MG-Roewe full year sales expected to be 90,000

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Obviously at the moment Roewe is the stronger selling brand due to its newer line up with the big seller being the Roewe 550, the biggest seller for MG appears to the MG3SW, but that is likely to change once the MG6 hits the dealerships.

From Xinhua:

BEIJING, Jan. 4 – SAIC Motor Co Ltd sold more than 82,000 cars of its Roewe and MG brands between January and November of 2009, up 160 percent over the same period of the previous year. Full-year sales are expected to hit 90,000 units, the company said. The top Chinese automotive group, also partner of Germany’s Volkswagen and US carmaker General Motor, SAIC plans to double the sales of its two wholly owned brands to 180,000 in 2010.

It will soon introduce several new models of its own brands this year, including the MG6 compact, Roewe A-class model and the Roewe SUV.

The company is also developing new-energy vehicles that carry its own badges. It will commercially produce the Roewe 750 petrol-electric hybrid in 2010, which uses 20 percent less gasoline.

In May the company will unveil its first plug-in hybrid electric car, the Roewe 550, which can save more than 50 percent on fuel consumption. The model will be put into mass production by 2012.

Also in 2012, the company will launch its own brand of purely electric-powered cars that have zero emission.

Last month, the company announced it will set up a joint venture with US-based A123 Systems Inc, one of the world’s leading lithium-ion battery suppliers, to co-develop battery systems for its green vehicles.

According to Chen Hong, president of SAIC Motor Co Ltd, developing electric cars is an inexorable trend and auto manufacturers should prepare for the fundamental change.

SAIC has already successfully developed several kinds of new energy vehicles, including a dimethyl ether coach, hybrid coach, electric coach, ultra capacitor coach, hybrid sedan and plug-in fuel battery sedan.

The company plans to supply nearly 1,000 alternative energy vehicles to serve the World Expo this year, including purely electric-powered, as well as ultra capacitor coaches, fuel battery and hybrid vehicles. It displayed six new energy models for the Shanghai World Expo at the 2009 China International Industry Fair in November last year.

Research and development work on new energy vehicles in China started about a decade ago, but large-scale commercialization of clean cars remained out of reach, mainly due to high prices and recharging problems.