Ismail Saghāb Eṣfahāni, deputy to Masoud Pezeshkian and head of the Organization for Optimization and Strategic Energy Management, called Chinese-made cars assembled in Iran “low-quality” and “high-consumption,” and said that if, instead of assembling a Chinese car, a Japanese car had been imported in full, “its price would have been cheaper for us.” He also, in response to describing Iran’s auto industry as an “infant” industry, said that 60 years have passed since this industry’s start.