NEW MODELS BY THE MONTH
Imagine you have never seen any vehicles across Africa. Now imagine walking into a very, very large room filled with every single version of every single model launched in the past seven years. Literally vehicles would appear every few hours to add to the fleet.
In Europe (UK and EU27) we have had limited exposure to vehicles built in China – Polestar, Volvo, MG Motor, Maxus. There have also been a few vehicles sold by Volkswagen Group built exclusively in China – the Cupra Tavascan, for example.
Norway – a vast country with 5.9 million people and an annual new car market of circa 179 550 in 2025 alone, along with huge tax penalties for buying anything but BEVs, has had a colourful parade of China market entries since around 2020. Some of those have now gone ‘mainstream’ across the EU27 and in the UK too.
So, imagine a really big car market such as China arriving in the UK with just a selection of products in a little over 18 months … it is bound to cause a great deal of confusion. To be clear, the first wave of China built vehicles contained models that dated back to 2018, as well as newer models – typically two years old already – mainly built for export only.
The whole vast China vehicle manufacturing machine produced around 31 million units in 2025 and is set to increase past 50 million units per year although few seem to know by when. Let’s look into this …
How Qoros became part of Chery
A small group of engineers – some from Saab – managed to get Chery into a 50/50 joint venture with Israel-based Quantum LLC and Kenon Holdings in 2007.
The first vehicle, Qoros 3 was revealed in 2013, sold in China just above the Chery sub-brand ‘Riich’. Market response was good, but sales were not. However, what set this apart was European body engineering with multiple grades of steel – the type of IP China wanted.
The second vehicle was an SUV called Qoros 5, released in 2015. Sales were stronger but still did not generate enough cash to fund exports. Baoneng Group joined in 2018, invested heavily but ran out of cash by 2021 – the Qoros 7 was launched in 2020. Chery bought out the joint venture.
In parallel, Chery launched the Tiggo 4 (the 5th SUV) in 2017 and re-skinned it in 2022 – still in production – replaced in 2026. In 2020 the Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 were introduced and facelifted in 2023 as well as 2025. These vehicles share body engineering as well as powertrains with Omoda 5 and Jaecoo J7.
The birth of GAC Aion V
GAC have been part of the manufacturing operation for Honda and Toyota models sold in China for many years. The first model to come to the UK is called AION V, where AION is a brand of GAC. This is how it came about: The first AION V started sales in May 2020 and shared the Architecture Electric Platform (‘AEP’) 2.0 with the Mitsubishi Airtrek, sold exclusively in China from 2022 onwards.
By September 2023 Mitsubishi closed all China operations largely because it was close to bankruptcy, and the first-generation AION V ceased sales by April 2024.
The second-generation GAC AION V went on sale in China from April 2024. It uses the AEP 3.0, which was introduced in late 2023.
Meanwhile, GAC and Toyota China with Toyota Japan co-developed the China market only Toyota bZ3X BEV, which uses GAC AEP 3.0. The model started sales in China by March 2025, and the RHD version started sales in September 2025.
SAIC, Ricardo and 2010
Famously, the longest serving China manufacturer in the UK began life in our world with the disputed acquisition of MG Rover assets from Nanjing, where SAIC was at the time a significant partner of General Motors and Nanjing was so chaotic it went bust. One of the unfinished projects developed by the assistance of Ricardo PLC under the entity ‘Ricardo 2010’. Starting in 2004, the project delivered the vehicle project by around 2008.
Ricardo 2010 was not about a single vehicle – which became Roewe and MG models – it was about establishing an independent SAIC owned vehicle creation unit, not beholden to any other company. So, the MG5 and MG6 were worth products with famously poor sales, which re-established the bones of importing vehicles, parts, dealerships and more.
A decade later, and thanks to the huge domestic market, MG Motor was able to refresh models quickly, understood the quirks of the UK market, understood the requirements of UK insurers, and started to roll the enhanced business model right across the EU27.
It was MG Motor sales success that rattled the EU27 commission, resulting in direct discussions about import duties. For once the commission looked beyond one model, one company and decided others – Chery, BYD and more – could also quickly gain market share.
The great repairability debate
For some time in an effort to reduce costs, the service element of new vehicle design has not merely taken a back seat but in effect become a voiceless passenger. The demands to meet market segment consumer expectations, to comply with significantly expanded legal obligations without which a new vehicle cannot be sold, along with the unaddressed underlying economics of building in relatively high taxation/high labour cost markets meant service – in our world, repair – was a by-product. The irony is of course parts sales remain a very important source of profit.
Thatcham Research via their connections to RCAR have been able to assist China-based manufacturers in managing their low-speed damage costs, the biggest component of the insurance rating system that a vehicle manufacturer has any control over.
The upshot was discovery of a ‘code’ understood by China vehicle manufacturers.
1. Create a model benchmark to within fractions of a millimetre with perceived international competitors. Of course, this is what all other volume manufacturers also do.
2. Comply with all EU27 type approval – which is a legal obligation and covers the UK too, since we still use the very same legislation.
3. Get the new model to ‘score’ very well in one of two Euro NCAP approved test labs located in China.
4. Turn up at the insurers with parts pricing; the excellent Euro NCAP results.
The missing step? Low speed damageability, which in the UK has standardised impact scenarios, from which the ‘basket of parts’ and labour costs are calculated.
Worse. Bumper beam crush cans prevent low speed impact damage from going into the main front or rear chassis leg. In the Euro NCAP testing the bumper beam crush can makes almost no difference to the overall result because of the significantly higher levels of impact energy. Some China vehicle manufacturers, whose new models had already got impressive Euro NCAP test suite results, missed the significance. So, damage appeared on the front chassis leg, compounded by parts supply of only a larger sub-assembly including the front strut tower.
Suddenly a reasonably price SUV with BEV, PHEV, HEV or ICE power was at risk of becoming disastrously expensive to insure.
Fear not. Recommendations were made, the design correction along with simulation completed in a matter of days. The next stage was no less remarkable – the redesigned crush can was re-tooled, made and in the assembly plant in 1.5 months. Now – Europe is more than capable of matching this speed, but it has been a long, long time since it needed to do this, not be the exception, but routinely. Why? ‘Time is money’.
Continuous re-tooling
Every single China manufacturer is licensed by the state to make vehicles, without which they cannot make or sell vehicles. This includes vehicles for export only. The majority of China vehicle manufacturers are funded by the State or Provincial Government, and in some cases are owned by them as well.
The key to the export drive is a ruinous price war in the domestic market over the past four years which has led to the departure of most of the ‘foreign to China’ brands combined with profits on every single vehicle sold outside of China compared with almost none if sold within China. To service the investment debt, vehicle manufacturers need profits, and those are abroad.
Due to the intense home market competition, models are endlessly refreshed. Whereas a European manufacturer would seek to tool a model range to cover BEV and PHEV, the China equivalent thinks nothing of major surgery as a running change. It is the speed of the re-tooling – pressings, castings, plastic parts – that is staggering. Meanwhile, the ‘look’ of light bars, glass planks in the interior and endless tiny design variations has drawn rebukes, even from President Xi Jinping.
As such the vehicles are not always new, but simply new to us. Just as China consumers looked towards the internet 10 years ago, we now do the same. Much of the innovation is over-hyped, but the overlap with sectors such as battery production and mobile software is inescapable.
The really big debate about design for repairability
Many of the vehicle systems are fitted onto or into the body shell in ways that were not common even 10 years ago. The result is the cost of removing extra layers of parts to reach the damage zone adds repair costs … ‘time is money’. So, the challenge is now a race.
Can the China drive for EU27 and UK vehicle market domination beat the reformation of the European automotive manufacturing business to address uncompetitive costs?
Hundreds of thousands of European automotive manufacturing jobs have already gone since 2020 and more than that are at risk.
Game, set and match to China? Maybe not. Competition really is healthy.
What will happen not just in South Africa but right across Africa? Unlike previous visits by China vehicle manufacturers, this time they’ve got better products, deeper pockets and are not going to run away. Yet.
While European and Japanese manufacturers who build vehicles in South Africa not only provide employment but also parts, moving to ‘China only’ supply will lead to longer delivery times for parts. Beware of what local ‘manufacturing’ really entails – components may well still be shipped into the South Africa plant from abroad.
There is a risk the traditional motor insurance model and collision repair business which has already been badly damaged over the past decade by ‘uneconomic repair’ costs, will suffer too. Could the China vehicle manufacturers self-insure, or insure via a China-backed bank, or simply ensure any damaged vehicle is replaced with a refurbished vehicle? Consider just how many new car transporters arrive in Africa packed full of made-in-China vehicles which, for the time being, return empty.
For collision repairers and insurers this is a time to study extensively, take stock of the ‘new’ arrivals, and how your business can continue to flourish.
By Andrew Marsh
