Because the Antitrust doesn’t buy Dr Automobiles’ sovereignist advertisements
The Competition and Market Authority has started an investigation against Dr Automobiles srl for "possible illicit conduct during the promotion and sale of dr and Evo branded cars". According to the Agcm, the Molise company omitted relevant information on the origin of the cars, implying that they were produced entirely in Italy
Is there anyone truly convinced that Italy, despite the industrial decline in the automotive sector, has welcomed a new brand into the pantheon of brands produced in the Bel Paese. And that alongside the logos of Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Lancia, that of dr Automobiles should also stand out, which boasts the tricolor right down to the brand and has been able to find its way into the hearts of motorists, if only for its highly competitive prices.
Matteo Salvini , leader of the League, had also recently been there in the Molise factories to affix the sovereignist imprimatur: "Dr Automobiles Groupe is an extraordinary company because already doing business in Italy is a remarkable thing given the bureaucracy, doing it in Molise is worth double”, stated the Minister of Transport at the end of a visit to the Macchia d'Isernia headquarters last June. “This applies to Dr or Molisana, because here there are considerable costs of transport, logistics and transfer of the product to consumers”, explained the secretary of Carroccio.
THE BUSINESS IDEA OF FORMER PILOT MASSIMO DI RIIO
However, it cannot be said that the cars produced by the former driver Massimo Di Risio (hence the acronym), founder and president of the dr Automobiles Group, are totally Italian. The adventure began in 2006, in Macchia d'Isernia.
At the time, the brand relied on Iper supermarkets for distribution. Di Risio's goal was to assemble cars, with slight aesthetic modifications, coming from China, produced by the Asian giant by Chery Automobile with headquarters in Wuhu.
CARS COMING FROM WUHU AND HEFEI
In the Italian factory the components are assembled to fine-tune and market them under its own brand. Which for this very reason cannot be defined as truly Italian.
Startmag had mentioned this some time ago, talking about the Italian landing of the Asian brand which, for its arrival in Europe, chose our country. Moreover, precisely because of the agreements with Dr Chery it has already been in Italy for years as Dr Automobiles . The debut car, for example, the DR 5 was none other than the Chinese Chery Tiggo adapted for the Italian market. The DR 1, a 5-door city car with an economical price and reduced features, was instead closely related to the Riich M1 sold in China also by Chery.
In the West, Chery is a brand that has so far been completely unknown. Car enthusiasts will have heard about it in the early 2000s, when it became known above all for a very long legal dispute with the American Chevrolet, a division of GM, which accused it of having copied the South Korean Daewoo Matiz of which it had become the recent owner.
And indeed the Chery QQ strongly resembled the Matiz , with only one difference: the price. To purchase it, the equivalent of 4,800 euros was enough, in short, how much you pay for a good scooter. It was also good-naturedly mocked by the two well-known British journalists in the sector, Jeremy Clarkson and James May in their Top Gear special dedicated to China, included among the "clone" cars of the then privateer Asian market.
The other Molise brand, Evo, an "entry-level" and even cheaper brand, fresh from its debut (2020) also has its roots in China and is mounted on vehicles of Jac Motors, a Chinese-owned Chinese giant, based in Hefei, Anhui. The Evo3 Electric, a zero-emission compact SUV, is developed on the basis of the Chinese JAC iEV7S.
And Dr Automobiles has recently signed an agreement with another Asian car giant, Baic of Beijing, which will allow it to import and market cars exclusively for the whole of Europe. In reality, Dr and Baic had been in business for longer: the Evo 5 was already built on the basis of the Baic X3.
AGCM'S COMPLAINT
In short, although Salvini is gunning for Chinese electric cars and Dr Automobiles' pay off is "an Italian story", the Molise ones come from the Far East. And according to the Agcm it should be made explicit .
The Competition and Market Authority has started an investigation against dr Automobiles srl for "possible illicit conduct during the promotion and sale of dr and Evo branded cars, in violation of the rules of the Consumer Code".
In particular, "the company would incorrectly represent, both on its corporate website and in online advertising campaigns and in the mass media, information regarding the place of production of the dr and Evo brand vehicles. Furthermore, in some cases it would omit information relevant on their origin, suggesting that they are produced entirely in Italy, while they are vehicles of Chinese production". Also for this reason, the Authority's officials carried out inspections at the headquarters of the company dt Automobiles srl with the help of the Special Antitrust Unit of the Guardia di Finanza.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/antitrust-pubblicita-dr-automobiles/ on Fri, 20 Oct 2023 05:41:45 +0000.