Hafei’s electric future
What ever happened to Hafei Auto? It seems that after 2007 they disappeared from the headlines, their Saibao sedans dropped from the sales charts and only their Lobo and mini vans seem to be keeping them alive, in December 2011 they cleared sales of just 565 units, which doesn’t seem like enough to keep a brand or a factory alive. Hafei were of course taken over by Chang’an cars, who quickly moved Hafei out of their Shenzhen factory to allow PSA to set up home in the lucrative southern city of Guangdong province, it seems that Hafei is mostly a spare part around the Chang’an HQ. However, Hafei does have a partnership with Coda Automotive in which Hafei supplies the American outfit with cars.
Now that the Chinese market is moving glacially towards an electric focused market it could be that Chang’an Motors are using Hafei as a test bed for its own electric car marketing project. To date, only BYD have come out with a mass produced electric car in the Chinese market, but Hafei could potentially play catch up as an electric car brand.
The above spy shot is apparently of Hefei’s first generation of electric car which is of course very similar to the Coda in terms of styling. This particular model has apparently already made it in to China’s list of “approved vehicles to for high speed new energy cars”, apparently this model is good for 200km on a single charge and will hit a top sped of 140kph. When will see it on the market? Hafei will likely show this model at the Beijing Auto Show in April of this year as a brand awareness campaign.
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Down to just 565 units last year. Really?
It’s been some nine years since the futuristic Pininfarina-designed Fantasy coupe concept was shown. Not long after that it seems things went down hill for the company. The early license agreement with Mitsubishi which produced the Saibao and Saima, never progressed to a joint venture. Later in 2007 Peugeot China saw something good in Hafei and sought a joint venture with it, but that too never got off the ground. Likewise did David Shelburg and Miles Auto, both of the U.S.. From the latter the Coda EV company was born. But now even Coda is looking elsewhere to source a platform for its EVs. All along Hafei seems to have suffered from the downside of being located in China’s rust belt. In 2006 the New York Times said, “…..deliveries of steel are so irregular, because of shortages and the decrepit railroad system, that the factory must absorb the considerable cost of keeping steel for two months on hand, enough for 50,000 cars.”
Perhaps Chang’an, through its powerful parent South Industries has overcome some of those problems and so now, as you say, will make use of Hafei for building some of its EVs like the E30. The new Chang’an B501, an ICE model, also appears to be a product of the Harbin factory.
It’s a shame that all the potential of Hafei couldn’t have been tapped by a company like Subaru which unfortunately went looking for a venture partner in the south, and so missed out on a gem of a company up in the (frigid) north. After all that’s the land where “sending power from the wheel that slips, to the wheel that grips” means something.