Hatchbacks are hot after all!
In the late 1990s, PSA, the large European car assembler, and DPCA, the joint venture which its Citroen unit formed with Dongfeng Motors in China in 1996, made a big mistake. The management of the company and its joint venture assumed that consumers in China would like the same types of cars as consumers in Europe and introduced their hatchback model. The result: a big flop.
In PSA Gets It Right in China, I wrote:
In addition to a slow developing market, the joint venture stumbled trying to find its way in China. Despite the popularity of PSA’s hatchback models in Europe, DPCA found that Chinese consumers wouldn’t buy them when they were first introduced in China. Without a proper trunk, it seems that hatchbacks didn’t fit the Chinese consumer’s idea of a sedan. Fearing that they would be seen by contemporaries as not being able to afford a real sedan with a trunk, consumers considered it a loss of face to own one. DPCA redesigned the hatchback model to include a trunk, and sales improved.
Well, it seems that the folks in Poissy and Wuhan were right after all. The Chinese consumers have learned to like—no, strike that— they have learned to love hatchbacks according to Automotive News China.
“The hatchback is more attractive than the traditional 3-box sedan for young, single and female buyers in the cities,” said Mei Songlin, China general manager, J.D. Power Asia Pacific Inc.
Cindy Gao, a single, 24-year-old graphic designer in Shanghai, is about to buy a red Focus hatchback with a 1.8 liter engine. “All the young people like it because it is very fashionable and sporty looking,” she says. “It’s also economical on gas.”
As if to prove that this is not simply a case of foreign manufacturers imposing Western tastes on Chinese consumers, seven local car companies—Chery, Geely, Lifan, Great Wall, Brilliance, BYD and Nanjing Automobile—plan to launch hatchback models in 2008, according to Automotive Resources Asia’s forecasting division.
