future of the motor trade?

A tad off topic I know, but I saw an item on the BBC News this evening <

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> and wondered if cars are now heading in the samegeneral direction as the cheap disposable supermarket TV? The item said that the Chinese are planning to produce even cheaper vehicles than Renault, so lets say they manage to produce a reasonable family saloon to sell on a Tesco forecourt for around £4,000, wouldn't this sound the death knell for a large part of the second hand car market and many garages, in a similar way in which the domestic electronics sales/service industry has been decimated over the last decade or so?

The idea being that If a new car manages only four or five trouble free years before being scrapped, then the average punter will consider that the circa £1,000 a year spent as having been excellent value.

Reply to
Ivan
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I don't believe it for a minute. If this was the case, we'd all be driving Kia's. You don't give this country the credit it deserves as there are still people who would rather a Vauxhall, than a Kia.

Reply to
Sandy Nuts

& BMW would have gone bankrupt.
Reply to
Duncan Wood

Having actually worked in, and made a healthy living out of the (now mostly defunct) domestic electronics sales/service industry for the best part of 50 years, I can't help thinking 'now where have I heard that before'?

Reply to
Ivan

Kia have been making cars for years. As have Hyundai and Ssangyong. The proportion of these type of vehicles to other mass produced makes (Ford, VX, Cit, Pug, Honda etc) is pretty much near f*ck all.

Everybody knows you can buy nearly 3 Kia Rio's for the price of a top spec'd Fiesta. Doesn't stop people buying said Fiesta.

Reply to
Sandy Nuts

Last year I purchased a four year-old Ford focus for £3,000, the supplied six month warranty has now expired, so if it blows up on the motorway tomorrow then as far as I'm concerned it's 3000 quid down the drain.

On the other hand if I could have bought Chinese copy with an unconditional four year warranty for £4,000, then i'm afraid that it would have been no contests.

By the way, it may surprise you to learn that it's not unusual to find that top Japanese manufacturers such as Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, in some of their models actually use chassis manufactured by Vestel, a Turkish company, which also supplies chassis for use in supermarket TVs such as Bush, Goodmans, Wharfedale etc.... perhaps the kind of arrangement which is long overdue in the motor industry.

Reply to
Ivan

There are people who would "rather" drive a Vauxhall? People who actually choose them, rather than have the fleet manager allocate one?

Ian

Reply to
Ian Johnston

I would have still bought the Focus, because I know it would be worth more than 78p when 5 years old. Oh, and I do like to enjoy my car. Something I couldn't do with some asian bargain basement box.

Absolutely. Every small car should be based on a Fiesta, every medium one based on a Focus, and larger ones based on the Mondeo.

Reply to
Sandy Nuts

Some peole have no taste. :)

Reply to
Brian

Ian, it might surprise you to hear that there are some privately owned vehicles in the UK, and this includes Vauxhalls. Though I do agree that there are many poseurs with new cars which will never actually be theirs.

Reply to
Brian

Doesn't stop Ford losing BILLIONS of dollars a year.

Reply to
gazzafield

I've had three. A MkII Astra, a MkII and MkIII Cavalier. Great cars.

Reply to
gazzafield

Sandy Nuts ( snipped-for-privacy@forme.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Whereas currently every small car is based on a Polo, every medium car is based on a Golf, and every larger car is based on a Passat...

Reply to
Adrian

gazzafield (rufty_tufty snipped-for-privacy@nospam.thankyou.says_I.ko) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Ford's losses have been tiny compared to GM's...

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Those losses, though, are largely due to the costs of providing the final- salary pensions to retired workers - GM has been described as the world's largest pension company, building cars on the side.

Reply to
Adrian

Practically every mass-market piece of electronics is manufactured in this way. The 'premium' brands manufactured side by side with the cheapies. Most laptops in the world are made by a handful of companies.

Reply to
Chris Bartram

Which says to me that their business model is wrong. It doesn't matter that they have to pay pensions to retired workers. The product they are selling is meant to make them a profit. They are either selling them too cheap or not selling enoough.

Reply to
gazzafield

You're right of course and 'badge engineering' has been with us for almost as long as I can remember, names such as Austin, Morris, Wolsey, Riley etc all once owned by British Leyland.

What was amazing was the number of old diehards who would only ever buy a Morris, and would refuse to believe that an almost identical looking car sporting an Austin badge probably came off the same production line!

Reply to
Ivan

According to a wikipedia article on the low-cost Renault Logan <

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> "They currently have no plans onintroducing it on more markets since demand is far greater than supply."which would certainly appear to indicate that there is a large untappedmarket out there waiting for the right cars at the right price.

Reply to
Ivan

"gazzafield" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@pipex.net...

In some countries a car is seen as a utilitarian product. There is little snobbery attached to a badge. In the UK with issues such as congestion, fuel costs, vandalism, parking problems, etc we may find a shift toward owning a low price - low frills vehicle and then renting something better when really needed.

Many cars are already using designs that are 'networked' across the industry. Very little is unique now.

Tooling and manufacturing engineering tends to dictate the final product.

Reply to
John

A car, to me, is simply a mode of transport and it helps move shopping, children and big things around and keeps our climate off. Had I no need for one, I'd just ride my motorbike all the time which is a lot more fun.

Reply to
gazzafield

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