http://finance.yahoo.com/news/in-chi...ereotypes.html

Off topic, but I just ran across this fascinating article about how various car brands are perceived in China.

 

Porsche Cayenne is perceived as the choice for middle aged wives of wealthy businessman. Even at US$200K for the base V6 model, they are seen all over larger cities.

 

China is becoming Porsches largest market and they haven't even begun to scratch their itch for these cars. This is where the new CEO at Porsche plans on hitting his aggressive growth targets for 2012 and beyond."
How long do you think Porsche will sell their cars at a discount in the US when the Chinese , and others, are willing it to spend twice as much for the same cars ?

 

Interesting but they covered so few brands. Let's revisit in a few years when the repeat buyers outnumber the new buyers.

 

Awesome, that's a great argument to justify buying Porsches now. I'll use this one with my wife.

 

Is it really a discount here, or are the prices in China artificially inflated due to prectionist tariffs and currency issues? It seems likely to me that Porsche is receiving the same amount of $ per vehicle no matter where it's sold.

 

It's due to the tariff plus license fee. Since most cities only offer limited number of license plates per year, impulse buyers would spend several times more to get one from scalpers.

If it was currency differences, then we should be paying more than China, since RMB has been really strong against the Euro.

But the demand for Cayenne is amazingly high in China. It's almost impossible to get a 2012 unless you're on the waiting list, unless if you got some connection. 997, not as much.

 

Oh well, there's goes my argument about buying now before the prices shoot up ...

 

But with supply getting shorter, price is bound to go up! That'd be my excuse

 

Summary for those who don't want to read the articles.

Audi = Gov't official

Buick = status, rich

BMW = arrogant, corrupted, likes to run over people

Mercedes = old fart

over 550,000 Buicks sold in 2010, holy cow.

 

I share the same sentiment as the Chinese - BMW buyers are rash and arrogant haha.. Well, at least the late model 3 series (san M3)

Buick has done really well in China as an early adoptor of the Chinese market.

Porsche stands to be the top brand. The combination of style, image, performance, reliability, quality and safety is what no other brand delivers. I think the Japanese makers clearly miss the Chinese market. Politics and cultural differences may play into this. In China, VW is the ubiquous Toyota.

 

Historically, they hate each other, no surprised the Japanese brand isn't popular there. Almost anything American is popular in China, from clothes, cars, tools, shoot even chicken feet. People pay top dollars to eat chicken feet imported to China. lol.