Chery Cars Spotted In South Africa

A number of Chery vehicles ( an SUV, a mini hatch, a panel van and a sedan) have been spotted at the testing facility of Gerotek, north of Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa. The vehicles were snapped parked near Gerotek’s technical testing centre and going obviously through familiarisation with that country’s unique environments.

No confirmed information yet of which of the Chery models will eventually make their market appearance in South Africa towards the end of 2008. Chery's designs are highly criticized for being plagiarised from other automakers. The company sold 381 000 vehicles in 2007, up 24.8 percent from 2006.

Western markets are still questioning the quality of Chinese manufactured vehicles. Chery is a Germany TUV-certified company, but that doesn't mean they match German quality, but rather that they meet the minimum standards required.

Gallery: Chery Vehicles In SA

The Return Of The Changfeng

ChangFeng Motors was at Detroit last year and made the familiar claim that its Chinese cars would soon be on sale in the U.S. The Chinese automaker made the pilgrimage to Detroit again this year and this time welcomed with open arms by the North American International Auto Show.

Changfeng shows at Detroit two vehicles. The first is the Leopard CS6. The car was designed by famed Italian firm Pininfarina and carries similar design cues to Hyundai Santa Fe. ChangFeng says it's built on the Pajero V Series platform.

The other car shown by ChangFeng today was the Kylin, which is already on sale in Japan. The five-door wagon is powered by a 1.8L Mitsubishi engine. It's chassis was tuned by Lotus.

But it's still unclear, if these cars will be on sale in the US. Last year when ChangFeng debuted in Detroit it claimed it would be selling cars in the U.S. soon. This year we got the same speech.

Gallery: Changfeng Leopard And Kylin

Chinese BYD To Make World's Cheapest Car

Chinese automaker BYD is planning to build a car called the F-1, which will be on sale for $3,000.

How can this be possible? Well, when you're not paying any designers to style it, you can build the car very cheaply. They pay only someone a little, who knows how to use Photoshop.

We're sure you noticed the similarity between the planned F-1 (top) and the Toyota Aygo (bottom).

Chinese's Brilliance BS6 Sedan Fails Miserably

Brilliance's BS6 Sedan ,which positioned as a premium-style import sedan at a budget price, shows in crash tests that buyers get what they pay for. This tests were made by ADAC Test Center which uses Euro NCAP guidelines.

The A-pillar collapses and folds up.the driver's door to pop largely out of its frame, like it's made of recycled pop cans. ADAC notes that the pedals intruded 32 cm into the driver's space. There's no doubt that the BS6 failed the test, garnering just 1 star.