This $21700 Land Rover Lookalike to Go on Sale in China - Bloomberg
A sport utility vehicle that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Land Rover Evoque will go on sale in China this week at a third of its sticker price. More than 5,500 people have put down deposits for the Landwind X7, which will be available in dealerships from Thursday at a starting price of 135,000 yuan ($21,700). The Evoque, which is Jaguar Land Rover’s best-selling model worldwide, retails... Jaguar Land Rover Chief Executive Officer Ralf Speth railed at what he called the the rise of Chinese “ copy-and-paste ” jobs earlier this year at the Shanghai auto show, where the Landwind X7 was also on display. The carmaker said last year it was investigating whether Landwind copied design elements of the Evoque. “Customers say the car is good-looking, like the Evoque,” Zhu Jianfeng, a sales manager at Ninghai Landwind Specialty Store, a dealership that stocks the X7, said by phone. The concern is that a cheap lookalike will make it harder for Jaguar Land Rover to command a premium for its model, especially as automakers step up discounting and offer cheaper variants to bolster sales in a softening market. Intellectual Property Asked to comment on the X7, Jaguar Land Rover said it takes protecting its intellectual property “very seriously,” declining to go into specifics. “Somehow, it helps Land Rover to promote the Evoque,” said John Zeng, a Shanghai-based managing director at. Source: www.bloomberg.com
