Archive for May, 2010
Chinese farmer makes own aircraft, ditches it in a field after 3 second flight
This farmer from Wuhan should be considered a national treasure for his actions which are more akin to the actions of Bo and Luke than those of your average Chinese farmer. The 45 year old farmer, Mr. Shu, spent 100,000rmb of his own money on assembling this particular home made plane which took to the [...]
MG6 gets another rave review in the UK
The MG6 just cant stop making friends in the UK, first it was Autocar that loved it, and now it is The Mirror newspaper that is giving it some love: A pleasant surprise is the only way to describe my drive in the new MG6. As you know, I’m no fan of Chinese metal, and MG’s [...]
April 2010 Top Sellers
April was another good month for the Chinese car industry with sales being large for practically every player, even for those who saw their sales drop microscopically in April. The top selling brands were as follows: Wuling-GM – 106,200 Shanghai GM – 87,700 Shanghai VW – 72,900 FAW-VW – 72,300 Beijing Hyundai – 57,000 Dongfeng-Nissan [...]
Turbo Days – Three Turbo Powered Chinese Cars
With the onslaught of high fuel prices year after year, Chinese automakers have realized that the days large displacement engines are gone, and the future is looking to be four cylinders and a turbo. Several Chinese automakers have already got their turbos powered on and in production cars, the first was Brilliance with their 1.8T [...]
Toyota Highlander airbag does not deploy in a serious accident
It seems that more media attention might be focused on Toyota in the next coming weeks after this latest crash: From Gasgoo: A Toyota Highlander had a road accident in Beijing on Saturday, which led to a collapse of 30 metres of the guardrail and serious damage of the car. The vehicle’s airbag didn’t pop [...]
Cars with less than Chinese5 fuel emissions banned from sale from July 2010
In a remarkable manouver, the Ministry of Information and Technology is reportedly planning to ban sales of cars that do not meet Chinese5 emissions standards from July 2010. The Chinese emissions standards are apparently one step behind Euro emissions standards, so a Chinese5 would be similar to a Euro4 specification. Apparently cars that don’t meet [...]
Hanmac ‘driver’ cellphones turn up in China
Hanmac turned up at the Beijing Auto Show with an unusual cellphone, and with an unusually high price. When I think of buying a new cellphone here in China, I usually aim for 3000rmb price range, sometimes I might splash out and go for 4000rmb models, but the Hanmac phone is something that I will [...]
Beijing Auto Show is over – the show in review
From the first public day on April 25th until the last day on May 2nd, over 800000 visitors swept past the six halls of the Beijing Auto Show making it the biggest in terms of actual visitors in the world over the period of the show. The peak day on May 1st saw 145,000 visitors [...]
Buick China to launch Crossover/SUV model to attract younger buyers
Although Buick maybe a senior citizen brand in the USA, the average age of Chinese Buick buyers appears to be at least half of the average American Buick buyer, but Buick China appear intent on going aiming at an even younger market segment. Buick China revealed a teasing corner of a future Buick SUV (top [...]
MG Zero Concept – aka MG3 spotted out testing
The cat is certainly out of the bag now, previously it was unsure if MG would name the MG Zero concept the MG2 or MG3 but the below spy shots clearly show an MG3 logo on the steering wheel. The MG Zero Concept car was unveiled last week to an impressed crowd at the Beijing [...]
Peugeot ready to announce Chang’an venture
For several years Peugeot have been readying to expand their line up but their JV partner Dongfeng is already stretched out with its Honda, Nissan, Kia, and PSA JV’s which have left each partner fighting for production capacity and engineering time from their Chinese partner, however a partnership with Chang’an will give Peugeot a mighty [...]
Will China save GM and co?
Jim Juback of Money Show has penned an excellent article on China’s auto industry and what it means for the world auto market, he goes into some detail over the three pages he wrote including how China is possibly setting itself up for an oversupply of cars in the next coming years: The world’s most [...]
The Saviour of Renault China: Chen Guo Zhang
If you’re not too familiar with Mr. Chen, he is the CEO of Renault Greater China. Renault ought to be doing extremely well in China with its range of cars that ooze sex appeal and no doubt have a magnetic pull towards the young consumers that make up the vast majority of China’s car buyers, [...]
BYD setting up its US home in Los Angeles
BYD has high hopes of entering the US market in the near future, and with rumors circulating of the E6′s entry into the US market later this year an American HQ might just be what BYD needs. From Yahoo News: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today was joined by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and BYD [...]
Brilliance officially stops exporting to Europe, no plans for resumption!
Brilliance were one of the first Chinese automakers to hit the roads in Europe, they went alongside Landwind and found out that Europe is not the fair play ground that they had originally imagined. ADAC, a German motoring organisation carried out some rather unofficial crash testing on the Brilliance BS6 and ultimately destroyed any chance [...]
Lifan aiming to sell 5000 electric cars in 2010
Lifan might be a small auto player when compared to other giants like BYD and Geely, as their sales are only 60,000 units per year, but Lifan are a strong auto maker in their local market of Chongqing and South West China where their cars are quite popular due to strong local support. Lifan might [...]
China car sales to top 16 million cars this year
At least according to this site: China’s sales of automobiles will reach 16.5 million vehicles in 2010, brokerage said on Monday (May 3, 2010). Huatai United Securities Limited, one of the nation’s leading brokerage, said in a report this week that China’s sales of automobiles will reach 11.9 million units from second quarter to fourth [...]
Chinese cars entering into Australia in droves, Lifan wants a slice of the pie too
Australia has become an unusual beach head in the spread of Chinese cars into the West with Greatwall, Geely, and with Chery and Lifan expecting to join the fray soon according to this article from news.drive.com.au: Fledgling Chinese car brand Lifan will soon sell cars in Australia and could eventually assemble cars locally. The small [...]
Guangzhou Auto’s first sedan to be produced in September 2010
Guangzhou Auto had a minor wow factor at the Beijing Auto Show with their self developed SUV and sedan line up. The sedan is named 传祺 (Chuan Qi) in Chinese, and is likely to be built off a Fiat platform that Guangzhou bought from Fiat prior to their joint venture deal. In 2005 Guangzhou Auto [...]
Editorial: The Media Onslaught on China’s Quality Report
A “report” initially published by Gasgoo has been widely circulated around the Internet. As a result, we have been graced with punchlines such as “Chinese automakers still can’t lick quality problems” from USAToday, and also Autoblog‘s “Chinese car quality complaints on the rise”. Because there’s nothing like good, old fashioned China bashing, right? Unfortunately, due [...]
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