China has been the engine under record earnings at German automakers such as Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. China helped GM offset its heavy losses at Opel, and provided more than 2 million cars that earned GM the (some say undeserved) title of world’s largest automaker. All of them have invested heavily into added capacity in China. All of them have reason to be worried. Read More >
NBA star Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks will endorse Volvo cars, after signing a deal with the company. Lin, who graduated from Harvard and took an unconventional path to the NBA, has Taiwanese-born parents, is extremely popular in China, where basketball has a strong following.
Allegedly, China’s enthusiasm for new cars has waned. Don’t tell that to a Shanghainese. In Shanghai, exuberant carbuying has been dampened by limiting the amount of license plates, which are auctioned off. In March, prices of new license plates hit a record high. The average bid for a license plate was 58,625 yuan (9,380 U.S. dollars), Xinhua reports. Read More >
Geely has chosen their battery technology partner for their new plug-in hybrid vehicle, and their supplier, A123 Systems Inc., may not be a familiar name to everyone, but their wares have been used by other vehicles like the Fisker Karma.
Chinese media has written for a while that Volkswagen and its Shanghai joint venture with SAIC will do a new “Chinese” brand called “Tianyue” by the Chinese, or “Tantus” by the longnoses. Only Carnewschina did some research and tells us what those names really mean. Careful, do not read on if you are offended by “mature” content, or could be fired for reading such. Read More >
China has become famous for its golden and pink cars. Now, there is some kind of a backlash. Or maybe word of Jack Baruth’s lime green Audi S5 has reached China? Can’t possibly drive an Audi S5 in gold, pink, or lime green in China after Jack’s frog-colored Audi was flogged on eBay. Even China has some standards. Instead of Audis in garish colors, there now are black and white Audis. “So what?” you say. I said black and white Audis. Read More >
Western media widely reported (and still reports) that the Chinese government will only allow Chinese cars to be bought by its functionaries.
Not so. The rule exists in draft form only,and has been published to elicit public feedback.However, in a disturbing development, China Daily reports that “nearly 90 percent of respondents in a survey are in favor of China’s domestic independent-brand automobiles for governmental use.” It’s not that 90 percent said so. It’s the ominous fact that it is being published in a government-owned paper.
If the survey is correct, then Chinese citizens want to look down on the car choices of their rulers. The Chinese themselves are widely in favor of foreign cars. 70 percent of all cars bought in China are foreign branded. The appetite for foreign branded cars remains high,as the following tables show. Read More >
China’s February new car sales are in, and they are whatever you want them to be. They are up a lot if you look at February alone. They are down if you look at the first two months of the year. They are confused for those who don’t know where to look. Read More >
The Chinese auto press now routinely whacks the innovation by replication that is still prevalent in the Chinese car industry. An egregious case: Zoyte copied the Suzuki Alto nearly 1:1 for the Zoyte Z100, which is expected to debut at the Beijing Auto Show in April. Nevertheless, an unrepentant Zoyte was caught by Carnewschina testing the new Z100 side-by-side with the Alto (top. The cars are not being tested on ice. It is an attempt to obscure the location where the pictures were taken.) Read More >
Global sales of Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz car brand rose a whopping 20.3 percent in February compared to February 2011, Reuters says. A lot of this growth comes from a country already pronounced a basket case by some: China. Read More >
Every country and culture seems to have to go through its fads and fashions. China does it at breakneck speed. Last year, it was gold. Now, the Bling Dynasty is succeeded by The King. Elvis-style pink cars suddenly are all the rage, and who else than Carnewschina to keep track of them? Don’t fancy Chinese and The King? There you go: Suddenly, cars are pinkos in Red China. Read More >
This Beijing policeman has a hard look at this BMW X1. Not because it’s extremely dusty. A few days parked outside in Beijing, and any car looks like that. No, this car has no license plates. The plateless car has been gathering dust for a while on Beijing’s streets.
Read More >
From London’s Telegraph to Fox News, from Autoblog to Autoguide, the story this week is that the Chinese will turn against foreign carmakers by mandating that the Chinese government only buys Chinese cars. Why was TTAC not writing it? I learned to ignore that story. I have lived in China since 2005, and just about every year, there was an announcement that the Chinese government will from now on only buy Chinese. It never happened. Despite the annual announcements, foreign brands still account for 80 percent of the Chinese government motor pool. But maybe it’s different this time? Read More >
We didn’t get to go to the World Mobile Congress in beautiful Barcelona, Spain, but it may have been nice to catch both the unveiling of the Ford B-Max and a keynote speech given by Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co. Ford (the man, not the company) outlined an overarching vision for helping manage the estimated 2 billion cars that will be on the road by 2050.
SUVs are one of the strongest segments in an otherwise lackluster Chinese car market. Who slept through this trend? The kingdom of trucks, Detroit. “Instead, Japanese and Korean makers prevail in the compact segment, while German companies dominate the luxury segment,” writes Reuters in an article about China’s infatuation with SUVs.
In China, 2.1 million SUVs were sold last year, up 25.3 percent from 2010, reaching 11.6 percent of light vehicle sales, data by J.D. Power and LMC Automotive show. In the same period, the Chinese market as a whole eked out only a small 2.45 percent gain. China already buys about half of the 4.1 million SUVs sold in the United States last year. A monster market, ignored by American SUVs. Read More >
Recent Comments