It’s No Mahindra, But How About Great Wall?

American consumers may have been robbed of a chance to buy the Mahindra pickup, but how about one from Great Wall? China Car Times has a quote from Great Wall CEO Wang Feng Ying (lifted from the paywalled Automotive News China) about possible plans for Great Wall products – made in America, no less. Great Wall Motor Co., China's largest SUV maker, expects to begin selling SUVs in the United States around 2015, making it the first Chinese automaker to enter the American market in volume, the president of the company says. The automaker is also actively exploring whether to build SUVs in the United States. "Since the United States is far away from China and its import tariffs on vehicles are not particularly high, we would prefer to build the vehicle locally," Wang Fengying told Automotive News China on Sunday at the Shanghai auto show. Great Wall is apparently preparing a pickup truck for the U.S. Market as well. Already on sale as the "Great Wall Steed" in the UK, reviews have been particularly dreadful. While the British motoring press are hardly paragons of objectivity, a recent report by Bernstein Research, involving a complete teardown of a Great Wall SUV followed by a road-test, found that their products are far behind the standard that Western consumers are used to. Combined with a fairly ambitious timeline for launch and the notion of Great Wall products on sale in the US looks somewhat far-fetched. from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com

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