Explaining the Chinese Car Industry and Chinese Cars
Since the death of the Ford Sierra, the Ford Mondeo has quickly become the class standard for the sales rep mobile across Europe. Some sales reps aspire to the BMW, some go for the latest Opel Insignia, but the vast majority opt (or, at least, their fleet manager opts) for the safety of a Ford Mondeo, hence the term ‘Mondeo Man’ came into conception. It seems that every 30 something British male drives a Mondeo, even James Bond got into a Mondeo in the Bond film before last, when …
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All the latest on ‘Green’ cars in the PRC from both international manufacturers and domestic companies.
On the evening of June 30th in Nanjing Jiang Ning District a drunk driver named Zhang Ming Bao fell asleep at the wheel of his Buick Lacrosse which with an unconcious Zhang at the wheel managed to hit 9 people at the side of the road, and then crashed into six parked cars.
When the police arrived on the scene, they pulled a drunkern Zhang from his car. Zhang could not stand, his legs were shaking, he could not speak, his hands were shaking, and his eyes were bloodshot. A journalist …
Suzuki have undergone a technology transfer with their Chinese joint venture partner, Chang’an, which will see Chang’an build their own super mini car.
The Chang’an CV5 is based on the current Suzuki Alto platform, and is expected to be put into production at the end of 2009, and be launched in early 2010 with the choice of either 800cc engines, or 1.0l engines.
The Roewe 850Roewe 950 has been spotted again, this time in a Shanghai Roewe dealership’s shop:
The Roewe 95 is based on a Ssangyong Chairman, and uses an ex-Mercedes gearbox and engine. Since the Ssangyong bankruptcy, SAIC has been kicked out of the Ssangyong stable, so did the rights to the Roewe 95 get transfered along to SAIC, or did they loose it when Ssangyong went bankrupt? It was very much expected that SAIC would launch the Roewe 95 at the last Shanghai Auto Show, which was at the same time …
Fiat may have been given a bloody nose by the Chinese car market once before, but this is not putting them off from having another stab at the Chinese market place, this time with a new joint venture partner.
Fiat and Guangzhou Autos have been getting quite cozy with each other over the past 18 months with various technology trades happening, which has culminated in the latest joint venture. Fiat kept Guangzhou onside by selling them Fiat and Alpha Romeo platforms, on which Guangzhou Auto plan to build their small …
From the Telegraph:
Once a month, an Airbus A320 passenger jet rolls out of an airy hangar on the outskirts of northern port city of Tianjin, China’s window to Western ideas for a century and a half.
Within two years these $72m (£43m) twin-engine jets will be emerging once a week. The number of French, German, British, and Spanish engineers “shadowing” the local work force will be down to a handful.
By then production of identical models of the A320 workhorse will be tapering off slowly at the Airbus sister plants in …
