QOTD: Will Chinese Automakers Eat Everyone's Lunch?

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

I just finished reading a piece that's been bouncing around the Internet for a few days now.

Inside EVs sent automotive journalist Kevin Williams to the Beijing Auto Show, and Williams walked away feeling like Chinese automakers are, generally speaking, building cars that could come to the States and immediately steal plenty of buyers from American, European, Japanese, and Korean automakers.


Williams said he saw plenty of Chinese models, mostly EVs, which appear to be better than the vehicles on offer from Western and other Asian automakers in terms of quality and infotainment tech.

To be fair, the story, while well thought-out and nuanced, is William's take -- he might not be correct in his prediction. But he does take into account the geopolitics at play here and takes a insightful look at the market. His take is that non-Chinese automakers are building products that aren't on par with the Chinese, and that could be a big problem for those automakers.

It's a far cry from the days that Chinese automakers were dismissed as building poorly-made copycats of vehicles sold by legacy automakers. Those days weren't that long ago.

I am curious what your thoughts are. Are Chinese cars about ready to come to other markets and do what the Japanese did decades ago? Or are they being helped in their home market by the government? Is the answer somewhere in between?

Before you answer, go read the story. It's worth your time.

Since this QOTD will touch on politics, I will once again ask you to play nice in the comments. The banhammer is ready.

With that said, you may now sound off below.

[Image: BYD]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • MKizzy MKizzy on May 14, 2024

    If China-branded vehicles arrive on these shores filling the gaping hole of sizes, body styles, and price points largely abandoned by established automakers, they will immediately find an interested customer base among those low/middle income consumers whose parents were (un)happily puttering around in old Hyundai Excels and Yugo GVs. Personally, I do think BYD or another of their major automakers will eventually circumvent the tariffs by building in Mexico and sending vehicles north.

  • Daniel J Daniel J on May 16, 2024

    The more I looked into this I'm like..

    Huh? I'm thinking China wants to bring over a 35k nice EV, not some sort of Mitsu Mirage that barely can go highway speeds.

  • Namesakeone If I were the parent of a teenage daughter, I would want her in an H1 Hummer. It would be big enough to protect her in a crash, too big for her to afford the fuel (and thus keep her home), big enough to intimidate her in a parallel-parking situation (and thus keep her home), and the transmission tunnel would prevent backseat sex.If I were the parent of a teenage son, I would want him to have, for his first wheeled transportation...a ride-on lawnmower. For obvious reasons.
  • ToolGuy If I were a teen under the tutelage of one of the B&B, I think it would make perfect sense to jump straight into one of those "forever cars"... see then I could drive it forever and not have to worry about ever replacing it. This plan seems flawless, doesn't it?
  • Rover Sig A short cab pickup truck, F150 or C/K-1500 or Ram, preferably a 6 cyl. These have no room for more than one or two passengers (USAA stats show biggest factor in teenage accidents is a vehicle full of kids) and no back seat (common sense tells you what back seats are used for). In a full-size pickup truck, the inevitable teenage accident is more survivable. Second choice would be an old full-size car, but these have all but disappeared from the used car lots. The "cute small car" is a death trap.
  • W Conrad Sure every technology has some environmental impact, but those stuck in fossil fuel land are just not seeing the future of EV's makes sense. Rather than making EV's even better, these automakers are sticking with what they know. It will mean their end.
  • Add Lightness A simple to fix, strong, 3 pedal car that has been tenderized on every corner.
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