Archive for April, 2010
The Tiggo that Chery should have had on show!
For this years Beijing Auto Show, Chery wheeled out the current version of the Tiggo3 which is the same model that they’ve had in production since 2006. Their Italian partner, Dr, released a face lift version for the Italian market which was put into production for various markets within China, but the old reliable Tiggo [...]
Ford F150 Raptor turns up in China via the gray market!
The Chinese gray car market is a large and beautiful one, you often see some very random cars cruising the streets of China and do wonder how on earth they arrived in the Middle Kingdom. Last week I found myself staring at a mark 4 VW Golf Wagon in Beijing obviously an import from somewhere, [...]
Ford Edge in China, but will it sell?
Let’s be honest here, overly American styled cars have never sold well in China, we just need to look at sales of the Chrysler Sebring, the Dodge Caliber and just about everything else from Americas automotive empire, aside from the Jeep Cherokee of course, and to a lesser extent the 300C. The Ford Edge has [...]
Geely’s high hopes not yet dampned by a hard reality
This years Beijing Auto Show showed that Geely do have the flair and the will to produce a mass range of cars from electric buggies, to mid size pick up trucks, but they don’t have the market yet in China to put all of their models into production. The Associated Press has a very good [...]
Forget Beijing Auto Show – The action is moving to Shanghai!
The Beijing Auto Show may have been the big automotive show in the first half of the year, but the next big auto show is set to be at the Shanghai Expo which opens officially this weekend. A mass of new energy and hybrid cars are set to launch at the Expo which is being [...]
Hybrid and pure electric vehicles to account for 15% of Chinese market by 2020
The China Daily is reporting that the at least 15% of the auto market will be made up of hybrid and electric auto sales by 2020, whilst 7 to 12% of global sales will be electric vehicles. So is China expected to jump over other markets when it comes to electric car development? The answer [...]
Greatwall’s Beijing Auto Show
Greatwall was one of the stronger visitors to this years Beijing Auto Show with them displaying off a multitude of new vehicles, and more importantly their first sedans and new SUV’s. GWM may have started as a SUV maker, but they are quickly branching out into other market areas, such as sedans, which are potentially [...]
Geely iG – small, hybrid, and has gullwing doors – seriously, what more could you want?
Gullwing doors are quite frankly awesome, they should certainly be on more production cars, of which the Geely IG. If you though the IG was simply a concept car you are wrong. A quick chat with Geely’s PR director at the Beijing Auto Show revealed that the vast majority of Geely cars on show at [...]
What is happening at Lifan Auto?
Lifan Auto are located in what is being called The Chinese Detroit due to its massive car producing industry, which is mostly due to Chang’an but Lifan are doing very well with their car and especially motorbike production. Over the past few years it seems that Lifan have almost stalled with their car plans, and [...]
Hunan University develops mid size sedan in class
The first model we posted from Hunan University was an interesting beast indeed, especially as its wheels are in all the wrong places. However it seems that the Hunan Uni students were not so revolutionary with the design of their other car, which is a mid sized sedan with all the correct proportions. Although the [...]
Dongfeng hybrid concept – looking chunky and green
Dongfeng are lagging behind their state owned competition SAIC and FAW by a long shot when it comes to self developed vehicles, although FAW ultimately dumped their Besturn brand they are working hard on a new series of cars, SAIC are receiving orders for MG and Roewe cars faster than they can make them. Dongfeng [...]
Beijing Auto Show in review
This piece was written by Ash Sutcliffe of CCT for Just-Auto.com: This year’s Beijing Auto Show was most notable for its lack of notability – at least in the sense that Chinese auto shows used to be jaw-droppingly notable. The weirdly wonderful or eye-catching obvious doppelganger has been replaced by something quite a bit more [...]
Roewe E1 Concept Car – is the Rover Spiritual back from the dead?
The Rover Spiritual was set to be the car that would take over from the ancient Rover Metro and take Rover back into the heart of mass producing small cars, which was essentially its bread and butter. The Spiritual concept broke free at the Geneva Auto Show way back in the spring of 1997, Rover [...]
Feel the sting: CH Auto Aculeus Concept
CH Auto is a design house based in Beijing, and has shown us the Scorpio concept in the 2008 Beijing Auto Show. They are back this year with an updated version of the Scorpio, named after the sting in a scorpion – “Aculeus”. Design-wise it’s easy to “see” hints of Ferrari, Maserati, BMW, Aston Martin [...]
Hunan University designs odd car, students claim no self medication went on during design process
At this years Beijing Auto Show, Hunan University were eager to show off a series of self developed car designs from their technology center. Clearly there are some serious bright students at Hunan Uni, as they decided that the traditional two at the front, two at the rear wheel configuration was not upto scratch, thus [...]
Nissan Micra comes to China, becomes the March
The sixth generation of the Nissan Micra arrived in China this week, except it will be carrying the Nissan March name which it shares with the Japanese market model. The sixth generation March is quite away from early generations in terms of styling, but still remains fairly unique amongst other Japanese and European mini cars. [...]
Nissan Leaf turns up in China, gets Chinese name too
The Nissan Leaf turned up at the Beijing Auto Show this week and brought with it a Chinese name of 聆风 (Ling Feng) and a taste of the future. Thankfully on Friday morning Carlos Ghosn himself was on hand to explain to the assembled media which were made up of local and foreign representatives alike. [...]
Geely at the Beijing Show
Geely had a mass array of cars on show at the Beijing Auto Show, only there was one problem: Not many of them are actual production cars. Usually at a car show, a manufacturer will deliver around five to six production models, and then possibly one or two concept cars, perhaps with one being a [...]
MG Zero – Small, compact, and set to be awesome!
The MG Zero concept might be a small car, but it is one that is likely to hit a high note when it eventually gets launched as either the Roewe 150, or more than likely the MG2. The MG2 is a strike into a market which is currently ‘hot’ the world over, small high quality [...]
Audi’s twenty year run away success in China is about to come crashing down
Sensationalist headlines aside, it appears that BMW and Mercedes are both improving their line up in China to appeal to the local markets just as Audi did 10 years ago, but the question remains can they catch up, and will Audi stay ahead of the game? From Business Week: Audi AG’s two decades of dominance [...]
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