When will the Clone Wars end?

---

In 2008, many industry observers thought we had seen the end of the ‘clone years’ where Chinese manufacturers would simply take an existing vehicle, give it the Xerox treatment, drop a Mitsubishi engine in, and slap their own badging on it and call it their own vehicle. The first, and probably most famous of the ‘clone’ cars was the Chery QQ, it symbolised a beginning of the rise of the Chinese manufacturers, and the start of things to come. After that we had the BYD range, which in itself is 99% ‘borrowed’ from other car companies, or a mish mash of cars. Why Toyota doesn’t use it’s legal might to destroy BYD is a mystery, but on the other hand the Chinese are being exceptionally smart.

Design copyrights generally run for a period of ten years, once the copyright has expired, and if car companies have not extended their copyrights on their cars then they fall into the public domain and are open for anyone to make that car. Queue Chinese car producers who have been scouring patent design offices for expiring designs. The last generation Toyota Corolla probably had its design submitted for copyright around 2005-2007, so BYD most probably had free reign to clone that car if copyright had expired. The same for Shuanhuang and their BMW X5 styled SUV, and also for their Smart Car clone, the Noble (or as mistakenly named on CCT, the Little Aristocrat), where the BYD F0 (which looks a lot like the Toyota Aygo) falls is quite obvious. Also with designs being made up of a mish-mash of existing cars, this is referred to as the ’30% rule’ in design circles, where a company can take no more than 30% of an existing design and incorporate it into their own, some companies take liberties with this and employ maybe 40%, 50%, or even 60%.

As the Chinese car industry expands, and inevitibly matures, it is expected that they will employ more of their own, and outsourced, designs into their product line up. However it wont happen over night, smaller companies will continue to clone to cut down on R&D expenditures to keep their products price competitive, but larger companies like SAIC, FAW, and Guangzhou are expected to merge their talents into one giant car maker under government supervision and this should see an independent design force take shape and to the creation of a true Chinese development style. The Americans sell muscular cars, the Europeans have sleek sporty numbers, the Japanese sell the full range – from kitch/cute to sleek business, but what will the Chinese design style be?