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The Chinese Are Coming Reference Mark

Time to adjust your worldview a bit farther east. The Chinese auto market is larger than that of either the U.S. or Europe. Soon, it will be larger than the U.S. and Europe. That will have dramatic impact on the kinds of cars Western consumers can buy, as automakers adapt their designs and component sets to the desires of the worlds largest customer base. This shift also might affect which brands are sold here, as the writing is on the great wall that Chinese car companies desire global expansion. As the U.S. and European markets arent going to get any larger, that means the new Chinese brands are going to take market share out of someones hide. Lynk & Co , a luxury arm of Geely (which also owns Volvo ), wants to sell 125,000 cars a year in America. If that happens, Lynk & Co would outsell Lincoln Motor Co. There are already a couple of Chinese-built vehicles on sale in America: the Volvo S90 and the Buick Invasion, er, Envision. How good are the Chinese at building cars? According to Volvo executives, the quality of the S90 coming from its Daqing plant is better than what was coming out of Europe. Im old enough to recall the jingoistic jibes about beer can Toyotas back in the 80s. Look at the Japanese car companies nowhaving won 39 percent of the U.S. market and cratesful of J.D. Power quality awards. Ignore or mock newcomers at your peril. Granted, this is Geely building a car coming from Volvo platforms and Volvo manufacturing engineering. As for Chinese-designed, -engineered, and -built cars, they are still on a steep learning curve. Its hard to forget the horrifying 2007 YouTube video of the Brilliance China BS6 sedan crumpling its test dummy in a European crash test. Of course, a lot can improve in a decade. For instance, the Haval SUV made by Great Wall could easily be mistaken for a Mazda , Nissan , or Hyundai , contends China-market expert Michael Dunne. Pictured above is the GAC GS5 crossover, shown at the 2019 Detroit auto show. According to Dunnes ZoZo Go automotive consultancy, there are 36 legitimate Chinese automakers with series production. The leaders are the Big 6 (which have Chinese government backing): SAIC, Beijing, First Auto, Dongfeng, Guangzhou, and Changan, which account for 75 percent of China-market sales. Then there are the Big 3 private companies (Geely, BYD, and Great Wall), followed by 21 joint ventures with Western automakers and six independents. GAC displayed its lineup at the 2019 Detroit auto show, and plan to sell cars in the U.S. in the next couple years. Chinese automakers are ambitious and have millions of units of capacity to burn. Chinese companies are a wild mix of state enterprises, private companies, and tech-backed EV startups all with their own priorities, strengths, and weaknesses, Dunne said in an interview. For all of Congress saber rattling about U.S. jobs being exported to China, Chinese automakers and suppliers have already spent $31 billion (per Bloomberg data) to establish an automotive beachhead in America. Automakers that dont even have market-ready cars are setting up operations here. One of the latest is Zotyepronounced ZOH-taywhich has corralled a few U.S. industry veterans to help with the launch. (Full disclosure: Chassis dynamics ace Gordon Dickie, our SUV of the Year guest judge, is doing R&D consulting for them.) Zotyes website proclaims it will be the first Chinese car company to sell cars in America under its Chinese brand name, with a target launch of fall 2020. That remains to be seen, as U.S. CEO Duke Hale admits Zotyes compact T600 crossover entry hasn't been homologated yet. But they are moving fast. The cupholders are too small, it needs a different user interface for cruise control, the owners manuals are in Chinese, Hale said. They need advanced airbags and OBD-II. If the gas tank is in the wrong spot, you cant homologate. But we already have [soft]-close doors. If you want that in a Hyundai, you need to buy a Genesis G90 . Zotyes initial plan: Win on price, as much as 20 percent cheaper than the mainstream brands. While acknowledging Zotyes determination, Dunne sees Guangzhou as the most advanced in terms of readiness. Then come NIO, Byton, and SF Motors. According to a recent poll by Autolist.com, about one-third of 1,264 U.S. consumers surveyed said a vehicle being built in China would affect their decision to buy it; 49 percent said it would have no impact, while 21 percent said they were unsure. Regardless of our desires, the Chinese are arriving on our shores, just as the Europeans, Japanese, and Koreans before them. The Chinese are coming in fits and starts, hot and cold, in a nonlinear and unorthodox fashion, Dunne said. Think guerilla tactics, not a disciplined standing army. More by Mark Rechtin: Next Year Is Here How We Determine our Car, Truck, and SUV of the Year You Can't Buy Love, Bug A Decade's Progress The Evolution and Rise of the SUV The post The Chinese Are Coming Reference Mark appeared first on Motortrend .

http://www.motortrend.com/news/chinese-coming-reference-mark/

 

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