Baojun

Baojun (宝骏)
Owner	SAIC-GM-Wuling
Introduced	2010; 14 years ago
Markets	China
Website	sgmw.com.cn/baojun

Baojun (simplified Chinese: 宝骏; traditional Chinese: 寶駿; pinyin: Bǎojùn; literally: "Treasured Horse"^[1]) is a Chinese automobile marque owned by a joint venture of General Motors and SAIC Motor, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile.

History[change | change source]

Following the success of Wuling Motors, the Sino-American joint-venture SAIC-GM-Wuling decided to create a second car brand aimed at Chinese buyers, announcing the creation of Baojun in November 2010.^[2] The goal was to offer affordable cars that would compete with Chinese low-cost vehicle manufacturers such as Chery and Geely.^[3]

The first Baojun car to go on sale was the compact sedan 630. During the premiere, the manufacturer emphasized the relatively low price, which in 2010 amounted to the equivalent of 7,000 US dollars.^[4] During the construction work on the Baojun 630, mainly designers from the American General Motors participated.^[5]

The expansion of the Baojun brand's offer began in mid-2012, when Chevrolet Spark was added to its range, taking the name Baojun Lechi.^[6] Further investment plans to expand Baojun's portfolio were presented in April 2014,^[7] over the next 12 months, introducing two new models, whose concept dominated the range of the Chinese brand in the following years - minivana 730^[8] and SUV-a 560.^[9]

In April 2016, Baojun began exporting its model for the first time - the compact sedan 630 went on sale in Egypt i Algeria under the Chevrolet brand as the second generation of the Optra.^[10]

In 2018, Baojun expanded its offer with two more groundbreaking models - the first electric car in the form of microcar E100,^[11] and also the large SUV 530,^[12] which was the first vehicle in the history of the Chinese brand to be sold on global export markets under the Chevrolet brand.^[13] A year later, its production was also launched in the first factories outside China - in India under the MG brand as MG Hector^[14] and Indonesia as Wuling Almaz.^[15]

The Baojun brand has achieved great success in the domestic market Chinese, becoming one of the most popular car manufacturers in this country and recording dynamic annual growth. While annual sales amounted to 30,000 units in 2012, 5 years later it exceeded the threshold of 1 million copies.^[16] However, this result was not maintained in the following years, with declines of -200,000 copies per year on average.

New Baojun[change | change source]

In January 2019, Baojun announced a new model tactic New Baojun, assuming giving your vehicles a more avant-garde styling and supplementing the offer with higher-positioned vehicles with richer equipment.^[17] By the way, the manufacturer also changed its logo, replacing the existing shield with the image of a horse with a more minimalist diamond-shaped profile of a horse.^[18]

Since the implementation of the new tactic, Baojun models have been using a new naming order - passenger cars have been assigned the 'RC' prefix, "RS" SUV and crossover, and "RM" minivan. In the spring of 2021, Baojun introduced nomenclature based on proper names for the first time. In April 2021, the RC-5W was renamed Baojun Valli,^[19] in turn, the electric hatchbacka E300/E300 Plus was renamed Baojun KiWi EV.^[20]

In 2023, in the face of drastically decreasing demand and market failure of most combustion models produced so far, Baojun moved on to phasing out production of unsuccessful models and went on the offensive in the electric car class, presenting at the beginning the Yep crossover and the Cloud hatchback.^[21]

Products[change | change source]

Current products[change | change source]

Baojun KiWi EV (2021–present), city car, BEV
Baojun Yunduo (2023–present), subcompact car, BEV
Baojun Yep (2023–present), mini SUV, BEV
- Baojun Yep Plus (2024–present), enlarged variant of Yep
Baojun Yunhai (to commence), compact SUV, BEV

Former products[change | change source]

Baojun E100 (2017–2021), city car
Baojun E200 (2018–2021), city car
Baojun Lechi (2008–2021), city car
Baojun 310 (2016–2020), subcompact car
- Baojun 310W (2017–2020), enlarged wagon variant of Baojun 310
- Baojun 330 (2016–2017), sedan variant of Baojun 310
Baojun 360 (2018–2021), compact MPV
Baojun 560 (2015–2017), compact SUV
Baojun 630 (2011–2019), compact sedan
- Baojun 610 (2014–2019), hatchback variant of Baojun 630
Baojun 510 (2017–2021), subcompact SUV, also rebadged as Chevrolet Groove
Baojun 530 (2018–2021), compact SUV, also rebadged as Chevrolet Captiva, MG Hector, and Wuling Almaz
Baojun 730 (2014–2021), compact MPV, also rebadged as Wuling Cortez
Baojun RC-5 (2020–2021), compact sedan
- Baojun RC-5W (2020–2021), wagon variant of Baojun RC-5
Baojun RC-6 (2019–2021), mid-size coupe sedan
Baojun RM-5 (2019–2021), compact MPV
Baojun RS-3 (2020–2022), subcompact SUV
Baojun RS-5 (2019–2021), compact SUV
Baojun RS-7 (2020–2022), mid-size SUV