Author Archive
Can Roewe E1 hit the market in 2012?
Roewe E1, a small pure electric car from Shanghai Automotive (SAIC), will hit Chinese market late next year without any extensive demonstration. When China Car Times colleagues tested the new MG3 last week, it is confirmed by a staff of SAIC corporate communications dept. The E1 Concept was unveiled at Beijing Auto Show in April [...]
Why does China prefer pure electric to hybrid vehicles?
China is the largest car market in the world, but the Chinese automotive industry is far from strong. Few Chinese people want to buy a local brand car if they can afford a foreign branded one. It is unlikely that Chinese local cars powered by inner combustion engines can catch up with European, American or [...]
PSA upping the ante on DS lineup in China
PSA Peugeot Citroen is one of the oldest players in Chinese car market. Guangzhou-Peugeot 505 rolled off the production line in 1986, while Dongfeng-Citroen ZX hit the market in 1994. But PSA has not been a success in China. Peugeot and Citroen sold a combined 373,000 cars last year, which was a shame compared to [...]
Chinese prefer cheaper electric cars rather than greener ones
From 13 June to 24 June, Tongji University’s School of Automotive studies joined hands with Sohu Auto and conducted a survey to study potential Chinese electric car buyers. Tongji is a leading university in the field of electric cars based in Shanghai. Sohu is one of the top 4 Chinese portal sites based in Beijing. [...]
China creating a protective umbrella for EV parts industry, pushing foreign companies out
Making cars in China is not an easy business, every foreign car company that wishes to build in China has to partner with a local company. Early arrivals such as Volkswagen snapped up the best with First Automobile Works and Shanghai Auto Industry Corp, other later arrivals such as BMW had to make do with [...]
Kaili is unlikely to be just an EV brand, it has to be more
FAW-Volkswagen is upping the ante on electric vehicles. According to the production catalog released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the new electric car FV7002 will use a new brand – Kaili, which has been big news in both China and Europe. Further details have yet to be disclosed, but many believe Kaili [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Audi chooses China again to show new wares
Three years ago, Audi Q5 made its world premiere at the Beijing at Auto China 2008, alongside an all new Mercedes GLK-Class. The unveiling of the two compact SUVs allowed Chinese consumers to understand what was coming there way. Next week Audi will choose China yet again as the stage for its world premier of [...]
Global Brands Ramping up for Shanghai Auto Show
Auto Shanghai 2011 is coming. It must be the most influential auto show in China this year, but compared with other shows in the world, how is the Shanghai show positioned? Looking back to Auto Shanghai 2009, there were 9 so-called all new cars of global brands made world premieres. However, among the 9 new [...]
China plans to make 5,000,000 new energy vehicles in 2015?
China is a mystery land. In 2010, we produced 7,181 new energy vehicles, but 5 years later, we want a nearly thousand-fold increase, up to more than 5,045,000. That is not a groundless figure. Instead, this figure comes from detailed plans of provinces and cities. Among China’s 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities (excluding Hong [...]
BYD still aiming for world’s number one title
In 15 years time who will be the worlds number one car maker? Perhaps it will be VW, perhaps GM will retake its former crown, or perhaps a dark horse in the form of BYD will take it. In 2008, Wang claimed they will be China’s No.1 in 2015 and world’s No.1 in 2025. BYD [...]
Poor reliability due to immature industry
The past decade witnessed Chinese local carmakers encouraging progress in quality and performance. But some of their unreliable features are still not easy to be accepted, for example, spontaneous combustion. Geely Panda, an Aygo based cute small family car, obtained a five-star safety level from China-NCAP in late 2009. This milestone seemingly put an end [...]
SAIC launched new brand Maxus for vans
Iveco and Ford Transit must be alert to their new competitor. On Feb. 28, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. launched a new brand Maxus (Datong in Chinese) for light commercial vehicles. Like Transit, Maxus was a series of vans, minibuses and chassis produced by a British van maker LDV, which was bought by SAIC in 2010. [...]
China-NCAP to improve safety standard
The China-New Car Assessment Program, established in 2006, is the sole organization that makes public announcements on new cars’ safety level in China. C-NCAP mainly includes 3 different tests with a same full mark 16: 100% overlap frontal test at 50km/h, 40% overlap frontal offset test at 56km/h, side impact test at 50km/h. Moreover, some [...]
The imposed nationalities
Most Chinese have never been abroad, but they are sensitive to nationalities of products or brands, especially something expensive and technical, like cars. In fact, classification by nationalities is not just for general public, but also for government and specialists. Nationality is an important dimension of many reports by authorities and professors. Nationality is a [...]
Chinese market may be over estimated
China has been the largest car market in the past year, overtaking the highest sales record of the USA. We have not yet seen the peak of Chinese auto sales. It is obvious that the sales will grow continuously, but the pace of growth is currently an active discussion point amongst many auto analysts. Many [...]
Ford has great potential in China
Ford seems outside the mainstream of China’s car market. In 2010, Ford sold 582,467 vehicles. However, excluding the Ford Transit, Mazda 2 and 3 produced via their JV with Changan Ford Mazda, only about 300,000 passenger cars with the blue oval were driven onto Chinese roads, which means Ford grabbed just 2.2% market share of [...]
Toyota Suffering in China
Toyota is still the leader of sales all over the world, but not in China. Facing an average growth rate 35% of China’s passenger vehicle market in 2010, Toyota’s rate 19% is so poor. Toyota sold 846,000 cars in the past year, while VW sold 1,924,000 units and GM sold 1,201,000 units excluding local brand [...]
Competition between VW’s 2 Chinese partners
Friend or foe, that’s a difficult question for VW’s two Chinese joint ventures, Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen. Although VW always claim that they are good partners without frontal competitiveness, everyone can realize that their relationship is uneasy. Established in Oct 1984, Shanghai Volkswagen only produced Santana B2 and the updated version of the Santana 2000 [...]
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