Archive for May, 2011
Chinese car market down for the first time in 27 months
According to the latest statistics released by China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) yesterday, China’s auto sales in April reached 1.5520 million units, down 15.12% from a month earlier and 0.25% from a year earlier. It’s the first negative growth in China’s auto industry since February 2009. CAAM’s vice chairman Dong Yang warns that the [...]
China Car Market April Sales In Review – sales down month to month but up year on year
Automakers made greater efforts to clear their stocks at the end of March, and dealers were faced with severe financial strains, which affected deliveries in early April. The second week was still cold as the auto market cooled down after the three day long Qingming Festival and the price of fuel jumped at the [...]
SAIC sales up, amid slow down
From Reuters: Top Chinese automaker SAIC Motor Corp in April sold 6.96 percent more vehicles than a year earlier, the second straight month of single-digit sales growth amid a market slowdown. SAIC, which operates auto manufacturing ventures with General Motors and Volkswagen , sold 326,390 vehicles in April, up from 305,139 units a year ago, [...]
Roewe’s new 750 sedan caught testing
If you want to understand what the new Roewe 750 sedan will look like, look at the Roewe 350 and expand the car with its height, width and length, it appears that the 350′s front grill is about to become Roewe’s signature grill for the next few years. The new 750 sits on top of [...]
BYD to launch new IPO in Shenzhen
From China News China’s battery and car maker BYD Co. Monday won government approval for its A-share listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, which aims to raise 2.2 billion yuan (US$338 million) for expansion. Under its mainland listing plan, approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission yesterday, BYD intends to issue up to 79 million [...]
More on VW’s Kai Li brand
Yesterday we briefly reported on the new Kai Li brand that VW is planning to announce in partnership with their Chinese partners at First Automobile Works (FAW). The Kai Li brand has not yet been officially launched as of yet, but it was leaked out of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in their [...]
Besturn aiming for the high end, will start another new brand
First Automobile Works are reorganizing their brand portfolio once again, they own the Hong Qi (Red Flag), Besturn and Xiali and Weizhi brands, now FAW are aiming for the Besturn brand to target at the mid and high-end market priced above 100,000 yuan in future, and the Changchun-based automaker will launch a new brand to [...]
Why the Saab-Hawtai deal is likely to fail
On May 2nd, Saab announced that it had come together with Hawtai to form an alliance that would see the Saab 9-3 produced in China and Hawtai make some serious investments in Saab’s European operations that would help to keep the wolf from the door. A hastily organised press conference was announced for May 3rd, [...]
FAW-VW sub brand to be called “Kai Li”, to focus on pure EV’s
Volkswagen have been long term skeptics on the electric car and plugin hybrids, partly because they were pioneers behind clean diesel technology and wanted their tech to become the standard for other manufacturers to follow, not so in China where dirty diesel is solely the realm of commercial vehicles and those patient enough to wait [...]
Guangzhou Toyota denies plans for sub-brand
Guangzhou Toyota was widely expected to join other car companies and produce its own sub brand to entice the large youth market in its home market of Guangdong, but Guangzhou-Toyota’s Vice President, Mr. Feng Xing Ya, has come out to deny that they have such plans. Mr. Feng expressed his thoughts in an interview with [...]
BYD S6 SUV pricing officially annnounced
The BYD S6 SUV is the first SUV product from Shenzhen based BYD, the S6 was shown at the Guangzhou Auto Show in late 2010 but had its official launch at the Shanghai Auto Show last month and pricing announced last week. The S6 is priced to win, its impressive size and features list are [...]
Facelift Jeep Compass to launch in May
The face lift Jeep Compass is already on sale in other markets but Chinese consumers got their first taste of what the redefined Compass looks like at the Shanghai Auto Show when it had its Chinese Premier. The new Compass has started off-road nuts chatting in a serious way, the Compass has much improved rugged [...]
Chevrolet Aveo to possibly launch in May
The Chevrolet Aveo had its second airing in the Chinese market at the Shanghai Auto Show last month, the first being at the Guangzhou Auto Show in December 2010. Chevrolet are very eager to continue with the record sales that they achieved in 2010 – over 1 million Chevrolet cars hit the roads in China, [...]
Facelift QQ for this year, next generation model delayed
As the unofficial Chinese People’s Car, the QQ3 is certainly due for an update since its introduction in 2003. Although it is quite old in the automotive world the QQ still manages to bring in sales averaging 8,000 to 10,000 units per month. The new QQ3 was expected to launch at the Shanghai Auto Show [...]
Nissan Murano and Murano Convertible confirmed for China
The Japanese 3, as the Chinese like to call them are made up of Honda, Toyota and Nissan – Toyota introduced the Highlander in 2009 as an imported model but later swiftly moved it to local production, Honda and Nissan have been left pondering if to introduce their own Pilot and Murano mid size SUV’s [...]
Chinese at shanghai auto show part two
Continuing on from part one where we looked at a select few Chinese car companies and their offerings at the Shanghai Auto Show SAIC Shanghai Automotive owns two local car brands, Roewe and MG, both brands share the same platforms and engines. The MG 3, a small hatchback like the Skoda Fabia, has just hit [...]
Zhengzhou Nissan working on own SUV
Zhengzhou Auto is the commercial vehicle arm of Dongfeng, but both Dongfeng and Zhengzhou Auto have joint ventures with Japan’s Nissan brand – Dongfeng takes care of Nissan’s passenger vehicles, whilst Zhengzhou Nissan takes care of Nissan’s larger MPV’s and SUV range. Zhengzhou Nissan produces the Paladin, NV200 and Serena mini vans in China, with [...]
Baojun’s 630 to be priced from 70 to 90,000rmb
Baojun is GM’s new economy brand for the Chinese market, and possibly other developing markets, they launched their first model named the 630 sedan at the Shanghai Auto Show just over three weeks ago. The 630 is made up of a mish-mash of parts, the platform and engine come from the Buick Excelle whilst the [...]
GM’s Chevrolet Sail setting sail for Indian shores
GM are planning to export the Chinese designed and made Chevrolet Sail to India in the next few months making it one of the first Chinese cars to be imported into India. In late 2009 Shanghai-GM set up a company in India with two factories, located in Halol and Talegaon, these two factories have [...]
VW’s first quarter report shows more than a quarter of sales are made in China
Germany’s Volkswagen posted record sales for its first quarter global sales according to reports. In the first quarter VW delivered 1.99 million cars, whilst in the Chinese market VW delivered 548,400 cars in the same period which accounted for 27.5% First quarter sales are up 19.9% over the same period in 2010 total sales for [...]
Twitter!
