Would you currently buy a car made in China, with all of the bad publicity, those old catastrophic crash test videos and the general lack of experience in building automobiles? Well, of course, that depends on which company makes them, but you may be faced with the decision sooner than you’d think, because apparently, GM has expressed its desire to build some of its cars in China and export them to other markets.
Currently, GM’s plan in China is to construct four new plants, in order to considerably boost capacity, and raise the number of local dealers to 5,100 by 2015 (today, there are 3,800 sales points, and another 400 will be added in 2013).
This year, they aim to export between 100,000 and 130,000 cars, which in and of itself, is a record. However, the figure is set to grow considerably, and according to Autoblog(com), some of the Chinese-built cars may end up in US showrooms.
The information was obtained from Bob Socia, president of GM China, who was quoted as saying:
“It could very well happen. It could very well happen. You know, I’m not sharing any plans with you, but we try to keep open as to what makes sense. And Tim [Lee – GM’s president of international operations] is the right guy to talk about your manufacturing footprint. If it make sense to tool up a vehicle in one location as opposed to two, from an economic perspective, Tim will say that’s what we should be doing. We’re open to be doing that. There’s no reason why we can’t be exporting to the States, and obviously the States are exporting here.”
Still, nothing is official yet, and there are no concrete plans in place at the moment. Buick could be an alternative, since the brand has sold more cars in China than they do back home, and manufacturing the cars locally could make a lot of financial sense.
By Andrei Nedelea
PHOTO GALLERY
