Geelys Rolls Royce – dateline 2011
Geely, China’s largest privately owned automobile company are planning to make their own Rolls Royce type vehicle according to reports today. Geely signed up with British taxi maker, LTI, to produce the TX range of taxis in China, Geely has since gained access to the TX4 chassis (many reports actually say a platform) and plan to roll out the below miniture Rolls Royce type limosuine,.
Except, when Geely makes a luxury car, its never that expensive, and the ‘Little Rolls’ as its come to be known, is expected to cost around 300,000rmb. The ‘Little Rolls’ official name is going to be Yinlun Di Hua (British Splendor) and will be totally Chinese according to Chinese media reports, the 3.0l V6 engine, gearbox, and interior finishing will all be Chinese sourced.
Geely are eager to up the standing of their branding with new models that are aimed at the European, and American models such as the Ford Focus, which has long been a best seller in China. Models such as the FC-2 aim to take Geely away from the cheap and cheerful market segment and towards a higher class of vehicle. The above ‘mini Rolls’ is set to be Geelys attempt at entering into the high class segment of cars, and towards building BMW like premium vehicles.
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Remember my old adage about making honey out of dog excreta? Geely will NEVER meet ‘high class’ euro/BMW standards its culturally impossible! This example of their current thinking just goes to highlight the fact.
So.. there’s something inherent in Chinese culture that prevents anything of “high class”?
There is with Geely’s culture, which may or may not reflect on the whole population.
I personally believe that Geely have been pushing their cheaper cars for too long, where as Chery have been moving away from the cheaper end of the market with gusto.
Did you guys miss out on Geely’s 2008 Beijing Auto Show offerings? If so, I guess it’s understandable, but their line up was quite formidable.
Aron said Geely’s lineup was formidable, dogtucker said it is culturally impossible. I don’t know who is wrong and right but it is very hard to predict the future. Geely’s lineup may be formidable at the Beijing auto show but delivering the products is a different story all together, is it financially feasible for Geely to deliver all the promises and carrying out everything as planned ? And to Dogtucker, can you please elaborate more on what you said about “culturally impossible” , you mean Geely business philosophy or you’re trying to say something else ? Looking forward to hearing your reply.
The Geely 08 line up was fantastic, but it was also a PR nightmare! Too many models launched at the same time, the press didnt know what to write about! On the other hand, it shows that Geely are very eager to lift their brand from being ‘cheap’ to being a mid weight fighter in China.
Mememememememe,
Im trying to say that the european (read German in this case)manufacturers have a long history of quality and excellent engineering which has been part of the German culture for centuries, they also have a certain amount of understated ‘class’ about their design and execution which Geeley will never have.
The Chinese car industry is at present on only three goals, make as many as they can, as much as they can and bring out so many new models to confuse the public and themselves, with this type of in house ‘culture’ there is little hope to survive let alone challenge any serious ‘upmarket’ makes.
Just look at the Geely lineup, apart from being very boring, there quality is very poor, cheap ill fitting plastic interiors, poor panel fits, very basic and ordinary drives etc etc.
As you say in your above epistle “Geely’s lineup may be formidable at the Beijing auto show but delivering the products is a different story all together, is it financially feasible for Geely to deliver all the promises and carrying out everything as planned ?” I think that your comments show that you agree with me.
And to sum up based on a recent CNN programe on China their summary comment was “There is a lot of money in China, but very little class” I think that there may be a slight possibilty one or 2 Chinese manufacturers who may challenge RR, BMW or some of the other cliches in the distant future but Im sure Geely wont be one of these.
The Americans havent, the Japanese have, no one one else has.
Thank you dogtucker for your reply, I see what you mean and I do agree, I think SAIC is the best bet here. But mind you there, Geely is doing everything to renovate its image, so everything you said there may be rectified in the future, but to make it big on global arena is very hard I guess but maybe they can make it big in China.