F1: Chinese Grand Prix

It was a good, clean start. Fernando Alonso gets by Heikki Kovalainen for fourth place. Jarno Trulli and Sebastian Bourdais collide. Lewis Hamilton sets the pace, followed by the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa.

I don’t understand why the broadcast team at Speed TV thinks Felipe Massa getting second place to Hamilton’s first would put him in a strong position for the Brazil Grand Prix, the next and final race. Finishing like that he’d be 7 points behind Hamilton.

Ferrari look very strong for the Constructor’s title but the Driver’s title is a whole different matter.

Based on initial pace it looked like Hamilton was light on fuel and Massa not as much. It turns out it was in fact the other way around, which favored Hamilton.

Kovalainen’s right front tire fails and he has to limp it back to the pits. The crew put on a new set and off he goes. He’s on a heavier fuel load than teammate Hamilton but has not been able to keep up.

After the second round of stops Raikkonen (on soft tires) is seen checking his mirrors for Massa (on hard tires). He will in all likelihood let Massa by since he is out of contention for the Driver’s title and Massa is not.

It’s also a possibility that Raikkonen has not pushed Hamilton harder due to having to maintain station to Massa in order to orchestrate a ‘pass’ since team orders are technically not allowed. Ferrari might have chosen to do this in order to maximize team points and limit damage to Massa’s title chances.

With eight laps to go Massa goes by Raikkonen, having steadily gained on him over the preceding 10 laps or so. In the end Kovalainen parks his McLaren Hamilton wins, followed by Massa, Raikkonen, Alonso (Renault), and the BMWs of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica. The Renault has improved tremendously over the course of the season.

Kubica is now out of contention for the Driver’s title, Hamilton leads by 7 points over Massa, and Ferrari leading the Constructor’s title by 11 points with one race remaining.

F1: Chinese GP Qualifying

Robert Kubica barely made it from Q1 to Q2. With 5 minutes to go he was 17th, the car was in the garage and his mechanics were swarming all over it. Out he went and did the lap he needed.

The McLarens were 1-2, led by Lewis Hamilton. The Ferrari duo were 5th and 6th or thereabouts. David Coulthard was irate with Nick Heidfeld for passing him prior to the start of DC's flying lap, and then coming in. Heidfeld was later demoted 3 starting positions, and rightfully so. But come on DC. Calling it the most unsportsman move ever is just a slight exaggeration.

In Q2 Kimi Raikkonnen went out early on soft tires. My guess is this was to obtain data for the team and title-contender Felipe Massa. Normally they save those tires til the end of the session or for Q3. Kubica was on the bubble near the end and was not able to move into the top 10 as hard as he tried. Teammate Heidfeld did.

In Q3 Hamilton took pole, Raikkonen was second, Massa 3rd, and Fernando Alonso a strong 4th in his Renault.

Chinese Cars In Detroit, Part 2

Let me ask you this. A lot of your clothes and shoes might have been made in places like Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Thailand. And they’re pretty good right? But who designed them, selected the materials, and set up the supply chain to deliver finished product stateside?

It’s only a matter of time before Chinese made cars are brought here. Aren’t many (most?) of the products you and I use made in China? They’re the world’s factory. A lot of the stuff made there is really, really good. Computers for example.

They contain a lot of parts from companies based in other countries. Perhaps they contain a fair amount of parts made in other countries. But your Chinese made or assembled laptop is probably well designed and manufactured, or you wouldn’t have bought it.

In time I don’t believe it will be any different for a car, another complex machine assembled from a large number of components. It could come from anywhere. The Chinese automobile industry is going to progress faster than the Japanese and Koreans did. The trail was already blazed. The only thing that might rival their pace is that of the Indians.

There is no doubt we are going to see some massive change. And I think that pace of change has been and is being accelerated by the world’s automobile manufacturers and suppliers setting up shop in China and combining their skills with the manufacturing capabilities that exist there.

If I were to guess which Chinese made vehicles will succeed in the US market first, I’m going to place my bet on a non-Chinese company that already successfully sells vehicles in the US, and has strong ties to a Chinese partner. That’s the firm that has the least steep learning curve.

Chinese Cars In Detroit, Part 1

This post is about a month late. Here are some observations I made about Chinese cars I saw at the Detroit auto show last month. Everyone says they have a long way to go and I agree.

If you could buy a Chinese car in the US right now you would have only one reason to do so: The short term price advantage. The car would probably fall apart and end up costing far more in the long run than buying a quality used car. I see 3 major weaknesses: Design, quality, and marketing.

Chinese Design

They don’t get it – yet. The serious cars are complete knock-offs of models from other manufacturers based in other countries. BYD (Build Your Dreams) for example, helped themselves to a Toyota Corolla design, with some previous generation Camry rearend thrown into the mix.





What happens when you cross a Mercedes SL with a Volkswagen Eos?




And here’s a faithful reproduction of the last generation Honda Accord, accentuated with a subtle BMW 7-series Bangle-Butt:





It’s readily apparent that intellectual property is a serious issue. Without respecting IP it makes it hard for an industry or a society to innovate because there’s less incentive to do so. You create something new, everyone copies you and undercuts you while you have higher costs because you had to invest in R&D. This is why counterfeit and pirated goods are so harmful to the economy (more info here). They need to differentiate themselves from others by building unique products the market wants.

Chinese Quality

They don’t get it – yet. Paint, fit and finish, and trim are all below par. A two foot long piece of plastic trim promptly fell off the trunklid of one car I touched. There is also apparently one main door handle supplier in China, or they all copy from one another. Note the handle that won’t retract. It makes you wonder how well their engines and transmissions are made.


Chinese Marketing

They don’t get it – yet. The brochures I read were full of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Not only that, the use of language often didn’t make sense. Something is definitely lost in the translation. If they want to succeed here, they need to get native PR and marketing people to get the message out. Here’s another example:


Serial or item number as vehicle name isn't going to be memorable for the right reasons.

Despite all these shortcomings, I think Chinese made cars are going to be here sooner rather than later. They will eventually get it. To be continued….