Posted on 08/15/2004 9:23:21 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
SHANGHAI, China (Reuters) -- General Motors, the world's largest automaker, will start selling its first made-in-China Cadillacs in early 2005 in a market it expects eventually to account for a fifth of global sales of the luxury brand.
The U.S. giant, the second-largest player in the Chinese market after Germany's Volkswagen, is angling to re-launch the sedan as it accelerates a drive to grab market share from leader Volkswagen.
GM will officially begin selling the CTS version of its classic American automobile as an import starting mid-September at 518,000 yuan ($62,590), the company said in a statement seen by Reuters on Monday.
Both the locally made and imported models will retail for the same price -- about double that of a Cadillac CTS in the United States. It can cost 20 percent more to produce a vehicle in China due to inadequate logistics and higher import tariffs.
The Cadillac, a mainstay in a product slate that includes the Buick, virtually vanished from Chinese roads in the 1990s.
Today, it imports a tiny number of the sedans every year.
But by 2005, China will house the only facility outside of the United States to build the luxury brand.
A second Cadillac, the SRX sport utility vehicle, was expected to be launched in China before the end of the year, GM added.
The CTS and SRX will be made at GM's flagship Shanghai-based venture, a partnership with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, China's largest car maker.
GM has said it will initially rely on "semi-knocked-down kits" (SKDs), exporting cars mostly built in the United States to China where final assembly will take place.
It is uncertain how the Cadillac will be received by a Chinese market increasingly flush with luxury car options from BMW to the venerable made-in-China Audi of Volkswagen.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Wait till those hispanic immigrants add those loud speakers and hydraulics and make them into pimp-mobiles...
well, Drudge made a big deal about the article...GM has been making Buicks in China for a long time..it is the number one brand for the ELITE. Well, maybe after Mercedes....
GM keeps losing market share in the US..they have to sell somewhere.
Well if thats the case, then it won't be just for the elites for long.
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