Chinese Cars Reportedly Hitting US Showrooms Next Year

Globalization is not a one-way street. The US may have spread its tentacles across the world, but they are not gripping as tightly as they were some decades ago - in the automotive industry it was the Japanese that came back first and took what they could, and now Bloomberg reports that the Chinese will begin selling their cars Stateside as of next year too.

The first PRC-based manufacturer to do so will be BYD, short for Build Your Dreams, a relatively new automaker backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. It has confirmed that their four model-strong range will make its debut towards the end of 2015.

This is BYD’s second attempt to penetrate US defenses, after failing to do so when it first set out to, in 2010, with a plan to sell the all-electric E6 hatchback, a model successfully used as a taxi at home.

In addition, aside from selling regular passenger cars, in March, the Chinese automaker will also be hitting the switch on electric bus production in California; another one is being planned for Sao Paulo, Brazil in the near future.

Volvo owners Geely will be next to arrive, according to the same report. They plan to ship cars co-developed with the Swedes into the US as early as 2016.

Scroll down and check out the two videos of the E6's first arrival of US shores... five years ago.

By Andrei Nedelea

VIDEO

Volvo’s Pretty XC Coupé Fully Revealed and Detailed in Detroit

It may sound like a stretch to call a two-door SUV a pretty car, but in the case of Volvo’s newly-revealed XC Coupé that just made its debut in Detroit, I think it really stands true much more so than you would expect.

Even if the premise of it being inspired by sports equipment doesn’t sound too exciting against the industry trend of mimicking the silhouette of felines, the end product you see pictured below shows a lot of promise for all of Volvo’s future design efforts, if they choose to continue along its route.

However, they don’t promote it as a pretty face, but rather as the usual lifestyle proposal for the outdoorsman and woman; it’s designed “to ensure that they make it back in one piece, they prefer high-performance equipment that offers the ultimate sense of freedom and protection,” said Thomas Ingenlath, Senior Vice President of Volvo’s design department.

He added that it’s “perfectly in tune with this active lifestyle. Its capability and protection is cleverly integrated into the sophisticated looks. Concept XC Coupé is ready and willing to bring you into the adventure zone and back.”

Were you to put this new XC Coupé next to the Concept Coupé, you’d need glasses with the wrong diopter to say they are not similar, yet the newly-revealed study has a very different character with noticeably more pronounced flanks, the extra ground clearance and the crossover-esque cladding around the wheel arches and bumpers (the front bumper under-guard, the one that stands out because it’s orange is actually made out of rubber).

Of course, the concept previews the brand’s future design language, as we already knew, and more specifically, the styling that is to be adopted by the next XC90. If it’s anything like this in the looks department, and doesn’t get toned down, the competition should be very afraid.

By Andrei Nedelea

PHOTO GALLERY