GAC officially went on sale in Australia this week, representing another new brand for buyers to consider in an already crowded market with more than 60 competing brands.
It joins a seemingly endless list of new (or returning) brands that have emerged in Australia in the last 36 months, including BYD, Xpeng, Chery, Smart, Omoda Jaecoo, Denza, Leapmotor, Deepal and JAC.
Not all of the new arrivals come from China either: the Cupra, which belongs to the Volkswagen Group, will be launched here in 2022, the British brand Ineos with its French-made Grenadier off-road vehicle with a BMW engine and the American luxury brand Cadillac will begin local deliveries this year.
In a daunting challenge, GAC’s entry into the Australian new car sales race amid an influx of new brands – mostly from China – may seem like a misstep, another name that will soon be forgotten.
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But GAC International boss Wei Haigang said so Daily Sparkz The brand is differentiated from other new brands by its partnerships with other automakers – particularly the world’s top-selling automaker, Toyota.
GAC has had a fifty-fifty joint venture (JV) with Toyota since 2004, with the Aion V – one of three new models launched in Australia – sharing the same underpinnings as the Toyota bZ3X sold in China.
The Honda partnership, also a Fifty-Fifty JV, has existed since 1999 for even longer.
“Firstly, it’s about how to build a high-quality car. Toyota is known for quality worldwide, so we learned a lot,” said Mr Wei Daily Sparkz.
“Number two is lean production: it can help achieve lower costs with greater efficiency.
“Number three is about how to satisfy customers. They (Toyota and Honda) always put customers first, especially in customer service, service (and maintenance).
“They can provide customers with a reassuring and comfortable journey.”
This approach is behind the company’s local launch mantra of “Growing Australia Confidence” – “in Australia, for Australia” – as part of its broader global “One GAC” strategy, which focuses on its products, networks, services and EV charging network infrastructure.
Mr. Wei himself was a Toyota employee for 13 years, including a 12-month stint at one of its factories in Japan.
He told Daily Sparkz A significant number of GAC employees now working internationally at GAC come from the joint ventures between Toyota and Honda.
The company also has partnerships with Japanese car maker Isuzu and Chinese tech giant Huawei, which was controversially banned by the federal government from being part of Australia’s 5G phone network in 2018.
GAC founded Huawang Automotive in China with Huawei earlier this year. However, the company’s automotive origins go back to the production of the Peugeot 505 in the 1980s – and the company’s origins go even further back to the bus repair industry in the late 1940s.
Before coming to Australia, GAC had already worked in 85 countries, but important goals were missing from his CV.
“As far as global business or overseas markets are concerned, we are a latecomer, but in September we entered the European market and this time we are bringing our products to Australia,” Mr Wei said Daily Sparkz.
“We have made a lot of preparations and are ready to enter this market – we believe that our products are different from the other brands’ products and we can offer them a better choice.”
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