Europestar is essentially China’s newest autobrand, but many people havent heard of it, nor will they be able to buy one. Europestar was created between Youngman, a Shandong based bus maker, and Proton, the Malaysian car maker. Proton was set to supply the cars, and Youngman was to create the brand ‘Europestar’. The brand hasnt faired too well as of yet, probably due to the very small dealer network which seems to focus on interior Chinese cities, rather than the boom towns of eastern China. Sales of the Europestar RCR (Nee Proton Gen2 Racer) are not so high, in fact, that they are suprisingly low at around 30 cars per month.
Poor sales could be attributed to its small network, and also to the high price that they are asking for the RCR. The RCR is sent from Malaysia in CKD (Complete Knock Down) form, its basically a big box of car bits that are then assembled in Youngman’s factories in China. The price of the Europestar RCR is currently around 130,000rmb depending on model, which is essentially on par with the popular Ford Focus, or the Honda Civic hatch, even the engineering by Lotus badges on the back of the RCR (For which Lotus receives $50USD for each car!) have failed to win the car many buyers.
However, from next year the RCR is to be built in China, which may see the price drop to sub 100,000rmb which would surely bring a great deal of visitors into the few Eurostar dealers. The RCR maycurrently be the only model under the Europestar name, but it is soon to be joined by the Proton Persona, which will also see Chinese production. The joint venture between Proton/Lotus and Youngman was kick started with 2 billion RMB in investment, Youngman is currently working on two more factories for the Europestar brand, and soon hopes to have a production facility to produce up to 450,000 cars per year. This shows that Europestar, despite being China’s newest car company, has some grand plans for the Chinese marketplace, and possibly even the export market.
Youngman and Lotus have plans for eight new models, including MPV’s, and SUV’s.