China's Chery Scraps Plan to Sell Cars in US

Posted 24 November 2006 @ 01:51 pm EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

SHANGHAI (AP) - China's Chery Automobile has canceled plans to export cars to the United States through a joint venture with US entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin, a report and the Chinese company has said.

Chery said it was not ready to sell cars in the world's biggest car market although Bricklin, who introduced the Subaru brand to the US in the 1960s, planned to import 250,000 Chery cars through 250 US dealers as early as 2007.

The joint venture, Visionary Vehicles, also planned to develop five low-cost cars with luxury vehicle content.

"Chery was not moving fast enough to do all of these cars. It may still assemble some cars for Visionary on a contract basis," Visionary Vehicles spokeswoman Wendi Tush was quoted as saying by the South China Morning Post.

Jin Yibo, a spokesman for Chery Auto at its headquarters in eastern China's Anhui province, confirmed that the deal was off but refused to elaborate.

"We've stopped our cooperation with Visionary Vehicles, but we cannot comment on any of the details," he told AP Friday.

Parent company Chery Auto Group signed a contract last year to create Visionary but it is still in the preparatory stage and the export agreement has now been scrapped, the newspaper said.