How Aiways aims to blaze a more positive path for Chinese brands in Europe

Days before the European Union shut its borders because of the coronavirus outbreak, Aiways co-founder Samuel Fu left China bound for Germany. He passed a health check upon arrival at Stuttgart airport then departed to Staud Studios in nearby Leonberg to unveil the European version of his U5 full-electric SUV.

His Shanghai-based company opened its doors in 2017, a decade after other Chinese brands had to withdraw their models from European markets after disastrous debuts. The most infamous was the spectacular failure of the Brilliance BS6 sedan during independent European crash tests.

Fast forward to 2020 and Fu’s company needed just three years to put itself in position to become the among first Chinese brands to launch a battery-powered SUV in Europe with the U5, which is scheduled to arrive in August. [MG Motor started sales of the ZS full-electric small SUV in the UK last year, and the SAIC subsidiary opened a dealership in France this month]. A second Aiways model aimed at a younger audience, the U6 ion crossover coupe, is set to follow next year.

“This is a new starting point, and we can look to the future,” he told reporters. “We are coming to Europe.”

For less than 40,000 euros, the starting price of Volkswagen’s first-edition ID3 compact hatchback, customers can get substantially more car with the U5. The midsize SUV offer 228 hp, an electric range of more than 400 kilometers under WLTP guidelines and can be recharged to 80 percent capacity in 27 minutes.

The 63-kilowatt-hour battery utilizes a “sandwich” structure that incorporates an isolation layer between the battery module and the cooling plate, significantly improving safety and stability by ensuring efficient temperature management, according to the company.

“We want to be an established Chinese EV brand in Europe within two or three years,” Aiways Vice President of Overseas Markets Alex Klose told Automotive News Europe. “There is big pent-up demand in fleet sales because entire companies want to go EV next year, at the latest the year after.”

Aiways, however, has to overcome some challenges if it wants to succeed in Europe. The brand won’t have a physical network of franchise dealers to market the car, a move aimed at minimizing investment costs so it can keep the price of its vehicles low.

Aiways models will only be offered via lease with test drives provided in Germany initially by Euronics, a retail chain focused on branded consumer electronics and white goods that will also handle installation of wallboxes for customers. Service and maintenance for the EV will be carried out by German car repair chain Auto-Teile Unger (ATU), which also has a network of master mechanics.

“They [ATU] came to us, others didn’t and we have to find a willing partner actually ready to say they can do electric vehicles,” Klose said.

Although megadealers such as Switzerland’s Emil Frey Group have expressed interest in selling the U5, Klose sees little benefit in drafting up complicated and costly corporate identity guidelines just to present one model in a showroom. Instead he expects to work with Euronics in Switzerland as well, although the brand’s approach could differ from market to market, he said.

In Norway, for example, Aiways believes it will need only a small support staff because customers there are already familiar with EVs. “Norwegians know a lot of things already, you give them some specs such as 90-kilowatt charging and they know what that means,” he said.

Well aware of the previous stumbles made by Chinese automakers in Europe, Klose acknowledged that having a dealer network might offer a customer greater peace of mind in terms of spare parts and repairs. He disagreed, however, that a lack of retail locations meant it would be easier to cut ties and exit Europe if sales don’t go according to plan.

“If you construct a building in which to put cars, it doesn’t mean you are more committed. You just got someone else to be more committed -- to a building,” Klose said.

Another challenge for Aiways is that the U5 was awarded only a three-star safety rating, with five stars being the best, from EuroNCAP. By comparison, the VW T-Cross and Nissan Juke crossovers both received five-star ratings despite both being smaller and more affordable.

On the other hand, the Qoros 3 sedan earned China’s first ever five-star award six years ago, but this didn’t help it achieve sales success in the highly competitive market.

Although no vehicle tested by EuroNCAP in 2019 earned fewer stars than the U5, Klose blamed the SUV score on the model’s inability to properly spot speed limit signs. While EuroNCAP admonished the U5’s sign-recognition system for inadequate information and not working “robustly,” the vehicle lost far more points in core safety areas such the lateral impact of a crash on adults as well as it ability to protect children in the event of an accident.

Nevertheless, the U5’s low starting price could still be captivating to fleet managers, who can’t all afford to purchase 80,000 euro Audi e-trons and Mercedes EQCs for their employees.

“I have a [volume target] in mind, but I would rather not say as you would probably fall over and laugh,” Klose said. Asked how long Aiways expects to remain in Europe, he then replied only somewhat facetiously “for about 165 years” – in other words longer than the modern car has been around.