So Daimler had to hand over $185m to the U.S. government  for settling Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) allegations that Daimler bribed officials in Russia, Thailand, Greece, and Iraq (have you ever done business in some of these places?). Then they had to hire former FBI director and Lewinsky-sperm-on-blue-dress investigator Louis Freeh as anti-corruption compliance officer. Can they possibly do more? Yup. (Read More…)

U.S. passenger vehicles emit about 20 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions and consume about 44 percent of its oil. With that in mind, the Obama administration will reveal (some time this week, Thursday probably) its proposal for fuel efficiency and emissions requirements for cars and light trucks for model years 2017 and beyond. (Read More…)

Minicars, that Japanese specialty with a pint-sized (0.66 liter) enginelet, still commands a market share of more than 30 percent in Japan. It used to be more. Toyota didn’t play in that segment, that’s what Daihatsu was for. Today, The Nikkei [sub] reports that Toyota will enter the minicar market. Wait a minute, wasn’t that what Daihatsu was for? Oh, they still are … (Read More…)

According to popular wisdom, you can invest all you want into China, but you can’t take your money out. Not so, says Gasgoo. As a matter of fact, would it not be for China, the bottom line of many a car company would look ugly.

Volkswagen for instance gained nearly half of its pretax profit from the Chinese market in the first quarter of this year. (Read More…)

The titans of the foreign auto blogger scene in China just happened to bump into each other today – at a nerdy tradeshow for auto parts, no less. No booth babes, just a lot of sexy displays of tie rod ends, control arms, ball bearings and pop rivets. The Chinese government sponsors this event every year in order to promote export of Chinese parts. For qualified buyers (anyone with a business card), the government even picks up the hotel tab for three days. Imagine: Everywhere else you have to pay three times the going rate when a big trade show is in town – in China, you stay for free! Now isn’t communism just wonderful? (Read More…)

Volvo, now in the hands of China’s Geely, may revolutionize the way electric and hybrid cars are built. Currently, you have to shove a big honking battery into an electric car, and a simple honking battery into a hybrid. This adds weight, and obesity is a killer when in come to mileage.  Volvo, working with the Imperial College in London has a wild idea: Why not dispense with the big honking battery and use the whole auto body to store electricity. Say what? (Read More…)

Where would the German car industry be without China? You guessed it: In deep Scheisse. China’s insatiable demand for German cars helped the German auto industry survive the crisis stronger than ever. Germany’s new car exports to China in the first six months of this year reached €4.4b ($6b). That’s 6.1 percent of its total car exports, says the China Business Times via Gasgoo. (Read More…)

According to lore, China has closed off its market to foreign car importers, and is ready to flood the world with cheapmobiles.

Just the opposite is true. (Read More…)

China’s Chery is one of the few big car companies that is not wedded to a foreigner. All the big ones are in bed with one or more Western (or Eastern) manufacturer.  Finally,  it looks like Chery might be losing its virginity. (Read More…)

When you took the Tokyo subway between 10 and 11 pm, it used to be full of dozing salarymen who just got back from work. Putting in long hours just was the Japanese way. Some put in an evening shift somewhere else, and came home at 11, sighing “tough day at the office.” Not anymore. Many companies, Toyota one of them, put in an overtime ban. Hubby-san suddenly had to come home early. As a further sign that the crisis is behind us, longer working hours are back. (Read More…)

A few weeks ago, a Chinese trawler rammed a Japanese coast guard vessel ( or vice versa, depending on who’s telling  the story.) The crew was sent home, the captain was arrested. This happened near some uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea, called Diaoyu islands in China and Senkaku islands in Japan. The rocks are under Japanese administration, but are also claimed by (to make matters even more complicated) China AND Taiwan. The islands sit on top of a huge natural gas field, to make matters really interesting. To get the captain home and to make a point, China has been ratcheting up the rhetoric. China is looking for a pressure point that hurts the Japanese. First, they tried to cut off the stream of Chinese tourists that go shopping in Japan. That didn’t work.

Now, China may have found something that seriously messes with traffic in Japan. (Read More…)

Carlos Ghosn has the Wall Street Journal flabbergasted. To the utter dismay of the WSJ, Ghosn said that Nissan is talking to their joint venture partner Dongfeng about transferring lithium-ion battery know-how and other electric-car technology to the joint venture. Even more worrisome to the WSJ is Ghosn’s statement that “there’s no limit to technology we bring to China.”

According to the WSJ, “Ghosn’s remarks on electric vehicles, at a news conference Monday, come amid worries by many foreign auto executives about a ten-year plan China is drafting for the electric-vehicle industry that they fear could compel foreign companies to transfer technology to local joint ventures in a way that might result in their losing control of the technology.”

These worries are either worries by junior executives, or the imagination of even greener Wall Street Journal reporters. (Read More…)

China’s FAW, despite its name (First Automobile Works) only second largest manufacturer in China, joint venture partner of Volkswagen and Toyota, and owner of a large array of brands, including the Hongqi, has filed its contribution to the 12th Five-Year Plan (pretty much the only holdover from the olden days) with China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). The numbers, brought to us by CapitalVue, are both audacious and timorous. (Read More…)

Again, shameless China shows utter disregard for intellectual property. Nothing is sacred anymore. The American government fines Toyota? Great! Let’s copy that! The Nikkei [sub] reports that Toyota has been fined by local authorities in Zhejiang Province. Wait until you hear what for. (Read More…)

Now that GM is thinking about trademarking “range anxiety,” the only choice left to Nissan is to do something about range anxiety. (Just in case GM is successful with their trademark application, we’ll call it Arrival Angst™ … remember, you’ve seen it here first, just in case we’ll have to call you as a witness.)  According to The Nikkei [sub], Nissan “will offer buyers of its Leaf electric car a service to ease drivers’ dread of having the batteries run out while on the road.” (See, even The Nikkei is staying away from “range anxiety.” Alright, let’s trademark Distance Dread™ also.) So how will that service work? (Read More…)