Japanese carmakers and their Chinese joint venture partners lost big-time in the spat over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. The winners are German carmakers and their Chinese joint venture partners. Oddly enough, the central government ends up with a shot in the foot. Read More >
The top three Japanese automakers Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are slashing their production in China in half, says The Nikkei [sub]. The reductions are a response to sales drops triggered by anti-Japanese demonstrations and riots in China. Read More >
Some have quietly or openly been hoping the GM could cash-in on the misery of Japanese brands in China. It’s not happening. Sales across all of GM’s Chinese joint ventures were up a marginal 1.7 percent in September while sales of German marques received a boost. Read More >
Sales of Japanese cars are getting hammered in China, and Hyundai is one of the chief beneficiaries of their collapse.
Toyota’s sales in China took a big hit in September, reports by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Reuters say. Executives of Japanese carmakers are putting on a brave face when it comes to China, but are worried that their significant China business could become a casualty of the East China Sea troubles.
No official data are available yet, but the Yomiuri says that Toyota’s September sales in China “halved,” after many Chinese customers canceled their orders in September. Reuters talks about a 40 percent reduction. A senior Toyota executive told the usually very reliable Reuters that Toyota sold about 50,000 cars in China in September, down from about 86,000 in September 2011. Read More >
Japanese carmakers are worried about their sales in China after Japanese cars were smashed and dealerships torched during large scale anti-Japanese riots in China last month. As a first indicator that Japanese cars may be falling out of favor in China, Mazda reports via Reuters that September sales in China dropped 35 percent. Read More >
The seventh generation of Volkswagen’s venerable and best-selling hatch, the Golf, has barely been launched in Europe, and Volkswagen is already looking into producing it abroad. Volkswagen aims at two regions that usually prefer cars with trunks: China and America. Read More >
Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho was sitting in his company jet, ready to go to Beijing for talks with the Chinese leadership, but the jet never got off the ground. After Chinese aviation authorities refused landing permission in Beijing, Cho left his plane and went home, NHK reports. Read More >
TTAC has written many times about the growing dependency on China, and now there is a voice that says that GM is more enslaved to China than it is to Washington. Read More >
The Paris auto show opens its doors tomorrow to the press (sans TTAC, our suggestion to make a pilgrimage in a Dacia all the way from Rumania to Paris was inexplicably met with an “um, maybe another time,”) but the thoughts of makers of luxury cars are in China, where their party could be over. Read More >
The row between China and Japan over a few rocks in the East China Sea, alternately called Senkaku and Diaoyu islands, is threatening to derail production and sales plans of Japanese automakers. Many in the industry say that “Chinese consumers are unlikely to return to Japanese cars anytime soon,” as The Nikkei [sub] says. Already, Japanese automakers have curtailed production in and exports to China. The problem may not be a temporary one. Read More >
Today, GM and its Chinese joint venture partner SAIC opened what GM China President Kevin Wale called “China’s largest proving ground.“ The test track west of Shanghai did cost about $252.5 million, Reuters says. Automakers are busy turning China into test track central, but Milford may be passed by a German track. Read More >
Being at odds with its number one trading partner Japan at the moment, China shows that it doesn’t have to be the big bully, and that it can make nice with other former enemies if it feels like it. China gave a surprising regulatory nod to a joint venture between Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover and Chery. If you think they were long married, then you are right. They said yes a while ago. However, in China, a joint venture is not really a joint venture unless the National Development and Reform Commission (and sundry other bureaucracies) have given their nod, and did put their chop on the contract. Read More >
China’s Hawtai was quick to cash in on the nationalistic sentiments in China with its Hawtai Baolige Patriotic Edition. According to Carnewschina, the Patriotic Edition “is painted in China-red, with five yellow stars as in the Chinese flag and some waves around the rear wheels that likely refer to the disputed islands.” The trucklet is 100% Nippon-free, as far as we can tell. Read More >
“’Even if China becomes nothing but tombstones, we must exterminate the Japanese; even if we have to destroy our own country, we must take back the Diaoyu Islands.”
With the appropriate attention received, China is ready to ratchet down anti-Japanese sentiment. Beijing public security authorities on Wednesday urged the public not to stage protests against Japan, writes The Nikkei [sub]. Chinese dealers of the Volkswagen Group did not get the memo. They cause major trouble for Volkswagen. Especially in Japan. Read More >
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