Making luxury cars in China

The annual auto show in China is one of the major automotive exhibits in the world today, up there with Detroit, Frankfurt and Tokyo. It opened to journalists this morning, and I went to hear what some global auto executives had to say.

You can see Dieter Zetsche, the Daimler Chrysler chairman, in the photo above, posing with an opera singer who descended from a luxury Maybach sedan.

Zetsche, like other global execs, was busy pointing how many of their models are now produced or assembled in China.

The company’s Mercedes Benz E-class sedans are now manufactured here.

“We built a state-of-the-art plant together with our partners in Beijing,” Zetsche said, adding that he sees the premium auto market growing threefold in China in the next three years.

Earlier, Tom LaSorda, Chrysler’s chief executive, told a small group of us that his company began assembling local versions of the Chrysler 300 C luxury sedan last week.

Lasorda also said Chrysler will decide “by the end of the year” whether to go with Chinese manufacturer Chery Automotive or another unnamed non-U.S. manufacturer to produce a lower-cost car, rather than producing itself in the U.S. market.

That’s another sign of the huge pressure on U.S. automotive companies. One reporter asked LaSorda if he’ll feel a lot of pressure to come up with a turn-around plan before a Daimler Chrysler board meeting in late December.

He chuckled. “I don’t need to wait for the fourth quarter to feel pressure. I feel pressure every day,” he said. Other executives around the table laughed nervously.