Today is a sad day for TTAC’s French car fans – the last Citroen C6 rolled off the assembly line, ending a proud tradition of French luxury cars that fought a losing battle with the Germans for segment supremacy.
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Category: China
Chinese sales of Japanese makes continue to suffer from the fallout of the islands row. Toyota told Reuters that Chinese sales were down 22.1 percent YoY in November. Mazda’s China sales were down 29.7 percent compared to November last year, Reuters says. The severity of the drops has lessened, but it will be a while until Japanese brands return to their regular growth pattern in China. Read More >
A Detroit court found a former GM engineer and her husband guilty of conspiring to steal hybrid car trade secrets. Their lawyers unsuccessfully argued that there were no secrets to steal. Ed Niedermeyer had said that for years.
Ford and Mazda have been divorced ever since Ford cashed in its shares to finance a survival. Everywhere, except in China. In China, nothing goes without government approval, and because there was none, both Ford and Mazda had to continue their threesome with joint joint-venture partner Changan. An impending dissolution was announced several times. In August, Ford CEO Alan Mulally told reporters in Chongqing: “Ford and Mazda and their local Chinese partner Chongqing Changan have received approval from China’s central government to split their three-way, manufacturing and sales joint venture into two.” Got you! Not true. Now, it finally is. Read More >
Of course Chinese cars are all craptastic patent violations on wobbly wheels. But then, the same had been said about Japanese and later Korean cars. Can Chinese carmakers repeat what Japan and Korea have done? J.D. Power thinks they are rapidly improving. Read More >
Fisker wanted to sell its $100,000-plus Karma plug-in hybrid in China by the end of this year. It’s not happening. Fisker “encountered a slight delay in obtaining final certification to sell cars in China” spokesman Roger Ormisher told Reuters. The company now targets “the first quarter of next year to take advantage of China’s rapidly growing market for luxury cars.” Good luck with that. Read More >
Where are Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin when we need them? The crusaders against China getting its hands on precious American intellectual properties must go bonkers when they hear this: In the olden days, the Chinese had to steal and rob know-how from America. No longer necessary: Americans outsource know-how creation to China. At the forefront: General Motors. Read More >
In February 1991, Volkswagen signed its second Chinese joint venture deal with First Automobile Works (FAW) in frigid Changchun in Northern China. This deal, and the older JV with SAIC turned into the cornerstone of Volkswagen’s world domination plans. In no country does Volkswagen sell more cars than in China – and it wants to double the current number in a few years. Written for a 25 year term, the joint venture with FAW would end in 2016. It won’t. It has been extended for another 25 years.
The old contract is still good for a few years, so why the rush? Well, there was that other matter. Read More >
A few weeks ago, Toyota’s CFO Satoshi Ozawa told an astounded press corps (and I paraphrase for brevity): “Sure, the riots in China have an effect, but we’ll make it up elsewhere in the world.” Today, we have the data that prove Ozawa-san right. What’s more, he could have spoken for all his Japanese peers. Yes, the boycott of Japanese cars in China caused drastic cutbacks at large Japanese automakers. However, all are doing so gulpingly well elsewhere that a buyer strike in the world’s largest car market turns into nothing more than a hiccup. Read More >
A China-made Cadillac XTS was announced and expected for “this fall, just months after the car’s North American launch.” It has not appeared yet. But they are working on it hard, as the picture by Carnewschina attests. Read More >
Honda/Acura fansite Temple of VTEC has a series of spy photos of the Acura RLX taken in China, revealing the car’s interior details, and one lone exterior shot.
Ford and TTAC think alike. A few days ago, we told you that “the Chinese government wants its joint ventures to venture into China-only brands, and even a Ford won’t succeed in resisting governmental charms.” And a few days thereafter, Carnewschina reports that Ford has succumbed: No longer One Ford adds a new brand to its stable. It is called ‘Jia yue’, which Carnewschina translates as ‘Good Leap’. Read More >
As if it’s not enough that Chinese buyers shy away from Japanese cars due to disputes over some rocks in the East China sea, Japanese cars find themselves under attack from a surprising foe: Chinese cars. Chinese cars were the big winner of the anti-Japanese row, and now The Nikkei [sub] has a downright frightening report from the inside of one of the most successful Chinese automakers, Great Wall: Read More >
China Business News has the story (via Reuters) that Renault will start a joint venture with Dongfeng, and that “the two firms plan to invest a combined 6.5 billion yuan ($1.0 billion) in a plant in the central province of Hubei with an initial capacity of 200,000 cars a year.” The story promptly went as viral as a story about a Chinese joint venture can go viral.
Officially, the story elicited a “no comment”at Renault. Privately, after they were done yawning, contacts in Paris said that this is a non-story, but a popular one. News about a joint venture between Renault and Dongfeng appear with regularity, but they overlook the fact that Renault has had a joint venture in China for longer than most people seem to remember. Read More >
If the road outside of your house gets a new layer of blacktop, and you forget to move your car before the work crews arrive, what would happen? In America, you’d probably have to look for your vehicle in to impound lot. In China, the car would still be there. But it would wear asphalt shoes. Read More >
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