Word: autos
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Nearly four years later, the strategy is paying off: GM says its Shanghai plant is profitable, and China's entry to the WTO should now help open up its vaunted consumer market. By 2006, according to the agreement, tariffs on imported autos and auto parts will fall to as low as 10%, from as high as 80% today. Foreign automakers will have permission to distribute, sell and service their vehicles and to offer loans to customers. And the government has pledged to address the issue of regional protectionism, which renders a VW produced in Shanghai, say, twice as expensive...
Beijing wants carmakers, from Nissan to DaimlerChrysler, to help make the nation an auto-exporting powerhouse. That has not happened yet, because total costs in China aren't competitive with those in other emerging economies such as Brazil, where energy and--believe it or not--land are cheaper. Lower tariffs will help lure foreigners but will be disastrous for China's 120-plus state-subsidized automakers...
...best in China are heavily polluting diesel three-wheelers and light trucks costing only $1,000 to $3,000 that farmers use to haul produce and other goods. Though these are banned in cities, rural sales have been surging. The segment is the only part of China's domestic auto industry that Beijing has allowed to develop along free-market lines, and it's the only one with a handful of supposedly profitable companies. One company even exports its light trucks to Cambodia. "Beijing wants to keep the countryside happy," says Columbia Business School professor Lee Branstetter. GM recently purchased...
...breed entirely. Rolled out to great acclaim at the Detroit Auto Show last week, this luxury sportmobile may not exactly be elegant. But not since I drove the limited production BMW Z8 roadster last summer have I been behind the wheel of a car that prompted so many oohs and ahs, and not a few Wows - including one from yours truly when I punched it on the FDR drive just minutes later...
...first in what General Motors says will be a parade of like-minded, provocative Cadillacs. Another stab in the same direction comes from a company that two years ago was given up for dead: Nissan. The 2002 Nissan Altima, which won top honors at the Detroit Auto Show last week as the North American car of the year, is a screamer, with 240hp and a body design which, like the CTS's, makes you look twice. The Altima's interior is a little on the plasticky side, and for some reason its side mirrors don't fold away...