New crossover FY11: a bestseller or a complete failure?

Despite the fact that 2020 from the very beginning somehow didn't work out for the automotive and other industries, and it didn’t work out for the whole world, it is very rich in premieres of new cars, including in the current market.

One of these premieres will be the release of the Geely FY11 crossover, which should appear lately towards the end of the year. Although the first samples have already appeared in Belarus, where the assembly will be carried out.

Here someone will note that this is another Chinese, but this is not entirely true. The bottom line is that in recent years there has been a process of integration between Geely and Volvo, which belongs to it. At the same time, the Chinese decided not to reinvent the wheel, but to use Volvo technologies in their cars.

The first full-fledged symbiosis is just the Geely FY11 crossover, as it is based on the fresh Volvo platform – CMA. This platform, by the way, provides one of the best security indicators in the European market.

However, when looking at the appearance of the FY11, there is some similarity with BMW crossovers. Here, of course, one can argue for a long time which element was borrowed or not borrowed from whom – it will be enough to say that the car looks modern and stylish.

The car has a decent length of 4.6 meters and sporty outlines, a height of 1.64 meters.

In the home market, the car is equipped with a very powerful 2-liter engine, however, there is information that for the CIS there will be a turbocharged 1.5-liter engine with 177 horsepower – the same as on Coolray, which, moreover, for ? can be cut down to 150 horsepower. Whether they will bring a hybrid version is a question.

The motor is also of Swedish origin, although assembled (delivery set), probably in China. The 2-liter version, which, most likely, will not be available in the CIS, is equipped with a Japanese 8-speed classic automatic. With 1.5 liter there is a “robot”.

However, the main thing is not the engine or even the platform: the novelty can rightfully be called the most technologically advanced conditionally Chinese crossover in the current market.

12 inch multimedia touch screen, digital instrument panel, projection screen, all-round visibility, adaptive cruise control, wireless charging, lane keeping and blind spot monitoring, dozens of sensors, pedestrian recognition. The list can be very long. Suffice it to say that the model has absorbed all the advanced technologies of the automotive industry.

At the same time, if we take into account the price in the home market of 135 thousand yuan (1.42 million rubles), it would seem that the car should become a bestseller. But don't jump to conclusions.

Geely FY11 was conceived as a fairly high-status urban crossover. According to some sources, the ground clearance, like that of the Geely Atlas, is modest – in the region of 160 mm.

However, the main problem is not the ground clearance. The bottom line is that there are reasonable assumptions that the version for the CIS, on the one hand, will lose a number of its modern “chips”, not to mention the range of engines, from which powerful versions will leave, with which the car was actually originally conceived. On the other hand, according to the established tradition, the price tag will be about 300 conventional units more than in the Chinese market.

The result of these cuts, on the one hand, and imitations, on the other, will be the appearance of a crossover that is typical in terms of characteristics, which will fall approximately into the price category of the new Toyota RAV 4. By the way, the price of the maximum configuration of the FY11 in the home market also exceeds the equivalent of 2.3 million. conditional units.

Someone will say that even in a “cropped” form, the new Chinese can surpass competitors such as the Toyota RAV 4, Volkswagen Tiguan or Mazda CX-5 in many ways.

However, for the success of the model, it is not enough to produce a good car, especially for about the same money as competitors. Success is ensured by the reputation earned over many years, the work of dealerships, the availability of spare parts, the history of the model, liquidity in the secondary market.

All this suggests that, most likely, a fairly expensive Chinese SUV will not produce a revolution in the current market. As it will be in reality – time will tell.