[pganapathy]

Make no mistake, Chinese cars will be like Chinese phones. A decade or so ago, the only reason one bought Chinese phones was because they were cheap. They were crap, couldn't be fixed/serviced easily, and it was simpler to chuck it and buy another phone if there was a problem. Today, their top end phones compete with the American and Korean brands, albeit at a lower price point.

Having seen the MG in the flesh, I got the impression that it was a car still in the early stages of development. Panel gaps seemed to be uneven and unnecessarily large in some cases. The story of the guy using a donkey to pull his MG hasn't helped matters.

Tata may well be playing with fire here. Chery will improve their products and could surpass their JV partners since Tata's biggest problem these days is their service centres. Their vehicles are much better than they used to be, but still prone to teething troubles in version 1.