Five Chinese car brands we would like to see here
Friday, 24 January 2020
MG, Great Wall, Chery, Haval - the brands already most familiar to New Zealand are assuredly big names in China's automotive industry.
Yet they're not by any means the country's only automotive movers: it has something like 130 brands and, while most are unknown, such is the size, capacity and technical capability of many that it'd be brave to bet against their names remaining a mystery to the world forever.
Fattened by feeding a local market that, in 2017 comprised a quarter of all cars sold globally that year and has been pretty much undented by last year's recession, an increasing number of those faceless players might want to follow tyre tracks laid by brands already known to us.
More cheapies to flood the budget zone? Don't bet on it. Starting at the low end has helped Chinese brands establish, but many of those we've yet to see are better than that.
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It'd be easy to see the export push taking advantage of China's electric vehicle ambition.
Weaning the domestic fleet off conventional combustion is such an absolute with the Chinese government car makers have been told to have at least one EV in their fleet by the end of this year, or else. No-one wants to find out what 'or else' means.
Even though last year's market went soft, January-November domestic EV sales still came to a world-leading 832,000 units. Moreover, the gun brands are all putting huge resources into intense development of better battery-electric solutions and hydrogen fuel cell drivelines.
The $49,000 MG ZS incoming this year is a taster to the ability of Chinese brands to provision inexpensive, brand-new family-sized EVs with reasonable range and all the mod cons.
Here are five more specialists that might one day plug into that drive:
Aiways
Not a misspelling. Aiways was China's first EV maker to receive full type approval required to enable sale in the European Union, doing so with a medium-sized crossover.
Propelled by a 140kW electric motor driving the front wheels, the U5 resembles the Hyundai Kona and seems robust, given two were driven from China to a certification ceremony in Germany.
Assuredly, a 15,000km trip across Russia, then the Baltic states, Scandinavia, Denmark, the Benelux countries, France then Frankfurt probably asked for many stops because cited range of 460 kilometres was estimated by the discredited NEDC test. It's probably good for 386km once all the conversions are done. Still, it looks good, as do two sister models revealed at this year's Geneva show.
BAIC
Two reasons to be interested. First, BAIC (Beijing Automotive Group) is Daimler's domestic partner in China, so obvious gets access to some pretty cool Mercedes tech. Secondly, it also has some smarts that the Germans seem keen to utilise, the cleverest being gear reserved for a new upmarket sub-brand, called Beijing, that will specialise in intelligent connected technologies.
Beijing is all about electric driving, so theoretically will be travelling a road already forged by BAIC's bespoke EV brand, BJEV. However, with a $2.83 billion war chest, Beijing obviously has plenty of resource to go its own way. With a little help from Germany. Daimler and BAIC's new energy vehicle unit BluePark have jointly developed a battery research lab in China's capital.
BYD
You will know of our government's desire to replace its three dozen 7-Series turbo-diesel ministerial limos with something suitably electric. Taking that quest to this prolific producer seemed just the go.
Just one catch, apparently discovered only on arrival at Shanghai headquarters. The 'Build Your Dreams' caveat from the world's largest producer of electric vehicles is that it only does left-land-drive.
Still, maybe not always. A technology partnership with Toyota surely opens new doors. At the moment, the Tang crossover would theoretically go well here and, come the day when the cab industry goes electric, well who better to lead the way than a firm that has successfully refitted the taxi fleet in home town Shanghai to a bespoke EV?
Lynk & Co
Li Shufu. If you don't know his name, you might know his opus: Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, through which this motoring mogul has a stake in Mercedes Benz-maker Daimler AG and owns Volvo AB, Lotus Cars, Malaysia's Proton Holdings and a flying car company, Terrafugia Inc.
Plus Lynk & Co. The expedient of plonking bespoke bodies atop latest Volvo architectures is a short cut, yes, but what style! Visiting last year's Shanghai motor show, I was totally wowed by the latest fare.
Lynk & Co first international offer is the compact 01, which shares its architecture with the Volvo XC40. It also has a bigger edition coming sharing DNA with the XC60. With editions of both Swedish models are now producing in electric and plug-in hybrid models in their Volvo guises… well, where Volvo goes, Lynk and Co follows.
Nio
It took Tesla 15 years to rack up $US5 billion in losses. Nio did in it four years.
Cost overruns, weak sales, major recalls (one for 4800 vehicles in which batteries were catching fire or spewing smoke)… why would you even look at a Nio?
Well, just look at what else they've built. Aside from the headline act EP9, the 1014kW electric supercar that knocked out a sizzling six minute 45:90 second lap of the Nurburgring in 2017, there's also the ES8, an attractive premium sector seven-seater electric SUV that aims right at the Tesla Model X.
Nio has other cred from being a top name in Formula E.
As for its financial status? No worries. It's just wangled another $1 billion in funding to cover cash flow needs for this year.