The_Assessor_Summer 2026 Web - Flipbook - Page 22
JOURNAL
IAEA: ENGINEERING
IS CHINA REALLY BUILDING
NEW MODELS
EVERY 5 MINUTES?
Imagine you have never seen any vehicles in the UK or EU27. Now imagine walking into
a very, very large room 昀椀lled with every single version of every single model launched in
the past seven years. Literally, vehicles would appear every few hours to add to the 昀氀eet.
Andrew Marsh, Technical Director, AutoBodyBible, FIMI, reports.
n Europe (UK and
EU27) we have limited
exposure to vehicles
built in China – Polestar,
Volvo, MG Motor,
Maxus. There have been a few vehicles
sold by Volkswagen Group that were
built exclusively in China – the Cupra
Tavascan, for example.
I
Norway – a vast country with 5.9 million
people and an annual new car market
of circa 179,550 in 2025 alone, along
with huge tax penalties for buying
anything but BEVs, has had a colourful
parade of China-market entries since
around 2020. Some of those have now
gone ‘mainstream’ across the EU27
and in the UK too.
So, imagine a big car market such
as China arriving in the UK with just
a selection of products in little over
18 months… it is bound to cause
confusion. To be clear, the 昀椀rst wave of
China-built vehicles contained models
that date back to 2018, as well as
newer models – typically two years old
already – mainly built for export only.
The vast China vehicle manufacturing
machine produced around 31 million
units in 2025, and is set to increase
past 50 million units per year. Let’s look
into this…
HOW QOROS BECAME PART
OF CHERY
A small group of engineers, including
some from Saab, managed to get
Chery into a 50/50 joint venture with
Israel-based Quantum LLC and Kenon
Holdings in 2007.
• The 昀椀rst vehicle, Qoros 3, was
revealed in 2013, and sold in China
just above the Chery sub-brand
‘Riich’. Market response was good,
but sales were not. However, what
set this apart was European body
engineering with multiple grades of
steel – the type of IP China wanted.
• The second vehicle was an SUV
called Qoros 5, released in 2015.
Sales were stronger, but still did
not generate enough cash to fund
exports. Baoneng Group joined in
2018, invested heavily but ran out
of cash by 2021 – the Qoros 7 was
launched in 2020. Chery bought out
the joint venture.
In parallel, Chery launched the Tiggo 4
(the 5th SUV) in 2017, and re-skinned
it in 2022 - still in production, and
replaced in 2026. In 2020, the Tiggo
7 and Tiggo 8 were introduced, and
facelifted in 2023 as well as 2025.
These vehicles share body engineering
as well as powertrains with Omoda 5
and Jaecoo J7.
THE BIRTH OF GAC AION V
GAC has been part of the
manufacturing operation for Honda
and Toyota models sold in China for
many years. The 昀椀rst model to come to
the UK is called AION V. This is how it
came about:
• The 昀椀rst AION V started sales in May
2020, and shared the Architecture
Electric Platform (‘AEP’) 2.0 with the
Mitsubishi Airtrek, sold exclusively in
China from 2022 onwards.
• By September 2023, Mitsubishi had
closed all China operations, largely
because it was close to bankruptcy,
and the 昀椀rst-generation AION V
ceased sales by April 2024.
• The second-generation GAC AION
V went on sale in China from April
2024. It uses the AEP 3.0, which was
introduced in late 2023.
• Meanwhile, GAC and Toyota China,
with Toyota Japan, co-developed
the China-market-only Toyota bZ3X
BEV, which uses GAC AEP 3.0. The
model started sales in China by
March 2025, and the RHD version
started sales in September 2025.
Famously, the longest-serving
China-based manufacturer in the
UK began life in our world with the
disputed acquisition of MG Rover
[continued on page 24]
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THE ASSESSORS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2026 | www.iaea-online.org/news/the-assessor
