#Imports

Nick Taylor’s layman’s observations of American cars in China are a great first impression view. But first impressions can be deceiving. It is true that the Chinese auto market is very much similar to the U.S. market. They love 3 box “real cars” (trend recently shifting a bit), they love SUVs, they love big cars if they can afford them. “American” cars, mostly Buicks, Chevys and a smattering of Fords on Chinese roads are mostly made in China. Just like the “German” or “Japanese” cars that are made mostly in China.

China as an export market for U.S. cars is a whole other matter. China has a 25 percent tariff on imported cars. That pretty much limits car imports to segments where price doesn’t matter, or where a high price acts as a differentiator from the riff-raff: Luxury cars. And this is where Europe reigns supreme.

Audi’s sales in Japan went down 20 percent in October. The macro-oriented crowd points at the fact that the domestic Japanese market was down 26.7 percent in October, and that Audi or its dealers have no reason to complain. And what are Japanese Audi dealers doing? They are complaining. They say that they have enough buyers, but not enough cars to meet the demand.

They all go to China.

Here is another myth that won’t die, as hard as we might be trying to debunk it: “Japan is a closed market for cars. They do everything to keep foreign cars out. Those Nips are unfair, and it’s time to do something about it.”

It’s baloney. Paul Niedermeyer debunked the propaganda, and said: “Want to import cars to Japan? It’s one of the easiest countries to do so.“ I did another story and showed, for those with reading comprehension problems, a picture of Japanese im- and exports. But the story won’t die. Ok, let’s try again to put it to rest.

Where would the German car industry be without China? You guessed it: In deep Scheisse. China’s insatiable demand for German cars helped the German auto industry survive the crisis stronger than ever. Germany’s new car exports to China in the first six months of this year reached €4.4b ($6b). That’s 6.1 percent of its total car exports, says the China Business Times via Gasgoo.

According to lore, China has closed off its market to foreign car importers, and is ready to flood the world with cheapmobiles.

Just the opposite is true.

When the high Yen drove Nissan out of Japan to Thailand, and to importing their Nissan March (elsewhere known as the Micra) from the Land of Smiles back to the Land of the Rising Sun, many thought this a daring, maybe even suicidal experiment. Will the notoriously nitpicky Nipponese buyer buy it? Or will “the first move by a Japanese carmaker to export a mainstay model to the home market,” as The Nikkei [sub] called it, be a resounding dud? Either the Japanese are changing, or Nissan pulled-off the impossible.

China is currently in a state of confusion about August sales numbers: More than 50 percent up? Or less than 20 percent? It will take a week or so to sort that out. But one thing is clear: The big winners in China are German purveyors of luxobarges, says Reuters.

Everybody is worried about China flooding the world with cheap cars. Just the opposite is true. The world is flooding China with expensive cars. China has become one of the prime export markets for major carmakers the world over, especially in the higher segments. For next year, a unit of the Chinese government predicts imports to China to exceed the 1 million mark. Exports remain lacklustre.

There seems to be no end for the good news for German (and assorted Asian) companies. Paulo Kakinoff, president of Audi do Brasil, declared to Brazilian car enthusiast site Webmotors that “logistics for importing motor vehicles is overburdened and factories abroad cannot serve all markets”. José Luiz Gandini, president of Kia do Brasil and Abeiva (Association of Car Importing Companies) said to said site: “It’s common for the customer to wait 60 days for a car.”

You think Japan is import-adverse? Have a look at that chart that follows, and you will see a wondrous trend: Japanese automakers are importing more and more foreign owned cars to Japan. Some of them even from the U.S. Now, the imports will increase. Not from the US, but from ….

Long rumored to be arriving, the Chevy Malibu has now, finally, arrived! It is yet another car to be mused over by import crazed Brazilians. It comes in LTZ guise with a 2.4L gasoline-only engine that’s good for 171 ponies. It comes mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission that allows manual shifting. And it’s loaded to the gills (at least by Brazilian standards) with 6 airbags, ABS, stability control, automatic A/C, and even (by gosh!) electrically-adjusted and heated seats, remote start key, 18 inch aluminum wheels and, last but not least, an audio system with CD and MP3 with 8 speakers (according to Bestcars). All of this for a princely 89,000 Brazilian reais or $49,900 (at 1.8 real to the dollar).

No, I won’t go there this time, but, but (sadly, there always seems to be a but or two)…

Who said Brazilians are wary of imports? According to Brazilian car site bestcars.com.br, sales of imported cars rose a whopping 190 percent in April compared to the same month last year. The Brazilian Association of Importing Cars Companies – Abeiva – reports that in the first four moths of the year, a record 26,708 imported cars were registered in Brazil. 17.9 percent of cars sold in April were imported.

Give up? The answer is that they’re giving South Korea a headache. OK, let’s go back a bit. The Korea Times reports that something funny is happening to the South Korean car market. Effectively, for years, the South Korean car market used to be closed off to foreign competition, thus, keeping domestic production and sales high. The market for foreign was only for the exclusively rich who didn’t mind paying the tariffs. But now, even the proletariat is getting in on the act. In spite of a global slump in the market, the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA) reports that foreign imports rose, month on month, by 51.1 percent, to 7,208 units in April. Still a drop in the water: Korea makes 3.5m cars in a good year, of which 2.5m are exported. But it’s a start.

A lot of bandwidth is wasted in the blogosphere about how closed the Japanese car market supposedly is to foreign imports. Which of course is baloney. Paul Niedermeyer debunked the propaganda, and said: “Want to import cars to Japan? It’s one of the easiest countries to do so.“

In case people have not really gotten it, The Nikkei [sub] has drawn them a picture. It painstakingly lists how many cars were made by Japanese manufacturers at home and abroad. It shows how many cars were exported, and how many were imported.