First the Europeans came and while they didn’t necessarily conquer, their cars did serve as a wake-up call to the American standard bearers, both on the low and high ends. Then the Japanese wave arrived and caused wholesale changes over here. More recently it was the Koreans, currently leading in some market segments and more or less striking the final blow that over time caused most of the domestics to entirely retreat from small and medium cars, especially sedans, and mainly remain reliant on protected species such as large conventionally powered trucks. Now, no matter what the U.S. government may currently say or do, the Chinese are the next big automotive force – so much so that Jim Farley, the current CEO of Ford Motor Company, recently told his employees to ready themselves for their cars to be sold here within five to ten years.
The car above is a temporary visitor from south of the border. It is a 2026 (or at least 2025) Changan Eado Plus sedan, slightly longer and wider, yet slightly lower than a current Hyundai Elantra or VW Jetta. I initially thought it looked perhaps what a restyled Mazda3 or said Elantra might look like until I read the badges. First impression: It does not look weird at all. If it was a new Ford Fusion, they’d probably sell 200,000 here next year.
Changan traces its roots back to 1862 when it was established as the Shanghai Foreign Gun Bureau, a military weapons supplier. Cars are a bit more recent, dating to 1959 under another predecessor company name, producing the Changjiang Type 46, China’s first domestically produced vehicle.
In the 1980s Suzuki teamed up with them and in 1984 Changan produced their first two vehicle lines with the name we see on the back of the car above. In the early 2000s they created joint ventures with Ford and Mazda while also producing their own vehicles. Excluding any joint ventures, last year Changan produced over 2 million vehicles. That’s not a fly by night operation.
The Eado line has been around since about 2012, this is a third generation model offered in various versions. I believe that this one is a plug-in hybrid version pairing a 1.5 liter 4-cylinder engine producing 105hp with an 18.4 kWh battery pack producing a further 212hp for a combined output of 266hp (the numbers add up differently due to power peaks being at different places on the curve). It’s front wheel drive and uses an e-CVT transmission (which is nothing like a regular CVT). (Apparently though there is also a version that is a pure EV as well as another that is all-gasoline with a turbocharged 1.5l engine.)
As equipped here, it can apparently be driven on battery power alone, supposedly for up to 120km (74 miles but perhaps on a different standard than the EPA one). Or as a regular hybrid switching back and forth or using a combination of power sources, or even as an EREV wherein the standard engine runs only to charge the battery, basically as a generator. In the best case scenario, a range of over 600 miles can supposedly be achieved. I’ll note that the United States automotive industry currently has nothing that does this, hopefully for the domestic makers’ sake they are at least working on concepts of a plan rather than just hoping for continued governmental intervention and protection in our free market.
Are Chinese things of poor quality? Some people think so. Others realize that this post was written on a Hewlett Packard laptop manufactured in China (works great), the photos were taken on an Apple iPhone 17 Pro manufactured in China (also works great), and the owner of this car evidently drove it to Fort Collins, Colorado without apparent concern that they might need dealer service or repair; the closest Mexican border crossing is about 700 miles south of here (El Paso/Ciudad Juarez).
The picture above is of a random corner of the car (passenger rear in this case), sure it’s anecdata but there is nothing in the fit, finish, or paint quality that would have me leaving a showroom if I were looking at this.
While I regularly see Chinese-branded cars in the desert southwest not far from the southern border, I came across the above MG (badged MG5) in the spring of 2025 in Bozeman, Montana. That’s a hefty tow to the Mexican border if something went wrong (1,540 miles). Clearly these owners have more faith in their vehicles than I might have driving any of mine that distance into Mexico, and all of my cars have dealers networks down there. The days of any random gas station shop fixing your car while traveling across the United States are gone forever, modern cars need modern tools and software to diagnose and repair them when they fail.
I think the days of default “poor quality” are over, or certainly dependent on competent engineering, manufacturing supervision and price/cost to a large extent. Ford and GM themselves apparently agree, they are happy to sell the Lincoln Nautilus and Buick Envision here, both of which are produced in China exclusively and any of their dealers will surely be happy to demonstrate there is no quality difference between them and the rest of their line. (Coincidentally, the $54,000 and up Nautilus is actually built by Changan as a Ford joint venture)
The inside looks great. Screens and consoles may be something many here love to hate but the market overall seems to like them. The seats look comfortable, and few would bat an eye if told this was a Honda Accord or Kia Optima, and frankly it seems nicer than a Chevy Malibu for instance. Check out the bin space under the center console. What here marks this as a clearly Chinese car? Nothing. They have caught up and perhaps exceeded some “famous makers” in many aspects, at least as far as visuals are concerned. Which is probably 50% of the battle in selling a car to most people.
Ah but the price…perhaps another 40% of the battle, no? Well, it’s difficult to translate accurately into US prices, the best figures I could find indicate a range of about $21,000 to $25,000 for a loaded example in South America. Those prices undercut anything comparable (barring other Chinese vehicles) by a significant margin and include all the expected modern safety stuff, Apple CarPlay, and whatever other doo-dads people like to buy these days. A continuation model base 1990s Nissan Sentra (Tsuru) this is not. Frankly to my eye it looks better than at least half of what its competition would be over here.
How does it drive? I have no idea. But for most normies that’s maybe the other 10% (at most) of the puzzle. Can it handle the drive-thru at Mickey D’s, hit 80 on the freeway, and get them to work on time? Not a high bar and really all that most buyers demand; I have every confidence it can do that. As long as it looks decent and is affordable it’s already batting better than most players.
The times may be a’changin’, I wonder if time will bring a Changan. I certainly wouldn’t bet against it. If the current players either can’t or won’t produce more affordable offerings, there’s a whole ginormous country happy to try to fill the gaping void.
Well, in this land of the free, Chinese and Chinese-made cars make up 1/3 of the market, including the best-selling Tesla model Y. I was in a Great Wall Motors (GWM) Tank this very day, and it’s a typical high-quality product from that country. (The Tank is a handsome diesel 4wd thing about the size of a Landcruiser Prado, and reportedly very competent off-road, which in this case has been utterly reliable for its owners under decently heavy use). I’m not going to go near the whole free-trade/protectionist thing, as it’s vastly too complex and political to discuss, but can only say in the totally open market we have here that these sometimes-strangely named products are both affordable and excellent.
I’ll quibble with you on screens being popular in the market: I think it’s just that most cars now have them, and, rather like the eventual market rejection of the ’50’-’60’s maker-driven lower-longer-wider thing, knobs and knockers will return. Or regrow.
Or not. I’m getting old and can’t even understand the proposed future, let alone predict it.
I may have been unclear but meant most people are fine with or like screens for their often customizable gauges/info and to display stuff like Apple CarPlay, yes more knobs and buttons would be welcome, imagine if China Inc. realizes this and adds $50 worth of them below the screen. It’s not that hard, obviously. I’m VERY happy with my current car with knobs and buttons for climate controls, regular vents, an LCD instrument cluster and an 8″ screen for CarPlay and setting controls. I have no desire to sit in a car while commuting without being able to use CarPlay on either a standard screen or an aftermarket head unit with a screen and tech that’ll read incoming texts while I sit there without being allowed to touch the phone (which is fine, I agree with the reasons).
Maybe the tide is turning on buttons. My wife commented she likes the new Subaru Outback (the 4 Runner wantabe) and while my Forester was in for a service I took a look, and low and behold, a row of buttons/knobs below the screen. The current Forester, Impreza, etal don’t have this so hopefully things are changing back.
The northern part of the US will start to see Chinese cars visiting from us northerners as Canada is allowing 40,000 Chinese made vehicles into the country with minimum duty as part of a bigger trade deal between the 2 countries. So yes the times are changing.
The vista view outside the windows of your Forester are stunning! 🙂
Thanks, but that is the new Outback taken from the Subaru Canada website. Shows the rows of buttons now included.
The interior of the new Outback is a welcomed step backwards with the buttons/knobs. The exterior…I think they’ve lost the plot of “raised wagon” (which Subaru recently introduced in the Toyota-clone Trailseeker EV). IMO the Outback has always had a unique customer base who wanted a competent, safe AWD vehicle that’s not too cumbersome but I may well be wrong.
It’ll be interesting to see the sales numbers after this initial year of new & shiny….
Chinese or not, I just wish there was a new vehicle out there that I could actually get enthused about. If and when my 21 year old Kia Sportage finally dies, there is absolutely nothing that makes me run to run out and buy as a replacement. Add the upcoming tech that keeps an eye on the driver to make sure they are not getting drowsy, but in reality is just a surveillance tool, and I may never buy a car built after 2026.
Totally agree. I can think of only two current cars I would even look at, and they are both way too expensive – the Ineos Grenadier and the Isuzu MU-X.
It’s obvious by now, that every manufacturer has been coerced by regulation into abandoning the gasoline engine in favour of electric motors and virtually irreplaceable battery cells.
Most egregious companies in this regard are Renault, Ford, Volvo and Jaguar.
They all made legendary engines and apparently never will again.
Not to mention the sheer brutalist ugliness of most cars now. And the freaking touch screens for everything.
I need to stop now, and go for a walk.
I was looking forward to reading this Jim, but kind of in the same way that some people like watching scary movies…you think you know what’s going to happen, but you shield your eyes as you wait for the inevitable. 🙂
As much as I try to shield myself from the present, I watched a segment from CBS Sunday Morning on YouTube yesterday about the Chinese car industry and how far they’ve come. They interviewed BYD dealers and buyers in London who had nothing but nice things to say about them, so clearly, the message was that the modern Chinese electric car is not the cheap throwaway one would expect. They overtook Tesla as the biggest seller of all-electric vehicles in the world without any U.S. sales, so yeah, I think that as soon as they hit the market, you’re going to see a lot of them.
The winner in all of this will clearly be the popcorn industry.
We already have enough Chin Lee parts here at your local auto parts store to build yourself a Honda clone. This is nothing new.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this sentence. Speaking for myself, a few years ago, I’d have been aghast at the thought of buying a Chinese vehicle. But after several years of hurtful cost-of-living increases, stagnant pay and benefits, getting eaten alive by tax and insurance increases, and no end in sight to any of that, I’d put a car like this at the top of my list if one were actually available for under $30,000.
Looking at the Changan Mexico website, the list price (less rebate) for the basic Eado Plus gasoline model translates to about $22K US, and the PHEV model’s list price (less rebate) converts to about $26K.
Wow.
I drew some of my info from the Chilean market info, but in Mexico that base vehicle engine (not the plug in hybrid) features a 1.5 liter turbocharged engine producing 178hp, i.e. very competitive with everything else, lest anyone think the base car just makes do with a 105hp 4-banger sans turbo.
I think you’re understating the quality and capabilities of this car, and understandably so, given the common lack of knowledge at the extent of the development and maturity of the Chinese market by many Americans. The Chinese consumer is sophisticated and will not accept mediocre cars, hence the European and American brands have been losing market share precipitously. This car is almost certainly as good or better than the competition.
The one aspect you may be overstating is the range, as the Chinese testing cycle yields very optimistic numbers. Real life numbers are more like 25-35% lower, but that still yields very usable and competitive ranges.
The American car market is in a bubble, just waiting to be popped.
Thanks, I didn’t want to be accused of shilling for the Chinese makers as I have interpreted some comments that way over the years. I’ve seen enough examples of everyday (mass-market, not just premium class) Chinese-made vehicles over the last few years to know that build quality is excellent and the tech from all reasonable accounts is easily competitive and in many cases more advanced than what’s available in other showrooms. My biggest personal validation of this was when attending the Tokyo Motor Show a few years back where BYD had a huge display (this was just prior to them actually entering the Japanese market), the stand was mobbed with older Japanese industry senior executives in suits carefully studying and probing all aspects of the exteriors and interiors – the most common facial expressions were ones of worry and of taking things very seriously. There was no joking and ridicule as was seen a decade or so ago at the Detroit Auto Show with a few Chinese makers relegated to the basement display area and Elon Musk himself declaring the vehicles a joke.
I just stated the ranges published elsewhere along with the caveat that EPA measurements may well be different. You are correct, they are almost surely less on our EPA cycle, nevertheless would still be perfectly competitive if adjusted down.
The problem for the American car market in my opinion is that many tend to focus on the big three, however the big three really don’t produce much of the bread and butter anymore. Full size trucks get the attention and are the biggest nameplates but taken together still only produce around 15% or so of the overall vehicle sales volume. U.S. manufacturers have mostly abdicated many if not most market segments, nobody is crowing about being “full-line makers” anymore. The others at serious risk are of course the Germans, Japanese, and Koreans in our market, who can also be undercut and build many products here themselves using American labor – very much a what goes around comes around scenario in hindsight, having all themselves been the aggressor rather than the defender in their own eras of ascendancy. It’s also why I don’t think the Slate or Ford’s new little truck (as well as the Maverick) are the answer, there is NO reason that the Changan featured here can’t be produced in small pickup form and undercut the pricing of those while being far better equipped. Maverick sales would dry up significantly at today’s price point (about $30k) if Changan or someone else made a “Chaverick” starting at $25k equipped like the above car is (i.e leather interior, Plug in hybrid etc).
I also obviously believe that if one can build a car, one can study the market and build a small truck and if one can build a small truck, then one can scale up and eventually build a large truck. With base prices of fullsize trucks now over $40,000 for pretty much a relative stripper there is plenty of room for someone to swoop in and start to nibble or simply rip away at that market. My personal belief is that Toyota for one has not significantly expanded engine options or made a Heavy Duty Tundra simply to avoid any sort of political backlash, staying content with their small but profitable share of the market – but go on any pickup truck forum or channel and the most common comments by far have to do with pricing and affordability of all pickups, especially half ton and above. That vocal part of the market is screaming for less expensive products and while brand loyalty may be a thing (even if less so than in prior years), sooner or later the pocketbook does come into play and once the first domino falls over we know what happens to the rest…
I don’t see your commentary as shilling. I see it as “this is what they’re doing, and it’ll eventually head this way”. Growing up, I remember the “Made in Japan is crap” narrative. Days long gone for sure.
I spent the last 15 years of my career managing the design and manufacture of complex computer products in China. Though mostly designed in the US or Taiwan. Quality standards are set by the design and manufacturing process; in theory any country can build products to such standards. In reality, China now has the experience and infrastructure to do better than most. On the other hand I was just talking with a former Buick Envision owner who said it was very unreliable, constant problems. She didn’t know it was made in China.
I’m fine buying a car manufactured in China but (perhaps unreasonably) not yet ready for a Chinese brand. I had no qualms buying a Honda motorcycle in 1975 or a Civic in 1981.
“I’m fine buying a car manufactured in China but (perhaps unreasonably) not yet ready for a Chinese brand. I had no qualms buying a Honda motorcycle in 1975 or a Civic in 1981.”
That may well just be a generational thing, I think most kids today would have no issues with it having grown up with quality Chinese made products, especially with the recent proliferation of “new” brand names in the auto industry as a whole anyway (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, Polestar, what makes the Changan or BYD names any different, perhaps they are exciting, new, and cool, not Grandpa’s brand). Just like we grew up with quality Japanese stuff and eventually came to realize that South Korea can build quite good stuff too watching their entire development curve over the last four decades.
I’m writing this on a Lenovo laptop; my room is cooled by a Hisense air conditioner, and I recently bought a TCL television. All are quite impressive. I guess I’m alright with Chinese brands. I do shy away from unpronounceable Chinese brands on Amazon though.
The Chinese Jaecoo 7 – a Range Rover lookalike – was the best-selling car in the UK in March this year. It retails for around £30,000, whereas it’s easy to spend £100k on a Range Rover, so it’s playing the Chevy-that-looks-like-a-Caddy game. Of course, the Jaecoo doesn’t have the breadth of ability of a Range Rover, but at around a third of the price the average buyer is going to be very happy with a competent, good-looking car.
As a experienced mechanic faced with the plague of poor-quality Chinese replacement parts, I’m a firm no on any Chinese product. Then when China threatens our security and that of Taiwan, along with their espionage and the under mining of our elections, why would any American chose to support China by buying their products, especially expensive cars?
You’d have to ask the all-Amerian Ford and General Motors companies that in regard to the cars they build in China and sell to Americans as well as why they don’t make replacement parts in the U.S. to replace the parts of their vehicles that for whatever reason need replacing. The world is a big place. China buys our stuff too. We all do better when we all do better. I’m not worried about our security, the people in charge clearly know what they are doing and are all highly qualified with a well thought out plan. I’m just a tiny cog in the wheel of commerce who is being crushed by the current affordability and healthcare crisis.
I agree that the administration can be trusted with security.
But I think the President has said some concerning things about the domestic car industry. He says he wants more people buying American, which is fine. But he has yet to experience what the buyer experiences with a new Silverado or RAM. If he does, he might realise the problem is deeper than he thought.
My wife is Chinese and my business is centred around Chinese clients, and we visit China regularly. In fact, we recently returned from Nanjing.
Chinese consumers are exacting. They are well informed about the product and their competitors. They have leapfrogged ICE technology and gone straight to EVs. I’d say half the cars on the road in Shanghai are electric.
A decade ago, there were more than 2000 car brands and now they are down to a hundred. There is no reason a Chinese car would be less reliable than say, an American or Japanese built car.
When I was kid in the Eisenhower and Kennedy eras, the poor quality of Japanese consumer goods was a standing joke. We know how that turned out. We shouldn’t underestimate the Chinese.
The Chinese auto industry will wipe out both the American and European ones. They have a stake in some of the manufacturers, so some marques will continue to exist under the pretense that they are German or American or British. Much the way that people pretend that a Jaguar is English. Mercedes is 20% owned by the Chinese. The combined GM/Ford will be a less prestigious Samsung to the Chinese iPhone.
Nobody will wipe out anyone. The same panic was about the Japanese but demographics and rising wages killed that. China is a walking zombie with its horrible aging population time bomb, in another ten years they’ll be running short of labour, wages will rocket as the shrinking young start to support their parents and the fizz will be gone. That’s when as a declining power they’ll become much more dangerous. I wouldn’t by a car from them now because I don’t really want to deliberately support a surveillance state with concentration camps.
BINGO!
Everyone has so cheerily avoided the question of the searing evil of Communist China. The slave labor camps, the industrial espionage are two HUGE “Red” flags. (And there are a hell of a lot more)
The Chinese make well made things and total crap. The Chinese can afford to make things cheaper because the cost of their labor is so much less. They can flood our markets with cheap cars and further damage the domestics.
There is nothing good in letting China flood our market with their cars.
I wonder if Ford and GM are using the cheap slave labor to build the Lincoln Nautilus and the Buick Envision there? It’s weird that both of them went so far into that country and let China learn how to build good cars. You’d think large companies would know not to show competitors their specialized knowledge and trade secrets.
Why are people so concerned about it when the domestics don’t even make cheap cars anymore? I think the cheapest domestic brand car that is actually built in the US is the $28,000 Chevy Bolt but that’s being discontinued (again) which I think makes the Ford Mustang the next cheapest at around $33,000 which doesn’t really work for a lot of the large families that are being hoped for.
Toyota though does build the Corolla in the U.S. for a little over $23,000, I wonder why the domestics don’t try to compete with that.
You’d think large companies would know not to show competitors their specialized knowledge and trade secrets.
China required technology transfer as a condition of non-Chinese companies selling cars in China. Pretty much a standard part of the Chinese playbook. You can debate whether it was wise for Ford and GM to play along.
Check the labels on any clothes you’ve purchased in the past 10-15 years. I don’t think you’ll find puppies, butterflies and rainbows in those factories….
And we all remember how bad the first Korean imports were. But just look at them now.
Australia exited the car manufacturing sector and thrived. Canada is likely next, not willingly, but possibly beneficially in the long term. Throwing good money after bad is seldom the best strategy, and my sense is that a lot of (public) money will be thrown at American automakers in the next decade.
Chinese cars will likely be on sale in Canada by the end of the year.
Australia thrived? When was that? I Live here and it’s been hell since Covid.
Seconded. Letting all manufacturing go offshore was a big blunder.
Not seconded! Oz GDP was $1.3-odd trillion in 2017, and was $1.84-odd by 2025, having travelled through the extremes of deep recession in 2020 (COVID), and then a sort-of boom (excess from necessary govt COVID money) in 2023, with a change from right-ish and left-ish governments in power, all with supply chains disrupted worldwide: it’s been a ride alright, but we have far from gone backwards. Brutal truth is that the car industry only ever lived here because of govt support, in one form or another, from beginning to end. It ended, the industry ended. Do we have big economic problems of housing & cost-of-living & unequal wealth & inefficient taxation? We sure do, but economically, in the big picture, robadr is right, and the numbers show it: since 2017, we’ve thrived.
As to what levels of manufacturing SHOULD always have stayed here – mostly meaning some degree of subsidy/tariffs, given our size in relation to the world economy – that’s a question far beyond my pay grade. (My thought, FWIW, has long been that the totally open-slather market that we have could surely not be the smartest answer, ie: moderate protection here and there, but who knows)
Here in Norway chinese EVs of many brands are getting quite common on the roads. For political reasons I will never touch one myself.
Anyway, experience is some brands are fine and some are horrible.
Getting substitute parts can be a wait and a worry, especially when you don’t know if the company making your car exists in a year.
Are the ev batteries surviving the damp Norwegian winters?
Have not seen reports of failure due to the weather so far, dont’t think that should be a major issue, but maybe in the long term.
In the last year I see Jaecoo, Omoda ,BYD, and “MG” cars all the time here in the west of Scotland, some petrol some electric – they don’t seem any duller or uglier than other modern cars and definitely not as loathsome as a Tesla to look upon. Very appliance like, but then so are most modern cars.
I sense perhaps that those who buy them don’t have the same relationship to cars that we here do.
“I sense perhaps that those who buy them don’t have the same relationship to cars that we here do.”
Bingo! You are describing 99% or more of the population in both of our countries. “We” don’t even buy new cars for the most part because we know it’s a waste of money.
There’s of course also the possibility that “we” simply think we know better and thus don’t even attempt to find out for ourselves if they may be a good value or not. Jim Farley (CEO of Ford) also famously remarked publicly last year that he didn’t want to give back the Xiaomi vehicle he had been sampling for the prior six months, he thought that highly of it. I assume he’s at least somewhat of a car guy.
Seconded!
I have three modern car pet peeves:
-Headlights pulled back into the fenders
-Screens that make the dash look a soul crushing office desk
-Silver paint
I hate this car, and not because it’s Chinese.
I understand the mid-cycle refresh will go all out and finally connect the headlights to the taillights. And there’ll be a tinted lightbar across the front as well as a full width tail light. Something about a Belt and Road initiative… 🙂
“your car must be so old, bro. What do you mean, your panels aren’t made entirely of LED’?”
Indeed! I say the first company to build a modern Volvo-styled 245 hybrid with buttons and knobs (ok, maybe a 9″ screen for CarPlay) will win the market lottery…
We have an enormous amount of Chinese car brands here in New Zealand, and more seem to arrive every day, but Changan is one I haven’t come across yet. Most of the Chinese brands feature styling that’s either bland or willfully unattractive, but the Changan seems to occupy a rare middle ground: it’s both attractive and interesting to look at.
I highly recommend a new piece by Evan Osnos entitled The Future, Made in China (Beijing is competing with the U.S. for tech supremacy. Who wins will have huge political implications.)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/08/10/the-future-made-in-china