Archive for April, 2011
Polo sedan to join hatchback later this year
China’s love for luxury cars if often talked about, but what about China’s love for mini sedans? Practically every hatchback that has launched in China has come in both sedan and hatch version at some date, see the Ford Fiesta, Mazda2, Citroen C4 and of course the VW Polo – thankfully there has been no [...]
Highway Fees to be Lowered This Year
The Chinese highway system is second only to the USA’s in terms of size and it is only getting bigger, the roads are largely used by truckers to take goods in and out of cities, due to China’s large public rail system that mixes bullet trains with old style trains its easier and more comfortable [...]
Geely preping Emgrand EC7 with a 1.5L
The EC7 series of cars under the Emgrand brand have been a major success for Geely in the past year they have been on the market, the EC7 initially launched with a 1.8L in sedan form, but the EC7-RV, a hatchback, came later. Now Geely are preparing a 1.5L version to gain access to a [...]
Buick GL8 not heading to the US just yet
From Reuters: General Motors Co killed its minivan in the U.S. market thanks to its soccer-mom stigma, but the automaker has carved out a high-priced niche for the vehicle as a chauffeur-driven executive ride in China. While many American families have shifted to crossover vehicles that offer space similar to minivans without the perceived dowdiness, [...]
Jaguar Land Rover still in discussions with Chinese partners on local JV
On a recent visit to Great Wall Motors over in Baoding, I had a chance to press their PR man on the possibilities of a partnership with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), no firm answers were given and the coy grin kind of gave away the meaning behind the answer “They [JLR] are talking with lots [...]
GM abandons plans for GMC in China, will focus on Baojun brand instead
Kevin Wale, president of GM China, reiterated the importance of Chinese market to GM and GM Chinas future development vision at the Shanghai Auto Show. Baojun 630, a self-developed model of SGMW, one of GM’s joint ventures in China, was unveiled before the Shanghai Auto Show. SGMW denies the model is based on Excelle platform, [...]
China’s craze for luxury cars not abating yet
From Xinhua: The Shanghai Auto Show 2011 is set to conclude on Thursday with a “good harvest” for luxury brands, such as Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maybach. The most eye-catching car was perhaps Aston Martin’s One-77 from the United Kingdom. Five cars of this luxury model, which reportedly numbers only 77 worldwide, were provided [...]
SAIC’s sales buck the trend in first quarter
From Reuters: Top Chinese automaker SAIC Motor Corp (600104.SS) reported a surprise 56 percent rise in first quarter earnings to a record high, defying a cooldown in the world’s largest auto market after two consecutive years of breakneck expansion. SAIC’s diversified portfolio has enabled it to hold up much better than most of its rivals, [...]
Road swallows truck in Beijing
On April 26th a Star heavy truck was going down the Shi Liu Zhuang road in Beijing’s Fengtai district, an overloaded truck in a dusty part of Beijing is barely news on any normal day – but the 15meter deep sink hole that swallowed up the truck and its load was certainly news. The hole [...]
Shanghai Auto Show in Review – The Chinese Brands – Part One
Auto Shanghai 2011 was the largest auto show China has ever held. The Audi Q3, Mercedes Concept A, Citroen DS5 and Lambo Aventador amazed most visitors. But don’t forget the Chinese local brands, in a decade from now its likely that the majority of them will be household names the world over. Chery: As the [...]
Greatwall Wingle CL – Full size truckin’ from China
North American’s love their trucks, us Euro’s (and Asians) that actually want a full size truck cannot get anything from the states in our fair lands via the regular market, but thankfully enterprising souls here in China are already offering Ford F150 Raptors, Tacoma’s, Avalanches and various Dodges’ via the gray market import channel, but [...]
Toyota aims new start in China with green technologies
Toyota president Akio Toyoda announced at the Shanghai Auto Show that the company plans to introduce all of its green technologies to China, which surprised the assembled crowds and also automotive industry analysts. It also means Toyota starts to fulfill its “new vision” in Chinese market. Actually, Toyota has been the first automaker to make [...]
Nissan’s Beijing designed Compact Sport March/Micra
The Nissan March has not been a popular car in China since its launch here in late 2010, the model has not been taken to with the same excitement as the Ford Fiesta, which has itself become the standard for small cars in China. To improve sales Nissan are possibly mulling over the ability of [...]
Lotus L5 GT launched in Shanghai
The joint venture deal between Youngman and Proton to be build the Proton range of cars seems to have undergone a rebranding exercise in the past few months. The brand was officially labeled ‘Europestar’ in English and Chinese, but that has been dumped in favor of the pure Lotus brand on all of the economy [...]
Want to get your Chinese driving license? Get your organ donation papers in order!
From Global Times: As in several Western countries, applicants for driving licenses will soon be required to declare their status as potential organ donors in the event of a fatal traffic accident. Applicants for Chinese driving licenses will be expected to declare whether they would like to be organ donors when filling out license applications, [...]
Seat launched in China, bound to be a success
VAG had its three brands, VW, Audi and now Seat share half a hall at the Shanghai Auto Show, the only problem with that particular hall was that it was hot. Without a word of exaggeration, the VW hall was hotter than the sun after a weekend of heavy drinking and subsequent post-beer binges on [...]
Lorinser sells 810bhp S70 for 4.38 million RMB
German styling and tuning company Lorinser, sold their flagship S70 sedan to a Chinese millionaire at the Shanghai Auto Show according to early reports. The Shanghai Auto Show has become a hotbed of car buying activity with the show not just being about press eyes and letting the consumers walk the aisles, major deals are [...]
Dupont to expand in China
From Plastic News: DuPont Co. opened an automotive development center within its existing Shanghai research and development center, joining similar automotive centers the company has in the United States, Europe and Japan. The company is opening the center to build stronger links to China’s automotive market, and because technology and materials development will be critical [...]
This is a 30 year old car – Besturn B30 at the Shanghai Auto Show
The Shanghai Auto Show is home to quiet a few different oddities and surprises, think of it as a modern day automotive freak show if such a thing were to exist. Look at the car to the left of this text, that car is the Besturn B30, and its riding on the mk2 Jetta platform, [...]
Geely’s MG3 fighter
Geely are planning to bring the big guns out in their fight to make the Emgrand range of cars popular in China, they launched the series with the EC7 sedan and then the hatch and then recently they launched the full size EC8, now they are readying the EC6-RV. The awkwardly named EC6-RV does not [...]
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