I came across this website.....

[Kimcofan]

Well just messing around I came across this website, I was kind of confused about how they could sell 150cc scooters so cheap.
My biggest guess is they are junk, anyway check it out and tell me what you think.

http://www.greenearthscooters.com/category.cfm?category=Scooters&gclid=COCflrqJ1J8CFeh_5QodNDi5aw

[jprestonian]

Yep -- mainland Chinese junk. Buy a shipping container full of 'em for under $300 each.

Do YOU wanna trust your life to a vehicle that cost that little to BUILD?  Hello, Darwin Awards nominee...!
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[axy]

Yep -- mainland Chinese junk. Buy a shipping container full of 'em for under $300 each.

Do YOU wanna trust your life to a vehicle that cost that little to BUILD?  Hello, Darwin Awards nominee...!
.

Take a look at Sportster on these pics. It`s a ripoff of old Kymco Cobra Cross I purchased in 1999.

I would NEVER laugh at China... they are the ones working, we from "the West" are the ones providing "services" with little to low added value... and we wonder about the crisis.

USA lives from FED printing money out of thin air and selling bonds to China. They own USA economy - and consequently, by the inevitable law of economic derivatives - significant part of the Western World.

You know very well that our Kymcos are produced in China... so is Piaggio...

Brave New World.

[ts1]

You know very well that our Kymcos are produced in China... so is Piaggio...

Yes, the simple and cheap ones like Kymco Agility or Piaggio Zip.
But Downtown or MP3 are not build in Mainland China, because the desired quality would need a big effort (for skilled employees) and waste (of material) due to the complexity of these scooters.
Mainland China can produce quality too, but then they are not cheaper than their competitors.

[axy]

Mainland China can produce quality too, but then they are not cheaper than their competitors.

For sure they would be cheaper in variable part of the cost - labour. Also, in the part related to cost of area (land), utilities etc. The material and know how would cost roughly the same.

In China average worker lives close or in the factory and has gross salary around 150 US$, working under poor conditions, and you can lay him off whenever you want.

In Europe/USA you need to give him/her 20x that amount, plus there are unions.

Btw. Kymco has two factories in China and one in Indonesia.

[ts1]

It's not all about the hourly wage of a simple factory worker or engineer.
There are weak factors like quality awareness or loyalty or service or response time which can be more important - depending on the product.
Believe it or not: some production lines came back to Germany after miserably failing in China. Not only high tech companies, "simple" toy manufacturers too.

[jprestonian]

Not so many unions in the U.S., these days -- the acolytes of Reagan have done their best to kill them all, and have done a pretty (in)decent job of it. Come talk to the Nissan workers just south of me in Smyrna, TN about those good union jobs.
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[axy]

It's not all about the hourly wage of a simple factory worker or engineer.
There are weak factors like quality awareness or loyalty or service or response time which can be more important - depending on the product.
Believe it or not: some production lines came back to Germany after miserably failing in China. Not only high tech companies, "simple" toy manufacturers too.

I know that. 10 years ago ICT was all about outsourcing to India, now everything is moving back from India (but not to USA/Europe, surprisingly, to Mexico and Brasil)...

[jprestonian]

The Chinese are doing what the rest of the world asks of it: In this case, dealers in the U.S. who want the cheapest possible scooter that will roll out of a parking lot on its own power, providing them with massive profit margins.

These dealers generally don't care if the thing even makes it home. They just care about the 300%+ profit margin they're realizing from low-information bargain hunters... and in the U.S., anyway, there is certainly no shortage of those.

The dealers don't care if the Chinese manufacturers use slave, child or prison labor. The dealers don't care if the manufacturing process poisons the entire country of China. They care about delivering a product that will roll out of a parking lot on its own power, providing them with massive profit margins, period.

That is not to say the Chinese can't build a scooter that will compete with Kymco, et al. They can. The problem is in finding dealers who will be happy with a 30% profit margin rather than 300% or more.
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[zombie]

Didn't I see a post HERE about; China buying ALL the U.S. Bonds?  Every time you touch your door knob, you are touching THE MOTHERLAND! W/out getting CRAZY... We ALL know what is going on. What can WE DO? TTTOOO many w/ the $, Not enough w/ the KNOCK OUT PUNCH! Stop Buying!...............................

[jprestonian]

Dood, we borrowed more money from China under George W. Bush than we've borrowed from ANYONE, at ANY time.

Why this escapes anyone, I can't fathom. Maybe everyone's stupid.
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[axy]

Life on credit, and I understand that Western civilization was built on it, especially in the USA, during 2nd part of 20th century, is coming to end.

I chose living without credit when I was a kid, perhaps my education helped a bit (B.Sc and M.Sc in economy).

This led me to having two room apartment (owned by me) instead of house under mortgage; new slow 109 hp car instead of 330 hp car I would like to have, scooters instead of sports motorcycle etc.

However, in the long run, it paid off: I might have less than some people who pay 80 % of their salary to pay for things they did not need in the first place, and buy another such thing to the bank during 10 years, but in fact I have more because everything I have is fully owned, I have a bit of cash on the side for rainy days and have in fact invested a lot in my education, making education my biggest personal expense.

[zombie]

So Kimcofan! You still want that take out order?