BYD launched a Qin, Toyota also launched a Qin. The difference? Well the difference is all in the Qin, Toyota’s Qin is 亲 which means Dear, as in ‘dear friend‘, BYD’s Qin is 秦 named after the bad ass marauder who got tired of petty squabbles between Chinese regional warlords and took the whole country for himself, being the first to unite China under a single ruler. Toyota’s Qin was given the English name ‘Dear’, the Qin is still at the concept stage and was designed by Toyota’s new R&D facility in Changshu, a small but increasingly important city near Shanghai. The Qin is expected to form the basis of a new future global small car that will be focused at younger buyers in developing worlds.

Toyota is rushing to increase its sales in China to around 1.6 to 1.8 million vehicles in the next few years, however the company has had an increasingly difficult time in the Chinese market owing to an over reliance on mid size sedans and has largely ignored smaller segment vehicles.