If you’re buying a new car, there are now many manufacturers that offer cars with digital radio as standard, with others offering it as an option. In January, Communist Party mouthpiece The Peopleʼs Daily blamed foreign companies for the sluggish performance of domestic players, writing, Most Chinese car companies involved with JVs have not received the technology they were promised.” In September last year, former machinery and industry minister He Guangyuan said JVs are like opium” and likened Chinaʼs JV policy to a negative addiction.
Propping up the car industry would have cost taxpayers at least another $1 billion in handouts — not including the hidden costs of forcing government departments to buy Australian cars — and we would still have ended up with the same result, just a few years later.
Certainly this list of German car brands is not exhaustive, one can also mention such notable brands as AWZ, Barkas, Bitter, Borgward, Büssing, DKW, Glas, Goliath, Hansa, Heinkel, Horch, Lloyd, Maybach, MAN, Multicar, NAG, Neoplan, Robur, Simson, Trabant, Wanderer, Wartburg.
Foreign auto manufacturers first set foot in the Chinese car market 30 years ago, fully aware that the state allowed their entry into the market on the condition that they enter into joint ventures (JVs) with domestic firms, who were expected to benefit from their technical expertise.
While the technology for manufacture of cars can be said to have existed right from the time Prometheus stole fire or the wheel was (serendipitous) discovered, it is not until the second half of the19th century, when the industrial revolution truly picks up steam, so to speak, that cars start getting built.