Chinese car manufacturers in Europe

They are here to stay: after initial teething problems, Chinese car manufacturers are now slowly gaining a foothold in Europe. However, some manufacturers are sailing under false flags. However, the strategy does not always work.

At first glance, the event could hardly have been more British: in the heart of London and in the largest TV studio of the venerable BBC Lotus his first this week in a spectacular show SUVs revealed. And as if that wasn't English enough for the cult brand from the island, the lady at the mixing desk, who heated up the party audience before the show and was the first to be seen in global live streaming, had to wear a glittering Union Jack. 

China is present

But the first impression is wrong. Not only because Lotus boss Matt Windle repeats the slogan "born british, raised globally" almost like a mantra and raves about the British birth of the Eletra and its global origins. Mainly because that evening there was always a Chinese somewhere in the manager's shadow – discreetly in the background and at the same time omnipresent. Because the times when Lotus was a British sports car manufacturer are long gone: Five years ago, the Chinese Geely group joined the sports car icon from Hethel and cured its English competitor with a financial injection worth billions. 

So there is not only a modernized factory at the headquarters, where the Elise successor Emira, which was also developed with Geely's help in the technology center in Raunheim at Frankfurt Airport, will soon roll off the assembly line with Chinese money. There is another development center in faraway Wuhan for hundreds of engineers and next to it a factory with an annual capacity of 150.000 cars - and above all a plan for how both are to be used to capacity. 

European facade for Chinese car manufacturers

Because the Eletre, which costs around 120.000 euros, has 600 hp, a speed of 260 km/h and is equipped with a 100 kWh battery for a range of more than 600 kilometers is just the beginning. It will be followed by a four-door coupe, a smaller SUV and a sports car by the middle of the decade, with which Lotus is to become the electric luxury brand in the Geely empire and rise to quantities that were unthinkable for the British in their first 70 years - after all, Lotus has spent most of its years in the low four figures. 

Chinese automaker
The Eletre represents the new beginning of the brand

The English façade and subtle but all-powerful Chinese in the background – this is a pattern that now sounds strangely familiar and could prove to be a clever tactic for the newcomers from the Far East. Because after the first attempt by the Chinese in Europe became a joke because brands like Landwind only had cheap copies and the dreams of Brilliance were shattered in crash tests, many companies try to get a foot on the ground through the back door. 

Mercedes under control

While start-ups like Nio or Aiways are taking the difficult route and building up their own brands, Geely has gone on a shopping spree and has quickly bought into numerous European manufacturers or taken them over entirely. It started with Volvo, continued with the manufacturer of the legendary London Taxi and is far from over with Lotus. After all, it is not for nothing that the Chinese are now the largest single shareholder at Mercedes and have a say in the decisions in Stuttgart. And at Smart they are now in charge too.

But Geely is not the only Chinese conglomerate that relies on old names on its way into the new world: SAIC, the largest car manufacturer in China, also uses this trick and rolls up the West with MG - a brand that was founded almost 100 years ago in England was founded, like almost all English companies, has a very checkered history, in the meantime even belonged to BMW and since 2005 has been brought to new heights from China. And while MG never completely disappeared from England, the British with the Chinese passport are now also conquering continental Europe as a new electric brand for price foxes. 

Geely helped the Swedes

There is a lot of praise from the experts for the revival of the ailing brands: Automobile economist Ferdinand Dudenhöffer calls Geely's entry into Volvo an all-round successful revival: Geely invested a lot of money in the "new" Volvo and brought two important success factors to light: products , which reflect the brand essence "Swedish lifestyle", sustainability and safety and new factories that deliver high quality. This could now also succeed at Lotus, says Dudenhöffer and “expects new products with high innovative standards, new plants, i.e. large investments that interpret the former brand essence in a modern way. Just like at Volvo.”

Automatically saved design
Borgward is an example of the failure of Chinese strategies

But the way through the back door for the Chinese does not always lead to success, warns Dudenhöffer and also has a few negative examples at hand: "Saab and Borgward are diagrams of failure." New edition: "The new cars for both were "me too" products, i.e. cars that were announced with huge promises and words, but had little of their own." The weak product was then followed by even weaker sales and boring marketing, the expert judges: “The world really doesn’t need such unearthed brands. There are too many brands and old wine in new bottles flops.” 

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