There’s no denying that Chinese cars can be polarizing.
However, the average person doesn’t care where their car comes from, and with non-Chinese brands like Tesla, Mini, BMW, Volvo and others already manufacturing and supplying cars from China to our market, the idea of a Chinese car is actually quite big blurred.
Still, there are many genuine Chinese brands like MG, GWM and Chery already operating in Australia, and there are many more (Zeekr, Aion, etc.) that will be entering the market in the near future.
The onslaught of Chinese brands into our market has just begun, and while we were at the Beijing auto show last week, we realized how much more is to come and, more importantly, why it is coming.
It was the very first motor show we attended and it was probably not accurate to call ourselves car experts. So many brands, so many cars…like a kid in a candy store who mostly doesn’t know what he is.
From four-door sedans with scissor doors, an almost unlimited number of SUVs of varying sizes that look like G-Wagens and Defenders, to endless hypercar-looking electric cars that combined the best of their donors’ designs, the Chinese automakers were numerous representing what they had built and what lay ahead.
To say that we here in Australia have a good idea of what automotive options are available in China would be ridiculous.
There really is a car for everyone, and with the rapid proliferation of electric cars, the ability to fit the same battery and motor configuration into any number of body types and styles has created a fast-paced culture that should scare the crap out of the rest of the automotive industry.
While the Europeans, and especially the Japanese, have struggled to adapt to the changing world of electrification at the same pace as the Chinese, this movement is about so much more than just electric vehicles.
Almost every Chinese car we got into had more screens than any Japanese car on sale today and often used super-responsive Android software that felt more like the latest smartphone than the antiquated systems found in most Japanese ones Finds cars. The furnishings and finishes of the interiors were also a big improvement over what we are used to here today.
The last time we attended the Beijing Motor Show was pre-COVID, and the speed of change was clear as the Chinese have hired foreign engineers, production managers and designers – MG, for example, recently appointed the man who designed the Bugatti Veyron , to such a designer.
Now I know you’re thinking, “But the quality sucks!” It really isn’t. That may have been somewhat true a decade or even five years ago, but it is definitely not the case today.
We sat in over 50 different cars, pushing and bumping as many things as we could, trying to scratch beneath the surface.
We did the same thing at the show with the non-Chinese brands, and of course you can’t judge quality, reliability and durability by sitting in a car, but in an apples-to-apples comparison, the Chinese cars came out significantly high. In most cases, it was actually more pleasant to be there.
It’s a really scary thought what has happened in this market and how quickly everything has happened.
Given the long warranty periods that brands like GWM, MG and Chery have in Australia (seven-year, unlimited mileage warranty for all), there is no question that car manufacturers also support their products.
But why Australia? Why has our market become the Chinese battleground for so many emerging car manufacturers? The reasons are pretty simple when put into context. Australia is the closest and easiest Western market for Chinese brands to test their products.
The route to Europe requires billions of dollars in investments, and in North America it is even worse. As far as Australia is concerned, a brand can build a reasonable dealer chain in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide and cover the majority of the population relatively quickly.
This allows Chinese brands to test market acceptance before investing significantly more and entering much larger Western markets.
This was certainly the case with MG, as the brand came here, proved very successful and then ventured into markets in Europe and beyond.
Let’s rewind ten years to 2014 and only 4154 Chinese-made cars were sold in Australia. Last year reached 193,433 Australian buyers, and they’re just getting started.