YEMA Motors china

During one of my business trips to China I was invited to visit a local car factory. The factory is a second tier Chinese automaker by the name of YEMA Motors. Most of us outside of China wouldn't have heard of this company but apparently it has been manufacturing cars for 25 years! The car is nothing to shout about since they copy the designs of Audi, VW, Ford, Toyota and Subaru.

It was my first visit to a second tier China car factory. The manufacturing facilities are nowhere near as advanced as the big boys like BYD or SAIC. Design wise they look poor copies of Audi's Q7, VW Touarag, Subaru Forester, Toyota Altis, Ford Fiesta and Toyota RAV4. I did not have a chance to test drive their cars but upon inspection of the interior it really does look like it was designed 20 years ago. The plastics quality is poor and so is the finishing of the car. The exterior door panels were not perfectly straight as one can easily spot the wavy lines on the panels itself. Much of the assembly process is done by hand instead of using robotics. The factory is not exactly small but it is not big either.

During the factory tour one of the senior managers were explaining about the company's history and future direction. their aim is to go fully electric and introduce a whole range of models using only electric power. They currently make electric buses which are being used by some municipal governments in China. They took the idea from Tesla and created a modular system whereby additional battery packs can be added for more range or more power. They were claiming good driving range for their electric cars however I have some reservations about it since their emphasis is not in quality rather than lower price.

YEMA claims that they are currently exporting their cars however I suspect that their cars would only be sold in 3rd world countries or smaller developing countries since automotive crash testing may not be mandatory in these countries. I question YEMA's car if they would pass NCAP or other European or Japanese crash tests.

We were not provided a tour of their R&D centre so it is hard to gauge how good is their R&D resources. They did bring out a VW Touarag looking model that is 100% electric. The car is still a prototype but they did try to take visitors a on joyride to let them feel this new car. It is a positive step for the company but in terms of design development they have a long way to go before they can compete with the bigger tier 1 China car companies.

China's automotive market is big enough to have numerous car makers with each carving out their own market segment. Unfortunately nearly all aim only for cheap cars with low quality materials and old engines. It is about time they followed Hyundai and Kia to engage foreign experts to accelerate their design and development of the cars.