Chinese Carmaker Copies Toyota Hybrid?
China's state-owned Changan Automobile Group will make a hybrid vehicle.
It's a first for Chinese automakers.
The vehicle, will be officially released next year.
It will be a 2-liter compact wagon and consume 20% less energy than its standard equivalent.
Fuel efficiency will be 100km on 6.8 liters of gasoline. (35mpg)
The new hybrid is close in size to Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius.
Toyota has been assembling and selling its Prius in China since late 2005.
Chinese sales of the Toyota hybrid were down 86% in the first 10 months of 2007, selling just 299 units.
The Y300,000 price has a lot to do with that.
Changan's new offering will cost about half that – Y150,000 yuan, roughly Y20,000 yuan more than the base vehicle.
Do you think Chang'an can compete with Toyota in quality, too?
People have been wondering about creativity of Chinese under a restrictive regime. But we can clearly see how creative they are in copying and finding loopholes, excuses and ways to getting away with it.
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