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The made in China that you don’t expect. Someone may, of course, be startled by the idea that an English car like the Mini is built in China, but then, with a cool head, one can also understand that it is a German car (the owners are BMW) and is assembled where it is most convenient to produce. Is the iPhone a super cool American phone? Well: it’s made in China. The top of the range Samsung S24? Built in Vietnam. Nobody is scandalized.
It is globalization that is not that surprising when it comes to digital devices culturally and engineeringly connected to Chinese manufacturing. But when we talk about cars, the territorial bond comes into play, which unfortunately no longer exists and perhaps has no point in existing because if you buy an Audi made in Barcelona, an Alfa built in Poland or a Seat built in Bratislava it’s just a question of industrial logic and not the quality and identity of the product, we are not talking about artisanal objects.
Auto Europe made in China, some examples
And what about Cupra, a Spanish brand born from an offshoot of Seat and therefore of the very German VW group which builds the electric challenge model, the Tavascan, in China and brings it to Europe? Not to mention the Chinese Tesla Model 3 and Y that are invading the streets of the old continent because at the end of the day, if you have to buy an electric car, the most logical choice is to put a Tesla in your garage, American but made in China. Globalization has changed the geographical logic of belonging in the automotive sector and this has disconnected the link between brand and place of origin.
A Mini, for years, has been more German than English from an industrial point of view, but it is not from a cultural point of view even if it is now made in China on a platform developed with Great Wall, while a Chinese BYD is perhaps more German than what one might expect: the cars of the Chinese company that beat Tesla in terms of volumes of so-called new energy cars are designed by an international team directed by Wolfgang Egger, the German star designer, a pupil of Walter de Silva who created a dream Alfa Romeo like the 8C Competizione and, above all, Audi which made history and were at the forefront of technology, or rather, to put it like the slogan of the Four Rings “Vorsprung durch Technik”. And to give some other examples, it should not be forgotten that the Molise DRs are 100% Chinese Cherys modified in some way in Macchia di Isernia and that an English brand like MG is from the Chinese Saic. And the same goes for Polestar and some Volvos (Geely group) made in China and for the Smart cars produced in China in a JV between Daimler and Geely