Geely Auto

I am going to give Geely Auto (pronounced “jeely”) a reason to start spending their PR and marketing dollars to thwart a bad impression of their products. I don’t think it will help them, but they’ll do it anyway. My impression comes solely from their scooters, and this is it.

They suck. They’re trash. They’re complete garbage. (Read what a scooter shop has to say about Geely).

You have probably seen these Yamaha/Honda knock-offs cruising around college towns, but then again, maybe you haven’t because they don’t run very long. What could would marketing or PR do at this point? The gears are made of plastic. The body is plastic. Total garbage. Total waste of money. The only marketing that will ever overcome that is a better product.

So, when Geely Auto says that it will start selling cars in the U.S. in 2008, I say bring on revenge of the Yugo. All except this is a Chinese made. Geely is the first Chinese auto maker to enter the U.S. market, and it seems like the auto analysts are ill-informed, which means the news media was ill-informed, which (heaven forbid) means that the news media will be writing about terrible Geely vehicles down the road.

MSNBC
The entry of Geely into the U.S. “might be good news for cost-conscious Americans, but analysts say it could be bad news for Detroit’s Big Three, now struggling with sagging U.S. sales and busy laying off workers and closing down factories to cut costs.” - WRONG!

more from MSNBC
“But executives at established auto makers say they aren’t too concerned about the threat of competition from Chinese brands any time soon, citing quality and other factors.”

It sounds like Geely’s COO knows about this image problem as well.
“One issue for Chinese carmakers is the perception that their products are not up to par when it comes to safety and reliability. It’s a perception problem that Harmer (COO) plans to deal with through aggressive marketing.”

Aggressive marketing. Crappy history of quality. Which do you think will win over the customer.