Three-child policy: GM’s China venture Wuling gets ahead of likely baby boom with nine-seat vans to cater for bigger families
- SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile hopes to tap future demand from larger families under the country’s new three-child policy
- Unlike its bestselling Hongguang Mini EV, however, the new van will be powered by a traditional petrol engine
“SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile heeds the government’s recent call for allowing couples to have three children, and will roll out a brand new nine-seat car to cater to the demands of big families with more people, with multiple uses for different occasions,” said the home-grown car maker on its official WeChat account late on Thursday. “Wuling will make whatever is in public demand.”
The joint venture between state-run car giant SAIC, General Motors, and Liuzhou Wuling Motors in China’s southwestern Guangxi autonomous region, said that the nine seats will be arranged in four rows, with two seats in each of the front three rows and three in the back.
“We started to study the new design last year and we will put the new model into mass production and deliver the vehicles to the market this year,” said Zhou Xing, marketing director at SAIC-GM-Wuling. He said the price and other features such as size, range and engine power will be announced later.
Families were given the go-ahead to have two children, but apart from an initial spike the following year, the birth rate has continued to fall. Last year, China recorded 12 million births, its lowest level in 60 years, according to a once-in-a-decade census released last month.
