Porsche isn’t the first manufacturer to have sued Chinese manufacturers for copying the design from their vehicles, but hardly has anyone been victorious.
‘Déjà vu’ is French for ‘already seen’, a case far too common when one goes to China. The East Asian country has a clone of everything that the rest of the world creates. Right from the mobile application WhatsApp to social networking websites Facebook and Twitter, China has its own version of everything that works, operates and looks very similar to its western version. In the automotive sector, Chinese copies of models are far too common with clones of the Land Rover Evoque, BMW X5 and several more already on roads. In the latest attempt, Chinese manufacturer Zotye Auto cloned the Porsche Macan to create its T700 SUV and the same has not gone down well with the German car maker.
One look at the Zotye T700 as well as the Porsche Macan and the design similarities are more than evident. Having spend a fortune on hiring a design team, Porsche isn’t too happy about the clone and is now planning to sue the Chinese manufacturer. However, given the country’s glorious past of refuting claims over cloning, we are pretty sure this will be a tough nut to crack even for the 911 maker. Interestingly, the Chinese media was the first to notice and report about the similarities on both vehicles, which was later picked upon by the German media.
Interestingly, this is not Zotye’s first clone, the company has already built its own versions of the Smart ForTwo and Volkswagen Touareg/Tiguan SUV. It now needs to be seen as to how seriously does Porsche’s case get presented in the Chinese court. Previous attempts by Land Rover for the Landwind X7 (Evoque clone) and BMW’s legal battle for the X5 clone CEO, were met with disappointment (the European Union did get back by seizing all CEO vehicles). The Zotye T700 will be launched in China next year and will cost a little over a quarter of Porsche Macan’s uber expensive price tag. In India, we have have the Zotye RiO (old Daihatsu Terios) which is sold by Premier using its own badge. The Premier RiO is the worst car ever to be tested by us at MotorBeam and you can read the review HERE.
The Porsche Macan gets its styling cues from the company’s sportscar range and the larger Cayenne SUV
The Zotye T600 is significantly cheaper than the Volkswagen Tiguan but looks the part
The Zotye E200 clones the Smart ForTwo while the interiors are rip off from the Tesla Model S