Then, at about the time of the Frankfurt show, the German automobile club, known as ADAC, put the New Vision to a crash test. It had air-conditioning, air bags and aluminum wheels. It did not handle like a European car and its engine had little excess power, but for Europeans tired of station wagons or wanting to tow a trailer, this car cost 25 percent less than a Kia or a Hyundai model. Bijvelds’ introducing a big and boxy Chinese-made S.U.V., the Landwind New Vision, a twin of G.M.’s Opel Frontera, at the 2005 Frankfurt auto show. It began when a Dutch Nissan dealer, Peter Bijvelds, visited China with a friend in 2004 to inspect the Landwind factory in Nanchang, a gritty city south of the Yangtze River in Jiangxi Province. “They will undercut these companies, and the market will be more contested,” he said. That will force some European companies that stayed in the mass market for small cars, like Fiat, either to move up to larger, more expensive models, or to perish, Mr. The Chinese are arriving even as European carmakers struggle with flat prices and diminishing profit, and the Chinese presence is expected to ratchet up the pressure. He estimates that China will sell 54,000 cars in Russia this year, out of a total market of two million, compared with 31,000 last year.
“They are coming through the back door: first Russia, then working their way west,” Mr. Moreover, the Chinese are moving in several stages. McKenzie, a China expert at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ automotive institute in Detroit.īut the Japanese and South Koreans overcame similar hurdles. “There is a general lack of brand awareness, and distribution is a hurdle,” said Michael K. After all, car buying remains an emotional business. Some specialists are skeptical that the Chinese can become major competitors in Europe and the United States. There have been setbacks, like abysmal results on a crash test done on a Chinese car two years ago.
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