By Julian Cardenas
The Toyota Vios has long since reigned as the King of Subcompact cars in the Philippines as seen with its huge sales and popularity as a working horse vehicle where corporations often use it as a taxi or a company car of choice.
Its rivals from Honda , Nissan and Hyundai could only dream of snatching the Vios’s throne but now there is a new kid on the block and is willing to battle the Vios in every sector possible.
Hailing from Ningbo, China – with Swedish Technology, The Geely Emgrand makes its entrance in the Philippines aiming to get a slice of the sub compact market.
2010 saw Geely acquire the famous Swedish automaker Volvo from Ford and has since then launched joint ventures with other companies such as Daimler with the aim to improve their vehicles and its technology.
By 2019, Geely made a second crack at the Philippine market with the crossover Coolray which turned out to be a huge success as its value, technology and looks impressed the Philippine consumers so much that it became one of the best selling vehicles instantly.
By July 2022, Geely had racked a total of 1,058 sales, a record high.
Moving forward, Geely targets to increase their sales with the introduction of the Emgrand subcompact sedan – aiming to compete against the Honda city , Hyundai Reina , Kia soluto, Nissan Almera, Mg 5 and the King Toyota Vios.
Already by the looks, the designers at Geely did not hold back as the entire car was designed to look aggressive and sporty, yet tamed at the same time.
If one is used to Volvo vehicles, they would definitely sense the Swedish manufacturer’s engineering footprints almost immediately as the Emgrand boasts a premiumly spacious and comfortable interior, not to mention a huge trunk space of 500-liters.
The “Volvo touch” doesn’t stop there as the Emgrand possesses a user-friendly smart infotainment system which allows the driver to operate the air-conditioning , sound system , rear view cameras , driving modes and the smart sunroof.
In addition, its 1.5-liter, 4 cylinder engine produces a decent 102 bhp and is linked to either a 5-speed manual or an 8-Speed tiptronic transmission. And with an achievable fuel consumption of 19.9 km/L (combined city and highway), the Emgrand definitely inserts itself as a perfect fuel crisis fighter.
Prices of the Emgrand range from php.735,000 to 999,000, yet it’s also worth noting that even the base (S) variant offers a generous amount of equipment such as the smart infotainment system, among others. However, the push-start ignition, smart brake and sunroof systems are exclusively available for the higher variants already.
Nonetheless, these are features that the base Vios variant could only dream about. So ultimately, what can this mean?