I would like to share my own experience, seeing this from an industry perspective:
First of all, my summary might be a bit "yes/no, white/black" but I work in a similar market like carbon for almost 20 years with 10+ years experience in Asia.
We work with fiber glass which is, to a certain extend, the "longer arm of the industry" e.g. the mass market. Carbon is more high-tech and expensive. But everywhere where you find large amounts of Carbon production usually is a 10-100 times bigger GRP production nearby.
We are Germans buying raw materials from around the world. We are a smaller market then wind but bigger than bicycles. We started our journey to the internationalization approx. 15 years ago. Meanwhile lots of things have changed.
China: China still has the mass market. There is not much intelligence, mostly you find cheap products. Although products for the western world are better quality, there is lack of R&D, lack of design and engineering. Ive seen very very often products simply just copied, even in expensive industrial nice markets. Scary, and even scarier - no improvement of the last decade! There is and there will be always a market for cheap. Given the high tolerances that products of high reputation have the copy usually is good enough for 99percent of the users. With other words, market leaders, especially in the central European or Californian market, define the 200+% industry benchmark. Even the chinese copy with short cuts is not necessarily breaking down immediately.
Taiwan: I call this best of both worlds. Western companies choose Taiwan decades ago and put there companies out there. All aluminium CNC cutting, welding, Carbon and any other "higher" tech raw material is present on this little island. Compared with the bigger brother all seems smarter, more efficient and more high-tech. Also Japan is using Taiwan a lot as cheap next door labor. At the end of the day, Taiwan (and to a certain extend Korea) have it all. Western R&D, asian labor.
USA: Generally best access to the market. Marketing and R&D are close to the costumer. US companies know their costumers and forecast like no other. No1 reason, no one else is doing it worldwide No2, big enough country to justify local marketing, advertising and promotions. Downside is the labor. Labor (with my european eyes) is a disaster nowadays.
Again, this is us in our niche market but Im in good contact with others and their productions, comes down to the same at the end:
China has to step up and get R&D and engineering (lot of it has also to do with the communistic background. No managers!! No decisions! Everyone expects to receive a command and a target and things will be fine)
US should invest in work force. College degrees like mechatronics are a good way, we need much more than that.
coming back to wheels:
I don't really trust chinese wheels. Even worser, I don't really trust US wheels. I would prefer taiwanese wheels/bikes/parts. Thanks good this is where 99percent of the market is anyway. ;)
First of all, my summary might be a bit "yes/no, white/black" but I work in a similar market like carbon for almost 20 years with 10+ years experience in Asia.
We work with fiber glass which is, to a certain extend, the "longer arm of the industry" e.g. the mass market. Carbon is more high-tech and expensive. But everywhere where you find large amounts of Carbon production usually is a 10-100 times bigger GRP production nearby.
We are Germans buying raw materials from around the world. We are a smaller market then wind but bigger than bicycles. We started our journey to the internationalization approx. 15 years ago. Meanwhile lots of things have changed.
China: China still has the mass market. There is not much intelligence, mostly you find cheap products. Although products for the western world are better quality, there is lack of R&D, lack of design and engineering. Ive seen very very often products simply just copied, even in expensive industrial nice markets. Scary, and even scarier - no improvement of the last decade! There is and there will be always a market for cheap. Given the high tolerances that products of high reputation have the copy usually is good enough for 99percent of the users. With other words, market leaders, especially in the central European or Californian market, define the 200+% industry benchmark. Even the chinese copy with short cuts is not necessarily breaking down immediately.
Taiwan: I call this best of both worlds. Western companies choose Taiwan decades ago and put there companies out there. All aluminium CNC cutting, welding, Carbon and any other "higher" tech raw material is present on this little island. Compared with the bigger brother all seems smarter, more efficient and more high-tech. Also Japan is using Taiwan a lot as cheap next door labor. At the end of the day, Taiwan (and to a certain extend Korea) have it all. Western R&D, asian labor.
USA: Generally best access to the market. Marketing and R&D are close to the costumer. US companies know their costumers and forecast like no other. No1 reason, no one else is doing it worldwide No2, big enough country to justify local marketing, advertising and promotions. Downside is the labor. Labor (with my european eyes) is a disaster nowadays.
Again, this is us in our niche market but Im in good contact with others and their productions, comes down to the same at the end:
China has to step up and get R&D and engineering (lot of it has also to do with the communistic background. No managers!! No decisions! Everyone expects to receive a command and a target and things will be fine)
US should invest in work force. College degrees like mechatronics are a good way, we need much more than that.
coming back to wheels:
I don't really trust chinese wheels. Even worser, I don't really trust US wheels. I would prefer taiwanese wheels/bikes/parts. Thanks good this is where 99percent of the market is anyway. ;)