oliveoiltinfoil
Well-known member
Looking at citroenbx's link about vintage vacuum catalogues, from the 70's to the 00's, it brought back how vacuums, and pretty much any other white good domestic appliances used to be. In so many way, it really brings home how vastly things have changed, so quickly. One thing I noticed was that, it seemed catalogue companies actually knew a little bit about the vacuums they were selling. I was seeing "clean fan motor" advertised on the dyson dc01, the infamous "British made" logos and who can forget the "beats as it sweeps as it cleans."
Now I am only 31 and half English, half german, growing up in Germany until I was 17 but I do remember looking through these catalogues during the 80's and 90's. These cleaners just look so much better quality to what they are now. It is amazing to see again "400, 500, 600 watt motors" and bagged cleaners a plenty.
What I am trying to get at is the current trend of cheaply built, nasty made vacuum. Looking at a few pages in these catalogues and seeing cleaners for 20 and 30 quid (would be more these days because of inflation) but cheap basic vaccums and even these looked well built and well thought out, probably all made in the west or Japan.
Nearly all these vacuums these days are made in china, with locally sourced, cheap parts, nasty nosier motors and cheap plastic bagless containers with poor manufacturing and quality control, at one point it seemed that things would never go back to the good old days. It's funny, we never thought anything at the time of getting out the dyson and It saying "made in Derby, UK, or the Electrolux Swedish made", but how we crave it now.
But recently, I am starting to see a couple of cleaners here and there with manufacturing being brought back to western countries. Now this post could go on forever explaining why, but I am awear that western and Japanese companies who were investing in china are now starting to pull out for a couple of strong reasons, chief among which being that manufacturing costs in china are now getting expensive. As human rights and environmentalist activists get nosier and more powerful, pushing up labour costs and green taxes being introduced out there "sort of) it is now no where near as cheap to build your white goods there. Indeed sony will be build the ps4 in brazil rather than china next year (but that may be to do with japanes/Chinese relations being very rocky at the moment). You also have the copy cat culture out there who have stolen western designs of not just cars and clothes, but vacuums and appliances. There was a copy of a dyson being sold on alibaba not so long ago.
Also, I would imagine its now very expensive to ship these products form china to Europe and Americas, not to mention time consuming. I also guess people are getting fed up of cheap nasty quality vacuums. Even vacuums costing £200/300 are made in china and most of them, not all however, are cheaply made and throw away items. More people are buying sebos and mieles as they are German/European built machines. But even some Electrolux and AEG moels are being built in the EU now. There is the revised AEG rechargeable stick vac mentioned on here not long ago, saying it was "made in the EU". I would imagine that its probably Poland or Slovakia, eastern Europe, but I guess wages there are probably as cheap as china without the worries of stealing designs, dangerous materials being used or shipping costs or waiting times.
Before the made in china craze was a thing, a few products were being made in eastern Europe and they were still decent quality, with a lot of the parts still being made in the native countries of the people who made the item.
Finally, I guess the other reason which has a big part to play is the advancement of automated manufacturing. I was watching a documentary about bosch not so long ago making car parts including O2 sensors, air meters, ABS and even ECU units which were being made in asia up until not so long ago when they moved back to Germany, the UK and Austria. The guy at bosch said essentially (not directly) they had concerns over spies working for Chinese state owned electronic companies taking technology, quality problems and also supplier problems, as bsoch would tell a Chinese factory how to make a certain product, and the end product ended up being completely inferior and wrong to the point they couldn't use it. A laser cutting company in Britain had the same problem, costing both bosch and this clothing company hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But bosch said that because of automated manufacturing, the fact that once you have bought a robot, you don't pay it a wage, it pays for itself over time, insures consistent quality throughout several thousand batches of parts, and also puts working back into Europe, he said they probably couldn't make the product cheaper. It was profitable, but ended up making a quality product.
So, does this exciting, roe recent trend hold any merits? Do you think we could finally start seeing "made in EC, UK and USA" back on our vacuums ?
Now I am only 31 and half English, half german, growing up in Germany until I was 17 but I do remember looking through these catalogues during the 80's and 90's. These cleaners just look so much better quality to what they are now. It is amazing to see again "400, 500, 600 watt motors" and bagged cleaners a plenty.
What I am trying to get at is the current trend of cheaply built, nasty made vacuum. Looking at a few pages in these catalogues and seeing cleaners for 20 and 30 quid (would be more these days because of inflation) but cheap basic vaccums and even these looked well built and well thought out, probably all made in the west or Japan.
Nearly all these vacuums these days are made in china, with locally sourced, cheap parts, nasty nosier motors and cheap plastic bagless containers with poor manufacturing and quality control, at one point it seemed that things would never go back to the good old days. It's funny, we never thought anything at the time of getting out the dyson and It saying "made in Derby, UK, or the Electrolux Swedish made", but how we crave it now.
But recently, I am starting to see a couple of cleaners here and there with manufacturing being brought back to western countries. Now this post could go on forever explaining why, but I am awear that western and Japanese companies who were investing in china are now starting to pull out for a couple of strong reasons, chief among which being that manufacturing costs in china are now getting expensive. As human rights and environmentalist activists get nosier and more powerful, pushing up labour costs and green taxes being introduced out there "sort of) it is now no where near as cheap to build your white goods there. Indeed sony will be build the ps4 in brazil rather than china next year (but that may be to do with japanes/Chinese relations being very rocky at the moment). You also have the copy cat culture out there who have stolen western designs of not just cars and clothes, but vacuums and appliances. There was a copy of a dyson being sold on alibaba not so long ago.
Also, I would imagine its now very expensive to ship these products form china to Europe and Americas, not to mention time consuming. I also guess people are getting fed up of cheap nasty quality vacuums. Even vacuums costing £200/300 are made in china and most of them, not all however, are cheaply made and throw away items. More people are buying sebos and mieles as they are German/European built machines. But even some Electrolux and AEG moels are being built in the EU now. There is the revised AEG rechargeable stick vac mentioned on here not long ago, saying it was "made in the EU". I would imagine that its probably Poland or Slovakia, eastern Europe, but I guess wages there are probably as cheap as china without the worries of stealing designs, dangerous materials being used or shipping costs or waiting times.
Before the made in china craze was a thing, a few products were being made in eastern Europe and they were still decent quality, with a lot of the parts still being made in the native countries of the people who made the item.
Finally, I guess the other reason which has a big part to play is the advancement of automated manufacturing. I was watching a documentary about bosch not so long ago making car parts including O2 sensors, air meters, ABS and even ECU units which were being made in asia up until not so long ago when they moved back to Germany, the UK and Austria. The guy at bosch said essentially (not directly) they had concerns over spies working for Chinese state owned electronic companies taking technology, quality problems and also supplier problems, as bsoch would tell a Chinese factory how to make a certain product, and the end product ended up being completely inferior and wrong to the point they couldn't use it. A laser cutting company in Britain had the same problem, costing both bosch and this clothing company hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But bosch said that because of automated manufacturing, the fact that once you have bought a robot, you don't pay it a wage, it pays for itself over time, insures consistent quality throughout several thousand batches of parts, and also puts working back into Europe, he said they probably couldn't make the product cheaper. It was profitable, but ended up making a quality product.
So, does this exciting, roe recent trend hold any merits? Do you think we could finally start seeing "made in EC, UK and USA" back on our vacuums ?
