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Here comes BMW i3's Chinese copy

April 24, 2015 12:36 IST

Chinese car makers have been copying designs of European car makers and now there is a rip off of the BMW i3, which is called as the Jinma JMW2200.

The Jinma also gets very similar BMW-like styling be it the bumpers, piano black bonnet, shiny BMW front grille and somewhat resembling fascia too.

The brand names are similar too, as Jimma in Chinese means “Golden Horse”, while BMW in Chinese is called as Boama, which stands for “Treasure Horse”.

The interiors however look aged and there nothing BMW about them. It doesn’t get the BMW like styling and the round AC vents look dull.

The centre console too doesn’t much much too offer and this steering wheel has a weird colour combination too. The instrument cluster has digital dials, which is a complete contrast to the interior styling.

The drive selector looks like the manual box, and that too something from the early 1980s.

The rear is a bad copy of the i3, with LED tail lamps, black tail gate and similar design at the rear.

But the side profile is nothing like the BMW i3, as it has four door handles and all the doors can opened at any point, unlike the i3 where the rear doors can be opened only if the front one has been opened.

The Jinma JMW2200 is manufactured by a Chinese company called Qingzhou Da Jinma Motorcycle Corporation ($100 for pronouncing it correctly with a condition that you shouldn’t know Chinese) based in the city of Qingzhou.

The company started by making bicycles and today they are making electric vehicles. Wish, we could also upgrade so fast from our cycles to an electric vehicle.

The JMW200 has a very small 3kW electric motor and this has a top speed of 50km/hr and a range of 120kms.

Thank goodness, our Reva looks so modern and chic.

The Reva’s upcoming range of electric vehicles under the Mahindra leadership has uplifted the game further.

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