Last week the German ADAC and Dutch ANWB released a crash test with the new Chinese brand Brilliance, in which the car only received one out of five stars. German test results called the car extremely dangerous, and of course all the media jumped on this opportunity to show how bad the quality of Chinese cars is. I disagree with that, and was thinking about blogging about the test result. However, I did not have the time to do it at that moment, so I let it be.
But just now I finally see a positive column on the frontpage of leading Dutch online news provider nu.nl about Brilliance and the overreaction of the press. The author is Vincent van Twillert, who blogs on autoblog.nl (a weblog that is normally quite negative about everything Chinese), and who acknowledges that he also thinks the whole press reaction is over the top. He has some interesting points in his article, that I totally agree with.
He writes that this seems to be a strategic action of the German car producers lobby to make sure new competition does not stand a chance. They did this two years ago as well with the Landwind, which was supposed to have the worst crash results in 20 years. What the author does not mention (or does not know?) is that when the producer of the Landwind a few months later hired the respected German test institution TUV to repeat the test, the results suddenly were very positive. The Landwind actually passed the tests with very good marks…
I think the automotive lobby is trying to use fear to stop people from buying Chinese cars. In the long run it won’t work, but in the short run it’s very effective. Landwind never recovered from its bad test results, and Brilliance is also off to a very bad start. Even it it turns out that the Brilliance results were incorrect it is too late anyway for the brand. If I would be a consultant for the next upcoming Chinese brand, the Chery, I would advise the board do these test with an independent organization before launching in Europe. In that case you can immediately react if organizations ADAC or the ANWB are trying to trick the public again.
The nu.nl column mentions some other interesting facts. The Brilliance car is said to have the safety standard of cars that would be produced 10 years ago. So? Were all cars 10 years ago extremely dangerous? And does that mean that nobody should buy a second-hand car anymore because that would be suicidal? It’s all about price versus quality, and in this case the Brilliance is relatively cheap – just as second-hand cars are cheaper than brand-new cars. You get what you pay for.
A nice detail is that the Chrysler Voyager got the same result out of this test (done in England), but for some reason the media did not write much about this test. For me all the more reason to believe in some conspiracy theory against Chinese cars. Right now the media and car producers still win, but in a few years things will definitively change. A few months ago the last sentence of a column I wrote for Dutch car magazine Autovisie was: “I expect that in a few years it would be just as normal to drive a Geely, Great Wall or Chery as it is now to drive a Mazda, Nissan or Toyota”. I would not hesitate to write that again.
Hi Marc!
I disagree with the assessment of a “conspiracy”. Just look at the passenger cell after the crash and ask yourself: Would you feel safe in such a car??? In the aftermath of the test, I have not seen a single article that questions the testing methods – let alone a word of defense by Brilliance’s European General Importer HSO. Worse – HSO went on by saying “we will continue selling the already imported vehicles” …THIS is how you destroy a brand. Yes, sooner or later Chinese cars will be a familiar view on Europe’s streets (like Japanese and Koreans ars before). But if Chinese companies continue with such a careless execution of their car export strategy, then I’m afraid it’s “Three Strikes – And you are Out” – at least for the next 3-5 years.
Hello anonymous: I agree that the reaction of Brilliance was not brilliant. The importer likely never faced a media offensive like this before, and should have handled it differently.
But I disagree on what you say about the “conspiracy”. The fact that you ask the question “Would you feel safe in such a car”, shows to me that the media hype against Chinese cars is working. Why does nobody ask this question about driving a second hand car? They are just as “unsafe”. Note the parentheses, because generally a car is not a safe place to be in in a crash, manufacturers just try to make it look that way. And yes, some cars like for example the Brilliance or the Chrysler Voyager, perform much worse than most new Western models.
But so what? People should be able to make a free choice based on price versus quality. If you want to have a sedan the size of a BMW 5-series for the price of a Volkswagen Golf, you cannot expect the same safety standards. Same when you buy a 10-year old 5-series, that car will also have less airbags and likely no ESP.
Whether the test was flawed or not I don’t know (although it seems to have been the case with the Landwind), but the resulting media attention was very one-sided. Something that would not have been the case had this been a Western brand car.
In fact, I don’t think the results of this test is a bad thing. Saying that this test was oriented is bad as it gives people the impression that Chinese people need to be protected from a conspiracy, which is not!
They will come back a few months later with a better car that passes the tests and they will have improved, that is the best for everybody.
It is certainly easier to try to find excuses (the famous Chinese way) but find ways to success so that nobody can disagree with it is much much better, even if it means eating a little bit of s… sometimes.
I want to emphasize that I am not attacking you in any way, I found out your blog and I like to read it from time to time, it is just my 50 cents!
keep on