While going through the photos sent in by our Geneva Motor Show correspondent Robert Kah / SB-MEDIEN, we saw an interesting directory titled ‘Chinese industry spy’. The directory contained some interesting photos.
Basically it was photos of this guy who was at the Geneva Motor Show during the press (and trade?) days and was looking very very closely at a Peugeot 308 SW, the wagon version of the new Peugeot 308 which recently won the 2014 European Car of the Year.
After closely inspecting the car and taking some close-up photos, observing things like gaps and such, he would write his findings down in a table on a piece of paper he was carrying.
Our photographer got a close up shot of his paper – the data to be filled in by make and model based on cars that could be seen at the motorshow. Mind the Renault ‘crio’. Once I saw the text on the paper which was filled with Japanese characters rather than Chinese, I knew this researcher wasn’t Chinese as per what the photographer assumed.
Most cars are refreshed every five to seven years, but the work on a next generation model starts way before a car’s eventual release date. The learning never ends and you need to constantly one-up your competitor with every new generation of car.
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AI-generated Summary ✨
Comments largely agree that automakers routinely conduct market research by studying competitor vehicles, often buying and dismantling them for fitness evaluation and benchmarking, rather than illegal spying. Many emphasize this is standard industry practice across manufacturers worldwide, including German and Japanese brands. Some suggest that such activities help improve product quality and design, and even point out that companies like Proton or Toyota have used similar methods. A few comments humorously speculate about the intent or identity of the person examining vehicles at shows, with some dismissing accusations of espionage as exaggerated or off-topic. Overall, the sentiment is that industry players constantly gather competitive intelligence, which benefits consumers through better products, and that such practices are normal, legal, and part of strategic product development.