Editor’s note:

Being a latecomer in the China auto market is not an enviable position, especially since the “golden era” of the auto sales here seems to be losing some of its luster. Shanghai has recently talked to two companies that made it their ambitions to catch from behind and even to reach the leading edge of their fields.

Qoros Automotive, a joint venture formed by Chinese domestic carmaker Chery and Israel Corp in 2007, once posed this question on its website: Does the world really need another car company?

No, it just needs a different one, Qoros responded.

It’s the vision thing that convinced Volker Steinwascher to join Qoros as vice chairman after his retirement as head of North American operations for Volkswagen.

“At Qoros, we don’t make cars for engineers, like some of the Germans who think they can determine the customer’s needs,” he said at the Qoros’ Technology Day in Shanghai last month. “We are completely the opposite. We are customer-oriented, focused on translating the customer’s needs into engineering solutions and specifications. We leave the execution part to other people.”

The carmaker unveiled its first-ever production model and two concept cars at the Geneva motor show in March. Car analysts said the company, which is largely built around a European team of auto specialists, is aiming to conquer the Chinese market by pandering to consumers’ preference for European-design cars.

Qoros cars will be manufactured in the city Changshu — about 100 kilometers northwest of Shanghai — at a new factory with initial capacity of 150,000 vehicles a year.

The Qoros 3 sedan, the brand’s first mass-production model, is dynamic yet elegant. It comes fitted with a unique eight-inch touchscreen infotainment system as a standard feature. The sedan is scheduled for official launch next month , aimed at what the company calls a target market of “modern, metropolitan and always-connected customers.”

But Qoros cannot take all the credit. The new sedan is a combination of resources provided by world-class suppliers. Its turbo-charged 1.6-liter petrol engine is from Honeywell; its six-speed, dry dual-clutch transmission is from Getrag; and even the development of the brand’s intelligent modular platform, which the Qoros 3 and another 17 planned Qoros models are based on, includes heavy involvement of Magna Steyr, a subsidy of giant automotive supplier Magna.

Steinwascher is not coy about his commitment to outsourcing.

“My view is very simple,” he said. “For everything, I go to the best supplier I can. It is a good strategy because if I don’t like their expertise, then I can go to someone else.”

As a company that started only six years ago with a blank drawing board, Qoros has had to take some smart shortcuts. After all, time is running out for newcomers to secure a foothold in the already crowded Chinese auto market, especially amid signs that it is cooling.   

But by shifting its focus to consumer studies and product design from development of its own technologies, does Qoros risk losing the key competitive edge that makes a car company irreplaceable?

Qoros responded with another question: Are there any components self-developed by any original equipment manufacturers that give a distinctive advantage to consumers? 

While that answer is open for debate, there’s no question that product ideas come from Qoros, which oversees all phases of development work. Integrating all the parts and functions for a car is very serious work, said Steinwascher.   

He recalled once talking to a Chinese original equipment manufacturer, which found the window of its car didn’t go up and down properly. The manufacturer said he would have to ask the supplier of the electric motor to fix it.

“I told them that’s not the solution,” Steinwascher said. “Because the problem also depends on the body-in-white, automotive wiring, ceiling, guide wheels and switches, which make a complete system.”

That’s why one needs a lot of experience — work with at least three generations of cars — to know exactly what’s going on and how to tune the car according to driving behavior, he added. One of the key competitive edges of Qoros is a huge talent pool that includes experts from all fields.

He ticked off a few high-profile names: Klaus Schmidt, executive director of vehicle engineering, who once led chassis development at BMW; Roger Malkusson, executive director of vehicle integration, who used to oversee vehicle safety at Saab; and Gert Hildebrand, head of design, who was design director of MINI. All are veterans in their fields, Steinwascher said.

Having this caliber of people on board, “we don’t need to depend on anybody from the outside to tell us what to do, which gives us a serious advantage over local OEMs that don’t have much experience,” he said.

He said he also believes that Qoros, as an indigenous brand in China, has a better business model than those developed by other joint ventures between foreign and Chinese carmakers — each with their own car brands and interests to attend.

That’s something Qoros doesn’t need to worry about. Israel Corp is not involved in any other car-making business in China, while Chery as a brand is positioned much lower than Qoros.

Chery and Israel Corp each own a half stake in Qoros, with Chery vice president Guo Qian as venture chairman and chief executive officer. There are some concerns that the “cheapie” image that has long dogged Chery models will stain the upper-echelon image of Qoros.

“Does the badge make the car or does the car make the badge?” reads another thought-provoking question from Qoros.

In fact, the Qoros 3 sedan has just become the first car from a China-based brand to receive a maximum five-star safety rating by Euro NCAP, which  organizes one of the most comprehensive and authoritative vehicle crash tests in the world.

Surely, the brand’s lack of history and influence is a big disadvantage. But could it be an advantage as well? No legacy also means no burden for the brand to “create future history” as it envisions.

Indeed, the company’s name reflects that philosophy. The “Q” signifies the company’s commitment to quality, and the pronunciation of Qoros is similar to the Greek word “khoros,” which means a chorus of many voices. Qoros, therefore, is an expression of many voices and talent from all over the world, working together as one team, the company said.

It’s all music to the ears of Steinwascher, who, in his seventies, might well have found an ideal place to work until his ultimate retirement.