Happy New Year, CCT readers!

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2011 is practically upon us with only 6 hours to go until the clocks roll over into 2011 and yet another exciting automotive year awaits us.

2010 has been a roller coaster year for the Chinese car market and the future is looking like it will have a few more twists and turns as the government tries to control the car industry and also improve investment in the untamed beast, and push forward its goals for indigenous Chinese brands to take back the road that they have lost to joint venture car manufacturers. Self developed Chinese brands have seen a huge leap in terms of branding, technology, and engineering expertise in 2010, at the Beijing Auto Show we saw the wonder walls of Geely, Chery, Brilliance and Hawtai with their new concept and production ready cars, now those cars are slowly becoming a reality post Guangzhou Auto Show. Geely took over Volvo, DSI Transmission and a huge chunk of LTI, Chery is marching forward with its supercharged engine series, Hawtai is moving from being a second rate SUV maker to a leading diesel auto maker, and Brilliance are pushing out new designs left right and center. The joint venture companies are not going to go down without a fight, they understand that most Chinese consumers will put their patriotism aside when it comes to car buying and are planning to launch their own sub brands using recycled tech in 2011, Nissan, GM and Honda are already riding this pony and others such as VW are likely to join the track as well.

China Car Times has just passed its fourth birthday on November 11th, we were supposed to commemorate the day with the roll over of the new site design and the new logo, it took a little longer than expected but we did it in time for the Guangzhou Auto Show. The Guangzhou Auto Show was a hit, traffic improved in November and December and continues to  climb, for 2011 we have some new features that we have yet to implement, you should see these features slide in January and certain spin off sites appear by February at the latest. We will continue to add new writers to the site, whilst I as the founding Editor will take a back seat as 2011 rolls on by. Please keep reading, keep commenting, and continue to support CCT whilst we bring you the latest news on the Chinese car industry as next year is bound to be just as exciting as this year.