Battery Vehicle Society

Hi
does anyone have experience of importing chinese cars
the FOB prices seem attractive but I ve notread any independant road reports
i m interested in shandong cars whose minmum order is 2 units
has anyone an idea of shipping cost?
is there cusoms duty involved?
is there an import agent in uk?
are they any good????????????????
Regards.
David

There was one for sale on ebay a year or so ago that someone had imported as a one-off, so it can be done. I think you pretty much get what you pay for, in terms of quality, fit, finish etc but as the basis for a project they might be worth it.

Shipping might not be too expensive, as two would fit into a small container I think. I'd guess something around the £1000 mark for a small container from China to the UK, which would take around 6 to 8 weeks, including dock processing time. Duty would be payable on the cost of the cars (probably around 8 to 10%) and VAT at 20% would be payable on the total cost (the cars plus shipping and handling fees). Some work would be needed to make them compliant with UK C&U regs (probably just things like E marked lights, a rear fog light and probably some attention to external and internal impact radii), then they would need to be put through the Single Vehicle Approval test at your local HGV test centre. After that the car would be issued with a registration mark and document.

Jeremy

Jeremy wrote:Some work would be needed to make them compliant with UK C&U regs (probably just things like E marked lights, a rear fog light and probably some attention to external and internal impact radii), then they would need to be put through the Single Vehicle Approval test at your local HGV test centre.

This is where the problems seem to start, has anyone managed to get a chinese made EV actually registered and on the road, I've seen plenty on e-bay that arnt and all the investigations I've made everyone has met a dead end and hence they end up on ebay without a registration

ChrisB

I did enquire about one that was registered and the owner/importer had just put it through SVA in the usual way. A lot depends on the weight of the car, as the lighter ones (like the G-Wiz) can go through as quadracycles and avoid some of the more onerous stuff.

To be honest I can't really see it being a big deal to get one through SVA, as it can't be harder than getting a kit car through. The hardest part would almost certainly be getting evidence that the lights and indicators comply with the light output and angular dispersion requirements, as I doubt they are E marked (or carry the DOT equivalent, that's also acceptable, I believe).

In my experience the testing stations are often quite helpful and give a lot of advice. It's almost certain that the car will fail first time around, as unless you have a set of shapes (the cone and balls) of the right size to check all the internal and external impact radii the chances are you'll miss one or two spots. Taking a roll of plastic/rubber radius trim along to the test has been known to be a good fallback!

The only other issue might be getting hold of the data needed to do things like the brake testing and speedometer checking (plus the speedometer dial would need to be changed to read MPH). The test centre rely on the presenter of the vehicle giving them valid data. An appropriate VIN marking scheme also has to be provided - it's not acceptable to use a riveted or bonded on plate, the VIN has to be punched into the vehicle chassis and also be visible from a secondary external location (often a tag on the bottom edge of the windscreen).

It's a couple of days work I'd guess to get a vehicle like this compliant, provided that you know the regs and have access to the equipment and facilities to do the work that will be needed.

I've assumed that things like seat belts and mounts, mirrors etc are all adequate, which in general I suspect they would be.

Jeremy

Interesting, I've had a couple of chats with folks that advertise such things on e-bay and all have eventually been beaten into submission with the words "I tried but I failed, and hence why its on e-bay"
So I've always stayed well clear of the import stuff due to this, which is a shame as theres some quite nice stuff out there but it would "appear" its quite tricky to get a reg plate for them over here

ChrisB

As always, it depends on the level of understanding of the regs and the way that they are applied. If you buy a car blindly, without even a basic understanding of what will be needed to get it approved and registered, then the chances are you'll be disappointed when you run into the myriad of rules that apply and the time and effort needed to get a car through them.

If you've built a kit car, or even just imported one or two "grey import" cars, then you'll be pretty familiar with the way the system works, which will both help with making the right choice of car to buy and what will be involved once you get it here to make it legal.

If you go in blind, buy on the basis of price without proper regard to compliance with SVA, then you will probably have problems. You also need to budget for the work needed to get the vehicle legal, which could be around 10 to 20% of the purchase price, as even things like tyres need to comply with UK regs.

Jeremy

I think you could be right there

ChrisB