Explaining the Chinese Car Industry and Chinese Cars
 |
In a recent interview with the general manager of BYD, Mr. Xia, he revealed that the upcoming BYD F1 will cost a mere 30,000rmb for the lowest model, rising to 40,00rmb for the top end one. The secret to his low price? They designed entirely in China, and didnt want to outsource the design as this obviously is an expensive service.
There are few other cars in the 30,000 to 40,000rmb namely the Chery QQ, and the Little Noble. Hopefully the BYD F1 can hit it that magic spot.
The Suzuki Liana was never a truly succesful car in China, its got everything that most small Chinese families need, its got a nice big trunk for the kids junk and the shopping, its big enough to carry 5 people without any problems, partly due to the 1.6 engines, but why wont it sell well in China? Perhaps its just ugly.
SUZUKI Motor Corp, Japan’s second-biggest minicar maker, will recall Liana compact vehicles in China to fix faults in their transmissions.
The recall, starting tomorrow, covers 11,716 Liana cars made in China between October 27, 2005, and June 9 this year, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement posted on its Website, citing the auto maker’s local venture. It’s the first recall by Changhe Suzuki Automobile Co.
Erik sent us an email yesterday that just said “L’histoire se repète!!!” and with a URL attached. Obviously China Car Times doesnt speak Euro French, but we got Mandarin nailed down pretty well, so we just had a look at the link he sent to us. It turns out that China has been turning out cloned cars for a bit more than five years, its being doing it for closer to 70, and their connection to the Longbridge car factory (the one that turned out MG’s for years before coming under Nanjing MG control) is also just as long.
In 1929, a delegation from the city of Mukden (old name for Shenyang city) in the Manchuria region of China (now split into three different provinces) visited the Birmingham based Longbridge factory to view the Austin Seven, a car which they planned to take back to China and name the ‘Chinese Dragon‘ The visit was covered by a Time magazine reporter which described the visiting delegation as wearing ‘frocks’ and being ‘slant eyed‘ The Chinese had grand plans for the Chinese Dragon, they planned to sell it domestically and then to spread across the world, selling to the Euro and US markets….
Does this story sound familiar at all? You can read the original Time magazine article from Monday April 15th 1929 by clicking continue reading:
It seems that the German marques are getting a bit tetchy about the incoming wave of Chinese cars. A German car importer, China Automobile Deutschland, has teamed up with Shuang Huan autos of China to bring in a tiny kei car, the little Noble, the BMW X5 like SCEO SUV and also an older generation Toyota RAV4 clone, named the UFO. BMW have said if China Autombile Deutschland group were to show the SCEO at the Frankfurt show then they would definelty have to look at taking legal action against the distribution of the SUV in Germany. Previously BMW also managed to stop the importation of the SCEO SUV into Italy, earlier this year we heard of a French companies plans to import the SCEO into France, but China Car Times is unsure if BMW managed to stop them or not.
The SCEO was unveiled in 2005 and is powered by a range of Mitsubishi engines. Sure, the SCEO is highly inspired by a previous generation BMW X5 but its a lot of car for a little money in China, and also, quite possibly the most important part, SCEO drivers manage to drive their SUV’s much better than their X5 driving equivalents.
It seems that many of the Chinese automakers are eager to crack that Euro market, but aren’t so keen to show off their motors in the Euro auto halls. Geely has pulled out of the show, and Chery isnt up for it. Only Brilliance is up for it, they are taking a few of their motors, including the recently unveiled Brilliance FRV and the Brilliance Coupe.
Brilliance are getting ready to put their coupe on the market, and we’ve finally seen what it looks like:
China Car Times showed this picture to a mixed group of friends, some Japanese, some British and we asked what this car was. The answers were amazing, its a Maserratti, a new Porsche, its American. Sorry boys, you were all wrong, its Chinese, and it will cost from 160,000rmb when its put on the market in September this year.
The coupe will come with a 1.8 turbo engine that was self developed by Brilliance and is used in Brilliances other cars. China Car Times will keep you updated.
Today the Chinese press are reporting that the super cool Roewe W2 will be named the Roewe 550, SAIC insiders have been talking to the press, letting out all of those dirty little SAIC secrets, namely that the W2, errrr, Roewe 55o will be in production by the end of the year, will come with a 1.6 litre engine (and bigger) the SAIC insider also said the Rover naming style has ended with the Roewe 750, in the future Roewe cars will be known as Roewe 5, Roewe 3 and so on. The final price of the Roewe 5 series is expected to be less than 200,000rmb putting it right up against the Corolla and the Focus in the Chinese markets.
Living in China and want to get yourself a bargain motor? The new Mondeo is about to go on the market, so Chang’an Ford and trying to empty their stock rooms of anything resembling the old Mondeo, so, they’ve cut the price on the Mondeo so much, it actually works out cheaper than the Ford Focus now. Go on, get yourself down to Chang’an Ford dealership this weekend and pick yourself up a bargain Mondeo. China Car Times always wanted a 2.5 V6 Ghia X Mondeo (down from 230,000rmb to 190,380rmb) , but budget constraints, (i.e. wife) would not allow.
FAW, like SAIC, have been busy squirrling away over the past few months with the goal of creating their own brand name which they can sell domestically and internationally. FAW came up with the Besturn sedan, not really a great name to be honest, is it to be read as ‘Best Urn’ or if you’re from Northern England is the car to be named “Best ‘un” regardless of the funny name, the car doesnt look that too bad. Erik tells us the car is basically a Mazda 6 (FAW seemed to have successfully negotiated for the rights to use it from Mazda) underneath, and a design that was done by an Italian firm. The Besturn comes with a range of 2.0L to 2.4l engines with a mixture of auto or manual transmissions, and the best part is, these cars start at 130,000rmb now for the 2.0 146BHP offering, thats with an automatic box. This car is amazing for its price!
By 2009, FAW will have complimented their solitary car line up with a mini car, watch this space…
The new Subaru was slightly controversial when it came out with Subaru fans in two distinctly separate camps, those who loved the design, and those that hated it. True, Subaru have never made a good looking car, they only make cars that work well and last. Subaru have come to China twice before, the first time they hooked up with a small Chinese player, Yun Que motors, to make the Subaru Justy in China - sales bombed and Subaru went back to Japan. Subaru is back in China but without a joint venture partner, all of their vehicles are made in either Japan or the USA and shipped to China, regardless of Subaru cars being a bit more expensive than likewise vehicles in China, they seem to be doing particularly well with the Forrester model.
China Car Times predicts the new Imprezas price to be around the same as the old one, so pretty much anywhere from 230,000rmb to 350,000rmb.
Latest Comments