Hengchi 5 goes on sale for $26,690 but will customers buy it?

07 July 2022

Hengchi 5 has officially gone on sale with a starting price of RNB 179,000 ($26,690) after all the subsidies available for electric car buyers. It comes from Evergrande NEV - the automaker arm of the property development company known worldwide for having to be bailed out by the government as it couldn’t repay its spiraling debts.

The company is clearly trying to entice customers and convince them to look away from its patchy history and join it on the new adventure. The president of EVergrande NEV repeatedly stated that the Hengchi 5 is the best SUV in under RMB 300,000 ($44,770) market. Are the customers listening?

Maybe not as much as the company hoped for, Evergrande NEV is offering to reserve a Hengchi 5 for a RMB 1,000 deposit - that’s less than $150. From August 1 the deposit goes up to RMB 10,000 ($1,500) and will only be refundable in the first 15 days, for now the lower deposit is fully refundable.

To further address worries expressed by potential customers, the deposits are being paid into separate accounts and will not be used for any other purposes. That has never happened in automotive history and we can see the company is trying hard to show it has turned the page.

The automaker is dangling yet another carrot - all RMB 10,000 deposits will be redeemed at a value of RMB 20,000 ($3,000). So technically you could bag a bargain at about $17,000 if you were to trust these guys with your money.

Hengchi 5 is a medium-sized SUV at 4,725mm of length, it comes with a 150kW electric motor developed by Bosch and the 72.8 kWh battery is supplied by CATL. Claimed CLTC range is 602 km (374 miles) and the car can be charged in 28 minutes from 30 to 80% at a DC fast charger.

Evergrande NEV is a separate entity from the main company, so technically its customers should be safe from the fallout. $17,000 for a brand new electric SUV is a real bargain even by Chinese standards, but when a deal is too good to be true it often is and caution is advised.

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