Una muestra de lo que el mercado paraguayo tiene que ofrecer, vistos el 1 de marzo de 2024 frente a la playa San José de Encarnación.
Primera vez que veo el nuevo Kia K3. Lo habían lanzado recién, viene de México: https://noticias.autocosmos.cl/2024/02/28/kia-k3-2024-en-chile-un-sedan-que-propone.
Otra novedad para mí fue la Ram Rampage. Sí, suena raro decirlo así. Brasileña y emparentada con la Jeep Compass.
I’m all for free markets, and that means competing fairly without the government subsidizing their favourite companies and industries. But that is exactly what the Chinese regime does with their electric car manufacturers, so it was beyond time Europe responded to this threat.
The European Commision even differentiated the tariffs for each main Chinese automaker. I’m surprised that SAIC was found to be the worst offender. This should be a hard hit for MG, which is doing really well with its EVs in Europe (https://carnewschina.com/2024/06/05/chinas-ev-registrations-in-germany-in-may-nio-35-byd-201-mg-2699/):
BYD: 17.4%
Geely: 20%
SAIC: 38.1%
Source: https://carnewschina.com/2024/06/12/eu-imposes-tariffs-on-chinese-evs-byd-17-4-geely-20-saic-38-1/
Funnily (or tragically) enough, some of the big opponents of these tariffs are European car companies that import cars and parts for their EVs from China. Did you know the Dacia Spring and the new MINI EV, for instance, are built in China? And of course, Teslas are too, although they also have a plant in Germany, that only makes Model Y units, all Model 3 sold in Europe are Chinese.
Primero que veo por las calles de Santiago.
Don’t get left behind and be on touch with the latest the Chinese car market has to offer. If you live in the West, it is quite possible you’ll see some of these cars for sale in your country soon as well.
Motivado por una publicación en el indispensable sitio https://chinacarhistory.com/2024/01/14/chinese-car-brands-that-time-forgot-shanghai-maple/, sobre la historia del automóvil en China, decidí organizar aquí mis fotos de modelos de Shanghai Maple que he visto en Chile, junto con algunas noticias sobre su venta aquí, que ocurrió solo entre 2008 y 2010, por Fortaleza, de Gildemeister.
Todos eran modelos derivados del Dongfeng Fukang, el Citroën ZX fabricado en China. Esto es evidente especialmente en las puertas. Muy distintos de los nuevos Maple, ya que recientemente Geely revivió la marca para vender autos eléctricos, también pongo algunos de ellos, importados por Voltera (https://www.voltera.cl/), al final del post.
Mi foto favorita es esta, cuyo dueño aprovechó completamente la parrilla de copia Audi de su SMA C81.
Shanghai Maple C81 (el que se cree Audi)
La mayoría de los que he visto son taxis. Este iba en camino a serlo, como muestra su patente naranja.
SMA R81
Y el más curioso, SMA R80.
Los nuevos Maple:
Noticia del lanzamiento original de Shanghai Maple en 2008:
https://noticias.autocosmos.cl/2008/07/23/sma–shanghai-maple-automobile-arriba-a-chile
Noticia del término de la marca en Chile, en 2010. No cumplían con los nuevos estándares de seguridad. Dicen que se vendieron en total 624.
Seguramente pronto Great Wall lanzará el Tank 500 en Chile y por eso vi este ejemplar en Las Condes hoy. Recién lanzaron el Tank 300 y no hay razón para no expandir el rango.
Finally! Maybe?… After declaring bankruptcy in the USA months ago, now a Hong Kong court has called for a liquidation of Evergrande. It’s not clear what will happen with its assets in Mainland China, though. It’s complicated, after all. Companies like these are not built to be easy to break up.
As you might recall, Evergrande has a car-making venture that had lofty goals of building millions of cars a year. Called Hengchi, its seen its own troubles, CarNewsChina even reported earlier this month that the President of Evergrande Auto and Hengchi was arrested for corruption charges! Read here: https://carnewschina.com/2024/01/09/president-of-evergrande-auto-and-hengchi-brand-arrested/
I was surprised that the Hengchi experiment moved on despite all of Evergrande’s troubles, actually starting production in 2022 (https://carnewschina.com/2023/05/30/die-another-day-hengchi-5-resumed-production-in-the-tianjin-plant/). Getting into cars was a huge bet, developing all those cars at the same time and with Western designers was hugely expensive. Being a part of a conglomerate on the verge of bankruptcy for so long, who was going to take the risk of buying a car from a possibly soon-to-be-orphaned brand? Apparently, around a thousand customers in all of 2023. And who knows how many of those are actual retail buyers…
Will Hengshi rise up like the fenix under new management? We’ll see.
¡El BYD Dolphin taxi! Ya estaba pensando que me lo había imaginado aquella primera vez que lo vi. Afortunadamente para mi salud mental, ahora sé que siempre fue real 🐬
¡El nuevo BAIC X55 se ve realmente espectacular! Especialmente en este amarillo limón. Y parte en $15 millones. No me gustaría eso de llevar en grandes letras el nombre BEIJING, recordándome permanentemente el régimen dictatorial que gobierna en China.
El primero que veo, y único hasta ahora. Pronto estarán por doquier.
ripituc 