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The Chinese automaker that unveiled a fish-tank armrest at this year’s Detroit auto show would like to sell Americans an SUV in 2017. It would cost 30 percent less than a comparable Toyota RAV4, plus its maker claims it’ll be more efficient, powerful, and roomier—although it will come sans the aquarium in the back seat.
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Those claims come from an Automotive News interview with Guangzhou Automobile Group Company general manager Wu Song. Guangzhou Automobile Group Company, or GAC Group, is one of many state-owned Chinese automakers that want to crack the U.S. market with cheap cars. Song is “90 percent confident” that the new Trumpchi GS4—a surprisingly not-ugly SUV with vague Hyundai and Nissan overtones—will be sold in the U.S., and the company has begun looking for U.S. dealers.
-In order to gain any market traction, however, GAC would have to offer low-ball pricing, likely below cost, much as the Japanese brands did when they first arrived here in the 1960s. In its home market, the Trumpchi GS4 packs 1.3- and 1.5-liter four-cylinder engines and a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission in its home market, and sells for between $16,000 and $24,000.
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Of course, Chinese automakers have been telling us for more than a decade that they would set up showrooms and offer us insane deals on car that would comply with all federal mandates. So far, however, their efforts have been small. Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang owns Fisker, Geely owns Volvo, and GAC itself has four joint-venture manufacturing contracts in China to build Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Fiat models. Uber drivers in Chicago can lease a BYD e6 right now, albeit at insanely high prices.
-No doubt, Chinese-brand cars will make it here at some point. But we wonder: Will a 30-percent discount be enough to get Americans to take a flier on a newcomer from China?
-from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1GBFCtJ
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