More than 142 Chinese cities marked the country’s fifth Car Free Day last week, which was summarily ignored. “Traffic congestion in major Chinese cities showed little signs of easing,” reports China Daily, as Chinese drivers took to the streets with unchanged gusto. The only exception was a few blocks around Beijing’s Bird’s Nest, which remained free of cars. Read More >

The board of GM has a week-long meeting in Shanghai. Someone  just happened to be in the same place at the same time, and quite possibly unearthed the secret all of India is dying to hear: Under what brand will the Wuling cars be introduced once they hit India? Apparently, not Wuling. Read More >

Conventional wisdom and Senator Stabenow have it that the wily Chinese are after precious Americans secrets of how to make new energy cars. Never mind that Ford and GM loudly deny that they have any current plans to build or sell electric vehicles in China. That appears at least half true in the case of GM. GM doesn’t have plans. Its plans are made in China. GM completely outsourced the development of electric vehicles – along with other future technologies – to China. Read More >

Reuters reports:

Opel, part of GM Europe, has long sought to free itself of the constraints imposed by GM, which aims to keep it as a regional brand.

“One proposal would be to give Opel shares to SAIC,” [Opel union boss] Klaus Franz told Reuters, adding this move would allow GM to receive in return the 1 percent in the SAIC joint venture it is missing for a 50 percent stake.

“GM has never accepted that it owns 49 percent in the joint venture with SAIC and that the Chinese partners have 51 percent,” Franz said.

The joint venture builds Chevy, Buick and Cadillac vehicles in China.

“It would be a win-win situation for all and it would be a good way for us to enter the Chinese market,” Franz said.

Franz has long been a provocateur, but this one probably takes the cake. After all, SAIC and Opel together would almost be a better GM than GM… product development and booming China/India sales with none of the North American legacy costs. Don’t count on this happening, but it is an interesting sign of Opel’s renewed desire for independence from Mother GM.

Saab is on court ordered life support.  On appeal, the Court of Appeals for Western Sweden has approved Saab’s request for protection from creditors. Saab can now attempt a business reconstruction without the threat  of imminent bankruptcy, The Local reports. Read More >

TTAC wasn’t able to be on-hand for the Chengdu Auto Show, but thanks to Carnewschina.com, we’ve got the latest in “we’re far enough into the interior that foreign firms won’t complain about our blatant ripoffs” styling, from the new heavyweight champion of Chinese ripoffs: Yema Motors. Seriously, calling these things “derivative” is wholly undeserved a compliment. And if you think this Audi A4… excuse me, Yema F16, is bad just wait until you see the rest of their new cars. From the Infiniti-aping E-series, to the Touareg-alike “T-SUV,” to the Subaru Forester clone F99/F10, the stylists at Yema Motors take their mimicry very seriously. And apparently the last original idea their design team had was “I know, let’s put our faux-Audi grille on the Faux-rester.” Tada, new model! The Jiade Dynasty rolls on…

Writing these Saab stories is becoming as much fun as visiting a fading relative in a hospice: You have to do it, but you want to get it behind you, quickly.  Today is the day a court in Sweden will decide whether it admits Saab’s appeal of a prior court decision that would have forced the Swedes into bankruptcy. In the meantime, Victor Muller came up with another plan. Read More >

Two days ago, we told you that Senator Debbie Stabenow was barking up the wrong tree when she again fingered China for “attempting to pressure American automakers, including General Motors and Ford, to transfer core technologies of their electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to Chinese companies, in order for those vehicles to qualify for China’s clean energy vehicle incentive program.” Both Ford and GM quickly and as diplomatically as possible said it isn’t so, simply because neither of them has any plans to build electric vehicles in China. Now it turns out that Stabenow was barking up the wrong forest: Nissan will export its Made in Japan Leaf to China. And the Chinese clean energy incentive program looks like a non-starter. Read More >

Both Honda and Toyota have consistently lost market share in China, which is even more embarrassing given the fact that Japanese brands in total still command the largest market share in the Middle Kingdom. This is helped by Nissan, which now holds a bigger share of the Chinese market than Toyota and Honda. Honda does not want to take it any more and is planning a counter-attack at the hearts, minds and wallets of the Chinese customer. Honda will even go as far as giving the Chinese cars that are custom-made for China. Read More >

It is a regular occurrence. Every few months, the Lansing Senator Debbie Stabenow rushes to the aid of GM and Ford and defends them against the nasty Chinese. The problem is: GM and Ford don’t want or need her help. Read More >

The national character of auto brands is a tricky thing. For decades, Volvo wore its Swedishness on its sleeve, emphasizing the values that made Ikea, Abba and Swedish porn so popular in the US… even when it was an outpost of the Ford empire. And then the unthinkable happened: Chinese up-and-comer Li Shufu bought the brand and rolled it into his Geely empire. In the world of national-character-branding, being bought by a Chinese firm is something like hiring Casey Anthony as a brand ambassador, or using a mascot called “Mr Melamine Milk” (another nightmare scenario can be found here). So, how does a brand like Volvo, that was built on Swedishness, get past the “China Factor”? By doubling down on Swedishness? How about by building cars in the US?

Read More >

Shanghai women are famous (at least in China) for their domineering attitude. The common line is that once they snatch a man, the man has to “carry her handbag and wash her panties.”

Now watch what happens when a tow truck snatches a car that already has the boot on it – when the car is owned by a Shanghai woman.

(Hat tip to Ika.)

It happens to all foreign joint venture partners: They are invited to have tea and a chat with representatives of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). After the pleasantries are exchanged, the weather has been discussed, and statements of mutual admiration have been made, someone from the NDRC side will say: “Don’t you want to start a Chinese brand? We would really appreciate it.” Who can say no to the wishes of the Chinese government?

The latest to say “Ja” is BMW. BMW will build a second, truly “Chinese” brand for China. “We are discussing this with the NDRC, and we will find a solution,” said BMW CEO Friedrich Eichiner to Germany’s FAZ. BMW’s futuristic carbon fiber i cars won’t be BMWs  in China. Read More >

Now that Chinese car sales are a hot topic on CNBC, and now that even Jalopnik reports Chinese car sales, here a short primer on how it’s done. You may want to write that down. It’s tricky.

The people who have the final word on Chinese automobile production and sales are not from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The final word has the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM). Never use the data of the China Passenger Car Association, they just lead you astray. I also recommend to distrust Bloomberg, they are prone to making mistakes – although this time, they were right.  If your Chinese is a bit rusty, use sources such as Shanghai Daily to double-check. No problem. Love to help. Now, for the numbers: Read More >

According to conventional wisdom, all cars in China are blatant copies of foreign cars. With the joint venture cars, that is certainly true. With some true red Chinese cars this is also sometimes the case. Now it seems that Chinese carmakers ran out of foreign victims and started to copy Chinese cars. Volvo is owned by China’s Geely, as we all know. Can you spot the true Volvo? Read More >