On that great hot day in summer, I went to have a look at the local Beijing deal, mystery shopper style. The dealer is located in a large car market area in the far north of the Chinese capital. The building was easy to find and looked impressive from the outside, with large glass panels and a high pillar on the left side.
There was an advertisement for the BJ60 on the wall behind the glass, showing the car in a forest with baba in a bear suit and mama with a megaphone. Scale is a tad messy but it is a cool picture.
Chinese dealers are usually not short on space. The Beijing brand belongs to BAIC, one of China’s largest car companies. BAIC currently runs the Beijing and the ArcFox brands. The good old BAW brand is owned by a different company nowadays. The Senova brand is dead.
Confusingly, the Beijing brand is further divided into two sub-brands: Beijing Off-Road and Beijing. The former makes petrol-powered off-road-style SUVs, the latter a range of crossovers and sedans, most of them petrol-powered, some electric. Beijing Off-Road and Beijing are sold via the same dealer network. ArcFox has a separate dealer network.
Beijing Off-Road BJ60
The Beijing BJ60 is a basic mid-size SUV, launched in 2022. It received an update recently but the new car wasn’t at the dealer yet. The BJ60 is just over 5 meters long with a 2820 wheelbase. Power comes from a 2.0 turbo with 163 hp and 400 Nm. Price starts at 264.800 yuan, but that is the official price. The dealer price is much lower, this one was offered for 224.800 yuan ($31K). Blame the price wars and the EV revolution! Old-school gasoline brands like Beijing are going through difficult times.
Beijing X7
The Beijing X7 is a mid-size crossover launched in 2020 with a facelift in 2023. The car at the dealer is the facelifted version. It is a sharp-looking car with fashionable darkened headlights and a busy grille. It is 4.7 meters long with a 2800 wheelbase. Power comes from a 1.5 turbo with 188 hp and 305 Nm. The official price starts at 129.900 yuan but the base model costs only 99.900 ($13.7K) at the dealer.
Many Chinese car companies, especially the older state-owned ones, have a connection to China’s space program. BAIC, the company that owns Beijing, provides vehicles to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). It is a kind of sponsoring. In return, Beijing can use CNSA branding and sell CNSA co-branded merchandise. BAIC and CNSA go way back. In 2003, it had a similar sponsoring deal, at the time with the Beijing-Jeep joint venture.
The rabbit is called Rabbit Star, it is the official mascot of China’s lunar exploration program. It is wearing a red 北京(Beijing)-branded space suit.
Pins! That is ages ago. Back in the 2000s car makers would handout pins on auto shows sometimes, but since then I haven’t seen many pins around. Beijing, however, is still into pins. They had all sorts of the things, with Rabbit Star and ‘Off-Road’ and 北京.
Beijing X3
I was surprised to see this oldie. I didn’t even know Beijing was still producing the X3. It launched back in 2019, then called the Senova X35. In 2020 it was renamed Beijing X3. It hasn’t been updated since. Amazing! It is 4.2 meters long with a 2570 wheelbase, and it has a 1.5 turbo with 150 hp and 210 Nm under the hood. The dealer price is only… 56.900 yuan ($7800). That is super cheap, even for such an ancient vehicle.
Advertising boards showing a map, motorsport success, and attractive finance deals.
I was at the dealer in the late morning and it wasn’t busy. I was the only walk-in customer. I saw a few other folks waiting around for something. There wasn’t much staff, and during my entire visit, nobody talked to me. I didn’t mind, but still, that is not very good.
Beijing Off-Road BJ40 Champion
The Beijing BJ40 is the most popular Beijing Off-Road car. The BJ40 was launched in 2014 with a small facelift in 2019. That is a properly long production run! Over the years, Beijing has launched a trillion variants and special editions. The all-new BJ40 was unveiled earlier this year, but, as happens so often in China, the old BJ40 will stay around as well. The car in the photo is the Champion Edition, powered by a 2.0 turbo with 231 hp and 380 Nm. It sells for 199.900 yuan at the dealer ($27.5K). It is 4.6 meters long with a 2747 wheelbase.
The area was made nice with a fire extinguisher, a boxing pole, and s display with cardboard cactuses.
A Zippo lighter with the Beijing BJ40 and 北京-branding. Very cool.
There were offices on the second floor but I didn’t see anybody around. There was enough floor space for another 20 cars.
Beijing EU5 Plus
The EU5 Plus was the only EV in the building. The EU5 Plus is a compact electric sedan. It is quite old too: the EU5 Plus launched in 2021. This was not a new car but a facelift of the Beijing EU5. The EU5 is based on the U5 petrol-powered sedan, launched in 2020. This was not a new car either, but a renamed variant of the Beijing BJEV EU5/U5, a renamed variant of the Beijing Senova D50, launched in 2017! Yes, Beijing likes to keep the oldies around for as long as possible. The EU5 Plus has 163 hp, a 50 kWh battery, and a 416-km range. It cost 89.900 yuan ($12.3K).
Beijing Rubic’s Cube
The Rubic’s Cube is Beijing trying to be hip. It is after the famous 3D combination puzzle and is aimed at young folks. The Rubic’s Cube is 4.6 meters long with a 2.7-meter wheelbase. It has a sporty design with a sharp nose and cool daytime running lights. Under the hood is a 188 hp 1.5 turbo. It costs 79.900 yuan ($11K) at the dealer, which seems a good deal.
Beijing Off-Road BJ90
This one is still on sale as well! The BJ90 launched back in 2017. It is a large luxury SUV based on the X166 Mercedes-Benz GL-Class. “Based on” is an understatement. It is more of a badge-engineered car. The GL’s were shipped from the factory in the US to China as complete cars. Beijing changed the front and rear, the badges, and the wheels.
The engines and the interior were left unchanged. Production of the X166 stopped in 2019, but Beijing bought hundreds of these cars, and they still haven’t sold them all out. Power: 3.0 turbo with 333 hp, all-wheel drive. Prices start at 478.000 yuan ($65.7K), which is insanely expensive, so I guess that’s why it is so hard to find buyers.
On the left is the Jade Rabbit moon rover, and on the right is a model of the Zhurong Mars rover. The model brand is Maisto, one of the largest scale-model vehicle makers in the world. Maisto is headquartered in Hong Kong and its models are produced in China and Thailand. I used to collect models of Chinese space rockets, but I don’t have any rovers yet. Now I want them all.
In the back was another large space but no more cars. There was a counter on the right and a podium in the middle. There was some construction going on as well, apparently to fix a leak in te roof.
A large screen, nobody was watching. Folks can win stuff in a lottery if they make a test drive.
A faux-Lego model of the Rubric’s Cube. With remote control.
A BJ60 in an attractive light blue color called Smokey Wave Fog Blue (烟波雾蓝). I love Chinese car color names. It’s always a tad weird and poetic.
Beijing Off-Road BJ80
The Beijing BJ80 is a workhorse SUV, launched in 2016 with a small update in 2020. Most of these have been sold to the armed forces and government agencies. Private ones are rare. It is 4.7 meters long with a 2800 wheelbase. Customers can choose a 231 hp 2.0 turbo or a 280 hp 3.0 V6 turbo. The price starts at 268.000 yuan ($36.8K).
It was then time to go. I had been inside for about an hour. It was a nice place to hang around. The cars, however, are all seriously getting old. That is visible in the sales numbers. In May, the Beijing Off-Road brand stood at the 47th place in the sales rankings with 5061 cars sold. The most popular car, by far, was the BJ40 with 54.42%. The Beijing brand did even worse, 68th, with 1948 sales, best seller was the EU5 Plus sedan, with 48%. There are some new models on the way, but even those are mostly updated variants of older cars, and there are no new EVs coming anytime soon. Sadly, Beijing’s sales struggles will likely continue.
Another two brand new BJ90’s. Strangely, dealers don’t offer any incentives for it, which is probably one of the reasons why they can’t get rid of these things. I would be seriously tempted if the price went down by a ton or so.
More dealer visits soon!