Ford To Enter Chinese Heavy Truck Business - In A Roundabout Way
China is the world’s largest market for heavy trucks. People who are suicidal enough to have personal experience with Chinese highways will readily agree. Nearly 1 million units of the heavy (and usually blue) units were sold last year, more than in North America, Europe and South America combined. Ford wants a chunk of this interesting market.
Ford owns 30 percent of China’s Jiangling. Jiangling is a major Chinese light commercial vehicle maker that also makes the Ford Transit for China. Jiangling (and with them Ford) wants to “expand into the country’s heavy-truck business by taking over Taiyuan Changan Heavy Truck Co.” as Reuters reports.
Taiyuan’s current owners, China Changan Automobile and China South Industries Group are affiliated with Chongqing Changan Automobile, Ford’s carmaking partner in China.
If Jiangling tinkles a bell, then you are either very familiar with the Chinese truck business. Or you remember that Jiangling was first to try to export Chinese cars to Europe. In 2005. Jiangling brought its Landwind SUV to the Frankfurt Auto Show, much to the horror of the German auto industry. A crash test was arranged by the ADAC, the German equivalent of the AAA. The car failed miserably, the video became a hit on Youtube, and turned into an example for all that’s wrong with Chinese cars.
In 2010, Jiangling tried again and brought its CV9 Minivan to Europe. The market wasn’t necessarily clamoring for Chinese minivans, and not much came of the project.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I wonder how long after they start that Herr. Spaltmass will show up with something from MAN or Scania, or Dr Z will show with a Daimler or Freightliner... Navistar should be begging Ford, possibly via BlueFiamond JV, to help them find some volume in China before they collapse from lack of US revenue. I don't mean BUX from us to china, but rather licensing and semi ckd approach.
Low volume trucks perhaps, but the profitable part was building the engines for Ford's volume sellers, Navistar no longer has this. When Continental bought siemens automotive they made Navistar take quite a few of the siemens VDO plants(VDO was 50/50 JV b/t seimens and navistar), one of the ones they made navistar take was the plant that produced diesel injectors with Ford as it's primary business.
Crew cab trucks for the Peoples Liberation Army. That would be a sweet deal.
Are they taking to China a COE similar to the ones they sell in Brazil?