Are Chinese cars really coming to take over?

We"BYD Tang with special green plates for fully electric car, San José, Costa Rica" by Mariordo is lincenced under CC BY-SA 4.0 , https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BYD_Tang_EV_CRI_03_2021_7569.jpg

"Made in China" is something we are all used to seeing on almost all items we own, except for cars, in fact ask most people and they will say they wouldn't want a Chinese car stating it would be cheaply or nastily built. But as China continues to rapidly grow industrially and the electric car wave continues to take over, Chinese car brands are beginning to expand to our shores.

I am making this blog post after "BYD", one of China's hottest car brands have announced they will be launching in Ireland sometime soon as they have announced immediate dealer recruitment. BYD, standing for "Build Your own Dreams" was only set up in 2003, making it a very new player in the auto space, yet it has already become the biggest EV maker in the world, overtaking Tesla last year. All this expansion and record holding sounds very impressive, any automaker would die for that sort of growth, now what if I told you BYD is only the 7th largest automaker in China. SAIC, Geely , FAW, BAIC, Great Wall, these are all brands we may see everywhere in times to come, but how have they done it?

"Front view of the Lynk & Co 01." by Shirley 501JFW is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 , https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMC_P_AS17_Lynk_%26_Co_01_1.jpg

Some brands I have just mentioned have been around in Europe for a while, Great Wall for example have been selling their "Steed" pick ups in Europe for a while now but not had much success. One brand that has found success is Geely, not through using their own brand name, but by buying up other brands. Volvo and their electric spinoff Polestar, Lynk and Co., Lotus, and even the London Taxi Company are now all owned by the Chinese Company. Similarly to this, the once ruined MG brand has been given a new lease on life thanks to to SAIC. Notice how none of these are actually the Chinese brands expanding themselves, until now.

To answer the question of will Chinese cars take over? Maybe, but not for another decade. Chinese automakers find themselves in the same position that Korean automakers found themselves in the 2000s. No brand image is a big issue, would you rather have a BMW or a BYD?Exactly. This means they are seen as second rate companies that must play catch up. Also journalists have described these Chinese cars as being average at best, feeling generic and lifeless. Once they over come those issues, much like the Kia and Hyundai did through the 2010s, I have no doubt we will see Chinese brands be as good if not better then the all the others.