At a recent event hosted by a Chinese automaker, executives brought up a phenomenon that caught them off guard.
A new model positioned domestically as "youthful, sporty, and intelligent" was exported to Europe, only to find that many of the serious visitors walking into showrooms were middle-aged consumers.
Image Credit: Gasgoo Auto + AI Generated
This isn't an isolated case. Ralf Brandstätter, chairman and CEO of Volkswagen Group China, has publicly noted that the average Chinese electric vehicle owner is under 35 — a digital native who values digital experiences and takes smart cockpits and voice interaction for granted. In Europe, the average EV owner is around 56, prioritizing physical buttons, vehicle durability, and handling dynamics. He even stated bluntly that if Chinese domestic models want to enter Europe, "they still need extensive compliance and user-level adjustments, which often come at a very high cost."
This, of course, doesn't simply mean the product positioning was wrong.
The problem may lie precisely with the concept of "positioning" itself: Why do we assume by default that a car belonging to young people in China should still belong to young people in Europe?
The auto industry is accustomed to drawing clear user personas for every product. Age, income, city of residence, preferred lifestyle — all distilled into labels like "young elite," "urban trendsetter," or "sophisticated family."
Yet once a car crosses a border, these labels may lose their validity faster than imagined.
Because what changes isn't just the consumer, but the entire coordinate system in which the vehicle exists.
Prices shift, competitors change, road conditions differ, family structures vary — and even the significance of "owning a car" in people's lives transforms.
Consequently, the same car arriving in another country may begin to belong to a completely different group of people.
This brings us to an unavoidable question in this series, "Who Defines the Car User?": If even the market itself can redefine a car, do automakers really need to be so obsessed with prescribing in advance "who should buy it"?
Why does a car stop working once it leaves its home market?
Over the past few decades, the Chinese market has effectively conducted many experiments for us.
Europeans love station wagons.
From the Volkswagen Passat Variant and Škoda Superb Combi to the Volvo V60 and Audi Avant, wagons hold a very stable place in European car culture.
They retain the driving feel of a sedan while offering cargo capacity close to an SUV — a perfectly rational form for Europe's highways, long-distance travel, and family needs.
But in China, despite years of promotion, wagons have never become a true mass market.
Price factors and supply shortages certainly played a role, but more importantly, the upgrade path for Chinese family vehicles over the past two decades was intercepted by SUVs.
A family upgrading from a sedan for the first time wants a larger rear row, a higher seating position, better passability, and a vehicle that covers more scenarios. Under these demands, the wagon's "low body + large trunk" formula held no natural advantage.
The same applies to Japan's Kei cars.
Narrow roads, parking constraints, and unique regulations and tax systems have jointly shaped Japan's massive light vehicle market. Minimal dimensions, boxy space design, and sliding doors became a complete product solution born from the way Japanese society operates.
Yet when similar microcars enter China, they struggle to replicate the social role of the Kei car.
China has indeed produced phenomenal products like the Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, but it solves a different set of problems: low-cost urban commuting, new energy license plates, a second family car, and demand for low-barrier auto consumption in lower-tier markets. It looks similar to a Japanese Kei car, but the underlying user logic is not the same.
North American pickups are even more typical.
The Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ram have long formed the most representative products in the U.S. market. Large-displacement engines, towing capacity, cargo beds, and wide bodies — locally, these are not just means of transport but are bound up with housing forms, work styles, outdoor life, and even car culture.
China's pickup market has developed for years, and policies have been loosening, yet it has not turned into another America.
The reason isn't hard to understand.
Most urban Chinese users lack independent garages and rarely need to tow RVs, haul yachts, or load large amounts of tools daily. A pickup exceeding 5 meters, or even approaching 6 meters, in a crowded city might bring not freedom, but parking difficulties.
Putting these three examples together yields an interesting conclusion: Vehicle models are never isolated industrial products, but the result of a society's roads, tax system, income, housing, family structure, and lifestyle.
Europeans liking wagons doesn't mean Chinese people should like them.
Japanese people needing Kei cars doesn't mean shipping one to China guarantees success.
Likewise, North Americans loving pickups doesn't prove the whole world needs an F-150.
In the past, we proved that mature overseas models couldn't be simply copied to China.
So today, why do we take it for granted that a new energy vehicle selling well in China should be exported to the world exactly as is?
Chinese Automakers Start Learning to "Build Cars Foreigners Need"
This is an increasingly noteworthy shift as Chinese automotive export reaches its current stage.
One of the most typical cases is the BYD RACCO.
At the 2025 Tokyo Motor Show, BYD unveiled this pure electric Kei car developed specifically for the Japanese market; in July 2026, the RACCO officially launched in Japan. According to BYD's own description, this is a product rebuilt around Japanese light vehicle requirements, adopting the "Super Tall" body, boxy space, and sliding doors that Japanese consumers find very familiar.
Image Credit: BYD
Market feedback arrived faster than expected. According to official BYD data, the RACCO received 1,002 orders just two weeks after launch, with the top-tier Premium model accounting for 80% — refreshing BYD's record for fastest order accumulation in Japan. This figure is nearly half of BYD's total sales in Japan for the first half of 2026, sufficient to prove the appeal of "built for the local market."
The significance of this lies not merely in "BYD built a small car."
Previously, when BYD entered the Japanese passenger vehicle market, it sold the ATTO 3, DOLPHIN, SEAL, and SEALION 7 — essentially bringing already mature global products to Japan.
The RACCO is different.
This time, BYD did not ask Japanese consumers to first understand Chinese electric vehicles; instead, it actively learned the automotive language Japanese consumers have used for decades.
What it brought to Japan was not necessarily a "Chinese bestseller," but capabilities in batteries, electric drive, electronic control, supply chains, and cost control.
As for the final form, that could be decided by the local market.
Of course, the RACCO has just entered the market, so it's too early to declare success. But this is precisely what makes it worth watching: The globalization of Chinese automobiles is shifting from "selling my car to you" toward "can I build the car you need?"
Another intriguing case is BYD's first pickup, the SHARK.
It didn't launch in China first, nor did it dive straight into the world's largest pickup market, the U.S. Instead, it chose Mexico for its global debut in May 2024. BYD subsequently brought the SHARK to more Latin American markets.
This choice alone is worth pondering.
If BYD simply saw "Americans like pickups" and built a Chinese full-size pickup to challenge the F-150, the matter would have been simpler.
But the SHARK chose another path.
It is a new energy pickup, yet it didn't simply replicate the traditional large-displacement American pickup route; it entered through Mexico, facing the existing usage base for pickups in Latin America, while seeking new differentiation through plug-in hybrids, electrification, and intelligence.
Image Credit: BYD
The market provided its answer. SHARK orders surpassed 12,000 just six months after launch, directly entering the top ranks of pickup sales in Mexico. In all of 2025, SHARK sold 18,100 units in Mexico, ranking fifth in local pickup sales. The same year, after entering Australia, it became the country's best-selling plug-in hybrid pickup with 18,073 units. By April 2026, SHARK cumulative sales had reached 40,000 units. These numbers indicate that a new energy pickup path avoiding the U.S. and deeply cultivating Latin America and the Asia-Pacific is being validated by the market.
This actually reveals a crucial proposition for the next stage of Chinese automotive exports: What exactly should Chinese automakers globalize?
Is it selling the Seagull worldwide?
Selling the Song PLUS worldwide?
Or is it bringing our electrification, intelligence, supply chain, and rapid development capabilities to the world, and then building Kei cars in Japan, cars Europeans truly need in Europe, and pickups locals truly need in Latin America?
If it's the latter, then the concept of a "global model" may also need rethinking.
What is globalized isn't necessarily a car.
What is globalized can be a complete set of vehicle-building capabilities.
Why Doesn't Toyota Sell the Same Kind of Toyota All Over the World?
If you want to understand this, Toyota remains one of the most valuable samples in the auto industry.
Toyota is one of the most deeply globalized automakers, yet its most interesting point is precisely this: The whole world knows Toyota, but the Toyota the world knows may not be the same Toyota.
American consumers think of the Camry, RAV4, Tacoma, and Tundra.
European consumers are familiar with the Yaris, Corolla, C-HR, and the hybrid products Toyota has cultivated over time.
In Southeast Asia, the Hilux, Fortuner, and Innova play completely different roles. The Hilux, Fortuner, and Innova even stem from Toyota's IMV global strategic project created years ago — sharing platforms and production systems, then forming different models based on the road, passenger, and commercial needs of different emerging markets.
Back in Japan, Toyota's product world is entirely different.
The Roomy, Sienta, Voxy, Noah, and a host of compact and small MPVs and domestic models constitute another Toyota. Toyota's current official model catalog still shows a product system spanning from the Pixis and Roomy to the Land Cruiser and Crown.
In other words, Toyota doesn't use a single user persona to explain the globe.
Instead, it does something else: Globalize the brand, platforms, manufacturing system, and technical capabilities, while keeping the product as close as possible to the local market.
Even Toyota's own production layout has long established localized manufacturing and operating systems according to regions like Japan, North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
So what Chinese automakers should truly learn from Toyota may never be "how to build the next global hit car."
Image Credit: Gasgoo Auto + AI Generated
Instead, it's how to achieve this: Turn Toyota into a global brand without requiring global consumers to buy the same Toyota.
This sounds like a product strategy, but behind it lies a completely different concept of globalization.
Elementary globalization is about finding the greatest global common denominator.
A car is designed to be acceptable to Chinese, German, Japanese, and Brazilian people alike, minimizing R&D costs and maximizing scale effects.
But once globalization truly goes deep, enterprises face differences instead.
· Where do consumers care more about the rear row?
· Where is high-speed stability valued more?
· Where is a seven-seater needed?
· Where do they like pickups?
· Where are parking spots only that big?
· Where must one car serve as both a family vehicle and a production tool?
At this stage, what enterprises truly need isn't a universal "global car," but a global system capable of responding quickly to different markets.
Therefore, BYD building a Kei car in Japan is more worth watching than "exporting yet another domestic hit to Japan."
The next question could even be:
· Since you can develop a Kei car for Japan, can Chinese automakers in the future truly develop a station wagon for Europe?
· Can you redefine the pickup for North America?
· Can you build the next Innova for local families in Southeast Asia?
Truly entering this stage means Chinese automobiles are no longer just "going overseas," but are starting to become truly multinational automotive enterprises.
Returning to the series "Who Defines the Car User?"
In the first part, "Are Car User Personas Failing?" we discussed that traditional labels like age, gender, and income are increasingly hard to use to define a consumer.
The second part, "When the Auto World Collides with the Entertainment Industry: Medicine or Poison?" discussed how, as personas fail, car brands are turning to celebrities, values, and identity to find users again.
The third part, "Over 700 New Cars in Seven Months: How Many Lives Can They Piece Together?" found that when all brands sell identity, so-called "identity" can become just another label.
Now, when the perspective shifts from China to the global stage, the question becomes clearer.
A car defined by a Chinese company as a "smart car for young people" may become a choice for middle-aged people in Europe; a Kei car perfectly reasonable in Japan may lose its soil in China; a pickup Americans can't live without might become a toy for a few in Chinese cities.
Perhaps from the start, automakers didn't need to be obsessed with prescribing "who should buy this car."
What truly needs defining is the value the product can provide, and whether the enterprise has the ability to understand what different markets truly need.
As for who ultimately walks into the showroom and sits in the driver's seat, the market often provides an answer completely different from the PowerPoint.
And the true globalization of Chinese automobiles shouldn't be about making the whole world accept the cars Chinese consumers like.
It is about giving the Chinese automotive industry a capability: whether consumers live in Tokyo, Munich, Mexico City, or Shanghai, to be able to build the car that truly belongs to them.
