatoes. And it has happened, literally, overnight.

I hope that you recall, unlike President Obama, that the automobile was first developed on the other side of the “Pond” namely France and Germany. Yet Americans seem to claim the automobile as their rightful inalienable heritage.

So why should we assume that the Asians somehow intellectually less capable than Americans at designing something as mundane as a car? Metal and plastic on wheels that moves on the solid ground from point A to B. Because their wages are lower?

A dominant number of the top engineering professors at your MITs, Cal Techs, Stanfords, and U of Is, were born and received at least their undergrad education in India and China.

Have you been to an American university lately to see the grad students in the engineering departments?

An awful lot of them are on student Visas issued by the US government to Chinese and Indian nationals.

Who do you think Boeing, Northrop, Rockwell Collins and even Apple and Microsoft gobble up upon graduation?

You see this as a pissing contest between countries. That explains your perspective. If you look at what I wrote above, it’s about something else. But when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

@ Athens ,
“We are talking about countries that have developed atomic weapons programs and space exploration programs.” – you mean they bought those things from the Russians
.”The have civil engineering projects in mass transit and urban construction that will soon make Manhattan seem – small potatoes.” those are made by German companies.