Archive for November, 2011
Facelift Roewe 550 sighted ahead of launch
The Roewe 550 is not exactly a new car anymore and that is reflected in its sales statistics for the past few months for the entire Roewe brand of cars, the 750 is also dropping off as it comes to the end of its product life. For 2012 the 550 is going to be given [...]
Chevrolet Captiva to launch in China as locally made vehicle and FWD only
The Captiva is a big car for the money, its on par with the best selling Honda CRV and already a strong selling SUV in its own right, however it is priced marginally higher than the locally built CRV as the Captiva is imported into Korea. A locally made Captiva will likely fall in price [...]
Chinese cars running on WTO road Part 2 – Sales
Thanks to China’s large population, China has become the largest car market in the world, but just 10 years ago, before China joined the World Trade Organization, it was a much smaller market. In 2000, 2,146,000 vehicles were sold in China. Most people are very proud since China had become the 8th largest market. The [...]
China: 80 Billion RMB to be spent on imported luxury cars
After two years of rapid growth and expansion, the Chinese car market is calming down. According to the statistics released by National Passenger Car Information Exchange Associationin 7th November, the sales volume of Chinese car is 1,216,500, which is a decrease of 7.6% on a month-on-month basis, and increased 1% compared with the same period [...]
PSA gets to work on new JV for China
Work began on a new factory which will produce Changa’n-PSA’s DS line of cars on November 20th according to press reports. The new joint venture has a record 8.4 billion RMB of funding by both parties and will have an initial output of 200,000 vehicles per year according to Citroen at last weeks Guangzhou Auto [...]
Guangzhou Honda to introduce 2.4L Crosstour
The Crosstour has not been a successful car for Honda China, the 3.5L V6 Crosstour was introduced in to the Guangzhou-Honda joint venture and saw initial sales in the high hundreds but quickly tapered off into the 100 cars per month area, it seems that demand for the V6 is just not there – especially [...]
Qoros – the new international brand that you’ve never heard of
The Japanese Three of Nissan, Toyota and Honda decided that their run of the mill brands were far too bland to take on the luxury segment, so they came out with Infiniti, Lexus and Acura to target the the high end segments that were being dominated by the German Three consisting of BMW, Mercedes and [...]
BAIC B80V – this is not a cloned G Wagon
We’re not quite sure what is happening at Beijing Auto Industry Corp these days, their mini Jeep clone, the BAIC B40 seems to have been launched and then unlaunched, the B70 (a five door version) was due to launch this year but has also disappeared. Their Saab based vehicles are supposedly hitting the production lines [...]
Hong Qi returning to glory with C131 – spy shot
Last week I had lunch with a government minister from the central government, not a lacky from a city or provincial government, the real deal at the top of the table. He was quite dismayed with the recent announcement that ministers were being pushed to buy local brand cars and also keep their spending under [...]
The Chinese auto market after ten years in the WTO
This article was originally written for Auto.Sohu.com and appeared in Chinese here and in English here. Martin Hayes is the Executive Chairman of AutomotivePR, a British public relations company with a focus on the automotive industry. In the 10 years since China joined to the WTO, China’s motor industry has made dramatic progress – jumping [...]
Lifan to launch new 520 and 720 in 2012, 820 to show itself in 2013
Lifan showed their new concept design for the upcoming 520 at last weeks Guangzhou Auto Show, as well as the new 720 but what they didn’t mention in 100% clarity is that they are working on a new 820 which will be a range topping vehicle at the top of the Lifan ladder. Lifan may [...]
Honda to introduce three hybrids into China next year
Although Honda’s Civic hybrid was far being a success in China over the past two years Honda are resolute with their plans to push forward with more hybrid models for China. At the Guangzhou Auto Show Honda’s Seiji Kuraishi was on hand to explain that Honda will go full frontal with its plans for the [...]
Brilliance V5 hits the market at the Guangzhou Auto Show
In one hall BMW was celebrating the launch of its locally made twin turbo 2.0L X1, in a few halls over Brilliance was celebrating the launch of its V5 SUV carrying a 1.5T. Which one had more people crowding it? The obvious answer is the BMW X1, the V5 had a media throng around it [...]
Shou Wang – Look to the future with Hyundai’s new sub brand
If any company needs a sub brand in China, its Hyundai. Does Honda need a sub brand to push its brand upwards? Nope. Does Nissan? Nope. Are Nissan and Honda aiming to make money via the easiest way possible? Yes. Hyundai’s turn around over the past 18 months has come via a new vastly improved [...]
Subarus to be sold in China as Chery’s under new proposals
The Chery and Subaru Joint Venture was thrown out by the overseeing body The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) earlier this year owing to the fact that Fujitsu Heavy Industries was partially owned by Toyota. Toyota’s 16% stake in the company became a major issue for the Chinese government as under government rules a [...]
BMW to export 5-Series from China
BMW currently makes three cars in China, the 3-Series, 5-series and of course the recently introduced X1 SUV which was shown off at this weeks Guangzhou Auto Show. During an interview with the Chinese newspaper, International Business Daily at the Guangzhou Auto Show, BMW’s president and Group CEO of BMW Group China revealed that BMW [...]
Greatwall’s IF concept shown yet again
“Wow, Greatwall made an X6” was what I heard from one visitor on the Trade Day at the Guangzhou Auto Show this week. It’s not hard to see where Greatwall got its inspiration from the IF from, even Honda looked to the X6 when they developed the Crosstour. No launch date has been set for [...]
Would you pay an extra £18,000 ($27,000USD) to be one of the first owners of the Land Rover Evoque?
Dealers adding a premium to a hot vehicle is not exactly something new in China, even lowly VW Tiguan SUV’s were marked up by 30,000RMB (£3,000GBP) when they first came out, if you pay more you get to jump the waiting list and will be able to pick up your car in a matter of [...]
Geely’s Emgrand EC7 and the MG6 both achieve 4 stars in Euro N-Cap
Chinese car manufacturers are improving from the days when zero stars were the norm in European crash tests, however MG and Geely are changing the stereotypes of Chinese cars with new crash test results that put them on par with new Jaguars and Jeeps. MG obviously owes its crash test success to its UK design [...]
Greatwall’s mid size truck on show in Guangzhou
Greatwall’s heart is in the truck and SUV business, however in recent years they have successfully broken into the all important small car business to satisfy a strong demand for small cars inside and outside of China. Great Wall has made lots of noise about being in certain Western level markets such as South Africa [...]
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