China wave continues: Geely next

The Perth entrepreneur who brought Hyundai to Australia 24 years ago, John Hughes, is poised to retrace his steps by introducing a budget-priced Chinese car before the end of this year.

Hughes, who also owns a successful multi-franchise new-car dealership network, already has a Geely sedan, called the MK, in Australia undergoing the approval process for local registration.

"We are weeks away from getting ADR approval on the MK, 1.5 manual sedan. That will be the first car for Australia," Hughes told the Carsales Network.

The first shipment of cars is due to arrive in September. However, initially the Geely brand will only be available in West Australia.

"We want to establish the brand in WA with our own particular expertise," he said. "It is too small a range to expect dealers to set up facilities and open their doors."

He said the MK hatchback (pictured with Hughes) will follow a couple of months behind the sedan, and the automatic transmission versions of both cars will likely arrive in early 2011.

"The next [Geely] will be the LC, which is called the Panda in China, and we're talking about the first quarter of next year. After that will be the EC7, which is a 1.8-litre car in a hatch and sedan."

Once Geely has these three models available in automatic and manual, Hughes says, the brand will expand to the eastern states.

"Once we have enough of a model mix, we'll launch in the east," said Hughes. "We would like to start recruiting dealers in the first quarter of next year."

Hughes says he has modest sales expectations initially.

"With that one car [the MK], we should probably sell a couple of hundred cars. It's really a pilot, so it will be modest numbers. The Panda will be good, and the EC7 too. We'll get into serious numbers in the second half of 2011."

Hughes says his aim is to sell "around 5000 cars a year" once there is a range of Geely cars and a national dealer network.

"We won't necessarily do 5000 in the first year but we should get there."

As for price, Hughes' line is similar to that of Ateco Automotive, the first Chinese car distributor in Australia.

"Let's say that we'll be competitive with the Koreans on price, but with more features. It's a value-for-money proposition, not purely the price," said Hughes. "We want to get people to put the cars on their shopping list, even though the cars are made in China and the brand is not recognised."

Of the 42 different models on the Geely stand at the recent Beijing motor show, there are 11 targeted at the right-hand drive market, he said.

"Whilst Geely are marketing three different brands in the Chinese market -- including Emgrand and Englon -- we intend to bring any of the products to Australia under the one umbrella, which is Geely."

When asked about a Chinese-made budget-priced hybrid or electric car, Hughes said: "We have seen the hybrid and electric cars in Beijing, but it's a wait-and-see situation for us at the moment."

Geely is known in Australia for recently purchasing Volvo from the Ford Motor Company. The deal between the Chinese company and Hughes predates the Volvo acquisition.

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