Intellectual property warriors, get your guns: Following GM, its arch nemesis Toyota will plant a brand new R & D center smack into the alleged intellectual property jungle called China. Toyota plans to spend between $330 and $440 million for the center. Building will commence next year. Compared to Toyota, the one GM built in 2008 was the lite version at a price of only $250 million.
The Toyota R&D center, complete with a full-scale test course, will be located not far from the GM center, in the outskirts of Shanghai, Gasgoo reports.
Toyota has four joint ventures in China and holds about 6 percent of the world’s largest auto market. Officially, Toyota’s center is being moved to China to better meet local demand. Unofficially, it is most likely there to save on R&D costs. Shanghai University’s highly regarded Automotive College in Anting is cranking out very capable engineers by the boatload, ready and willing to work at much lower wages than an engineer in Aichi, Detroit, or Wolfsburg.
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While the robots are amazing, I still prefer Animusic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBOQcQO0IFI&feature=related
Bit puzzled by the claim about pay. Last time I asked a Chinese automotive manufacturing engineer with a working knowledge of English was on $ 80-90 000. That’s Detroit money.
Greg: The operative word is “working knowledge of English.” Chinese engineers usually do not speak English. You either study languages, or you study engineering. Only very senior engineers fetch $80K
I know what some mid-level engineers at my and other companies make, with working knowledge of English, and it’s not even close to $80K…maybe 80-90k RMB.
Tongji University has a pretty dope wind-tunnel system in which they can fit big trucks, was told they spent around 500 million RMB on that alone. They also have big NVH and enviro chambers.
@gimmeamanual: Obviously, you’ve been in Anting. Pretty impressive setup, eh? They even have a maglev test track outside …. They are also very advanced with electric propulsion. And yes, you get a midlevel engineer for 80K RMB, which comes out to approx $1000 a month. That’s quite a decent salary in China.
I just want my Gundam before I die. http://www.gossipgamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/3625924540_16c935a89a.jpg
We wuz ripped! OK, maybe the guys we were talking to were more senior than that (and yes their english wa s pretty good). I know Chinese speaking chinese engineers are pretty cheap, so any Chnese engineers reading this – guess what you ought to do!