Rip-Offs and cars...

It all started with this thread, regarding a Surefake M3 BTW, a very expensive copy IMO (take a look at post #37).

Well, I started to read about some car rip-offs. And now I believe seriously that they should be prohibited by the chinese government due to the poor image they are projecting. For sure in China are being made incredible things with cutting edge technology, but allowing this kind of things doesn't say too much in favour.

Take a look.



First the logo of this infamous brand....

Then some of "their" creations.





No, it is not an X5 or X3...

What about this one?? Is my favorite..

Barbarin said:

And now I believe seriously that they should be prohibited by the chinese government due to the poor image they are projecting.

Click to expand...

This brings to mind the Chinese car company Chery, who illegally cloned GM Daewoo's Matiz, however GM couldn't sue Chery:

"With General Motor's inability to seek justice at Chinese court that fails to honor foreign IP rights in spite of an obvious and clear piracy case and the pressure from Chinese communist party, GM opted to drop its case in November 2005 to preserve its business interests in China and maintain good will with the government." - Taken from Wikipedia, which cites several sources for the lawsuit.

And yet, Chrysler will start carrying Chery cars in the US soon. :thumbsdow Until they find lead in their paint. :shakehead

That red car looks nice! Can I pay with "Xerox"ed money?

Welcome to the new world order where whoever can make the product cheapest wins out regardless of who came out with the original design. Not saying I agree with it, but IP is becoming pretty much public domain with the ease of stealing info nowadays. On another note, there are only so many shapes you can make a car. At what point does something infringe on an existing design? When it copies 50% of the curves? Or when some percentage of the body panels are within x amount of millimeters? Any metric here will be fairly arbitrary. My prediction is that IP laws won't hope up in practice here. The copycats will just need to go one millimeter further than what the courts say constitutes a copy. The resulting body design will still look reasonably similar. And most of today's vehicles are butt ugly. I don't see why anyone would want to copy them anyway.

You want to see a car collapse on itself?!

Watch the 0:50-1:00....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9RbZyrJQ4g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F06LjugtIUo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Swzbt76wBM

Not so Brilliant!!!

This company also displayed a rip-off of a Lexus RX series.

The current issue of Popular Science has an article about China's clones and copies. They specifically mention the Chery QQ version of the Daewoo Matiz-slash-Chevy Aveo (yes the Matiz and Aveo are the same car, with the Aveo being the "upgraded" model for U.S. consumption).

I did see the crash test vids of the Chery cars... great entertainment and great motivation to not buy one. With what I know of Chinese manufactured goods with price point as the primary design consideration, I suspect these vehicles are made of cheaper steels with fewer welds than their U.S. counterparts.

Don't count on the Chinese government doing anything about this. A big part of their economy is based on the fact they have low R&D costs via IP theft.

The Chinese are even making fake transistors now.