Ag with kids said:
Medaggie said:
I am not arguing right or wrong. But when the biggest car market makes a change then the car makers either make the change or risk bankruptcy. Many European countries following suit.
If you sell blue widgets and your biggest buyer wants a red widget, are you going to make red widgets? Of course you are or risk profit/bankruptcy.
its basic economics
US car makers exported 155K vehicles to China...the China market doesn't really drive much in the US. They're the largest market because they sell a lot of Chinese cars to Chinese people.
The vehicles are manufactured and sold in China as joint ventures with Chinese manufacturers. Manufacturers that are themselves joint ventures between the companies and the Chinese government. Meaning that your favorite American car brands are in partnerships with the Chinese government.
These arrangements are mandated by the Chinese government for foreign auto brands, with the lone exclusion being Tesla, which is allowed to operate as a wholly independent company within China, at least they were the lone exclusion when they built their factory in 2021. I doubt there has been any movement to allow any others as that same level autonomy.
China represents a fairly significant portion of their financials, and is generally the second largest auto market for U.S. brands behind the United States. Whether the loss of that business would lead to their collapse or not, I doubt it, because their remaining business is smaller than the business they've already lost in the country since 2016 as their domestic manufacturers have increased production/quality, but it definitely won't help. As their domestic popularity has shrunk they have moved towards exporting vehicles. Ford as an example went from selling more than 800,000 vehicles in China in 2016 to the low 200,000 recently.
Ford -> Jiangling Motors
GM -> SAIC
Stellantis -> Dongfeng