EP32: BYD, MG and Vento: Chinese EVs Invading Mexico

Jon recounts his recent trip to Mexico where he observed the proliferation of Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) and motorcycles. During his visit, he noted the dominance of Chinese brands like BYD, MG, and Vento, and their competitive pricing compared to traditional manufacturers like Nissan and Toyota. He discusses the implications of this market shift, citing specific experiences with BYD’s durability and Vento’s market presence. Jon also reflects on the broader impact of these emerging brands on established automakers and their potential future in global markets.

Notes

Jon Summers is the Motoring Historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. On his show he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, motoring travel.

Geely ad in airport – under 600k pesos, maybe 25k in $. I thought perhaps early doors.
But no. The invasion is already well underway, at least in Mexico City if not in Puerto Vallarta.
BYD cabs. With 200,000kms. And wearing it well.
Nissan Tsuru
Complete model range – Fiesta/Ka effort, RAV4 , and minivan – you wouldn’t mistake them for a new Audi but if you were Nissan you’d be quaking
Nissan/Honda merger
Just to be clear, not all are pure EVs there are hybrids too
MG 5 cab was nice too, in a new Vauxhall or 5 year old Toyota when it was new kind of way. Who knows what Cecil Kimber would think
MG YB
Design panel fit interior fit and finish again really good. So good no wonder Nissan sh1tting themselves
Also GWM who we didn’t experience
Also rode in two Nissan Sentra versas and two Chevy sparks beats, each with over 200kms
Different standards of maintenance
Sentras were tired and badly maintained, the Chevys were worse with juddery clutches and one with such a course rough engine it made an Austin Mini seem like a RR
Being impressed with the cars, the BYDs especially l also looked at bikes
Few BMWs and a big Triumph showroom but that’s not what’s on the streets.
Scads of mopeds EV and not
Lots of CG125 copies with drum brakes at the front!!!
Vento – Ducati rip off, Aprilia/KTM super Duke rip off
CF Moto – BMW GS rip off
Sub 250ccs LCD displays. If you’ve not looked at real examples of each the copies seem to measure up

Favorite was the use of “Gixxer” as a brand name
Did see one Gixxer – split us on the elevated ring road
Savatage – Strange Ways
I’m more bemused than horror stricken
The bikes – kinda so what – a totally different market from us or Europe, so it is what it is
Would I even be sad if BMW died ?
But the cars – full model ranges – the fact that they’re good and are clearly prying Nissan loyalist out of their Nissan l did not expect
So what’s that going to look like in a decade? Brooding on it, reminded of the Corolla rebadged as Chevy – l can see future Ford’s Chevys VWs being rebadged Chinese products

Transcript

[00:00:00] John Summers is the motoring historian. He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept sports bike rider. Hailing from California, he collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and fast, and not much reliable. On his show, he gets together with various co hosts to talk about new and old cars, driving, motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.

Good day, good morning, good afternoon. It is John Summers, the motoring historian. Went to Mexico over Christmas and the New Year. Didn’t intend to have any sort of, you know, it wasn’t like a motoring focused trip or anything like that. But whilst I was there, There were interesting cars. So I thought I’d put together this sort of, you know, motorcycles of Mexico.

I was originally going to call it, but really what’s more interesting is a [00:01:00] number of Chinese EVs that there are in, in, in Mexico. And, and I guess, uh, my podcast bros. We’re talking about the number of BYDs there are on the street, uh, on the streets of Dubai, where, where they are. And, uh, that set me thinking there weren’t so many in Puerto Vallarta where we stayed, but there were a lot of Chinese EVs in Mexico city.

Yeah. So, uh, the invasion of the Chinese it’s, it’s really here. Um, I guess my, my first thought of it was when we were standing in immigration before we even, um, went into the country, there was a Giliad. And, uh, my first thought of translating the money was, uh, it was under 600, 000 pesos. And I was like, what the devil is that in, in meaningful money?

Well, under 25 grand us. So in other words, those. Domestic OEM makers who, uh, who won’t sell you a car for less than 40 [00:02:00] grand. These guys, they’re selling you a car for 20 grand, 25. It was like, this was like a RAV4 ish CRV kind of affair. It looked like a last generation RAV4, frankly. So, this is my note, you know, the invasion is well underway.

So, we rode in BYD cabs. This is build your dreams. That’s what it stands for. Now, I should say I first heard of them when they came to San Francisco with the buses. The bus company was BYD. Then probably two or three years ago, they bought a spot on Peter Hay Hill for pebble beach week. So, you know, if you come to pebble beach, as you walk down the hill, before you get in the show, usually the carmakers like, you know, my back or.

Bentley or Bugatti. They might have a spot there. We’ll be wide deeded as well. Just to be like, Hey, we’re building cars. I had some chewing gum. I remember. That they gave away. Not very tasty gum, but I didn’t hold that against BYD.[00:03:00]

So I guess the headline about these BYD cabs is that one of the cabs we rode in had 200, 000 kilometers on it. And it was wearing it, you know, like a taxi cab would, you know, it looked like it had done 200, it looked like he’d done plenty of miles, but it was still together. The panel fit was there. It was, you know, it was walking and talking like a Nissan or a Toyota might look at that’s really the headlight here that the Mexican market used to be all about Nissan’s.

Didn’t it? I remember going there 20 years ago when you couldn’t move for two The Nissan Sentra, which they had badged there as the Tazuruti, as you are you, like everything was that, and they, they loved the stick shift ones, not the automatics because they lasted longer. You know, that was why. And I remember asking a cabbie why Nissan, not Toyota.

And he was like, Toyota is for the [00:04:00] personal car, but Nissan is the work car. I always, uh, always remember him saying that. Well, anyway, The Centras, there are Centras there. And a couple of the cabs we rode in were Centras and stick shift Centras, but yeah, a lot of these, a lot of these BYDs complete model range, like a little, like, you know, like Fiesta sized one and like a sort of, you know, Ford C Max sized one, you know, and a sort of RAV4 CRV sized one.

They seem to be a complete. Model range for, uh, for, for BYD. Now, look, you’re not going to mistake it for a new Audi in terms of build quality or design. If you were Nissan, you would be absolutely quaking in your boots. Uh, how good these, these products are. Uh, the, the BYD SUV, particularly, it had the feel of a Kia about it.

You know, the, the [00:05:00] design was exciting as well as it. Visibly, as well as you being aware that it was, you know, a, a very, a very well priced product, the little BYD SUV, uh, the little BYD, like car sized thing, it has like a little Chevron in the, in it’s like hip line, you know, are you looking at it being like alpha one, five, nine, eat your heart out?

No. Is it a lot more design flair than I was expecting from a first generation Chinese maker. Oh, absolutely. I looked for the panel fit to be bad. It wasn’t, there was a pink, a sort of movie pink. One of these little BYDs as well. I mean, not my choice, but in that kind of nail polish hue that makes that car, I must have that one for certain people, usually women.

Young women, I’m not knocking them for it. You know, I’m just saying this is a niche, well designed, well considered product. So Nissan [00:06:00] must be craking in their boots. And I guess they are because in this last couple of weeks, we had the announcement of the merger with Honda. And I did read one particular headline that was the CEO of Honda struggles to explain benefit of Nissan merger.

And if you think of it from Honda’s perspective, what exactly is the benefit? Well, I’m going to answer that question. I think it’s size. I think it’s not letting a fellow Japanese company fail, but I think it’s size as well, that I think they recognize that Honda are too small to survive on their own. So, you know, they need the kind of economies of scale that Stellantis and Fiat and Citroen and Vauxhall have been, uh, have been trying to, to establish.

But. My God, it’s bleak for Stellantis, isn’t it? But let’s not drill on that. Let’s, let’s focus on, on where we were, um, in, in Mexico city there, because it was not just BYDs, it was MG as well. So MG2 appear to have a [00:07:00] complete model range or if not a complete model range. They seem to be doing little sedans, little premium coupe sedans, and that sort of ubiquitous BMW X1 RAV4 kind of size, little, uh, little SUV.

So we had a ride in, in a Mazda in an MG5 cab, and it was nice, you know, sort of, you know, I put in a Vauxhall or five year old Toyota kind of way. So not like compelling design or anything like that, but just a whole lot nicer than you were expecting you to thought this was a Suzuki or a five year old Toyota, not something that’s a first generation offering from a, from a Chinese maker, this, so this MG4.

For MG5 we were in, it was leatherish, it did nicely on the motorway. We drove on this like raised section of freeway across Mexico city. And it was, it was handy [00:08:00] along there. Um, as I say, you know, you’re not looking at them being like, this is the best design I’ve ever seen. But what you are saying is, is that you were just in the market for a nice car.

If this was 20 percent less than anything else on the market, you would definitely buy it. That’s what we’re saying. It’s the old Kia Skoda value proposition going on here. Cecil Kimber must be. Absolutely spinning in his grave. But who knows the notion of MGs being all over Mexico that might really appeal to him.

Mightn’t it? The notion that Morris is long forgotten, but MG survives across the world associated with these, this new dynamic, vibrant brand. But you say, doesn’t an MG have to be a sports car? No, it has to be sporting. And I think anything electric is sporting to drive, isn’t it? It’s got Vim and Verve and all of that.

Ah, but it has to be a two seater sports car. [00:09:00] Yeah, a lot of MGs were, but magnets weren’t. YBs, wasn’t it? The YB that prewar looking sedan that they did that everyone said drove really, really well. Everyone of my dad’s age said drove really well. Yeah, you know, I’m like, um, I’m not completely weirded out by MG and I was quite enjoying, you know, the thought of, of, of Cecil Kimber and, and his badge, his Oxycontin badge.

Being, you know, high above Mexico city there as, as, uh, as a sports bikers weaved amongst us.

So I put design panel fit interior fit and finish again, really good. It was for the BYD. I didn’t talk about the BYD cab. It had one of these like suicide doors in, [00:10:00] in, in the middle. So it’s very easy to get in and out of the parts of the interior were white and they had discolored, but mostly it was holding up really well.

It was like holding up like a Toyota would at 200, 000 miles, not like a Vauxhall would at 200, 000 miles or 200, 000 kilometers, which is what like 120, 000 miles, 125, something like that. Either way it is, it looked used, but not tired. 000 miles, not like 120 or 200, 000 kilometers. As, uh, as this guy was, uh, was wearing, there were some great West motors knocking around in Mexico city.

Um, I didn’t experience them sadly, but I just like saw them from, from afar. So, the cabs that I rode in were current generation Sentras, or what we get here as, uh, as Versas, not the, not the Nissan Note, the model up from that Nissan Versa, it’s like a de contented version of [00:11:00] probably what you get in Europe, but anyway, they were stick shift, um, also had, um, Um, a couple of cab rides in Chevy Sparks, or they do a like a facelift of the Chevy Spark or the Chevy Beat.

Anyway, each of these things was a stick. Each of them was wearing more than 200, 000 kilometers, and they look way worse than the BYD did. They, they really look like they, they couldn’t, they couldn’t do it. They, they weren’t able to wear it. The lower mile ones, uh, you, you know, there were a few, you know, clearly 250 is pushing it 120 K’s and, and the things feels not like a new car, but it feels not like the kind of car that.

Would in no way in hell pass an MOT because of course that is the thing. It makes me laugh. I follow these YouTubers and they’re like, Oh, you know, we feel more comfortable MOT in our cars, even though we don’t legally have to do it. I’m like, you know, buddy Mexico, you’re sitting in the cab coming from the airport and you’re watching the car next to you on the freeway.[00:12:00]

And as the slowing down, the wheels just wobbling. backwards and forwards, because obviously the tie rod and the suspension and all those rubber components are just completely shot away. I mean, it’s just, uh, yeah, you need to spend some time south of the border a little bit to really see how the, how the other side live when it comes to, uh, when it comes to beta cars.

So I guess because I was like looking at the cars and because we’d ridden in the MG, I started looking more closely at the bikes that were scattered curbside there. So there’s very few BMWs, there’s a couple of them, and actually on our way out to the airport, right as we were leaving, we passed a big Triumph showroom.

But that’s not what’s like today. Parked up lurking on the streets. Now I didn’t really delve too closely into the mopeds. I’m not going to talk about the mopeds, but, but there are scads of them and scads of, uh, of EV ones and things as well. But I’m going to focus mostly on the motorcycles. [00:13:00] Um, these were, these are mostly.

Poxy sub 250 cc affairs, which is a bit tragic. You know, I have to say when I got back to my garage here in California, I like surveyed my like liter bikes here and was just like, so relieved I’ve been able to get ahold of these things whilst I can, because these bikes that we’re looking at in Mexico, they have all the like fronting and maxing of a, of a sports bike.

But, but really, you know, it’s all in this sort of modern, faintly pathetic rapper, but, but kind of interesting anyway. Right. So pathetic in comparison to a 20 year old jigsaw, but nonetheless a motorcycle and, and kind of cool. So, so look like most of what they’ve got is knockoffs of Honda CG one, two fives.

So this is like your basic one, two, five CC motorcycle. Like if you’re in England, like the thing that you did, you CBT on. But these things, they have front drum [00:14:00] brakes. A lot of them drum brakes at the front. I mean, I was just, and these, and some of these bikes, they’re like brand new. They’re still making these things.

I can’t remember the maker. One of the makers was this company Vento, who I’m going to talk about more, uh, more in, in, in just a moment. So Vento make them. Um, and it was actually Vento who I was looking at most closely because they do this, uh, Ducati brand. Rip off, um, which I think is called the ripper or the scorcher or something.

And then they do, uh, uh, sort of a previous KTM super Duke kind of rip off little bite, but what it is, is instead of the CG one, two, five, this is like contented up, it looks better. It’s got like drum breaks. It’s got better tires. You know, you can tell this is a contented up bike, even if it might seem a bit.

You know, poxy you might be used to as an American or, uh, or a European. So these guys, Vento, blew my mind, right? I [00:15:00] wikied them up, based in San Diego, sell more motorcycles in Mexico last year than Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki. Put together, put together. So no wonder they were all over the place. Right.

And you know, if you’re living in Mexico city, I mean, the life expectancy on these bikes has got to be under five years before they’ve just got the bejesus kicked out of them. I mean, it’s just, it’s like motorcycles, Jim, but not as we know them. It’s life, Jim, but as we know it, that was, was what I was, uh, was, was, was thinking anyway, this is other brands, CF moto, and they seem to do some rip off of the BMW GS at the same kind of like high mud guard and asymmetrical headlight.

But it was all done on like a sort of, you know, two thirds scale. It was like a, uh, GS. Like for sort of play size then you look at it and you’re like hang on a minute bloody potholes on [00:16:00] this road You know, maybe you do need a knockoff adventure bike, right? I was cynical at first and then I was like, you know, well, maybe this is kind of cool Anyway, i’ll let you be the judge.

I took some pictures Or sub 250 or with these LCD displays, which is like weird to me. I mean, cause so few of my bikes have LCD displays, but I guess the youngest bike I have is like a 2005, isn’t it? So, you know, it’s so that’s 20 years old now, isn’t it? So I wrote here. If you’ve not looked at real examples, the copies seem to measure up and that’s right.

It’s like, you look at this Vento Scorcher on the other side of the street and you think, well, that’s a stylish little thing. It’s only when you get a bit closer, you’re like, oh yeah, it’s a ripoff of a Ducati. That’s why it looks like that or an Impredia, right? But that’s why it has that like, oh, but you know, if you’re not thinking that, if you’re just like looking at in comparison to these CG 125s and, you know, no name mopeds, You know, EV [00:17:00] mopeds.

Yeah. You know, so yeah, so that was interesting. So what I should say, and I’ll include a picture of this was outside the hotel. I did see a bike that was a Suzuki and it was badged as a Gixxer. Literally it was a Suzuki Gixxer. Not a GSX R250, but a Suzuki Gixxer. What an odd little piece it was. It made me all the more glad that I have the Gixxers here.

It may have fed into the fact that I just wrote a letter home to my family, Chris Smith. I’m going to send it to them. Letter home to my family for 2024 and in it, I said, I’m not going to buy any more jigsaws. Then that very day I got stump tangled up in a auction and I’ve just bought a third 89 1100, which I’m going to go and pick up in Santa Monica at the end of next week.

It’s an affliction, isn’t it? It was only 1, 300 or something. I mean, scandalous. The bite’s got to be worth at least three times that.[00:18:00]

This one’s come from England. So we’ll have to see if I can get hold of an English plate for it or something. So

we’re in that ride on the MG in the MG. Did see just one jigsaw. I said that there were sports bikes filtering past a bunch of guys on Italian bikes that was like, obviously out for a weekend ride. And one guy was on a sort of 05, 06, that kind of age, 750 red and black 750. It was the most desirable vehicle I saw in the time that I was in Mexico.

Cause there were more valuable cars there, but that was the only thing I looked at and thought, Ooh, I want that. Makes you realize how lucky you are in California, really.[00:19:00]

What I wrote was, I’m more bemused than horror stricken. I mean, we knew it was coming, right? But I’m bemused by the speed of this Chinese invasion. I think the motorcycle show and indeed what happened to the British motorcycle industry shows how devastating it’s going to be. These Volkswagen layoffs, they’re just the beginning.

You know, is there going to be a Renault? Is there going to be a Nissan? Is there going to be a Volkswagen, you know, in the year 2035, there’s going to have to be a lot of upping competitiveness if we’re to take on. Because it’s not just BYD, right? It’s also guys like Vento. Who were rebadging, they’re a domestic maker.

That’s an American maker with American sales and marketing. Those people who design those bikes, they know what an [00:20:00] Aprilia Tuono looks like. They know what’s cool about a KTM Duke. You know, they know that I could see that. That’s why it’s worth doing this pod and talking about it. But the BYDs in some ways, they were more terrifying than the Ventos because it’s good design and they can clearly wear the mileage like that.

Cab that had 200, 000 kilometers on it. I mean, that was like, wow, like, no wonder Nissan are terrified. No wonder, um, as a sales manager of mine used to say, panic well, panic early and panic well. And I feel like that’s perhaps what, what Nissan are trying to do. So yeah, should I be horror stricken? No, cause it’s been coming for a long time.

You know, am I sad if BMW go bust? Well, yeah, but are they really making anything that I really love now? You know, not in comparison to what they were making 25 years ago. I mean, just stop and think about what they were making even in 2010, you know, when they had the [00:21:00] cojones to be making a sedan with a formula one inspired.

V10 that revved to nine grand. I mean, that was what they used to be doing. And now, you know, I, I, I don’t know. I, I, uh, you know, that Neue Klasse that I learned about recently, that BMW dynamic lighting design that I, I learned about just recently. You know, there’s definitely still good ideas, but I don’t know, maybe the whole.

ethos of car design at the moment is less interesting than it used to be. Maybe the whole fact that people are focused on the screen and it grows out of the screen. I, I, I don’t know. I mean, you know, I find myself saying, talking about these EVs, they all seem to kind of drive pretty similarly. And, you know, so I, I’m not sure.

Maybe that’s why I’m more bemused rather than horror stricken at it. Maybe the. Maybe my horrors expressed itself in the purchase of yet another GSX R, which I really don’t need, but probably won’t be able to bring myself to sell after I’ve spent loads of [00:22:00] money putting tires and chains and all the other shit that it needs onto it.

So let’s conclude that the bikes, whatever, it’s a totally different market from Europe and the US. So, you know. India has their Bajaj, you know, Mexico has their CG125 knockoffs with drum brakes, you know, it’s fine, isn’t it? We’ve got our Gixxers and, you know, you can still buy a Velocette KTT in the auctions if you want to.

So no harm, no foul. The bikes. But the cars, the full model ranges, the fact that they’re not just coming, you know, it’s not just bloody Lada with one model. No, they’ve like got, and it’s not just, you know, the Riva with the big grill and the, no, they’ve done the SUV and the small and the large and the hybrid [00:23:00] and their pure EV, you know, they are coming.

With an, and it’s not just BYD, it’s, it’s MG, it’s great war motors. This other brand that I forget the name of that we saw when we were down in Puerto Vallarta. So it’s many players and, and I just wonder what the second generation players are going to look like. And what I mean by that is that the car that took us to the airport.

And when we were leaving Puerto Vallarta was some Chinese brand that I’d never heard of before. It was like on my wife’s Uber and she was like, it’s a whatever. And I was like, what’s that? She went, it’s red. And I was looking and I was like, is it a Nissan Sentra? And she went, no, but the number plate was right.

Well, it turns out it was some rebranded Nissan Sentra. It looked like a Nissan Sentra, but it wasn’t batched as a Nissan Sentra. So that’s right. They are these. Chinese, the, the, the Chinese products that are coming are in all [00:24:00] shapes and flavors, and they’re going to meet all market points. It’s Teimu taking on Amazon.

Ooh, it’s a thing, guys, and it’s coming very soon. So what’s that going to look like in a decade? Well, I mean, I’m, I’m brooding on it. I’m reminded of, of those Chevy Corollas, those Toyota Corollas that were rebadged as Chevys in the 1990s. Or you might remember the Mitsubishi Mighty Maxis that were repackaged as like Dodge Ram 50s.

You know, so in order to get access to the domestic market, the Japanese allowed their products to be rebranded and sold by the domestic makers. And that’s what I think we’re likely to see happening. In other words, are BYD going to come here as BYD? Yeah, but they’re also going to come here as BYD. BYD, but we’re in a Chrysler badge, so they sell better in domestic [00:25:00] makers and Chrysler are going to be happy to take 10 percent of margin or whatever it is.

They can make just in the hope that they can survive. I think that’s, what’s going to look like in, in the years to come. On that rather depressing note. Thank you. Drive through.[00:26:00]

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