Beijing Preview: Roewe 550

[Butz]

The interior seems like a nice place to be

[chinamonty]

Originally Posted by TriShield

Chinese cars will advance at an unprecedented rate because they simply crib the engineering, design and styling of their foreign partners.

To sell cars in China an automaker is required to partner with a domestic Chinese automaker who assembles the cars. The Chinese get access to all of their partner's work and will use them without a second thought.

China and southeast Asia has zero respect for copyrights and intellectual property, just as they do for human rights.

So paying Pininfarina or Bertone or Italdesign is ripping off a design. They have undeniably done it at times but not all of them do it.
getting acces to new skills has been used for years -it is called technology transfer. Australia did it when they bought Boeing 727s -they insisted that parts for the aircraft be built in Australia and they were and still are - and the factories are now owned by Boeing.
Asia is still getting used to the concept of copyright and some areas are now embracing it. Intellectual property registrations here have gone through the roof and in fact some Chinese firms have started suing overseas companies for breach. There is still a long way to go though admittedly.

http://www.carbodydesign.com/archive...-design-story/

[johnny smallblock]

Originally Posted by spidge

HOT!!!

Is this NA-bound?

^^To everyone who said it would be 10 years before Americans would be willing to buy a Chinese made car...

[GM lover]

This definently one of the good designs to come out of China. But some of the design elements do not look totally original, the rear looks like it came off a Volkswagen Jetta, the steering wheel from a Buick Park Avenue and the rest of the dashboard from a BMW.

[paul8488]

I don't see anything 'shamelessly' copied on that car. The first crop of Chinese cars were often exact copuies with interchangeable parts... that's shamelessly copying. There are only a handful of new cars that we can't compare to other ones... actually, I can't think of many truly unique designs in the mass market in quite a while.

I don't encourage Americans to embrace Chinese cars with open arms... but that doesn't stop this from being an attractive car that shows the the Chinese aren't going to follow forever. They'd be very happy leading.

[TriShield]

Originally Posted by ChevroletRevived

Yeah, that's exactly what they're doing. It really is alarming! I mean, this car is really impressive for a Chinese vehicle! The interior looks high tech, high quality and the outside is decently styled. The interior really is what impresses me the most. Should give worry to all the major automarkers.

It does look better than much of the "new" stuff GM comes up with.

[samkung]

Originally Posted by TriShield

Chinese cars will advance at an unprecedented rate because they simply crib the engineering, design and styling of their foreign partners.

To sell cars in China an automaker is required to partner with a domestic Chinese automaker who assembles the cars. The Chinese get access to all of their partner's work and will use them without a second thought.

China and southeast Asia has zero respect for copyrights and intellectual property, just as they do for human rights.

Dude you have to be fair sometimes, its a simple game in China, if you wanna earn $$, you will need to share the technology.

If they dont do that, the Chinese auto market will be FULL of foreign maker, do you think the communist government will like that

Originally Posted by TriShield

The Chinese get access to all of their partner's work and will use them without a second thought.

Man if GM or other company are that stupid to let the Chinese get to their core technology, its up for the foreign company to do something to protect what they consider as secrets.

[F14CRAZY]

It's a pretty sharp looking vehicle

[chinamonty]

Originally Posted by GM lover

This definently one of the good designs to come out of China. But some of the design elements do not look totally original, the rear looks like it came off a Volkswagen Jetta, the steering wheel from a Buick Park Avenue and the rest of the dashboard from a BMW.

Well go and have a look at a Chrysler 300 and tell me that there is no design language from a Rover 3.5 Coupe. No way you could acuse it ofbeing a copy though.
No car is totally original in desing these days they will always have elements from each other. Its no so far back when cars like Testarossa or a Labourghini even had actual Fiat taillights.
The steering wheel from the Park Avenue may be a Chinese design anyway.
It is still a nice looking vehicle.
I get a little tired of the attitude that a car has to look "American" and then when it does they (not necessarily Chinese) are accused of copying or being influenced by America.

[chinamonty]

Originally Posted by samkung

Dude you have to be fair sometimes, its a simple game in China, if you wanna earn $$, you will need to share the technology.

If they dont do that, the Chinese auto market will be FULL of foreign maker, do you think the communist government will like that



Man if GM or other company are that stupid to let the Chinese get to their core technology, its up for the foreign company to do something to protect what they consider as secrets.

Sharing technology is a game -with lots at stake whether it is with China or not. I am sure that if Mercedes has a technology they dont want to share then they are not going to give it the Americans or Japanese either.The biggies import the gearboxes and engine management systems (or parts whose technology they want to protect) as a unit so they dont have to share the technology. So then the Chinese government puts a tarriff on these parts. I still dont know why you just cant buy a gearbox and rip it to pieces and do tests like metallurgy etc to see what it is made from and how it works. That is what the defence department does when it gets secrets from overseas. The allies did this with rocket technology that was developed in germany and then smuggled out.

[Bravada]

Anyhoo, the car was still designed by Ricardo 2020 in the UK (I mean both "styling" and engineering), so don't you worry. The Chinese government officials often complained that Chinese automakers aren't really interested in developing own design/engineering skills, as it is still easier to either outsource or right away copy simple/outdated design.

The car itself is a solid effort, especially if you only look at the promo pics. This is obviously an attempt to go after the Lexoid IS - the rear end is sweet, the side is rather overweight with Toyota Allion overtones, the front end is awful. The interior is surprisingly good, if they manage to pull that out with solid quality.

Expect the car to be sold internationally as MG or Austin.

PS. Actual car. Codename: Fatso

[mikmak]

I like it as far as looks go, but if the brits helped them out, let's hope it wasn't with the wiring

@ code name:fatso

[ChevroletRevived]

Originally Posted by Bravada

Anyhoo, the car was still designed by Ricardo 2020 in the UK (I mean both "styling" and engineering), so don't you worry. The Chinese government officials often complained that Chinese automakers aren't really interested in developing own design/engineering skills, as it is still easier to either outsource or right away copy simple/outdated design.

The car itself is a solid effort, especially if you only look at the promo pics. This is obviously an attempt to go after the Lexoid IS - the rear end is sweet, the side is rather overweight with Toyota Allion overtones, the front end is awful. The interior is surprisingly good, if they manage to pull that out with solid quality.

Expect the car to be sold internationally as MG or Austin.

PS. Actual car. Codename: Fatso

Yeah I agree the interior is very, very impressive.

[chinamonty]

The Shezhen Daily got it seriously wrong. they have a photo of a Fiat as the Roewe 550. I am posting this cause the lady is cute.
http://paper.sznews.com/szdaily/20080424/ca2896821.htm
I find that shade of red suits the design pretty well -it is not a common colour here..

[samkung]

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