Why are Chinese cars so bad?

Have you ever wondered why people are not trusting Chinese cars as they do with millions of other products produced by China? Basically, because this is a car and not a multipurpose bottle opener bought from aliexpress for 2 bucks.

Chinese cars have a bad reputation due to their poor quality and design, most probably because Chinese automakers are fully concentrating on producing really cheap cars rather than high-quality cars.

Quality issues

When it comes to the overall quality, Chinese cars are really suffering there. The car’s body is made of thin metal and is poorly processed with anti-corrosion agents.

The paint is also having issues that are leading to being easily removed by any scratches—not mentioning the core of the car, the engine. China has never learned how to produce high-quality internal combustion engines. Do you know why?

Because the future is not here, the future is in EVs. China is putting all its efforts into dominating the EV market. But with the same quality issues and the same “produce cheap and sell more” concept, this would be disastrous.

Chinese EVs are on Fire!

China is trying to dominate the electric vehicles market and especially what is known as the Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. These are small cars that have low speed, up to 20 mph, and a maximum load of 3,000 lbs.

It is a promising market for Chinese automakers that fulfills their requirements, cheap prices, and fast production.

The Chinese government is even supporting this since 2015 by funding carmakers and battery manufacturers. It even eliminated taxes on the NEVs to encourage Chinese citizens to buy. But the results were not as expected.

Yes, they sold 1.256 million NEVs in 2018, but the quality was referred to as the industry’s “Quality-Gate” scandal in the Chinese energy journal. The main problem was with the batteries.

A report says that they were draining really fast and couldn’t last as advertised. They were reaching a very high temperature that more than 40 NEVs combusted!

I am not mentioning faulty motors and odometers from day one! Even some people also mentioned that the cars are having a really bad odor when driving, which could not be solved even by cleaning or using fragrance products.

You know what, the Chinese cars are outstanding in the new design concepts they have. What?!

Copycats

Chinese automakers have a very bad reputation when it comes to copying famous car brand’s designs. We are not talking about inspirational copying and developing other’s designs, but they are actually entirely ripping off the design to the extent that you could barely distinguish the original from the copy!

Many western automakers are having legal cases in the courts against Chinese companies that are obviously copying their car concepts. Below are some of the cases we are talking about.

McLaren 570GT

KDC Regola

Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6

Hongqi electric concept car

Mercedes G-Class

BAIC BJ80

Chinese don’t trust China-made cars

For all what we have said above, we know why people are not into Chinese cars. But what about the Chinese themselves? Why they are not trusting their domestic automakers.

Chinese are like any other customers around the world. They seek quality, performance, and price when choosing a car to buy. Price is not the only factor that affects our choices.

But shouldn’t the Chinese be willing to support their domestic auto manufacturers? The numbers are saying NO!

A report published by Bloomberg in 2015 says that Chinese automakers made 41% of sales by the end of 2010 in China, but this number fell down to about 28% by the end of 2014. This indicator is clearly showing that the Chinese are losing trust in their own cars.

This is again proving that price is not the only factor that influences customer’s choices. People are always willing to have higher quality cars that have their own technologies and are building the brand name by new concepts, not by copycatting.

Conclusion

Chinese cars are indeed having a hard time gaining people’s trust and building loyal customers. But this is actually normal when you are putting your foot in a market that has many giants that have been working for many years to reach this point.

Chinese automakers should start focusing more on producing more reliable cars, whether it is combustion engine propelled or an EV. Building trust and brand name should be the number one target in this market.

Not all Chinese automakers have a bad reputation. Some are building their names slowly and gaining more trust over time. Chery, Geely, and BYD are some of these names that are worth respect.

Do you have any experience with Chinese cars? And how was this experience? Please provide us with your opinion on this topic.