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GM, as a whole, has to design this new Trailblazer to a slew of regulations for wherever it will be sold. Are the regulations and restrictions really so vastly different between these two worlds that it would cost that inordinate amount of money to make it work for both locations?
As an engineer, I understand that going from one set of rules and regulations to another is a serious pain. But does that mean any of the calculations and designs are performed in a different way? Absolutely not.
I think, as a car company, if you set forth customer safety and happiness as the number 1 and 2 priorities, then the rest should be pretty easy to meet. Set your own standards that are more stringent than any of the rules and regulations found anywhere in the world, and you can then design any upcoming vehicle to pass every country's standards at once.
Then, to take it from Europe or Taiwan to the US, all you have to do is change where the steering wheel goes.
Sure, maybe you'd be overdesigning the vehicle that makes it to market in Taiwan, but you wouldn't have to design the car twice, or three or four times just so you can send different variants to different markets.
Obviously, not all people want the same thing in a vehicle, but as far as the engineering for safety goes, that would be completely taken care of in a global manner. The rest of the "fluff" can be mixed and matched or customized to suit the market.
Or maybe I'm just being "unrealistic."
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