Disposing the disposable mentality: A tour of Jetour's home

Disclaimer: Jetour Auto Philippines paid for my airfare, transportation and accommodation for a week-long trip with other media practitioners to China, including a visit to Auto Shanghai 2023.

Everybody in the Philippines is familiar with the Chery QQ from the mid to late 2000s.

The dinky urban hatchback became the symbol of everything that was wrong with China-made cars.

With shabby workmanship, questionable aftersales (if there were any) and non-existent warranties, the QQ was China’s first major foray into the global car market.

And it didn't go down well.

Every China-made model that immediately followed it wasn’t spared from quality and durability issues, as well. Some cars would just die in the middle of the road.

Others would prematurely break down as their mechanicals could not keep up with copied designs of their cars. It may look like a Lexus, but it sure was not one.

And then there was the characteristic smell of plastic and chemicals permeating from the interior. Uughh!

Not anymore

A decade and a half later, we are again facing another flood of China-made cars.

But China has learned its lesson well to the point that having a China-branded car in a distributor's portfolio has become more of a business necessity than a curse.

Fortunately, the cars themselves have evolved and matured thanks to improved quality standards and know-how derived from joint ventures with Western brands.

You see, car distributors, those who import and sell cars for a particular brand, are all fighting tooth and nail to be the ones chosen to bring in Chinese cars.

Today’s "Made in China" tag is more synonymous to concepts like feature-rich, striking design, value-for-money and, ultimately, significant profit margins. 

Car buyers in the Philippines have learned to embrace Chinese-made automobiles in the last few years. Their “loaded” specs outclass almost every other Japanese offering at the moment, while undercutting them in price. 

And as each model transitions to a new generation, the designs, technology and reliability just keep getting better and better.

Better than ever

At a plant tour hosted by Jetour at its manufacturing facility in Wuhu, China, we were shown how far ahead the brand has come since its inception.

For those not in the know, Jetour is a new sub-brand of Chery that was only launched in 2018. As such, Jetour shares the same facilities, technology, R&D and even mechanical components as its Chery siblings.

Unlike Chery, however, which had to undergo the painful process of being classified as subpar during its early years going global, Jetour is riding on the advanced state of technology and manufacturing that Chery now finds itself in today.

Gone are the disposable nature of Chery’s first exported vehicles. Instead, we now see a lineup from both itself and Jetour that has benefited from cutting-edge design, first-class manufacturing practices complete with robots and full-on automation.

In fact, there were only a few human employees at the Chery assembly plant as robots have taken over the assembly process almost completely.

Robots have even taken over final inspection duties at the Chery plant as cars roll off the assembly line. Robotic arms now measure the clearances and dimensions of each vehicle to ensure they fall within set parameters.

Of course, there will be employees who will make sure human eyes still go over the cars, but their numbers have been greatly reduced compared to the other plants I visited years ago. 

Chery and Jetour’s plant also has a dedicated crash-test facility, complete with sensor-infused crash-test dummies. It uses high-speed cameras able to capture a frame at speeds of 1/1000 of a second. 

Wuhu is also the site of Chery’s Noise Vibration and Harshness (NVH) facility.

It sports an anechoic chamber with sound-absorbing and echo-preventing surfaces, as well as a roller machine, similar to a dyno, that lets a car run while microphones pick up the sounds emanating from it.

NVH testing is part of the car development process.

Unapolegetic and we're fine with it

Now, if it seems we’re glowing up Jetour and, ultimately, Chery, well you’re right.

That’s because we have seen with our own eyes how much different the Chery of 2008 is from the Chery of 2023. It's too bad that not everyone can visit these state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities.

Compared to other brands’ assembly plants, and I’ve visited a number over the last 16 years as a motoring scribe, I can even say it rivals some Japanese assembly and manufacturing centers not only in sheer size, but also in automation, cleanliness, processes involved and certainly output.

The Chery plants are spartan clean, brightly lit and comfortably cool. All while having the capacity to roll out up to 60 cars an hour.

Sure, Chery couldn't have gotten to this point without the transfer of technology from its foreign joint ventures, but that's the point of the whole business exercise, isn't it?

Are we impressed with the brand? Yes.

Will it make you want to buy a Jetour? Well, you can either take our word for it or just book a test drive to see for yourself to see how far their cars have come.

Either way, we think you'll walk away with transformed perceptions.

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