LETTER OF THE WEEK
I was recently in Kazakhstan and saw a very smart and unusual SUV in a shopping centre. It turned out to be an RX from Exeed, a luxury offshoot brand of Chinese giant Chery.
My wife organised a test drive for me and I was blown away by the car’s quality and refinement. Heated and ventilated leather seats front and back, heated steering wheel, wireless phone charging, head-up display, panoramic roof, 10-year warranty, free servicing… the list goes on. With an £80k interior in a £40k car, it was a genuine Range Rover Velar rival for half the price.
I was excited to read in your 3 April issue that this same brand is coming to the UK as Omoda. I really think the Chinese are going to start pulling up trees in our car market, because the value they offer compared with European makers is beyond belief.
True, fuel economy is an issue (although not so much in Kazakhstan, where petrol is 35p per litre!), but this will be slightly offset by planned plug-in hybrid models and much lower prices than European rivals’.
I think we’re about to see seismic shifts in the European car market.
Jamie Bedwell
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
The RX will enter the UK market as the Omoda 9 later this year – KC
China crisis looms
Every week, Autocar introduces us to new cars from China. By all accounts, the best of these are well designed and good value for money. What would prevent me from buying one is the concern that China’s increasingly adventurist foreign policy, as directed towards Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and India, not to mention Chineselinked cyber-attacks on the West, will result in trade sanctions or worse. Who would want a car for which spare parts can’t be sourced?
Karl Cradick
Via email
Move over!
Perhaps Rodger Spooncer should read his Highway Code again. It clearly states that after overtaking in the middle lane, you should move back into the first lane, not hog the middle one, which he says is acceptable (3 April) but is illegal.
If lane-hogging is acceptable, then undertaking at 70mph in the first lane should be too. Many times I have to slow down to avoid someone in the middle lane doing less than 70mph, usually on cruise control, cross the middle lane into the third lane to overtake them and then move all the way back over to the first lane. That takes much more time than just undertaking at 70mph in the first lane would.
It’s a shame there aren’t enough highway police to catch drivers like Mr Spooncer,
