Now the Fiat-Chrysler people are promising not to import the Chinese-built Jeeps, but times being what they are, and a chance to trade on the good intangibles of the brand, while keeping down costs of production, do seem to support the conjecture, that ALL Jeep production wil eventually move to China.
Maybe they could start building the old CJ-5 and CJ-7 models as their price leaders and for the rough back country.
Jeep Cherokees (XJs) were built in China after being discontinued herein the states.
They were built specifically for the local market, and XJ afficionados here n the states were told politely to bugger off when they started asking about importing them here.
The XJ was a great vehicle, currently the one of choice for the serious Jeep-moders out there. It would he nice to have them back in production, along with the CJ-5 and TJ Wrangler. CJ-7s are too big for my taste and I really dislike the current series Wrangler.
Probably not.
It just makes sense to produce cars for the Chinese market in China. Consider the transportation costs for shipping a Jeep from Detroit to Beijing.
As an example, Nissan has shifted production of the Leaf from Japan to Tennessee. The batteries are produced there, too. In doing so, they've been able to drop the price of the car by five or six thousand dollars.
This just doesn't smell conspiracy-worthy.