Chongqing Lifan, the worlds biggest manufacturer of motorcycles (both three wheeled, and two wheeled varients) must be celebrating this week after their Lifan 520 sedan passed Russian crash testing. The sedan is assembled in Russia for the Russian market after Lifan sealed a $160 million USD deal with Russian automaker, Automirv, to sell the 520 in the country. Automirv will be buying 30,000 CKD Lifan 520 models over the next three years.
Click the above picture for a bigger version.
The test was carried out by the Russian authority for crash testing, the 520’s four passenger doors all opened succesfully once the 35mph crash test was completed, the crash test dummy was not harmed in the crash test, due to Lifan actually putting front and side air bags into the 520. Lifan believes they’ll be able to sell 8,000 cars in Russia over the next year thanks to the good news, and they have a goal of 40,000 car sales in Russia by the year 2010.
I can’t believe what I’m reading. We all know (or think), that the Chinese can’t make safe cars, so how is this possible?
lol , probably due to Brilliance fiasco
Probably due to the standards of the Russian tests. Would love to se the same crapper in a German/European test and the results from same.
Isn’t 35 miles an hour the same in both Russia and Europe? or is 35 MPH faster in Europe?
I agree with some people here that performing well in Euro Ncap is much more important than in a russian one because the EuroNcap is the toughest in the world, even tougher than the American one.
But this could act as a springboard to a better testing. Because I think if they cannot do well in an easier crash test then Euro Ncap seems very far away but if they can pass the easier test, that shows they are making progress but they have to improve a lot more to hit the Euro Ncap.
is there a video for this crash test ?
Lifan was recently tested again by the Russian FSUE NICIAMT Laboratory in April 2008 using Euro-nCap standard and once again, it has successfully passed the test, there are videos and pictures.