Do you know about the Baader-Meinhof effect (or as it is also called — the illusion of frequency)? In the end, it is not too important, because the efforts of the team of the Institute of Car Market Research in this article will be aimed at overcoming this effect, if it suddenly affects you. At least — letʼs try.
What is it about? It is clear from the title that the main topic will be cars from China, and the mentioned psychological cognitive phenomenon could be manifested in the fact that you see more and more Chinese cars on the roads every day. As if they are becoming much more, and they almost dominate the traffic.
So how do we propose to overcome this effect with a complex name, when medicine and psychology are not our fields? We will act as usual — we will operate with numbers. And, as you know, you canʼt argue with them. So, having an objective basis, it will be possible to get an answer about whether the "Chinese" are really taking over our roads, or whether it is still too early to talk about it.
Okay, time to get down to what we do best: working with data. How many and what kind of used (we will consider the new segment later, in a separate publication) vehicles arrived in Ukraine from China this year (in 7 months)?
So, most of all in the segment of used vehicles produced in China, our car fleet is replenished with passenger cars.
Important clarification: in this review, not only the products of local Chinese car factories are taken into account, in general, all vehicles that, according to the WMI-identifier, were manufactured in China.
Are these cars few or many compared to the total volume of imports?
Well, it seems not much, if you look at the chart in passing. After all, the numbers are not many — from 1% to 3% of the total volume of passenger car imports. Quantitatively, it is (rounded) from two to five hundred per month. It would be possible to put an end to this, but there will still be a lot of interesting things to come!
For example, we will find out the age of these passenger cars (since there are the most of them) arriving in Ukraine.
Itʼs really quite interesting: itʼs 2024, and the largest number of used cars are dated 2023! It is even difficult to apply the word "used" to them — rather, they are "almost new" cars. And in general, as can be seen in the diagram, the bulk of the newly arrived "Chinese" are not older than 2021.
What else would you like to know about this segment? Maybe itʼs worth looking into the fuel/power picture? After all, if it seems to you that you often meet Chinese cars on the roads, are they mostly electric cars?
Well, if you really often see Chinese "electric cars" — this is not the consequences of the Baader-Meinhof effect mentioned at the beginning of the article, it is true. Most cars with the inscription Made in China on their identification plates are electric cars.
Now itʼs time to find out which brands of Chinese-made cars are most often found on the roads. And we are almost 100 percent sure that the following list will surprise you. Okay, letʼs look at it first, and then weʼll move on to the explanations.
"Oh, it seems that someone somewhere made a big mistake" — the impatient reader may exclaim, saying — how is it at the top of the rating of Volkswagen, Honda and Nissan? Is it about China?
However, this is about China, and as mentioned above, our analysts included only those cars that correspond to China according to WMI. And there are many joint (or separate) enterprises that manufacture products for the local market under well-known brands. And this is not a fake — everything happens according to license agreements. Although these products are mainly intended for the local consumer, some of them end up in Ukraine thanks to the efforts of independent dealers.
And when we have already learned about the twenty most popular brands, it would be quite fair to learn about the same number of models with the greatest demand in Ukraine.
Here they are:
As in the previous list, the leader among Chinese products was the product with the German "VW" emblem. Instead, a "Purely Chinese" car, that is, which is produced under its own brand, will appear as high as 7th position (BYD Song Plus). Although, here it is worth noting that some of the cars above the seventh place could also be sold under their original names, but dealers often replace the logos of local companies with ones better known to the Ukrainian buyer, that is, those under whose license this or that car was produced for local market.
And what in the end? We learned that in reality there are not so many Chinese cars (with mileage), they are relatively "young" and mostly electric. Statistics have also shown that not everything that we consider "NOT Chinese" can be of European, Japanese or American production — there are so many "es-pawns" (joint ventures) in the Middle East that it is easier to name brands that are not yet present there, than to list everyone who has specific plans for the considerable market of this country.
And now itʼs really time to finish, since the main thing seems to have been dealt with. Well, regarding the illusion of frequency — if you feel that you often pay attention to Chinese cars, or often hear about them — itʼs okay, itʼs not an illusion. After all, so far we have considered only the segment of used cars, and new ones are next, and there, we promise, there is something to surprise. Therefore, we advise you to subscribe to the IDA Telegram channel to be among the first to know about the release of the next review!
