China’s FAW owned Haima Automobile will make their Indian debut at the 2020 Auto Expo, using the platform to gauge interest and gain valuable feedback from the Indian audience.
Over the last few years, the Indian automobile market has seen a number of new entrants, the most prominent of them being MG Motors and Kia. Come the 2020 Auto Expo in February, we are going to see two more brands enter the Indian automobile market. We had already reported about China’s Great Wall Motor making its first appearance at the 2020 Auto Expo and now, we can confirm that another Chinese carmaker will join Great Wall Motors at the show – FAW Haima Automobile.
Haima Automobile is a carmaker based out of Haikou City in the Hainan Province in China. They were founded in 1988 and Haima name is a portmanteau word, blending the names of the Hainan province and Japanese carmaker Mazda. The brand originally sold redadged models of Mazda in China and then the company was eventually taken over by Chinese state-owned First Automobile Works, now known as the FAW Group.
Until very recently, most of the models from Haima Automobile were based on aging platforms of Mazda. Now however, Haima have started to develop their own range of SUVs, MPVs and electrified vehicles, based on the Haima Global Architecture (HMGA) platform. The company unveiled the 8S midsize SUV earlier this year. To give you a perspective, this SUV fits in between the MG Hector and the Kia Seltos in terms of dimensions. The Haima 8S is powered by a 1.6-litre T-GDI engine producing 193hp and 293Nm of torque, and it’s mated to a 6-speed automatic gearbox, giving the 8S a claimed 0-100kph time of under 8sec. That’s mighty impressive.
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Haima Automobile also revealed the 7X MPV at the 2019 Guangzhou Auto Show in China just a few days ago. This MPV features quite some polarizing styling and a Maserati-like front grille. It has seven seats and is powered by the same powertrain as the 8S. In terms of dimensions, the 7X is larger than the Toyota Innova Crysta, and is expected to come with a large touchscreen and connected car technology. Haima is also working on rolling out plug-in hybrids and strong hybrids by 2020.
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It is unclear as to which models will Haima Automobile exactly showcase at the 2020 Auto Expo. The brand will however use this opportunity to gauge interest and gain valuable feedback from the Indian audience. Given how well new brands are being received in India, we are quite excited to see what the Indian audience makes of this brand.
