http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveonaCar/CheapChineseCarsSp eedTowardUS.aspx

Hey, Timberfake can upgrade the Yugo!

Interesting dynamic.

If lots of people were driving the cheap cars, crashes would be helped somewhat, but not by much. Of course, then people might driver better too, over time. Natural selection in action!

Wonder what their mechanical systems are like. Maybe it's a cheap ass car that runs forever.

Kind of like my old Toyota....

If so, we will see the things for a good long time.

If not, they will go the way of the Yugo.

My beloved MG's will be made there.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-07-12-mg-plant_x.htm

I think I'll keep my old ones.

Don't let the kids chew on 'em...lead paint, you know.

Any kid that chews on my MG's is going to have a lot more than lead to worry about.
;)

I'll stick with the German engineering, thank you.

I think that these low-cost cars are the way of the future. However, I suspect that very few of the cars in the slide show section of the msn.com story will ever be sold in the U.S. primarily because of safety regulations. Note: I am not an automotive engineer, but I suspect that it is a lot more feasible to build a low-cost car with an engine that meets emissions requirements than it is to build one that passes a crash test, based on the comments from one manufacturer who said that they were offering their car with an engine that would comply with European emissions regulations.

I drive a 1992 Hyundai Excel. It runs well, and it gets 30-33 miles per gallon. Why argue with that?

Someday we may have a Chinese car, but this latest bit of Asian vaporware will never make it to our shores. Ouch! The video in the original article says it all. No sane person is going to buy that car, but consider the source: Malcolm Bricklin.

Malcolm is a king of smoke and mirrors. His failures were every bit as monumental as his successes. Talk to Ford about how well that supercar project went, or to the earliest Yugo owners/guinea pigs, or to the folks who bought into the recent Zaztava hokum.

His one good move was bringing Subaru to our shores. At first, they sent us the adorable and totally deadly Subaru 360 series, but soon they started pumping out those cute Brats and Wagons that charmed us all. Or at least until they burned up their spare tires.

This isn't the first big press release about the Chery and skeptical folks ought to wait and see. These articles from Business Week ran over two years ago:

Here Come Chinese Cars
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2005/nf20050526_0195_db016.htm

Malcolm Bricklin's "Bit of Barnum"
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2005/nf20050526_9952_db016.htm

Remember the Datsun Cherry? Hmmm. I wonder what Nissan thinks of the branding? This silliness ought to be moot because:

The Best Tiny Car is already being built!

Yes, really. It may please Vitalogy to know that the Germans were the first to develop a super-economy car. The project began around 1990, and in 1999, the Lupo was introduced to the public:

"The 3L refers not to engine size but to the fact that it is designed to use just three liters of fuel per 100 kilometers - about 78 miles per gallon. No production car in the USA gets close. The three-liter formula is a long-standing environmentalists' challenge that VW is first to answer after nine years of work.

Driven normally, the little Lupo turned in 70 miles per gallon, mainly on two-lane roads through stop-and-start villages. That was 3.38 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers. Others on the test drive, trying to better the target, sipped just 2.79 liters per 100 km, equal to about 84 miles per gallon."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/consumer/autos/mareview/mauto497.htm

The Lupo set records for economy that still stand in the pages of the Guinness book:

"The Volkswagen Lupo 3L TDI has once again proved itself as the world’s most fuel efficient production car by setting yet another record. Gerhard Plattner, an Austrian journalist and economy driving expert, has, for the second time this year, entered the Guinness World Records™ Book in a Volkswagen. Earlier this month Plattner covered a distance of 2,910 miles through 20 European countries in a standard Lupo 3L TDI. He achieved his aim of completing this journey – which started in Oslo, Norway and finished in The Hague in The Netherlands – with just 100 euros worth of fuel. In fact, all he required was 90.94 euros, which corresponds to an average consumption of 2.78 litres per 100 km (101.6 mpg).

Plattner completed his first successful '100 euro eco-tour' in August this year in a Polo TDI, over 1,944 miles through 15 European countries. The average fuel consumption set over this distance was just 3.95 litres per 100 km (71.5 mpg) with fuel costs of 90.89 euros.

Both of these record journeys were by no means carried out at an unrealistically slow pace. The average speed of the first economy run was 51 mph while the average speed of the Lupo 3L TDI was 50 mph. Each eco-tour was accompanied and monitored by independent experts.

The Lupo 3L TDI is no stranger to the record books. In 2001, a Japanese economy driver, Dr Miyano, used it to set a new world record for the most frugal circumnavigation of Britain in a standard diesel production car, with an average fuel economy figure of 119.48 mpg. In 2000, a 'Round the World in 80 days' journey produced 118 mpg, while a Lupo TDI has won outright the RAC/Fleet World MPG Marathon for three years in succession."

http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/press/Lupo_3L_in_Guiness_World_Record

The model ran for six years, and a new Lupo is to debut in 2010:

"It's been reported for several months now that Volkswagen was working on two new entry-level successors to the Lupo that was discontinued in 2005 and replaced by the Fox. The first rendering of the new car is now available thanks to German magazine Auto Zeitung, and if it is accurate, the rather overdone grille of recent VW models may be going away. One of the cars will be targeted toward emerging markets like India and Russia to battle the Renault Logan, while the other will be geared more for established markets like Western Europe.

The target price for the emerging market car is 8,000 Euro which will also form the basis for Skoda and Seat branded cars. The new Lupo is should be 3.7 meters long about 5 inches longer than the original and an equal amount less than the Fox. The rear seat can slide longitudinally to allow for more luggage space in back or more rear seat room. The powertrains may start from a new two cylinder engine and go up through four cylinder gas and diesel engines and possibly even an electric version."

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/07/first-image-of-2010-volkswagen-lupo/

These little buggers will run on biodiesel, and soon, electricity. Perhaps Volkswagen will rethink keeping the thrifty Lupo on the other side of the water. For now, we get the misery, while the Europeans get the miser.

I think whatever the Chinese develop will probably be as safe as wearing a paper hat on a motorcycle, will stink like an old two-stroke Skoda, will not come close to 118 mpg, or for that matter, will not be tough enough for circumnavigation of the globe.

I think we ought to hold out for the Germans.

I was wondering what the vw TDI motor would get in a Geo . . . 100 MPG? KSKD, any comments?