Has China Inc. Bought America’s Outdated Auto Technology?
By Chris Devonshire-Ellis Nov. 23 – Following China’s recent buying spree of European and American-owned auto brands, technology and know-how, I feel a few related issues not commonly asked may be prudent to question in light of the massive amounts – albeit at “fire-sale” prices – that China has acquired these production facilities and knowledge for. As the United States belatedly loses its grip on auto manufacturing, we are without doubt witnessing the inevitable; the restructuring and re-balancing of corporate America away from such employee-heavy manufacturing industries and more towards service, innovation and design, a step long overdue. Yet it reminds me uncannily of Europe’s sale of 1940s and 1950s technology to India when Fiat and Morris, at the time two of Europe’s most powerful auto companies, sold off their cheap production lines, technology and knowhow to India. While European auto manufacturing moved on and consolidated, the technology India had purchased kept their auto s
