Customer Corner : King Long – Subsidy Fraud and Fire-Prone Fleets

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Alright, let’s cut the bullshit. King Long Bus Manufacturing, the hulking Chinese outfit from Xiamen, has allegedly scammed governments, hawked fire-trap buses, and nicked designs while snuggling up to engine heavyweights like Cummins in a murky ethical swamp. Founded in 1988, this beast exports to over 100 countries, touting billions in revenue, but its wake includes a 1 billion yuan subsidy heist that stung taxpayers for more than £100 million. It’s an infuriating saga of greed, and we’re tearing into it.

The Great Subsidy Swindle: Robbing the Public Purse Blind

China’s mid-2010s electric vehicle surge was billed as an eco-revolution, propped up by billions in state subsidies. Yet King Long’s arm, Suzhou King Long – or Higer Bus – got nailed in 2016 as one of five firms fleecing the government for 1 billion yuan. They allegedly pumped up sales numbers, forged production papers, and pocketed cash for ghost buses or rigs that barely qualified as electric.

The Ministry of Finance didn’t hold back: fines matching half the stolen subsidies, plus total payback. Amid the chaos, a top exec at the parent group took his own life, though the firm pinned it on illness. This mess triggered a full subsidy rethink, cratered stock prices, and stuck the public with the tab. It’s bloody outrageous but oddly familiar – a company flogging green credentials while allegedly hoovering up taxpayer money like it’s free.

Mumbai’s White Elephants: A Fleet of Failures and Lies

Halfway around the world in India, King Long’s name turned into shorthand for rolling catastrophe. In 2007, Mumbai’s BEST transport authority splashed Rs 166 crore – roughly £15 million – on 259 “King Long” air-conditioned buses. What unfolded was a grinding 17-year ordeal of mechanical meltdowns: over 4,000 breakdowns in just two and a half years, engines boiling over into fires, air conditioning that fizzled in the heat, and vehicles that struggled up flyovers like they were Everest.

Branded “white elephants,” these money pits were side-lined by 2011 after repeated blazes, and the final ones were junked in March 2024. The twist that boils the blood? They weren’t authentic King Long products at all – merely Cerita chassis knocked together by local assembler JCBL, with just a handful of Chinese bits like axles and brakes. But the press, officials, and BEST itself slapped on the King Long label, torching the brand’s image. The company whinged about the unjust damage but barely lifted a finger to set the record straight sooner. And those eye-watering per-bus prices? They stink of overcharging and shady dealings, all while stranding commuters in the crossfire.

The Cummins Connection: Partners in an Ethical Quagmire?

King Long’s entanglement with Cummins, the American emissions cheats, goes back decades – at least to the early 2000s, when Cummins powerplants started throbbing in their undercarriages. By 2012, they were parading Euro V-compliant models at trade shows; come 2020, 200 buses rolled into Cyprus with Cummins innards; and as late as 2024, Australian deals spotlighted Euro 6 setups like the X11 engine.

Cummins spins this as a triumph for performance and lower emissions, but let’s not sugarcoat it. This is the same Cummins that shelled out a staggering $1.675 billion penalty in 2023 under the Clean Air Act – the biggest ever – for rigging defeat devices in millions of engines to skirt pollution laws. Hitching their wagon to a player like King Long, bogged down in alleged scams and quality disasters, prompts hard questions: is this whole ecosystem fostering “alternative” takes on morality? Two titans, potentially winking at each other’s shortcuts, screwing over the environment and everyday folk in the process.

Copycat Kings: Stealing Designs, Short-changing Innovation

The accusations don’t stop there – King Long’s been shadowed by claims of design pilfering for years. Their Kaige lineup, spanning minivans, minibuses, and even ambulances, apes the fifth-generation Toyota HiAce down to the body lines, proportions, and kit. It’s symptomatic of a larger Chinese auto habit, where state-tied firms like Jinbei and Foton tweak and replicate with abandon, and King Long’s Golden Dragon offshoot hawks similar X5 and Z4 variants.

These doppelgangers ship out to markets like India, Malaysia, and Jamaica – rebadged as Kingo in the latter – undercutting the originators without facing big courtroom reckonings so far. For a firm that crows about its R&D muscle, it’s galling: why bother inventing when you can clone and swamp the competition? It’s a raw deal for the genuine tinkerers sweating over fresh ideas in garages worldwide.

The Bigger Picture: A Legacy of Letdowns

King Long’s troubles capture the underbelly of China’s breakneck manufacturing ascent: public purse raids, transport nightmares for the masses, and innovation skimped through imitation. Their brand clocks in at 96 billion yuan in 2024, but it’s perched on foundations riddled with cracks. No fresh outrages have bubbled up in 2024 or 2025 – yet – but the threads persist, woven tighter by those Cummins bonds.

We’ll keep digging – regulators, investors and operators should demand answers.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Sources

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