Talking with a long-term car industry executive recently and the discussion centred on resale values. For the long-established car companies, resale values are very important and seen as a means of establishing brand loyalty with customers. As such, price discounting is carefully managed so as to not disadvantage owners who purchased their car at full retail. However, the arrival of new Chinese brands has changed that traditional way of thinking. With unsold stock heading into the new year heavy discounts have been the order of the day on Chinese models launched only last year. As my industry colleague suggested the Chinese are technology companies rather than car companies, to them a car is purely a commodity like a flat screen TV and prices reductions are the order of the day – resale values it seems mean little although at trade in time it will mean plenty to their customers. I’m David Berthon.

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