Chery A1 to be sold in Germany right now !

hile this news seems too good to be true (for the people interested in chinese cars), or to a bad omen (for the people who think chinese cars suck), we are quite surprised by this declaration. The guilty here is the Germany based CAD, an importer of cars. In fact not only the Chery A1 is imported, but also the Tiggo and the Easter CROSS according to the Beijing Youth Daily a supposed reliable source in China.

More incredible thing : the Chery brand is rebadged !

Chery Motor as opposed to Shuanghuan and Landwind, was quite in stealth mode when it comes to import its own cars into Western countries. Of course we've been used to Chery announcing a cooperation with XXX country for a joint-venture, but few news about Chery wanting to import cars in Europe so fast. Ok for this, if only the cars were not rebadged under another logo or brand. that's what should have happened according to this source. That should be a nonsense, why would Chery bother itself to hide its A1 under the Dragon name?. It seems that on the homepage of the CAD company, you can have the information about the UFO's description. So the Chery A1 is renamed City, the Tiggo is renamed Grand UFO and the Easter is renamed Liner. I nearly forgot to mention the QQ3 is rebranded as the Jaggi. Well rebadging Chery, a well known brand in China in Germany seems to be a short term strategy, it has no benefit to Chery, good thing is if CAD fails, Chery brand will suffer less.

China made but not cheap anyway

You think you can buy chinese made cars at very competitive price? The fact is you might be disappointed. The City is sold at 8999 euros, that's expensive a car, the Toyota Aygo starts at 9000 euros for the 3 door version, and 9300 euros for the 4 door version. This amount is not convincing enough. The reason mybe due to the cos of transportation. So the Chinese carmaker should consider investing to build factories out of China to decrease their costs, that's what they are indeed doing right now in Mexico for Chang An and in India for FAW. So the future of chinese cars maybe first invest in targeted countries surrounding western countries, build a manufacture base for local market and then export to the developped countries. This has the double advantage of keeping the cost low while having an immediate marketshare, and the proximity of developped countries to sell spare part at the beginning, and finally switching to entire cars later.