NEWS
Geely winging its way east
Chinese brand scheduled to go national from AugustVolvo's parent company, Geely, has been selling its 1.5-litre MK light passenger car in Western Australia for a couple of years now, but only now is it turning its sights on the rest of the nation.
The brand is being sold in WA through CAD ('Chinese Automotive Distributors'), the company that will shortly expand its scope to cover the country's eastern states.
Rod Gailey, Director of CAD, spoke with motoring.com.au this morning and explained the plans to roll out the brand throughout the rest of Australia. Mr Gailey also explained how it came to be that the left-hand drive Emgrand EC8 pictured here was spotted testing by one of our readers in Melbourne's northern suburbs a day earlier.
"The EC8 is being evaluated in Australia," he explained; "it's being tested by Geely's office up at the DSI (Albury) plant. That's been on-going for quite some time.
"Our priority is to bring in the EC7. We'll give consideration to the EC8 further down the track."
The EC7 is a 1.8-litre small car that will be sold in both sedan and hatchback form, up against other cars in the segment – such as Toyota Corolla, Hyundai i30 and Australia's most popular car currently, the Mazda3. Mr Gailey was not in a position to discuss pricing or market positioning in Australia for the EC7, but did say that it would be "feature-rich" when it goes on sale across the country and would be offered in two levels of trim.
"It will be a good value-for-money proposition; it has to be to compete against the majors that are already well established," Mr Gailey said.
CAD has been clearing the decks over an extended period for the launch of the EC7. Mr Gailey explained that the new car is in the final stages of ADR certification and is shortly to be assessed for SUTI (Single Uniform Type Inspection) approval by the federal government. CAD anticipates production of the car for Australia will commence from around May, with the official on-sale date pencilled in for August 1. The distributor here is applying to join the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries and sales of the EC7 – and any other Geely models to follow – are to be counted in the VFACTS total each month. This and CAD's national distribution of the brand are all signs Geely wants to be taken as a serious player in the market. CAD took 30 dealers to the Beijing motor show last year and, as Mr Gailey tells it, the company doesn't "have an issue at all" with setting up a dealer network across the country to sell the brand.
"We have a very patient list of dealers waiting to jump on board," he said.
Unlike the Chery J3 – another Chinese small car – the EC7 will come equipped with all the necessary safety features to meet individual state requirements, including mandatory stability control in Victoria. The EC7 has already been tested by Euro NCAP and came away with a four-star rating. But the EC7 will also be tested for crash safety here, in addition to the Euro NCAP test and the ADR-mandated crash safety testing.
Given the different criteria and parameters of ANCAP testing, versus Euro NCAP, it makes sense to test the vehicle in Australia, as there's a chance the EC7 might fare better in the local test.
As we found with LDV's V80 vans launched late last month, the Chinese brands are on a technological fast track – and the EC7 is shaping up to be a candidate for the sophisticated automatic transmission DSI supplies Geely for the EC8 model. Mr Gailey, clarifying the DSI connection to Geely, explained that DSI's work on the EC8 is something Geely plans to adopt for the smaller EC7.
"The [engineering evaluation] EC8 runs out of the DSI plant... the old Borg-Warner plant that used to make the Ford [four-speed] gearbox. Geely owns that, and they use that for R&D. And the EC8 in left-hand drive runs with DSI technology in China.
"[Geely is] looking to migrate that technology to the EC7, which is a smaller wheelbase length... The EC8 is a bit further down the track for us."
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Written byKen Gratton
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If the price does not contain the notation that it is "Drive Away", the price may not include additional costs, such as stamp duty and other government charges.
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