American MG fans maybe waiting just a little longer for MG making it Stateside. Although certain rumors of MG setting up production in the US were circulating in the early days of 2005-2007, nothing ever came of it, now MG has a wide range but still those cars wont be seeing any North American roads in the near future. SAIC has however opened an office in Detroit to boost its name with the Detroit automakers and suppliers in terms of buying parts and will eventually carry out engineering work with an expected staff of 100 people.
nese automaker SAIC Motor Corp, which opened a U.S. office in suburban Detroit this summer, has no plans to build or sell its own cars in North America in the next several years, the company’s top U.S. executive said on Wednesday.
“It’s really clear, in (the) short term – several years – (there is) no plan for car business in North America for SAIC,” Yi Lu, head of SAIC USA, said at an industry conference at the University of Michigan when asked whether the company had plans for to build or sell its own cars in the region.
But in his first public comments since SAIC opened an office in Birmingham, Michigan, in June, Yi also said SAIC wants to build its presence and reputation with other companies in the U.S. auto industry.
The North American market is a notoriously difficult one to enter successfully. Many famous names have tried and failed including Sterling and latterly even Suzuki has withdrawn.
With MG, SAIC is not yet ready by a long way for the US market. Quality, range, design, drive trains and ability are all a long way behind where they need to be to compete.
Judging by the high level of investment and progress to date, I have no doubt SAIC will take their cars to the USA, just not yet
I’d give it 5-10 years. Opening the office is just to let people know who they are so they won’t be shocked when they do decide to start selling. They would have studied the Japanese and Korean’s entry into the US market and are taking the top dipping approach. I’m guessing the next thing to open would be a design center.
US Fleet market is more easy to break-through and BYD is now working on it…….