Let’s Hope They Don’t Name the Grey Paint Color "Lead"

China's Chery Car: Safe At Any Speed For U.S. Market? – CNBC.com

I had a number of readers email me this crash test video of a Chinese car sold in the Russia market. One reader asked what Chrysler was thinking doing business with Chery — the CNBC columnist (linked above) says Chrysler will have to do A LOT of work to get their product up to U.S. standards. They're going to have to watch them closely to make sure they don't substitute weaker steel in actual production AFTER the crash tests are eventually passed. Can consumers trust China products after this rash of poor quality in the news?

The YouTube Video:

This is more of a business issue than a strictly “Lean” issue. Maybe it's a Lean issue going back to Deming and being careful about how you pick your suppliers, not choosing on price alone. I guess this goes for Chrysler picking its partners and us, as car buyers, choosing our car supplier to purchase from.

We have to hope that Chrysler's reputation is worth enough to them to ensure good quality products, but we would have also though Mattel's name was worth enough (and they have a new toy recall in the news today).

Here's the WSJ article on the China crash test.

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