Taiwan has been a great provider of automotive parts like supplying spare parts, performance parts and motorcycles as well as scooters. But they have only one proper car brand, called Luxgen. This year at the 2011 Shanghai Motor Show they previewed an all electric luxury concept car called the Luxgen Neora.

What this preview has told me is that the 'cold war' between the Republic of China (a.k.a Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (a.k.a mainland China) does not stop Taiwan made cars from attending motor shows in China. It also tells us that Taiwan's Luxgen wants to be taken seriously.

Let's start with some specs before I tell you readers what I think about the Neora. It is a 4 door sedan powered by an electric motor with 240hp driving the front wheels. It unfortunately weighs 1,600kg and supposedly hits 100km/h from zero in 6.5seconds as well as reaching a top speed of 250km/h. The electric motor gets its juice from a 48kWh lithium ion battery set and it can travel up to 400km before a recharge.

All pretty impressive, but since it is just a concept car I sometimes believe that you can put all sorts of numbers for the press and public to eat up. I am also ignoring the fact that the press release also mentions 1,600kg and 'lightweight' together when a Honda Accord 2.4 of the same size would weigh close to 150kg less.

But what I'd like to blabber about right now is how the car "represents Luxgen's brand spirit of Think Ahead, and the new form of appearance will be the design cues for Luxgen's upcoming models in the future,"

To me, Luxgen's future styling cues tell me that it will have the basic shape of a Hyundai Sonata, the rear (c-pillar onwards) of a Mazda 6 and the front end from an Acura based Accord kind of car. It will also have an interior that looked like it also came from a Honda design studio with some Jaguar type knobs detailed into it. While the Neora looks cohesive and well thought out, it is a mix and match design in my opinion.

This totally reminds me of a Hyundai ten or so years back. The car manufacturer basically copied European designs and tried to make it work. Remember the Sonata with the retro Jaguar aping exterior? Now this is Luxgen following the footsteps of Hyundai. So the next question is, will a Luxgen be like Hyundai ten years from now and have their own identity or then again, will the company still be around by then especially with the fluid nature of the automotive sector?