The only China-made car currently sold in North America on any sort of scale is the Honda Fit (Jazz), but only the model sold in Canada. However, aside from that and eleven BYD E6 EVs that were imported into the US as part of a pilot program, no cars sold in the country are made in China.
This is set to change, though, as Great Wall Motors (GWM), one of the China’s most financially successful and stable automakers, is currently looking to set up shop Stateside, in the hopes of beginning sales of its vehicles on US soil by 2015.
GWM is known on its local market primarily as a maker of SUVs, and that’s exactly the type of vehicles they want to sell in the States, once they figure out all of the logistics.
Speaking to Autonews, the Chinese company’s president, Wang Fengyiang said: “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 We started planning to enter the U.S. market two years ago. We need to study its laws and regulations (on safety and emission) as well as consumer preferences.”
They are also looking for a suitable plot of land on which to build their plant, but until that time comes, we have some photos of the automaker’s models, including the Great Wall C50 sedan, the Haval H8, H7 and H6 SUVs (Haval is a sub-brand of GWM), as well as the smaller H5, all of which you can check out after the break.
By Andrei Nedelea
PHOTO GALLERY
