One in four German car buyers would buy Chinese, says survey

A quarter of German car buyers would consider purchasing a Chinese-made vehicle, according to a recent survey, suggesting that Chinese cars are more accepted than previously thought.

The relatively high figure - coming from a country famously picky about the quality of its vehicles - is likely to be music to the ears of Chinese automakers, who are facing a critical reception in terms of safety and design as they try to market their products overseas.

In a survey conducted for German used-car site Gebrauchtwagen.de, one in four said they could imagine buying a Chinese-made car, particularly younger buyers, where the number rose to 28 percent.

Among buyers who already owned an Asian brand, 38 percent said that they would buy a Chinese car.

The survey was commissioned to coincide with the recent Auto Shanghai motor show, which saw several major Chinese automakers announce that they were planning to expand their reach overseas.

Among them, Great Wall is heading to the UK this summer and believes it can be in the US by 2015, while SAIC is also cultivating a British dealer network and Geely launched two vehicles in Australia this year.

However, safety continues to be a hot topic among Western buyers of Chinese cars - European crash test agency Euro NCAP last year slammed the safety performance of the first Chinese vehicle it had tested, describing Jiangling's Landwind CV9 as "poorly equipped" in comparison to competitive vehicles in its segment.

These concerns were reflected in the responses of German buyers in Gebrauchtwagen.de's survey - low building quality was the main reason given for not purchasing a Chinese vehicle (75 percent), followed by safety concerns (68 percent).

http://www.gebrauchtwagen.de