Chinese automakers are imitating not to flatter but to profit.

Companies such as Chery, XiaomiiXiaomiXiaomi is a Chinese consumer electronics company that leads the country in smartphone manufacturing and sales.READ MORE, and Zeekr appear to be drawing heavily from premium Western car designs, banking on familiar aesthetics to attract buyers while keeping prices low. This strategy seems to have found success partly because legal enforcement can be challenging and consumers appear receptive to similar premium-inspired styling.

The new Jaecoo J7 hybrid from Chery, China’s largest auto exporter, resembles a traditional luxury SUV, Steve Eum, the company’s chief designer, recently admitted. While Eum, who previously worked at General Motors and Hyundai, avoided naming specifics, he said his team deliberately drew inspiration from a British brand.

“We pay a little homage to the traditional SUV,” Eum told Rest of World, referring to media reports calling the J7 a Range Rover Evoque knockoff. “All the innovation is just as good as, let’s say, a very premium vehicle at a much less cost.”

Chinese car companies have turned design copying into a standard practice while targeting overseas markets, design experts said. When budget brands sell near-identical versions at a fraction of the cost of luxury vehicles, premium manufacturers lose both their pricing power and brand exclusivity, triggering industrywide price cuts that benefit no one.

“When the knockoff becomes indistinguishable from the original, from design to quality, with price as the underlying attribute, it becomes a race to the bottom,” James Hope, head of transport design at the China Academy of Art and previously a designer at General Motors and Chery, told Rest of World.

The Shenlan SL03, which debuted in 2022, almost exactly duplicates the design of Tesla’s Model 3. The Zeekr 9X, launched this year, closely resembles the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, while Xiaomi’s SU7 earned the nickname “Mi Porsche” on Chinese social media for its similarity to Porsche’s Taycan model.

Legal consequences remain minimal despite occasional victories for Western brands. BMW successfully sued Shuanghuan Auto in 2007, and Jaguar Land Rover prevailed against Land Wind in 2019. Still, these isolated cases have failed to deter the broader copying trend.

A strong copyright case requires both obvious design similarities and clear proof of intent since vehicles can be developed independently and coincidental similarities may occur, Hope said.

“Otherwise, it could be open to interpretation, which is harder to prove,” he said.

Even domestic tolerance is showing signs of strain as competition intensifies. In 2023, Changan sued fellow Chinese automaker Geely over design plagiarism, marking a shift toward protecting intellectual property within China. Chinese internet users increasingly mock obvious copies, dubbing Xiaomi’s latest YU7 a Ferrari Purosangue clone.

The criticism has prompted some acknowledgment. Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, who just a year ago claimed his company hadn’t copied a single design, reversed course in a July social media post, saying Xiaomi drew inspiration from Tesla and Porsche. He defended the approach by saying Xiaomi benchmarked against established automakers because they were leaders in their respective fields.

Western executives are beginning to respond more directly to the copying phenomenon. Porsche’s former China CEO, Michael Kirsch, addressed Xiaomi’s similarities in an interaction with the media in April last year. “On the similarities of Xiaomi’s SU7 and Porsche, maybe good designs always resonate with each other,” Kirsch said.

Yet some voices within the industry are calling for a fundamental shift. Josef Kabaň, a former Rolls-Royce design chief who now works for China’s SAIC Motor, argued in April that it’s time for Chinese carmakers to evolve.

“Chinese automakers need to create authentic things,” Kabaň said, suggesting the industry has reached a crossroads where originality may finally become a competitive necessity.