Up to date news on automotive policy, laws, mergers, and acquisitions in the Chinese automotive industry.
According to Western media reports a ‘dream team’ of VL Automotive and WanXiang have teamed up to make a bid on the bankrupt US car maker Fisker and are due to make a bid soon.
VL Automotive is headed a former GM executive, Bob Lutz, who is widely known to be a true petrol head, Wanxiang are also a major leader in the Chinese automotive business…
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Ssangyong’s Deputy CEO Mr. Wang Zhi Hong announced during an interview session with Chinese media earlier today that Ssangyong are aiming to have production within China in the next five years according to Chinese media reports. With Ssangyong moving from being SAIC owned to Mahindra owned, the Korean company has to restart its Chinese plans, despite…
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FAW’s Besturn brand launched its first SUV last week under the X80 name and promised more SUV’s were in the pipeline. The X80, along with other Besturn vehicles is based on Mazda architecture via FAW’s partnership with Mazda where several Mazda models are currently produced.
The Besturn X80 is priced from 119,800RMB to 181,800RMB with 2.0L and 2.3L…
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According to a recent report in China Financial Report, Volvo’s plans to bring their new Chengdu plant online by June maybe at risk of delay.
In 2010 when Geely bought Volvo, the first step was to bring Volvo to the Chinese market to boost global sales with the first Chinese factory being announced to be settled in Chengdu under the name of Zhong-Jia…
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I test drove the MG5 last year and was instantly let down – how could such a car carry the MG badge? It seems that AutoCar are in agreement. The UK magazine cites the noisy underpowered engine as one of their main beefs with the Five but give the…
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With a 1.3 billion population there are bound to be plenty of accidents and emergencies within Chinese borders that require the assistance of firefighters, now firefighters in China can make use of American KME’s trucks.
KME, or Kovatach Mobile Equipment Corp are a Pensylvania based company that have looked beyond the domestic US market for new sales…
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Volkswagen is to invest 12 billion yuan (1.95 billion USD) to build a new plant in Changsha, Central China, along with its partner Shanghai Auto Industry Corp. The scope and size of the new facility was confirmed today during the official signing of the new facility, Volkswagen senior executives, Hunan Provincial and Changsha city officials were present…
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SAIC are planning to follow in the steps of regional rivals Geely and Chery with an increased impetus on international sales, SAIC has already introduce the Roewe 750 into Egypt with a local partner which will go into production on June 19th this year.
SAIC also have plans for a Thailand plat to facilitate sales in the South East Asian and Middle…
Read More →Since the launch of the Baojun brand and its first 630 sedan news from the sub brand from GM and SAIC has gone quiet, now we have learned that BaoJun are prepping a new SUV for the Chinese market. The new SUV will be based on the Baojun 630′s platform and will continue to use the existing Baojun style language. Currently the Baojun uses 1.5L and 1.8L…
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Chery denied rumors earlier today that it is planning to cut 9000 from its workforce would undergo a series of redundancies after a 190 million RMB loss in the first quarter of 2013.
At the 2013 Shanghai Auto Show Chery announced its ‘One Chery Strategy’ which included the ending of Riich, Reely and Karry brands which would be pushed back…
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According to reports from China’s Daily Economic News, Dongfeng and Fujian Motors are to sign an agreement on May 16th announcing their strategic partnership where Dongfeng will take as much as a 40% share in Fujian Motors.
Fujian Auto own several automotive brands including the SouEast and XinLongMa small vehicle program as well as Xiamen JinLong…
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The BaoJun sub brand from SAIC-GM is the target for FAW-VW’s new sub brand according to Chinese media reports. The Joint Venture are now planning their own low cost brand to take on the lower end of the market using FAW’s low cost R&D capacity mixed with VW’s supply chain management expertise.
Chinese media are citing inside sources within FAW-VW…
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Beijing Auto announced the launch of their first Senova D sedan yesterday which is price incredibly competitively for a car that comes with a decent Swedish-American DNA and packs a punch with a 200BHP engine for just 139,000RMB, Beijing saved the best till last when they aired the advert later that evening.
As announced previously on China Car Times,…
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After a nearly three year wait Beijing Auto have launched their first Shenbao (Senova in English) sedan. The Senova D sedan was launched earlier today with prices from 139,800RMB to 215,800RMB for the top of the range model. A total of eight specifications are offered with 1.8T, 2.0T and 2.3T engines on offer.
Pricing is a little unusual, the 2.0T…
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Hyundai’s strong growth in the Chinese market is leading the company to contemplate a fourth factory in China according to comments made to Reuters by Hyundai’s Vice Chairman Hsueh Yung-hsing.
Hsueh has been running Hyundai’s China operations for a number of years and believes that the new plant is required if Hyundai are to keep and improve on their…
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According to reports issued this afternoon via Germany’s FAZ newspaper, Volkswagen are planning to build a new plant in Changsha with their Chinese partner Shanghai Auto (SAIC) in 2016 with a capacity of 300,000 vehicles, currently VW has 12 factories in the Chinese market producing vehicles and parts in partnership with FAW-VW and SH-VW.
Changsha…
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Fiat’s re-entry into the Chinese car market seems startling on paper, in just a three year period they have developed a new partnership with Guangzhou Auto, built their own ‘World Class Manufacturing facility’ in Changsha, developed a car specifically for the Chinese market and built and expanded their dealership network to 134 dealers with the…
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China is back on track with double digit growth in April this year, hopefully automotive executives will be able to put the worst case scenario of ‘Micro Growth’ to the back of their minds for the time being. Last month’s best selling cars shows no major changes from the previous months, however it should be noted that Nissan have made it into the Top…
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Hyundai saw its Chinese sales grow by 26% in April 2013 according to results released by the Korean company. Hyundai operates its joint venture with Beijing Auto and has introduced a wide range of models over the past few months, the latest generation of Hyundai Sante Fe has proven to be a popular model since its introduction at the Beijing-Hyundai…
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Jeep returning to China was one of the key topics of the Shanghai Auto Show, the iconic American brand aired their latest incarnation of the Jeep Cherokee which grabbed headlines across the Chinese automotive and mainstream media. The Cherokee is popular in China owing to it being the first vehicle to be produced in the Chinese market, VW’s Santana…
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The New VW Jetta has been out on Chinese roads for a few weeks now along with the New Santana which look virtually indistinguishable from each other and look fairly similar to the larger Bora and Lavida, the only real differences being the FAW-VW and SH-VW badging on the rear of the car. Autohome.com.cn are running with spy pictures of a ‘poverty specification’…
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GM reported a 15.3% year on year sales increase in April 2013 with total sales reaching 261,870 units in total. Buick, Chevrolet, Wuling and Baojun brands
SAIC GM Wuling sales were up 5.9% to 135,815 units whilst FAW-GM sales slipped slightly by 0.3% to 5,124 units in total.
Buick sales in China reached 66,923 units in April which was an increase…
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GM’s flagship brand, Cadillac, will gain a new production facility in the Pudong district of Shanghai later this year according to recent Chinese media reports.
The Chinese daily newspaper, First Financial Daily, is reporting that the new factory will be based in the Jinqiao area of Pudong, Shanghai, close to GM’s Asia-Pacific Headquarters with…
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It’s a well known fact that Chinese labor is somewhat cheaper than what is available in the West, however in recent years Chinese salaries have sky rocketed at a rapid pace for the average white collar worker. Entry level jobs for a recent graduate in Shanghai will net around 5000RMB (812USD) per month at the minimum, post grads can look forward to…
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Detroit Electric is an age old automotive brand, albeit one that slipped into the history books but has returned as a self proclaimed leader in the production and development of EV vehicles. Detroit Electric is headed by Albert Lam, Lam previously took Lotus Engineering into new markets such as China, India and the USA and and at one served as the Managing…
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Coda USA have filed for bankruptcy just days after several other US manufacturers announced plans for similar commercial activities that revolve around developing an EV on the back of an existing Chinese car. Coda has entered into Chapter 11 bankruptcy to help it re-ogranise and focus on the development of energy storage Read More →
Earlier this week the Shenzhen based automaker BYD announced plans to open a new facility in the USA to build electric buses for the US market. BYD’s Vice President Stella Li announced plans at the company’s zero emissions US headquarters, and announced that the first ten buses will be heading to Long Beach and will be in service in early 2014.
BYD…
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The Motley Fool debates the China issue for GM, the General is expected to invest 11 billion USD in China over the next few years which will net them greater sales but of course less return for each car sold due to a profit sharing agreement with its partner SAIC.
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According to an internal memo received by Automotive News China’s sister publication, Automobilewoche, Daimler China Sales Chief Nicholas Speeks is overly impressed with independent…
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Brilliance Automobiles and American firetruck manufacturer KME have signed up to create a new joint venture focusing on the production of fire fighting equipment in the Chinese market.
The new joint venture will boast an area of 30,000 square meters with welding, painting and final assembly happening in the new factory with capacity of 1,300 fire…
Read More →Although media headlines maybe focused on the loss of US jobs to Chinese manufacturing abilities, it should be noted that many Chinese companies are also looking to invest in the USA thanks to cheap land, high productivity and lower levels of bureaucracy. Yanfang USA are planning to invest 45 million USD into a new facility in the Kansas City area which…
Read More →Western China has long been seen as the ‘back up plan’ for when car sales reach their maximum in China’s eastern coast. The Western areas are becoming increasingly important to car makers long term survival plans as East coast cities reach maximum capacity and begin to introduce anti-car policies, it is hope the as of yet untapped markets will provide…
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GKN and its Chinese joint venture partner Huayu automotive systems announced an expansion of their Chinese joint venture, Shanghai GKN Driveshafts (SDS) to enhance their ability as a leading supplier of all-wheel drive and electric drive (eDrive) systems to the Chinese auto market.
SDS has been active in the Chinese market since 1988 and is the…
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French president, François Hollande, is in China this week and has already received a promise by the new Chinese President Xin Jin Ping to import even more French products starting from this year, China also promised to buy more Airbus planes which is likely to be welcome news for French and British workers. The Chinese government really did roll out…
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Chery has had a branding disaster over the past few years, in 2009 they unveiled their new sub brands Riich and Reely. Riich was aimed at the upper end of the market and Reely was to focus on MPV’s and SUV’s, on paper it sounded like a fantastic idea – a third brand, Karry, was also introduced to sell low end high volume MPV’s and commercial vehicles….
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Everus was one of the first sub brands from a joint venture company, Honda and Guangzhou Auto had a grand dream of selling millions and millions of S1′s which mated foreign technology with Chinese branding. Except Chinese consumers weren’t overly interested in a warmed over Honda City sedan, especially when they could get the latest Honda City for just…
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The goal for Western automakers over the past two years has to been to introduce their EV tech into the Chinese market with their local partners, there seems to be a slight standoff on how much technology the foreign partner has to hand over in order to see domestic production but eventually production will have to begin.
American company GreenTech…
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According to a recent Bloomberg report, life is getting difficult for Japanese auto executives in China. Sales of Japanese cars continue to slide in China although the rate of sliding is much slower than the free…
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If you look at any Chinese government white paper on the future of the auto industry in China you will find that they wistfully look to ‘new energy vehicles’ as the end all solution to China’s car and pollution problem. New Energy includes electricity, LPG and Hydrogen amongst other flavors but the EV is the big favorite due to the storage solutions…
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According to Automotive News China who managed to get themselves in front of the down to earth CEO Ms. Wang Feng Ying, GWM are planning an American market entry in circa 2015 with the possibility of building trucks in the…
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With its biggest rivals VW and GM racing away with a near 10% and 20% market share respectively, are Ford able to close the gap?
From Reuters:
Ford Motor Co (F.N) Asia chief Dave Schoch confirmed the company can double its share to 6 percent of the Chinese passenger vehicle market over the next three years as it rolls out a spate…
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From Reuters:
Ford Motor Co has raised its stake in Jiangling Motors Corp Ltd to 31.5 percent and is looking to increase it to as much as 32 percent over the next year, both companies said on Wednesday.
Ford…
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Building and developing your brand whilst raising the concept of renting cars to a nation that is largely still on its first car is a major task. Hertz have been in China for a number of years but they have found the fastest way to prosperity in China is not to work on brand building but to simply buy a share of your biggest local rival.
From
According to recent Chinese media reports the new brand from BYD and Mercedes, Denza, will be gaining its own independent production facility in the Pinshan area of Shenzhen over the course of the year with the first production ready model being aired at the Guangzhou Auto Show at the years end.
The new facility will have a maximum capacity of 40,000…
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To stop the bleed in the balance sheets, Wuhu-based Chery needed a major reorganization following several years of stagnation, sub-branding disasters, and cannibalization within its own brand.
The plan to restructure the company was unveiled today in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province. Accompanying the new plan is Chery’s new logo. The new logo…
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Last month we revealed that BMW’s new sub brand from their partnership with local Chinese car company Brilliance was to be debuted in Chinese under the Zhi Nuo name which literally means Promise in English. An English name wasn’t forthcoming at the time but now we can reveal the new name as being Zinoro.
The new Zinoro sub…
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According to Chinese media reports that aired late yesterday afternoon First Automobile Works (FAW) are carrying out a high level audit of its financial situation after the company was found to be missing 10 Billion RMB, around one hundred high level executives have also been taken for questioning by Party investigators.
The majority of Chinese…
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The Chinese demand for stretched cars is spreading from the German brands to the French brands to the American brands, according to reports from Auto.163.com, Ford are planning to put four Lincoln models into production in the Chinese market and with one model gaining an extended wheelbase.
In 2012 Ford CEO’s Alan Mulally announced that the Lincoln…
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Jianghuai Auto wants to keep pushing its way into the passenger car market. This year, they will bring at least three new cars to the Shanghai Auto Show, an MPV, a compact sedan and an SUV.
The MPV, named JAC Refine M6, will target businesses and the government. That was made obvious by the excessive use of chrome and LED lights.
Rumors indicate…
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BYD released the first official pictures of their new SUV, the BYD S7. To the chagrin of BYD detractors everywhere, it isn’t the Photoshopped Lexus RX 450h that surfaced earlier this year.
The S7 will offer several interior trims. Among the available features are 360-degree…
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Land Rover are poised for big things in the global markets according to this recent article by the UK’s AutoCar magazine, first up it appears that Land Rover are planning for a baby Land Rover in the 18,000GBP price range with support…
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Ford showed off its new 2013/14 Mondeo last week, and as expected the car will have its prices aired at the show when it finally goes on the market along with the Fiesta ST.
The Fiesta ST will have its first showing in the Chinese market next week alongside an all new concept that is thought to be a new MPV to replace the aging S-Max, although Ford…
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The Chinese made Audi Q3 went on the market today in Shenzhen city with six models to choose from, the most basic model starts at 285,000RMB for a 2.0T FWD model and rises to over 420,000RMB for the top of the line sports model with Quattro AWD system.
The Audi Q3 was first imported into the Chinese market in late 2012 and then moved to Chinese production…
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Out of the German brands so far only Mercedes have entered into the MPV making business, despite Audi’s dominance in the business area in China they haven’t yet developed an MPV for the market, rumors of a BMW-Brilliance tie up to develop high end MPV’s have been circulating for a number of years but with little fire coming from the rumor mill despite…
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From Reuters:
Mazda Motor Corp and its joint ventures in China sold 15,734 cars in the country in March, down 25.2 percent from a year earlier, the Japanese automaker said on Wednesday.
That compares with a 24.7 percent…
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BMW established a technology center in Shanghai yesterday, the new center will be responsible for the German manufacturers research and development in the Chinese market and help boost its R&D comittments to the Asia-Pacific region where it hopes to further localize its cars. BMW currently has similar sites in California where research is carried out…
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Ford’s Chinese sales have seen a 91% rise in the first quarter of 2013 according to media reports issued yesterday, Ford’s 2012 sales saw strong growth with a 30% increase but the 91% increase in the first three months of 2013 indicate that Ford are in for a strong year.
In recent months Ford has introduced several new models including the new Focus,…
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Ford’s new Mondeo launched in China late yesterday evening with much fanfare from the Chinese automotive media. Ford’s new Mondeo has become a flagship for the Blue Oval in the Chinese market and comes at a night when Ford are placing more impoteus on the Chinese market to boost growth outside of the EU market.
Marin Burela, President and CEO of…
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The MG5 is already out on the market but not making a huge impact in the sales charts, the Chinese media road tests were not entirely favorable to the autobox and weak engine offerings but the forthcoming turbo and dual clutch model might change media perceptions.
The turbo version is likely to launch at the Shanghai Auto Show later this month, what…
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The Acura corporate beak was not exactly loved when it launched in the Chinese market, but it seems that at least Chang’an Autos appreciated it when they chose to channel Acura styling into their brand new OuLiWei MPV that launched today. The OuLiWei comes as a stylish solution to compact MPV’s that have both car and van attributes. The Wuling OuLiWei…
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As China’s economy expanded at a rapid rate, so did the military’s fleet of luxury vehicles. The Chinese military for the longest time wasn’t only engaged in the defense of the nation and carrying out disaster relief within China, it had a network of business from logistics to real estate which helped the army build its bank accounts, which partly went…
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From Reuters:
Nissan Motor Co Ltd and its China joint venture sold about 58,200 cars in China in Febuary, down 46 percent from a year earlier, the Japanese automaker said on Monday.
That compares with a rise of 22.2 percent rise in January from…
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PSA’s Chinese made DS5 will finally launch in September this year according to recent Chinese media reports.
Currently the DS5 is imported into China but has not been overly competitive against other products due to its high price and lack of consumer awareness. The second model to be put into production after the DS5 will be a locally designed and…
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Ford have promised the Chinese market a myriad of new cars by 2015 and they are quickly filling the SUV segment with the launch of the Ecosport and Kuga and also the quiet launch of the Ford Explorer yesterday, next up is filling in the product gaps between the Focus and the poorly selling S-Max, enter the C-Max. The C-Max is based on the current Ford…
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How much for a Ford Explorer? In the US market you can pick one up for circa 29,000USD for the base model but once Explorers hit Chinese soil they get hit with import taxes and taxes soon make a big cheap car into a big expensive car. The Explorer…
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The Shanghai Auto Show is practically upon us with doors opening on April 20th for a single one day press event before the public are allowed in, but Icona are looking to beat the crowds by revealing the roof of their new Vulcano ahead of time.
The Vulcano promises a 0-200km/h time in under ten seconds thanks to a V12 engine that was developed by…
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According to recent media reports, deliveries of the Hong Qi H7 sedan have already begun with 500 cars being delivered to Central and Provincial level leaders in China. The Hong Qi H7 comes at a time when the Central Government is pushing for more Chinese cars to be used in the gigantic Chinese civil service fleet, the H7 was developed as an Audi…
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