Wow that thing is butt ugly!

^Agreed.

Obviously it will provide cost savings that tranlate into lower car prices. But Chrysler has other plants they could use- i.e. the Mercedes Benz plant in Brazil that manufactures the C-coupe.
China is attractive because they could manufacture for export markets and for the Chinese market that has exploded like wildfires.
The Hornet is a clone of the Scion xB. It’s sad to see DCX copying others instead of being design leaders.

I think it resembles the XA a little more than the XB. IMHO.
Won’t find me buying a Chinese car. They get enough of my $$ already.

First of all, that is nothing like the xB…it’s way smaller (B segment) and has suicide doors. It is weird looking, but I have a feeling it’ll be made a bit more conservative for production.

Second, I can’t believe that cars haven’t been made in China already anyways…everything else is these days.

I’m not going to sit here and talk up the UAW. However, how about the quality issues known to happen consistently at Chinese plants? Are we near manufacturing in China as well as we manufacture in the US?

Basically it’s going to be made in China in Chery’s plants. Chery may actually learn something out of this partnership and be able to make an acceptable car on their own for US sales.

You all forget that whatever is made in China, belongs to China. At any point in time the Chinese goverment can take away and plant and all the plans an property of DCX and call it theirs…the beauty of Communism.

I have been getting tooling and parts from Hong Kong and ShenZhen for about 8 years. HK is clean and nice, SZ makes Detroit look like…well better, anyway…

That whole ownership issue is generally a red herring. Know a company who had tooling ‘reowned’ in Juarez by the local state government and the feds in Mexico City won’t give it the “papers” to reimport back here. Setting up shop outside your own legal system is still a risky business anywhere. You treat the locals with humility and pay the bribes to the politicos and hope for the best.

Bribes…uh, sorry.

Meant ‘administrative and local ordinance fees’.

“At any point in time the Chinese goverment can take away and plant and all the plans an property of DCX and call it theirs…the beauty of Communism.”

Also, the moon might crack in half like an egg and release a giant space monster.

China is dependant on the rest of the world for their economic gains, the last thing they want to do is burn their partners. They need investment just like they need markets to sell their manufactured goods. If China, or any other country started to nationalize foreign owned property investments would dry up over night. The costs would far outweigh the gains. It’s about as likely to happen there as it is to happen in the US.

Before Chrysler gives any engineering plans to a Chinese plant, they better put a giant FBI warning on the cover stating “It is unlawful to duplicate, copy, etc…”. Next thing ya know, I’ll be seeing cheap Chinese knock-offs of Chrysler cars being hustled on the city streets!

There is already a copy of the Chevy Spark(made by Deawoo) i believe its made by Chery. I meants it not worrying because all the cars built in China are obselete to cars in teh rest of the world. I guess its not that big of a worry that the Chinese will take away the American leftovers. Im still wondering about the quality of the Hornet, hopefully its not sold here…ever.

“When better cars are built, Buick will build them.” Something like that motto from long ago may be applicable today. GM makes and sells in China a Buick with features not found even on a Cadillac. Perhaps GM should export to us a Chinese Buick, a better car for less money.

there was a time when people made fun of the build quality of japanese cars as compared with american cars. during the last couple years there’s been a decided shift in people’s attitudes toward korean cars. i’m expecting the same thing will eventually happen with chinese cars.

/no

There has been a lot of reverse engineering in the Asian factories over the decades. Lexus didnt start with a clean sheet of paper when they started going after Mercedes. The started with a fleet of Mercedes and a few wrenches.

pretty sure mercedes have taken a lexus or two apart as well. its only a matter of time until chinese built cars are a familiar sight along with the japanese and korean models

What I don’t understand is, if cars newly developed in countries that are just getting into the auto business are so crappy and unexciting, who keeps buying them to give enough revenue back to the company to develop the next line? (I believe asian car manufacturers were set as the example here) Unless their long term plans include just SUCKING for like, half a decade or so.

And I really can’t get excited about a Dodge Hornet. Ugh.

Endurancevm, that Spark clone is called the QQ which I went to its countrywide launching here 2 weeks ago. Yea they’ll copy everything including the CRV that got Honda fuming.

“You treat the locals with humility and pay the bribes to the politicos and hope for the best.”

You forgot about the local mafia that needs to be fed as well. But once you get the hang of it and have the backing of somebody in the military or police all is well.

LOL Random!

Hey, wasn’t Wal-Mart supposed to sell Chinese cars in their supercenters? They might as well, all the crap in their is from China.

one of the interesting things i read recently had to do with reverse engineering in the early days of the Japanese auto industry. The first car Nissan ever built was an Austin, and the legendary Datsun 510 apparently had the exact same suspension as a BMW 1600.

/no