Conventional wisdom says that the Chinese will suck all the know-how out of their foreign joint venture partners, and once they are through with them, they’ll discard them like Dracula a bloodless virgin. As a thank you, the Chinese will flood foreign countries with cheap Chinese cars. The trouble with conventional wisdom is that it is rarely true, or wise. Actually, the Chinese are now worried that the foreigners amass too much power. “Foreign car producers have begun to take more control of their joint ventures in China, sidelining their Chinese counterparts from business partners to factory providers,” China Daily writes today. China Daily is owned by the Chinese government. (Read More…)

Someone call Homeland Security: Large segments of Americans (if we still can call them that) are willing  to spend hard-earned dollars on (are you ready for that?) CHINESE cars. Market research company GfK Automotive’s did its annual Barometer of Automotive Awareness and Imagery, and found that a whopping 38 percent of the respondents would consider buying a Chinese car. Indian cars? A little less, but 30 percent ain’t nothing. That’s amongst all respondents. Once you get to Gen Y consumers, you’ll see wholesale desertion to the enemy.

Says the study:

“The openness to purchasing a Chinese and Indian vehicle is highest among Gen Y consumers, with 52 percent saying they are open to a vehicle from a Chinese automaker and 41 percent saying they are open to a vehicle from an Indian automaker.”

Imagine that. The cars aren’t even on U.S. shores, and especially basement dwellers are ready to buy them – even worse, with dad’s money. (Read More…)

My former wife was an artist. One of her shows was for the benefit of Washington DC’s National Zoo. At the opening, a society dame walked up to her.

“Love your boobies.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The lady referred to the depiction of a school of the sula nebouxii, a.k.a. the Blue Footed Booby, a water bird. Boobies can cause all kinds of misunderstandings. That thought crossed my mind as I watched the picture above.

I found it at Chinacartimes. Apparently, the picture is spreading like wildfire through the Chinese interwebs. Says CCT: (Read More…)

Today, Porsche officially disclosed top-secret pictures of the new “Neunelfer”, a.k.a. the 2012 Porsche 911. Most of these pictures have already been all over the webs. In a year, you’ll find them on Wikileaks.

In the name of completeness, here is the whole take, released today, along with the news that:

“At 48, the Porsche 911 Carrera is younger than ever: The completely redesigned generation of the sports car icon is stepping into the limelight with its flat, stretched silhouette, exciting contours and precisely designed details, yet from the very first glance it remains unmistakably a 911. True to the 911 tradition, the distinctive Porsche design language with its tendons and muscles exudes power and elegance.”

Who’s writing those lines?

Those who have followed TTAC’s coverage of China’s car electrification plans in general  and BYD’s track record in particular will have noticed a degree of healthy skepticism. Actually, we had declared that the electric car only has a chance if you for all intents and purposes outlaw regular cars, as it is the case in Beijing. I have been out there today, and haven’t seen any: If there are no EVs to buy, then none will silently prowl the streets. As far as BYD goes, last March we called them a “down and out car company that should qualify for a handicapped parking sticker.”

Now at last, Forbes’ resident China expert Gordon G. “I hate China” Chang wakes up to the matter and writes: (Read More…)

After we wrote a bit about that new supercar company called Eterniti, and the people behind it, while Twitter was infested by odd operators, my phone started to ring in Beijing.

“Don’t you know who Kenny Chen is?” If you’ve spent some time in the auto biz in China, you can’t avoid that.

“Didn’t you hear that he bilked people out of their down-payments on cars?” We had heard such nasty rumors. (Read More…)

Ford and Toyota will “equally collaborate on the development of an advanced new hybrid system for light truck and SUV customers.”  A memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the product development collaboration, was signed today, with the formal agreement expected to be inked by next year. Both have been working independently on their rear-wheel drive hybrid systems. They have decided that it makes more sense to share the significant burden. (Read More…)

Yesterday, we talked a little about Volkswagen’s latest small car, the up! We walked down memory lane, and compared the 2012 up! with the Polo of 1975. The up! is nearly as short as the Polo of ancient times (3.54 meters). The heftier bumpers don’t leave a car designer much choice. And speaking of heft: We wondered how the up! is doing in the weight department.

When the Polo was launched in 1975, it weighed in at 685 kg (1,510 lbs) – with four guys, you could solve parking problems manually. We didn’t have much entertainment in those years, and sometimes carried a Polo to spots that were a bit inaccessible on wheels, like up a flight of stairs. This was a source of a lot of fun, especially when viewed from a beer garden across the street.

Volkswagen did not disclose the curb weight of the new up!, so we called up! Herr Schröder in Wolfsburg on Monday morning and asked. (Read More…)

The New York Times is outraged:

“Just as plug-in cars like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt enter the market, Costco is reversing course and pulling its chargers out of the ground, explaining that customers do not use them.”

Why in the world? (Read More…)

After how many years of showing design studies, concepts, and prototypes of the Up! small car at just about every motor show (it’s so diminutive, it fits in the container as an afterthought), Volkswagen is getting ready to sell the Up! in earnest. The midget-car will be will be unveiled Sept. 12 at the Frankfurt auto show, for a European launch by December of this year, Volkswagen says in an emailed statement.

First, the name. Usually, a concept car gets a new name, once it’s launched. The Up! has received so much name recognition that it would be a shame to throw all that away. So Volkswagen renamed the Up! to up!. That’s right, lowercase u, lowercase p, exclamation mark. Trademark that.

If you want to know more, and see tons of pictures, mixed with irrelevant histrionics, up! with you and jump …

(Read More…)

SUVs are hot in China, and VW’s SUVlet, the Tiguan has turned into a hot seller. In the last few months, it steadily worked itself up the SUV charts and was in the second position in July, behind the Honda CR-V, and before the Nissan Qashqai. In China, the Tiguan is made by Volkswagen’s southern joint venture with Shanghai Volkswagen. What to do when Volkswagen’s Northern joint venture with FAW develops offroadish desires?

China Car Times heard around the hot water dispenser (they like to drink hot water in China, yuck, I know) that First Automobile Works has signaled its wishes that Volkswagen should go off-road with them. Volkswagen can hardly give them the Tiguan as well. That would be taking socialism too far.  So what’s Volkswagen to do? (Read More…)

Toyota closed the last chapters of the book on NUMMI, wrote a check for $6 million, and put the book to where it will collect the dust of history. According to Reuters, Toyota reached a $6 million settlement with former NUMMI workers.

The suit was brought by workers on medical leave when NUMMI was shut down in March 2010. It’s not that they had gone empty-handed. After GM had pulled out of NUMMI in June 2009 and left Toyota holding the bag, Toyota announced plans to pull out by March 2010. Toyota had negotiated a $281 million settlement-agreement with the UAW-represented workers, while GM was whistling Dixie.

At the time it was clear that some union brothers were more equal than others. (Read More…)

When, a few days ago, I wrote my rant about GM wanting to be like Apple, I did a bad job. My point was not that GM can’t be like Apple because it doesn’t have an aluminum unibody, my point was not GM’s number of platforms, my point was not that GM wants to marginalize Opel by being Apple, my point was not that Ford is closer to being Apple, my point was not that Sony and its “Sony timer” will never be like Apple, my point was not that Apple is like BMW.

Apparently, I failed to get my point across.

My point was that any CEO or marketing manager who wants his company to be like another company should abdicate and apply for a job at that other company. Or that he should be taken out and shot, in an act of mercy killing. (Read More…)

Volkswagen may have garnered a bad rap for being in the shop too much. Their sales performance however continues without a single breakdown. According to the July data (global, consolidated, all companies), the Volkswagen Group had a 16.3 percent unit sale rise in July (compared to July 2010) . From January to July, 4.75 million vehicles were sold worldwide, a 14.4 percent increase. (Read More…)

Volvo, given up as beyond salvage by former owner Ford, was sold off to China’s Geely in the automotive equivalent of a yardsale at $1.8 billion. Saying no is always easier than saying yes (well, there are certain exceptions), so most augurs said: “This won’t work.” Asked why, they answered: “It was tried it before, and it failed.”

Wonders of wonders, it appears to be working: Volvo Cars reported an EBIT of 600 million kronor (about 93 million U.S. dollars) in the second quarter, 40 percent more than in the same period of the previous year, a statement from Volvo Cars says. (Read More…)