The motor industry’s fortunes are increasingly divided, says Peter Collins. But in the right markets and with the right technologies, they look surprisingly bright
Over the past decade tens of millions of Chinese families have gained personal mobility on an undreamt-of scale while lots of new jobs have been created making, selling and servicing cars in China. But the Chinese government seems less concerned about that than about its failure to create strong national champions capable of taking on the foreign carmakers on their own turf. In future it may try harder to achieve this aim, which could deter foreign firms from continuing to invest in the country. A wiser course would be to accept—as Britain, and more recently Russia, have already done—that as long as the business is thriving and generating lots of well-paid work, the nationality of a car factory’s owners and the badges on the bonnets hardly matter.
