How The Chinese EV Companies Have Changed Our Car Buying Landscape
There were many cars, which were brought in with the barest of equipment, with plastics that were barely better than the stuff used in Tamiya model kits. And all this was done in the name of keeping the costs and the OMV down.
The feature list was bare, the feel was we should be grateful for these barebone models shipped to us from India, Thailand, Indonesia and other of the factories set up outside of Japan to keep costs low.
Conti cars were also sent to us from outside of Germany and Britain. We had factories from South Africa, and Eastern Europe.
You had more blank slots and empty buttons in these cars than actual functioning ones. But you comforted yourself, telling yourself it was all in the name of cost containment.
There was one game changer, and this was even before the Chinese invasion occured. It was the Mazda 3. The plastics used were as good, if not better than the ones used in a BMW, and at a considerably lower price. Wow.. the ambience was excellent. Whilst the engine and feature list was still truncated, but at least you can indulge in touching the excellent materials used.
And then you had the Chinese car made then. And it was less than satisfactory. Not only were they simple, the plastics awful and fragile, the engine and features were even more nasty than the ones from the Southeast Asian factories, and that’s really the pits.
Fast forward to about five years ago, and you began seeing something radical. By then, China had been making cars for the major brands for a long time and they were making the equivalent of the conti cars like Audi with top quality materials combined with the features that rivalled what those assembled in Europe had.
And then came the first EVs into Singapore, first from Tesla, with their zen interior, but more importantly, the full featured cars and really solid materials. But these were rather costly and parallel imports. You also had very little government support, with few public chargers, such that it remained the preserve of the wealthy willing to try a new product and able to use their own chargers.
Slowly but steadily we were introduced to a steady of EVs, with many coming from traditional conti brands, such as BMW, which actually came out with their EVs quite quickly, but the models weren't mainstream and were more of a sideshow for the environmentally conscious and deep pocketed.
The Chinese at this point were still focussed largely on making cars for other companies, as well as batteries for the EVs other companies sold. In the process, they came to master the art of making cars well, with the very same materials that top conti brands used, and also the tech of making safe, reliable and high quality batteries to complement the cars.
At the same time, we also saw Chinese companies acquiring foreign brands such as Volvo, MG and taking shares in companies like Mercedes and more. Something was afoot as they got hold of the tech, the brands which had a halo effect, some of which have been in existence for decades.
Not only in the automotive industry, we were also seeing significant takeover of other brands, such as Dynaudio, a Danish brand now in Chinese hands.
Suddenly the stage was set for the introduction of the Chinese EVs. Not remakes of other cars, not copies but suddenly you saw a whole host of brands coming up from companies that used to be merely assembly lines for other companies.
Then in Singapore, we saw the emergence of the Chinese EVs. BYD, a major battery maker led the assault establishing a bridgehead. I believe part of the reason they were widely introduced was because the Parallel Importers aka PI companies were unable to wrest control of the legacy brands from their long time distributors.
BYD was first introduced by Vantage Motors, which was also selling amongst other brands, Ford but their business was drying up like the Sahara. They had nothing to sell and decided to bring this brand in. It was a fabulous business decision and ignited a chain reaction, which not only gave them a lifeline but now has made them the top selling brand and probably the biggest car dealers in Singapore.
Seeing their success, others were quick to follow suit. Even legacy auto representatives Premium Auto were quick to sideline their previous main line, the Audi cars, kicking them out of the prime Leng Kee showroom and bringing in a series of Chinese EV brands. Audi quickly became an afterthought in their menu.
Then the PI car dealers had a brainwave - if they can't sell any PI cars in large volumes, why not join in and become authorised dealers? They couldn't become the principal dealers for legacy auto brands, so let's bring in the many other Chinese EVs and then we soon had more than a dozen brands of these cars, flooding our markets. And boy, was it a deluge. Now at last count, we have more than 50 models to choose from.
And no longer were these the cheap nasty old Chery QQ cars of old. These were well made, high tech cars packed with features, good quality materials and yet were sold cheaper than the traditional brand cars.
Features which were previously the preserve of top models, such as auto park, 360 degree cameras, and many safety features, were now bog standard even on the most entry level Chinese EV. You want leather seats? Ventilation? Apps for remote control? Check on all these, and more. You could get Cat A and Cat B cars, with tuning done by the makers to suit our market, and they responded to changes in our market far more rapidly than the European, Japanese or Korean car makers.
No longer could you sell an embarrassingly barebone Honda City with only two airbags, active safety features and cloth seats for the same money as these Chinese EVs. Local buyers abandoned the traditional brands and went in droves to look at the new cars. Not because they were EVs, not because they were tree huggers or anything, but because the price was right and any average Joe could enjoy the features that were once exclusive to top models with prices out of their reach.
The take it or leave it attitude of the legacy brands was forever banished. Even the Thai factories had to change, retool or were simply taken over by the Chinese to make their EVs instead of the ancient Hondas or Toyotas which had changed little over the years.
The biggest company here, the top dog for decades was Borneo and their Toyota cars. For the past two years, they are no longer the top selling brand, and no longer sell the top selling models.
The loss of PARF value at the beginning of this year has been the coup de tat which hastened the demise of the Internal Combustion Car or ICE here. No longer could one leverage on the remaining PARF value to trade in cars which were sold after only a couple of years of use as the loss was too much to bear for anyone who had less than super deep pockets.
Brands like BYD, MG, Tesla are attracting the sales staff which used to haughtily make car buyers at other showrooms like Toyota, Mercedes and other top sellers wait, and are now offering them cars that had lower cost base, more features and wow factors.
Even the top conti brands are using parts that come from the Chinese companies. I know a few colleagues who were shocked to know their Volvo shared a lot of parts and common DNA as the same Chinese brands they were quick to shun. Likewise Mercedes also uses motors and batteries which come from their Chinese partners. Similarly Toyota rebrands the GAC Aion as their BZ3X, and many of their offerings in the Chinese market are actually Chinese cars.
This may be the means for the legacy brands to survive, but it also begs the question as to why buy a legacy brand car if it's merely a Chinese EV inside? However let's hope this pressure makes them innovate, and come up with cars of their own, which can stand on their own two feet, and fend off the Chinese onslaught. Otherwise the writing is on the wall and for some brands like Honda, Nissan and more, it has been been a torrid time.
When the dust settles, some of these Chinese EVs will also perish, and who knows, the legacy brands may also see some casualties. To survive, they must innovate and change radically to the needs and expectations of the modern buyer, who no longer see the Chinese EV has a poor quality product to be shunned and ridiculed. Sure, you still see some doubters and accounts of the poor quality cars having issues are amplified by the social media, but these accounts need to be verified.
The future is evolving rapidly, far more so than in the past few decades, so it's a new time and exciting times for the average buyer.
We have come a long way from the early day of the automobile...
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