Chengdu is a city located in central China. It is not in the usual spotlight as Beijing, Shanghai or Chongqing usually claim, but we are talking about the capital of Sichuan, a value rewarded with its almost 21 million inhabitants accounted for in the metropolitan area.
They count in Reuters that just a walk through the outskirts of the city offers an illuminating image of the state of the Chinese automobile market. In a wheel that spins at a devilish pace, the Chinese automotive industry is a hamster that runs at frenetic speed to reach a horizon that resists it, always just as close. Always the same distance.
They explain in the news agency that dealerships on the outskirts of the city exhibit Audi cars with discounts of between 50 and 60%. Prices that can only be understood when you know that the company that makes them available to the public buys them wholesale, in enormous volumes, and then resells them at a much lower price than the official starting price. And, despite this, he takes advantage of them.
It is one of the images that an automobile industry leaves us with a clear overproduction of models. The circadian rhythms of the Chinese automobile industry have long been raising some signs of concern about its health. The launch of new models and technologies in a brand like BYD and its continuous price reductions they make their own cars obsolete released just one or two years ago. The discontinuity of the Xiaomi SU7 before completing two years of his first deliveries is a good example of this.
With this context, manufacturers have launched to sell cars outside their borders. In fact, the State itself has had to get firm with registrations outside of China to prevent these sales from giving a bad image of what is manufactured in the country. But these exports also have to fight with manufacturers that have been selling their cars outside their borders for years.
And to guarantee sales, China has found a very simple solution in countries like Mexico: sell the same product repeatedly at different prices.
Same car, different prices
The story is brought to us by our colleagues Motorpasión Mexico but the melody is familiar to us.
They explain that Changan has put the Changan Huntera pick-up that is already an old acquaintance on the market. And that same vehicle had already been sold in the country under the same name almost six years ago. That was the first step to finding the same bodywork with different names repeatedly.
Taking advantage of its joint venture with PSA (before the French company became part of Stellantis), Mexico received the Peugeot Landtrek, which was also sold in other parts of the world but which, in reality, was a car that had hardly received any changes. The product allowed Peugeot to try to enter a new market, that of work vehicles, but it had little impact.
The alternative would arrive with Stellantis leading the project. Thus, they took this same car, planted the RAM seal, a brand that is associated with the pick-up world, and re-launched the same car with another name and a more attractive price. The car was sold as the RAM 1200, with a cosmetic facelift but the same product under the body.
And that same car is the one Now Changan puts it back on the market under the name Hunter. Second time it has done so and fourth time that the model arrives at Mexican dealerships, on the first and last occasion under the name Changan and, later, with Peugeot and RAM on the front.
The strategy has allowed these companies to sell a car over six years with prices ranging from just over 300,000 Mexican pesos (just under 15,000 euros) to more than double that. The car, however, has always been essentially the same.
In this case, we are not talking exactly about what automotive groups like Stellantis itself or Volkswagen do by putting a car on the street with the same platform and sharing elements. In this case, the volume of launches always propose a new car that is increasing in the market, here we are talking about reusing exactly the same car.
In Spain we have the case of Santana. The brand will sell a product that is actually Chinese and originates in Dongfeng. This time it is not that it brings a car brought from China and it adapts to the European market, as the Chery Group is doing with Omoda and Jaecoo, renewing some components of cars they sell in Latin America to raise the perception of quality. The same thing that is happening with Ebro.
The case of the Dongfeng pick-up is different because its latest evolution is almost minimal compared to the latest Nissan Navara, a vehicle that was developed on a base… born in 2005. Yes, after 20 years we will see a car with a Spanish emblem which has its embryo and sustenance in a product conceived more than two decades ago despite having been aesthetically renewed.
These types of movements are simpler the simpler the product is, too. That is why it is no coincidence that this same thing is happening in the motorcycle market. They explain in Motorpassion Motorcycle that the same case of Santana and the same case of Mexico and its pick-ups is what they are encountering with the Jedi K750 Pro. “Italian design, Chinese manufacturing and various logos: the K750 changes its name depending on the country, but not the motorcycle,” they summarize in the middle.
And given the market situation, with China involved in overproduction that seems increasingly problematic, it would not be surprising if this way of acting is repeated. China has a good arsenal of models to export and there are many markets eager to receive cars at a more affordable price than what we are used to.
Spain is a good example that, for China, there is life beyond its borders. And not only with electric cars.
Photo | Changan
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