May 13th, 2009 by Ross Edwards
Chinese car companies have had a hard time breaking into the U.S. market, but one company will finally be selling Chinese built cars in America in the next few years: General Motors. Fox Car Report is reporting that Automotive News has gained access to a document intended for lawmakers that reveals GM’s intentions to import Chinese built cars and sell them under one of GM’s remaining brands (most likely Buick, which is immensely popular in China).
The leaked report says that GM is planning to sell 18,000 made in China cars in the U.S. during 2011, and then growing that number to 50,000 by 2014.
Wasn’t the justification for GM’s recent bailout loan (which won’t be paid back in full if the company goes into bankruptcy, which it will) that the money would save American jobs? Now that the government has pumped billions into GM, it’s going to stop production in American plants while importing cars from China?
This is just the latest bit of infuriating news coming out of Detroit. GM is closing 8 U.S. manufacturing plants in the near future, while keeping their Canadian and Mexican plants open. Chrysler, which also received bailout loans (that also won’t be repaid) is closing down dealers, while Chrysler financial could hold those same dealers responsible for the loans taken out to finance the inventory and overhead.
If you can explain to me how this makes sense, please do so in the comments section.