It comes as no surprise that the Chinese automotive industry is making an impact on the world. In South Africa, at least, record sales have been achieved by the likes of Chery and GWM, among others. Newcomers have also entered the fray, with some brands boasting a long history of automobile manufacture in their home territories, even surpassing the current best sellers in South Africa. It makes sense when you offer value for money, luxury, and more at a digestible price that surprises some legacy manufacturers. Many would gravitate towards such a prospect of owning a vehicle that ticks those boxes. One thing we've observed is not only the high quantities of vehicles emerging from Chinese manufacturing plants, but also how they've shortened the development cycles for their vehicles. R&D is thriving, and customer feedback, now considered on a global level, is being taken into account. The big question, however, is whether these vehicles are reliable.
Reliability - What has one of the biggest recent studies shown?
Nowadays, compared to decades ago, catastrophic failures in cars are on the rarer end, but recalls are still a concern. Whether it's a powertrain failure or electrical gremlins causing trouble in your vehicle. Today's cars are quite complex, and it's a significant task to ensure that such complexity doesn't fail and cause problems. Additionally, if issues do arise, how easy are they to resolve, and are the components repairable or replaceable at an economical cost? The aforementioned tremendous R&D and customer feedback from these new model Chinese cars do foresee vehicle longevity, hence the confidence the brands have in their product warranties. Chery offers a 10-year/1 000 000km engine warranty for the first owner, as an example, and we have yet to hear of any local engine failures.
Vehicle Dependability Study
J.D. Power, a well-known automotive entity, touched on Chinese Vehicle Dependability in 2024 with its Vehicle Dependability Study. They cover consumer insights, advisory services, data and analytics. This study, which has been ongoing for 15 years, measures the problems experienced by owners of vehicles that are 13-48 months old, per 100 vehicles, over 6 months. The lower the score, the higher the vehicle quality. The study encompasses 177 specific problems, grouped into nine categories: interior, exterior, driving experience, features, controls, displays, infotainment, climate control, seating, driving assistance, and powertrain.
The data pulled is based on 33 317 vehicle owners who bought their vehicles between January 2020 and June 2023. The study looked at 229 models from 44 different brands. The study took place between February and July 2024 across 81 major cities in China. The study found an increase in design-related problems that owners experienced with their vehicles in China, at a rate of 190 problems per vehicle industry-wide (Measured as PP100). A rise of 9.3 PP100 year-over-year. Whereas malfunction-related problems have decreased by 1 PP100 from 2023, issues relating to infotainment, driving assistance systems, and even seats are showing the highest increases among the 9 major categories.
The top design-related problem from the study was related to infotainment systems. Before, the exterior was at the top. The top 5 issues from this category included an unresponsive touchscreen (which experienced the highest increase), Bluetooth connection issues, voice command recognition errors, inaccuracies with in-car navigation, and Wi-Fi-related issues. The female demographic surpassed male drivers in the number of problems experienced, with the most reported issues relating to the infotainment system. Another finding requested improvements to the vehicle exterior.
Lastly, the study examined the types of problems experienced in relation to the length of ownership. Such issues have risen amongst owners of 2-3 years to 30.2 PP100 compared to those who have owned for 1-2 years. Primarily, these issues were related to the powertrain. With the 3-4 year crowd, infotainment issues had the most significant increase.
Which cars were the most reliable?
The study also looked at the highest-ranked brands across three different categories.
Porsche, Land Rover, and BMW, respectively, were the highest-ranking brands when looking at premium brands, while mass-market brands included FAW Toyota, GAC Honda, and Changan Ford. Finally, there are Chinese domestic brands, including FAW Hongqi (a Chinese Premium brand), Chery, and Geely.
What does this all mean?
From what I interpreted, the decreased malfunction rates indicate that the vehicles purchased within the study are showing promising reliability when they are new. However, design-related problems have increased amongst owners and are primarily related to the infotainment systems. This is consistent, as evidenced by our various reviews of the latest Chinese vehicles, which reveal a notable reliance on infotainment systems in these vehicles. The systems are doing heavy lifting since they act as the primary vehicle control centres, which involves a significant amount of complexity. With such complexity, there's an increased risk of failure, and once such a system fails, it has a knock-on effect on the vehicle's other systems. These systems are moving tablets now. This isn't only a Chinese vehicle habit, though, as global industry trends have shifted in this direction. However, recent NCAP safety requirements have necessitated more physical controls and features to reduce reliance on screens; yet, that doesn't necessarily translate to simplifying the overall complexity of them.
Here's the thing, though: Chinese manufacturers are surely aware of this, and with the aforementioned short development cycles, this could be addressed.
Another highlight was the powertrain issues noted in the 3-4 year mark. Considering the time period, this was during a generational shift when many Chinese manufacturers were introducing new powertrains or revising existing ones, particularly with a push in New Energy Vehicles and emphasis on technology to suit a global market. The older vehicles in that pool likely used previous-generation powertrains that are now starting to show common faults. It's worth noting that with new products, some teething issues may be present, which can be ironed out quickly.
Notice also that the highest-scoring vehicles are brands that have formed partnerships with legacy brands that have a track record for reliability. Brands associated with FAW, such as Toyota and Honda, to name a few, and domestically, Geely and Chery, which have partnered with legacy brands in the past. Usually with these sorts of partnerships, there's plenty of knowledge sharing and learnings, which are then implemented into newer vehicles; that knowledge also includes how to make products more durable, but only so far.
To conclude, are Chinese Cars reliable?
The decline in China’s vehicle dependability performance in 2024 should serve as a wake-up call for automakers. In recent years, the pace of new model launches in the Chinese market has accelerated, and development cycles have continuously shortened. Balancing the speed of new model launches with high product reliability and durability will be a critical long-term challenge for automakers. Especially as Chinese brands gradually enter international markets, the long-term reliability of their products will also affect the resale value and new-vehicle sales in overseas markets. Additionally, the rapid iteration of technology features makes 'timeless design' in infotainment and driver assistance systems increasingly important. If owners’ experiences cannot be continually optimised through OTA updates, they are likely to experience dissatisfaction through comparison.
-Elvis Yang, general manager of auto product practice at J.D. Power China.
Elvis sums it up rather well here. The Chinese manufacturers are moving at tremendous speed, but with this, you need to balance it all, particularly since there's the gradual rollout to international markets. It's one thing to do stringent bench testing and CAD simulations to foolproof a product, but that can all change with real-world testing and not just in one market. In South Africa at least, Chinese manufacturers are at a critical turning point when it comes to gaining public trust. The initial allure of the vehicles is there, but now comes a big test: whether they'll prove to be reliable.
The South African Angle
As indicated in the above study and interpretations, concerns should be raised regarding infotainment systems and powertrains, but this is to an extent. Locally, we'll look at South Africa's best sellers, Chery and GWM, as they have been here the longest out of the lot. Newer cars on the scene from the likes of Chery's 2022 Tiggo range have a collective average market mileage on our website of around 60 000km, the same with GWM and the likes of the 2021 Jolion range for example. Though these vehicles released in China as far back as 2017 and 2021 respectively. As far as we've seen from private accounts on the internet, if maintained well, the vehicles have been reliable. However, reports of quality control issues, such as squeaks, rattles, and vehicle programming problems, have been present. Nevertheless, we haven't seen any catastrophic common failures. These aren't official, so take what's said there with a grain of salt.
What if we go further back, though? Like with the GWM Florid from the early 2010s and the original Chery Tiggo? Private Internet accounts have reported that said vehicles are reasonably reliable, but as the vehicle ages, mechanical issues have cropped up, such as failing starters, fuel line issues and ignition issues. Some exterior components haven't aged well either, but that's not conclusive. This is also subject to if previous owners have maintained the vehicles properly. Consider this, though, that is much older tech and powertrains compared to the vehicles mentioned post generational shift.
We can conclude here by stating that, yes, if taken care of, Chinese cars can be reliable; however, they are not without fault, and there are concerns about the reliability of certain components. Now with the current generation of vehicles, since improvements and tweaks have been made, it's still early on in the car's lives to judge whether they're reliable or not. The massive warranties surely give confidence in this fact, but only time will tell. However, the Chinese manufacturers are constantly improving at a fast rate and implementing learnings from other manufacturers to bolster their own efforts.
