China Sets Sights On U.S. Car Market
Family Sedan Priced Under $10,000 Planned By 2008
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Play CBS Video Video China's Growing Auto Industry As GM tries to win back some of the market share it has lost to foreign carmakers, it is about to get some tough new competition, this time from China. Anthony Mason reports.
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Video China's Automotive Gem Only On The Web: Anthony Mason spoke to the publisher of the China Automotive Review, Wayne Xing, about the emergence of Chinese car manufacturer Geely.
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Video Anxiety In The Auto Aisles As Detroit's debutante ball, the annual auto show, opened this week, a CBS News poll showed that Americans are losing faith in U.S. auto manufacturers, Anthony Mason reports.
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Li Shu Fu, Chairman of Geely stands next to the Geely 7151 CK sedan at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006. (AP)
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A worker welds the interior of a car at Geely Group factory earlier this year in Ningbo, China. (AP)
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Photo Essay Auto Show The latest and greatest in the motoring world takes the spotlight at the North American International Auto Show.
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Photo Essay Detroit Auto Show Check out cars of the future at the North American Auto Show.
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Geely's presence at the Detroit auto show — the first time a Chinese automaker has displayed here — is part of an effort to boost its image. However, Geely is displaying only for the media and will not be here when the show opens to the public, Saturday through Jan. 23.
The debut in Detroit of the 7151 CK followed its appearance at other international industry shows, part of an effort to raise the company's profile as it pushes overseas.
"We know what it will take to succeed with this dream and we are prepared to pay that price," Li said.
"Our goal is to present to the American people another choice for the family sedan, a vehicle that possesses the highest quality but is available at the lowest price," Li said in a statement.
Chinese rival Chery Automotive also plans to begin exports to the U.S., as early as 2007, in association with American entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin's Visionary Vehicles. It hopes eventually to sell 2 million vehicles a year.
Until recently, most Chinese vehicle exports have gone to the Middle East and other parts of the developing world. Last year China reported it had become a net exporter of cars and trucks for the first time, recording an export surplus of 7,000 vehicles in the first 10 months of 2005.
Harmer predicted Geely, which sells vehicles in Ukraine, Yugoslavia and the Middle East, would enter the European market before the U.S.
Geely, whose name denotes good luck in Chinese, was founded in 1986 in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai.
Li led the company's transformation from a refrigerator and bicycle maker into a major automaker with a dozen factories able to turn out 200,000 vehicles and 200,000 engines a year. Workers are paid just $3.50 an hour, Mason reports.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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