Brilliance Auto

**Brilliance Auto Group** (officially HuaChen Group Auto Holding Co., Ltd.) is a Chinese automobile manufacturer headquartered in Shenyang, Liaoning, China. Its products include automobiles, microvans, and automotive components. Its principal activity is the design, development, manufacture and sale of passenger cars sold under the Brilliance brand.

Brilliance Auto Group holds a 42.48% shareholding in the Bermuda-incorporated Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Limited, which is listed on the Frankfurt and Hong Kong stock exchanges. Brilliance China Automotive Holdings in turn holds 50% of BMW Brilliance, a joint venture with BMW which produces, distributes and sells BMW passenger cars in mainland China. Brilliance China Automotive Holdings also holds 60.9% of Shenyang Brilliance JinBei Automobile Co., Ltd., which designs, develops, manufactures and sells minibuses sold under the Jinbei brand.

In 2010, Brilliance Auto Group and its subsidiaries had an annual production capacity of 800,000 vehicles although capacity additions may have come on-line since. In 2012, the company manufactured almost 650,000 vehicles, the 8th-largest production of any Chinese vehicle maker that year. Roughly 70% of production was consumer sedans.

## History

The origins of Brilliance Auto Group can be traced to a state-owned auto factory which, under Yang Rong, became a leading Chinese maker of minibuses between 1991, the year Yang invested in the company, and 2002, when he fled into exile.

In 2003, BMW and Brilliance signed a deal for the production of BMW-branded sedans in China. Its models are, alongside FAW Group Audis, Beijing Benz Mercedes Benzes, and Lexuses, some of the only Western luxury cars to have gained popularity in the Chinese market.

Alongside many Chinese automakers looking to enter the US market, Brilliance postponed such plans in 2008 but has briefly sold cars in Europe. Sales in several European countries stopped in 2010.

Brilliance divested itself of the loss-making Zhonghua branch on December 31, 2009, to its ultimate shareholder Huachen Automotive Group Holdings Company Limited, which continues to sell the vehicles Zhonghua makes.

In 2009, the company was the eighth-largest automaker in China. That year it sold over 150,000 passenger cars and nearly 80,000 minibuses.

In 2010, Brilliance was one of the top ten most-productive carmakers in China coming in ninth and selling a half million units.

It produced 523,500 whole vehicles in 2011, ranking eighth among Chinese vehicle makers in terms of production volume. In 2014, it ranked fifth among all Chinese vehicle makers.

## Brilliance owned companies and marques

* Huasong
* Jinbei
* Mianyang Huarui
* Soar Auto
* Zinoro

## Models

* Brilliance BC3 (M3)
* Brilliance C3
* Brilliance H220
* Brilliance H230
* Brilliance H320
* Brilliance H330
* Brilliance H3
* Brilliance H530
* Brilliance H7
* Brilliance V3
* Brilliance V5
* Brilliance Zhonghua Grandeur (BS6)
* Brilliance Zhonghua Junjie (BS4)
* Brilliance Zhonghua M1
* Brilliance Zhonghua Tun

## Operations

**Subsidiaries**

While the company also manufactures gasoline engines and other automotive components, automobile manufacture is performed by the indirectly held subsidiaries Shenyang Brilliance JinBei Automobile Co Ltd and BMW Brilliance Automotive Co Ltd of which Brilliance has 33% and 50% ownership respectively. As of June 2011, the company may actually have far less than 33% ownership of Shenyang Jinbei Automotive Co Ltd (SSE: 600609).

**Production bases and facilities**

BMW-branded autos are made at a production base in the Northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang completed in 2004, and ongoing construction may see this base increase its production capacity to 200,000 units/year by 2012.

An engine-making production base may be located in Mianyang, Sichuan province.

## Joint ventures and alliances

**BMW Brilliance**

In 2003 BMW and Brilliance agreed to make select products of this German luxury carmaker in China. The joint venture makes the BMW 3 Series, the BMW 5 Series, and began producing the BMW X1 in 2012. Indigenously produced engines will appear in some offerings soon, and the company plans to bring total production capacity to 300,000 by 2013.

These vehicles may differ slightly from those sold in other markets under the same names. As of mid-2010 almost 60% of the components used to manufacture the China-built BMWs were imported to China.

**Toyota**

Brilliance has made microvans with Toyota technology since the early 1990s, but the two do not have a fully fledged joint venture. Their partnership has been described as "licensing arrangements and alliances."

**SAIPA**

In 2015, Brilliance announced it had started joint production with SAIPA of Iran, to produce the H300 and H200 models, under the local brand name of Saipa.

## Sales

A total of 188,143 Brilliance marque vehicles were sold in China in 2013, making it the 25th largest-selling car brand in the country in that year (and the 10th largest-selling Chinese brand).

**European exports**

In 2007 Brilliance's BS6 sedan performed poorly in a crash test conducted by Germany's ADAC, receiving only one out of five possible stars in the Euro NCAP rating. Brilliance then redesigned the car, changing at least sixty components, and it saw a three-star performance in a crash test performed by Spain's Idiada. However, the price also rose considerably, and the importer (HSO Motors) went bankrupt in November 2009. Brilliance then tried to go it alone, but with high pricing and considerable market reluctance after the well-publicized crash test failures, exports to Europe were ended in April 2010 with no immediate plans for resumption.