FAW Tianjin

About FAW Tianjin

Tianjin FAW Xiali Automobile Co., Ltd. was an automobile company based in Tianjin, China and a subsidiary of FAW Group. Its principal activity was the design, development, manufacture and distribution of automobiles sold under the Xiali, Vita and Junpai marques. It was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Tianjin FAW was founded in 1965 and was originally considered one of the "three smalls" of the Chinese automotive industry, together with Guangzhou Honda and Beijing. Tianjin FAW moved into third place in the Chinese market in 1997. By 2000 they were in second place, in spite of the low quality of their products. Production volumes were high because many towns used Xiali cars as taxicabs. Many of the smaller towns in rural China had Xiali cars as taxicabs well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Xiali parts were cheap and it was one of the cheapest cars to run in China. Due to their low running costs, Xiali cars in many towns survived as unofficial "black" taxies till well after they were replaced by other cars as legal taxies. Tianjin FAW subsequently lost market share to several new Chinese automobile manufacturers.