Chinese Vehicles are Affordable & the Quality of Finish is Good BUT

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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Are they safe in a crash?
It seems the Geely Starray EM-i plug in hybrid is.

in 2026? Not that I’ve seen, especially since Chinese automakers have to meet European and US safety standards to sell cars there, and they typically do quite well with these.

Chinese automakers have been looking to counter the concerns by acing the safety tests. Geely is now taking it a step further, though. It is adding tests.

“The Geely Starray EM-i has completed a beyond-compliance, dual-sided serial extreme crash test at France’s Euro NCAP-accredited UTAC headquarters.

As Europe’s first-ever side-impact test combined with a far-side rigid pole intrusion challenge, this test goes far beyond the current Euro NCAP side-impact protocol, compounding the test’s severity to replicate real-world multi-vehicle chain collisions,” Geely adds.

Clearly, this was all planned for the press. But it makes sense. Want to break open perceptions that your cars aren’t safe? You can’t just match a bunch of other cars, you need to do something special and grab attention. How far this will actually go in changing opinions, I don’t know — who is going to hear about it, and among those previously concerned, are they going to just be hyper-skeptical of the tests?

“During the test, a moving deformable barrier strikes the side of the vehicle at 60 km/h, pushing it into a rigid pole positioned on the opposite side, creating a second high-severity impact comparable to a side pole crash. It puts an extreme test on the vehicle’s structural integrity, millisecond-level airbag deployment algorithms, and NEV battery system protection. The results confirmed that the Geely STARRAY EM-i maintained an intact passenger cell after the collision. The restraint systems were deployed with pinpoint precision, the e-CALL emergency rescue system triggered instantly, and the doors unlocked automatically.”

Geely adds that it has received top ratings in 80 global authoritative safety assessments, including five-star ratings across C-NCAP, Euro NCAP, ANCAP, ASEAN NCAP, and C-IASI.

Geely Starray EM-i

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I have direct experience with the “pole” test. We certify our products (where required) to this standard. It’s extremely challenging.

I don’t see vehicle assembly (or complete vehicle) tests for this as this is downstream of our organization, but I would bet that these tests have been part of the development program for components, component assemblies and internal vehicle systems tests for YEARS to satisfy internal targets prior to this.

By the way, Tesla also does these tests and has a very dim view of suppliers who cannot provide satisfactory results for same.

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