ONE of China’s largest and oldest automakers, First Automotive Works (FAW), is poised to launch its diesel truck range in Australia and is now recruiting dealers in readiness for a launch in the first quarter of 2025.

FAW was founded in 1953. It now makes 3.5 million cars, buses and trucks a year and employs 120,000 people.  

It is wholly owned by the Chinese Communist Party and sits second in Big Four ranking with SAIC Motor, Dongfeng Motor Corporation and Changan Automobile. Its foreign partnerships in China include Toyota and Volkswagen Group (selling under the Audi, VW and Jetta brands)

The company plans to roll out a series of diesel trucks starting with the JH6. A total of four models will be rolled out over 2025. 

FAW has established a national head office at Ballarat Road, Deer Park in Melbourne’s west under the CEO of FAW Oceania, Clinton Zhou.

Director of dealer operations, Andrew Smith, told GoAutoNews Premium that the company will field trucks in the Heavy, Medium and Light sector. It would not sell vans or cars in the short term, he said.

Mr Zhou told GoAutoNews Premium: “The current model that is compliant with ADRs is JH6. We will introduce another prime mover model J7 next year with a bigger engine and more fancy specs. The JK6 will be the medium size platform and we will have another one called JM6 next year.  The Light truck will be model Tiger, which will be introduced with diesel and EV options. 

Mr Smith, who supported his father Jim Smith in premium franchises such as Lotus, Aston Martin and Jensen and was an importer of Lamborghini, received his truck experience at Toyota’s Hino.

He said that dealer recruitment was under way with current truck dealers and would continue into early 2025.

Andrew Smith and Clinton Zhou

“We are not looking at having a dealer on every corner, we want a very small number of dealerships as opposed to service outlets and we are looking for the right people to be in association with the brand.” 

“We won’t start until we do have full retail dealers in every state and territory. There will be more service-only outlets but we are not really able to put a number on that yet.”

Mr Smith said the JH6 in Euro 6 versions, would retail around the $250,000 mark.

He said that while FAW had electric trucks “we are not really in the EV market at this point. We’re very much diesel trucks. We do have electric trucks, and we do have hydrogen trucks but we’ll be selling trucks predominantly in the diesel market until we decide that the time is right. 

Mr Smith said volume aspirations are initially modest.

“I think in the first year it will be in the low hundreds and we will build from there. But FAW has big ambitions in four to five years of sort of having a larger footprint with a triple zero on the totals at some point. But that’s going to take a while to get to that stage.” 

Staff have been recruited and will commence their roles in January.

Mr Zhou told GoAutoNews Premium: “We are looking forward to developing a brand with the strength of FAW in the highly-competitive Australian truck market.”