Archive for July, 2010
VW to set up new factory in China
From The Financial, and VW: The Volkswagen Group is to build a new vehicle production plant in Yizheng, Jiangsu Province, as part of its long-term growth strategy for China. According to Volkswagen, the contracts were signed today by Prof. Dr. Jochem Heizmann, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft with responsibility for ‘Group [...]
Facelift Chery Tiggo3 – Looking nice!
A facelift Chery Tiggo3 has been spotted out testing yet again, and seems to be a seriously nice looking vehicle. This version of the Tiggo3 was not on show at the Beijing Auto Show this year, instead Chery have been pushing their DR Edition Tiggo3 here in China. The facelift Tiggo3 appears to have taken [...]
New Chevrolet Aveo sedan and hatch blueprints
The Chevrolet Aveo is one of GM’s big hitters in China, the economy box from the GM Korea division has proven itself well in China under the Chevrolet brand for quite a few years, and looks like it will be getting yet another life extension in China: It seems that above models are taking on [...]
Plugin Toyota Prius to be made in China
The Toyota Prius has never been a major seller for Toyota in China, in fact it is probably a major point of profit loss for FAW-Toyota that produce the car in China. Initial sales started high but gradually tapered off to an all time low, with just 197 Prius being built in China in 2009, [...]
MG well received at Goodwood
The Goodwood Festival of Speed was held last week and MG were apart of the fun. Thousands of automotive fans needs got their first glimpse of the MG6 in the UK, whilst more than 40 automotive fans were able to take the MG6 for a spin up the demanding hill climb sections at Goodwood. Ten [...]
JMC to possibly produce Subaru Forrester
Since 2004 Subaru have been importing cars into China and will finally meet the 100,000 units per year sales marker in China in 2010. 100,000 units per year is an important milestone for Subaru China as they have previously stated that they begin production in China once the figure is reached. As expected, Subaru are [...]
Five biggest events in the development of the Chinese auto industry
Following on from our article, The Five Biggest People in the Chinese Car Industry, where we looked at five people who are the top of their game in the Chinese auto industry, we thought we would take a second look at the biggest events that have taken place in the Chinese car industry. These are [...]
Nissan sales up 47% in first half, Honda, Mitsubishi and Mazda have strong showing too
From Nikkei: New-vehicle sales volumes in China increased sharply for Nissan Motor Co. (7201) and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (7211) in the first half of this year, but Honda Motor Co. (7267) and Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) undershot overall market growth here. Nissan’s volume rose 47% thanks to robust demand for the Sylphy sedan and other [...]
MG5 aka Roewe 350 renderings
The MG series of upcoming and already produced cars are the best looking ones to date bar none, they may lack the aggressive style of the Z era of cars but MG is now under new ownership and obviously has a new style and flair. Renderings of the MG5 have made it onto the internet [...]
Volvo – Geely deal to be completed by third quarter, Volvo factory to be located in Daqing
For a short time it had seemed that the Volvo sale to Geely had faltered, but now it appears that deal will be wrapped up and inked by the third quarter of 2010 according to Chinese media reports. Initial reports indicated that Ford and Geely had issue at the IPR at stake which came with [...]
Greatwall sales up 87.6% in first half
Greatwall announced today that its year on year sales for the first half of the year were up an amazing 87.6%, whilst the rest of the market appeared to have suffered slightly in June, Greatwall continued on strong. In the first half of the year, Greatwall Motors (GWM) sold 72,000 of the flagship Hover series [...]
New cars coming soon to China, and some facelifts too
Summer time is always a poor time for car sales, its simply just too hot to get customers through the big doors at dealerships especially when its average at least 35 degrees centigrade during the day in many east coast cities. However at this time of year its certainly a buyers market with plenty of [...]
Geely sales up 42%
From Reuters: Vehicle sales of Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd (0175.HK) rose by an annual 42.1 percent in the first six months of this year, indicating that the Chinese carmaker was on track to achieve its full-year target. Geely Automobile, whose parent Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is buying Ford Motor’s (F.N) Volvo car unit, sold 195,734 [...]
BYD starting production in Russia
From BusinessWeek: BYD Co., the Chinese automaker partly owned by billionaire Warren Buffett, started assembling cars in Russia, BYD’s local partner TagAZ said. TagAZ completed assembly of its first BYD F3 sedan, the best-selling passenger car in China last year, the Taganrog, southern Russia-based company said on its website. BYD may produce 10,000 cars at [...]
The five biggest players in the Chinese car industry
We often hear about the biggest players in the Western car industry, characters such as Bob Lutz, Dieter Zetsche, and Rick Wagoner might be household names in Western automotive circles, but who are their Chinese counterparts, where do they come from, and what are their backgrounds? Only on China Car Times can we learn this [...]
Are companies really bracing for the Chinese end of cheap labor times?
Whilst there are other low cost countries around in Asia, they do lack the internal demand that China currently has, so can we safely say that the Chinese end of times is going to happen? Probably not. The low cost labor intensive jobs are likely to get shipped off elsewhere, whilst those that wish to [...]
GM sells off family heirlooms to Chinese buyer
From the Washington Daily: General Motors Co. will sell its steering-parts operation to a Beijing-based business venture in what could be the largest move by a Chinese company into the U.S. auto-parts industry.The car maker announced a deal Wednesday to sell its Nexteer Automotive business to Pacific Century Motors, an entity comprised of Beijing-based auto-industry [...]
Lifan planning sports car?!
Lifan is a Chongqing based automotive producer, a relative minnow even in China and mostly sells to its local area i.e. Sichuan, Chongqing, and Yunnan, meaning you rarely see them along the highly developed east coast of China were cars from JV producers are favored. Lifan’s current line up is made up of the tiny [...]
Lotus-Youngman MPV renderings – those wheels are huge!
As mentioned on the earlier Lotus L5 news posting, Lotus has become the name of Youngman and Proton’s drive to produce small cars in China, originally Youngman were importing CKD kits from the Malaysian firm but later were given carte blanche rights to start designing their own range of cars under the Lotus branding, the [...]
Roewe R95 – its not dead, and in development?!
The Roewe R95, sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Roewe 950, was initially thought to just be a skunk project, i.e. a model that the engineers whipped up in their spare time to show that they had some ideas, but it seems that the R95 is slowly going towards production. The R95 is basically a [...]
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