Saying Goodbye to Knock Off Produce – Chinese Auto Design Companies

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As mentioned in our earlier article on Chinese car designers, Chinese designed and made is nearly always synonymous with low quality and low cost, but of course that is changing. World class products such as Apple products, Nokia phones, Dell Computers etc are made in China, but what about the industrial designers and who are they?

Chinese auto design houses find themselves between a rock and a hard place, for them it is a matter of building their brand name whilst balancing the requirements of the client. Its no secret that Chinese auto companies are top down, and if the leader of a company demands that his Mercedes S-Class be the design basis of a $12,000USD family car that he is planing in his head then the whole market loses, the design house doesn’t have a serious car in its portfolio, consumers get a funny looking ‘shanzhai’ car that is pulled from the market after two years due to poor sales, and eventually the company loses money and blames the design house for poor quality cars. This scenario is changing slowly but surely, design houses are gaining greater confidence in their abilities and taking a more aggressive stance with regards to unique designs.

CH-Auto

CH-Auto was established in 2003 by former Beijing Auto Industry engineer Mr. Lu Qun, in the 90′s and early 00′s there wasn’t much work for engineers at BAIC, legend has it that engineers were used mainly for their translation ability, turning German and English instruction manuals into Chinese which led to a brain drain at BAIC.  Mr. Lu saw a demand for independent auto design and established CH-Auto in Shunyi District in Beijing, the company occupies an impressive building and has a full range of services: Design, Engineering, EV Development, Testing etc etc. CH-Auto has developed a few of the big name cars on the road in China today, the Geely Panda for instance was one of theirs, as was the Changfeng CS5 SUV and also Acumen sedan, although the Acumen sedan has not yet made it to the market. CH-Auto also worked on the Chrysler 300 and Sebring based concept cars for BAIC Auto, although these models were never shown to the public, let’s just say they were impressive beasts. The picture to the left? That’s their Scorpion concept car from 2010.

TJ Innova

TJ Innova could be compared to a Shanghai based CH-Auto, they offer the same range of services although they are Shanghai based rather than Beijing based. TJI was established a few years before CH-Auto, the company was founded in 1999 just as the Chinese auto industry was waking up, as of 2007 TJI could boast that 10% of the cars on the road in China had some TJI influence within its design, in recent years Greatwall, JAC, Dongfeng have visited TJI to get their design needs finished.

Anhui KaXing Design

Being Anhui based, KaXing was obviously going to get a lot of business from local auto companies which include JAC and Chery, it seems JAC haven’t sent KaXing too much work but Chery have been sending their design needs to KaXing for a number of years now. KaXing opened its doors in 2001 and was quickly hired by Chery to develop the QQ, and from there on in it seemed the two were inseparable, KaXing developed the Oriental Son, Chery A5, Fulwin, Tiggo and of course the QQme. Currently KaXing has a staffing level of 387 people and still works closely with Chery.

 

 

IAT Auto

Beijing based IAT Auto were founded in 2001, slightly earlier than CH-Auto but has quickly become an international consultancy and doesn’t only focus on the Chinese market. IAT Auto has worked with Chinese brands such as Zotye, Wuling, Dongfeng etc but has also worked with international brands such as Suzuki to make their models more suitable to local market conditions. IAT have also been working on the Beijing based Saab models.