We are met at our hotel at 7:15 by 6 staff members from saic, Aiden, Chris, Gary, Hui, Annie & Susan. They also have a photographer with them who will be driving with us today taking photos. Gary, Hui, Susan & Kay will be driving in an MG GS that will lead our team of 8 cars to the biggest of saic’s 3 car manufacturing plants in China. We need to get on the road early to avoid the worst of the Shanghai peak hours traffic that lasts until about 10 am. Kay has a hand held CB radio that she uses to communicate with the teams 8 cars. Aiden, Chris & Annie are travelling in a Roewe (a saic brand) van and they bring up the rear.
We head out from the hotel at about 7:30 into the Shanghai traffic and head for the highway to take us to the east side of the city. 
We join a highway that has an 80km limit until we change onto a 100km highway, but when we merge onto the highway we slip slowly into a traffic jam that crawls along for tens of kilometres due to road works and one of the 3 lanes is closed. It is a challenge keeping the cars together but we all manage to come together before we have to exit. After 3 hours We arrive at saic at 10:30, just as 1 shift of the workers is going off to their lunch break (they start at 5 am) and they are all quite interested in our little MG’s probably having never seen this MG model before.
We are taken inside where this a showroom with a couple of MG models on display, we are welcomed and shown a brief video
about saic and given the following mind blowing facts:
- Saic is China’s largest car manufacturer
- Saic manufactured 6.48 million cars in 2016
- Saic had $750 billion revenue in 2016
- Saic is 46th on the Fortune Global 500 list
- In the manufacturing plant we are visiting they manufacture
- 40 cars per hour
- 880 cars per day half of them MG’s
- They have 370 robots
- They have 4,000 staff, half in production
- They sell 10,000 MG’s per month in China
After the video we are taken on a tour of the assembly line which is absolutely fascinating watching the cars rolling along being built and having the body dropped onto the engine and suspension.
We then go into the boardroom for a presentation on the MG Branding in China – My Glamour. They are marketing MG to the 25 – 40 age group.
On the way out of the manufacturing complex the guard salutes us as we drive out, it makes us feel like royalty!
We line the cars up out the front of saic for a photo opportunity, before heading off on the enormous wide roads to a local restaurant for a Chinese banquet lunch which is delicious.
After lunch we have to drive back to the west side to an MG dealers workshop where we are servicing the cars, this trip takes us 3 hours. When we arrive the China MGCC members are waiting for us and we have a lovely warm welcome with a special banner written in Chinese. We chat as best we can and they present each car with a MGCC of China badge and stickers, which is very kind of them.
The cars are taken into the workshop area where they have put aside 6 hoists for us to use and they let their mechanics help us. Michael showed 2 of the mechanics how to use a grease gun & how to grease the car, which they then both did to all 8 cars. They have never seen this done as modern cars don’t have grease nipples. All the guys were given a pair of white cotton gloves to wear while they were working on their cars.
Each car got fresh oil & filter plus a spanner check and anything that needed tightening up or fixing was done.
Shamrock needed the accelerator cable replaced and Dash B need an exhaust bracket fixed, so all pretty minor items are fixed plus the cars are serviced ready for the next 6,000 kilometres.
The girls were also given a gift from the MGCC of China – an MG bear that is dressed as Sherlock Holmes, complete with pipe, he is very cute.
The MG dealer has the new MGZS in the showroom that we try out, it even has voice activated commands (in Chinese) to open the sunroof! These are suppose to be released in Australia towards the end of the year. We might have to trade in our old ZS for a new one.
After we drive back to the hotel in the dark we had driven well over 200 kilometres today just getting around Shanghai!
The figures are huge, some MG’s only ever sold 10000 in the whole of its model life never mind in a month.
The SUV range seem to be the trend but MG made there name as an affordable sports car and one is still needed.
Please tell them if the build one it has to be rear wheel drive!!
My Glamour – quite a change from Modern Gentleman…As per the latest Wheelspin disclosing the proposed MG E-motion car for the future – written by Ron Hammerton in Shanghai – was this discussed while at the factory!!
As mentioned by Andrew – the figures are huge. Let us hope that SAIC won’t be long before opening a huge showroom in Melbourne
SAIC is the organisation with which GM entered into joint venture in order to operate in China. Some of their engineers may well be among those I organised to GM-ise and automotive-ise chez GM in Melbourne.