After arranging the FAW people, BAIC went to the AMC headquarters in New York State, and there were six or seven people left in the delegation at once, two from the Automobile Corporation, and the rest were Binqi Harbin and Bai Yunsheng.

Now that they have come to Detroit, Li Gang and others certainly cannot miss the opportunity to visit GM, Ford, and Chrysler, and they have sent out applications to visit several companies.

GM and Ford were enthusiastic, and the presidents of both companies met with the delegations, but when Li Gang tried to talk to them about seeking cooperation, the presidents of both companies said that they had no plans to produce cars in China anytime soon.

Chrysler was not prepared to receive the Chinese delegation at all, and they only sent a deputy general manager to receive it. Hosted by the deputy general manager, the delegation toured their factory, and when asked if they could produce a joint venture sedan, the Krasler shareholders showed the delegation the Dodge 600 sedan, a model that had been on the market for four or five years, and the delegation was superficially interested but in fact disappointed by the model they offered.

The Dodge 600 has been on the market for some years, not only is the model outdated and the sales of this model in the United States are not satisfactory, it can be said that it is an unsuccessful model for Chrysler.

Although Chrysler showed the delegation the 488 engine, this engine is also a product of Chrysler in the 70s, the technology is backward, followed by the workmanship is not fine and it is also a carburetor version, where can it catch up with the EFI engine provided by Lin Johnson to the delegation, it is simply a product of two eras, which also makes the delegation very disappointed with these American automobile companies!

Despite this, Li Gang and others still comprehensively inspected the Dodge 600 model, and finally gave up the idea of cooperating with Chrysler without any suspense. The Dodge 600 was born in 1979 and has a boxy appearance. However, the Americans have done a particularly clear job of water chestnuts, both in style and technology, which are much worse than the A6 and B5.

If there were no two lanes provided by Lin Qiangsheng before, the Qi 600 would still be eye-catching, but the two were relatively superior. Lin Johnson's two cars seem to represent a new era of products, their exterior design style is different from the box models that prevailed in the 70s, and have moved in a more fashionable and youthful direction, while the Dodge 600 model still looks like a product of the previous era.

And after communicating with Chrysler, they didn't mean to offer more advanced models. The Chrysler board of directors, represented by Ekka, is not ready to work with China. Chrysler believes that China's auto market is not yet ready for foreign brands, and they don't seem to believe that Chinese can afford cars.

The delegation unabashedly frustrated after visiting several of the largest American car companies, which do not pay much attention to China's car market and who are generally concerned that communist countries like China will drive foreigners away once they have mastered the technology. This is not something that has never happened, such as the former Soviet Union.

And it is also mixed with the self-centered ideology of the Americans, so that they must first consider whether the United States technology leaks when they joint venture with China, and the Americans also believe that for a long time, China's joint venture factories are net input, and the Americans estimate that the Chinese factories will not bring them much profit, so the Americans will certainly not be enthusiastic to help the Chinese develop the automobile industry.

Five days later, Li Gang found Lin Qiangsheng. They were all arranged by Lin to stay in a large hotel in the city, and from the upper floors of this place, you can see some classic Detroit buildings such as the general headquarters.

"Johnson & Johnson, I've wanted to talk to you for a long time!" Li Gang said.

Lin Qiangsheng smiled: "Old Li, just say what you have." ”

Li Gang smiled and asked, "Johnson & Johnson, do you think China's automobile industry can develop?" When will our automobile companies develop as strong as the automobile industry in these developed countries? ”

Lin Qiangsheng nodded and said: "Of course we can, our country has a large population and great potential, and our automobile industry will definitely be able to develop greatly in the future, of course, there will inevitably be stumbles in the middle, but it will always develop!" ”

Li Gang nodded and said with a smile: "I believe it too." But what a hard road ahead! ”

Then he said, "When I came to the United States, I found that many of the streets were full of Japanese cars, and it seemed that Japanese cars were very popular in the United States!" Could it be that Japanese cars are so successful in the United States? It's only been a few years. Japan's automobile industry has become so developed! Li Gang said with some sighs.

Lin Qiangsheng nodded and said: "Japanese auto companies have done really successfully, and they are also very good at making products!" And the United States is also a major sales market for Japanese cars, and the Japanese automobile industry earns a lot of foreign exchange for this small country! In the past 20 years alone, more than 20 million cars have been produced in Japan, and more than half of them have been sold overseas! ”

"20 million units, it's incredible! If you don't come to foreign countries, it's really hard to imagine how far the automobile industry in these developed countries has developed! Li Gang said with a sigh.

This is also the second time in his life that he has gone abroad in addition to the Soviet Union, and he has personally felt the industrial capacity of developed countries. After a few days of visiting, Mr. Li saw what it means to be a giant in the automobile industry. General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and other companies in Detroit have a huge industrial scale, which is not a large and technologically backward handicraft factory like FAW and FAW in China, but a complex of highly specialized industrial systems!

Although most of the cars seen on the streets of Detroit are the brands of the Big Three, they are obviously lagging behind the many Japanese cars seen on the streets of Los Angeles.

Li Gang said with some concern: "Minister Yao Bin and some other authoritative economic experts have put forward the theory of market for technology. The idea of opening up our country's market to foreign goods to attract some foreign enterprises to build factories in China has also been recognized by the central leadership. However, what I have seen these days is that the technology of American enterprises is not low, but they are still beaten to the ground by Japanese companies, not only is the technology relatively backward compared with Japanese cars, but even the appearance is not as good as that of Japanese cars, and my visits to American automobile companies in the past few days seem to be learning the management techniques of Japanese automobile companies in terms of management. What's going on, is it possible that the Americans' auto industry is already lagging behind the Japanese across the board? ”

Lin Qiangsheng shook his head and said: "The technology of the Americans is not backward, but their thinking is lagging behind, and the scale of the enterprise is huge, and it can't be changed for a while." There are several aspects that determine the quality of a car, such as performance, price, and products suitable for the market. Japanese cars have the advantage of manufacturing costs and low prices, and the Japanese are famous for their unity and hard work. In Detroit, an average auto front-line worker earns $12 an hour, or $96 for an eight-hour workday. Moreover, it is difficult for factories to get workers to work overtime, and workers have to be paid a lot of overtime pay for overtime. The monthly wage of an ordinary American auto worker has exceeded 3,000 US dollars, and the Auto Workers Union constantly demands that the workers be paid a wage increase, and if the requirements of the Auto Workers Union are not met, they encourage the workers to demonstrate, which has caused serious economic losses to the factory, and the demonstrations have passed day by day, and the company has delayed production for another day! ”

Lin Qiangsheng spread his hands and said: "In this way, all kinds of problems are entangled in several auto giants in the United States, but the Japanese have secretly occupied most of the American auto market with cheap labor, and now they have a stable 50% of the U.S. auto market, and export more than 2 million cars to the United States every year!" Another reason is that Japanese cars have low fuel consumption, although they are more compact than American cars, but they are extremely suitable for family use, and American cars lost many middle-class buyers due to high fuel consumption when the oil crisis came! These problems add up, and by the time these giants notice, the Japanese car companies have already grown into a strength similar to them, and it is too late to deal with them, so they can only follow these Japanese car companies and keep catching up! ”

"So that's the case, can we Chinese with a large population learn to follow their development path like the Japanese automobile industry?" Li Gang was a little excited, and when he thought of this, he couldn't help but ask Lin Qiangsheng curiously.

Lin Qiangsheng smiled and shook his head after hearing this: "How can it be so easy, Americans are not fools, they have begun to work hard when they see others grabbing the market at their doorstep, and they can't compete in products, but their opponents will work hard in politics!" The import tariffs of the United States have been raised a lot, and in order to prevent a large number of Japanese cars from hitting American auto companies, these giant companies have used a lot of money to lobby the US government to gradually raise the threshold for cars to enter the United States. Americans who sell tens of thousands of units in small batches don't care, but if you want to learn from Japan, you can't do it. ”

And in response to the rising tariff threshold in the United States, Toyota has also invested in the construction of a car plant in the United States and is now in production, and Honda Motor Company has followed suit in the United States. The Japanese put some of their production capacity in the United States to avoid high import tariffs. Therefore, it is difficult to replicate the development path of the Japanese, and it is impossible to develop without ten years! In addition, after World War II, Japan had the United States to export technology to it, as well as the vast international market opened to them, coupled with the Japanese decades of talent and technology accumulation, which has developed the automobile industry, and we still lack a lot of things if we want to learn from them! (To be continued......)