The first Chinese car to be sold in the US market is an electric car

China wants to penetrate the American car market. Although sales of cars sold in this market have "reached the roof" at 17.2 million per year, this is still one of the most lucrative car markets on the planet, behind only China with 28.88 million. car last year.

Previously, no Chinese car brand ever made it into the US market and built up confidence in its consumers. If this is possible, China will be able to reestablish the miracle of Toyota (Japan) in the 1970s and Hyundai (Korea) in the 1980s. Initial comfort with many good price products, high quality machining, thereby gaining market share held by many American car manufacturers.

Last week, Qiantu Motor announced that it wanted to become China's first car maker to sell its own cars in the United States. So far, Chinese manufacturers only sell their cars under established brands, such as Buick Envision (assembled by Shanghai GM, a joint venture between SAIC Motor of China and General Motors of America) and Volvo S90 (Volvo was acquired by China's Geely from Ford in 2010).

Qiantu plans to start producing its K50 electric cars in 2020. The super-sport electric car in this super-segment will be a collaborative US-made effort between the Chinese car manufacturer. National CH-Auto and startup based in Southern California Mullen Technologies. It will be assembled from parts of both the US and China.

Qiantu K50

If successful, K50 will be the first Chinese product to challenge Tesla at home by selling luxury cars at an "unexpectedly acceptable" price. Although we still don't know the exact price of the K50, the possibility is that Qiantu will target Tesla's Roadster, Model S and Model 3 models first. This means that Qiantu wants to compete directly and win Tesla's No. 1 position in the US sedan market, which has been dumping other names like Ford, Lexus and BMW. In Q3 / 2018, Tesla's Model 3 was the best-selling electric car in the US and the fifth best-selling sedan in the market. With the Model S and Model X models, Tesla currently holds 3 of the 4 best-selling electric car models in the US.

Jeremy Acevedo, a manager at car industry analyst Edmunds, said Qiantu will face a challenging road ahead. Although Qiantu may evade some Chinese car import taxes by assembling cars in the US, things are still quite looming in the US-China trade war. A series of new electric cars from familiar brands such as Audi, Subaru, and Mercedes-Benz will also penetrate the US market in the next two years. With so many competitors in a market that is still quite small (accounting for only 2% of total US car sales), US brands can squeeze out the source of profits and stop the Chinese electric car hurricane before it hasn't started yet.