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June 25, 2005

Chinese Honda’s go to Europe

 2 million cars were produced and sold in china last year. Recently the sale of vehicles there as taken a downturn as most Chinese who can afford to own a car already bought one. Honda which has been building about 50,000 vehicles a year there decided that it was time to export their cars to Europe. Germany will be the first destination for what will someday be commonplace, Chinese built cars exported across the globe. Honda will begin shipping its 1.2 liter and 1.4 liter Jazz in July and plans to ship 10,000 cars by the years end. Honda will sell these cars at their vast array of dealerships that already exist in Europe. Honda is Japans second largest car manufacturer after Toyota and they see this as a way to bring very affordable cars into a receptive market. The Jazz automobile has been produced in Japan and the Chinese version will be similar. Ironically, so far, The Chinese versions have cost Honda more to produce then their Japanese counterparts. Nevertheless, Honda predicts that production costs in China will actually go down every year for the next five years due to economies of scale. Honda currently sells about 100,000 vehicles per year in China and wants to stay ahead of the pack when it comes to being a player in what will surely be the largest automotive marketplace someday. Currently there are about 20 million vehicles in China; this is up from 10 million in 1998 and 3 million in 1984. Experts at the World Bank predict 55 million by 2015 and Honda wants to be apart of this automotive gold rush in a big way. It is impossible to tell what the effect the introduction of the automobile to Chinese culture will have but the American “car based lifestyle” has been the standard for Asians to aspire to for the last ten years or so. If this becomes a reality, we should expect to see the number of vehicles in China level off somewhere around 150 to 200 million, which is greater then the 120 million vehicles currently on the road in the United States.

- Auto-Car-Transport .com
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