Strap on the man-pants, Saab fans, because there’s another heaping load of bad news for the Swedish brand this morning. First off, Saab’s mysterious Russian backer Vladimir Antonov has backed out of a deal in which he was to buy property at Saab’s Trollhättan plant and lease it back to the company, stabilizing its short-term cash position. Automotive News [sub] quotes an Antonov rep as saying

The property sale is now being discussed with external investors

Apparently the Swedish real estate investor Hemfosa has stepped into the breach and sources say a deal could happen quickly. Antonov’s man added that his boss was still interested in securing a shareholding in Saab, a move that has been awaiting approval by the European Investment Bank for some time now. But despite Antonov’s insistence that he’s not going anywhere, the real estate deal pullout is troubling. After all, if Antonov were really the Saab zealot he claims to be, willing to support and revamp the brand at any cost, wouldn’t he want to own the Trollhättan plant? Wouldn’t he want deed to the factory in case Saab, as it exists now, goes into bankruptcy? This is the first indication that Antonov is treating his Saab involvement as an investment rather than a crusade, which is frankly a bad sign for what’s left of the Swedish brand. On the other hand, with Chinese firms chopping up Saab, what’s a businessman to do?

Read More >

The auto enthusiast world has been torn apart of late by the re-boot of the Lotus brand, which is transitioning from hard-core enthusiast niche manufacturer to mass-appeal, high-end, branded premiumness. The photo above shows the first steps towards building a Porsche or Ferrari-like brand: Lotus Originals sells leather jackets and other branded goods in order to build up the exclusive appeal that the brand needs to bank on once its new cars arrive. But in China, Lotus’s branding issues are going to require more than just some sexy young things pouting in leather jackets while artlessly assembled around a piece of Lotus’s brilliant past. China Car Times reports that Lotus parent company Proton’s China-market deal with new Saab partner Youngman has already created some issues, namely

UK’s Lotus will enter the Chinese market on June 15 this year, but its Chinese name is Lu Te Si (“路特斯” – a transliteration of Lotus) rather than the well-known Lian Hua (“莲花” – Chinese for Lotus Flower), because China’s Youngman Lotus has used the famous brand to market its cars first, and Lotus does not want consumers to get confused between the low cost products from Youngman and its own high end sports models.

Read More >

The assembly lines in Trollhättan are still down and will be down for a while. With Spyker & Saab gasping for money, another Chinese party threw them a life line today. The price: Saab will be in Chinese control if and when all is approved. Read More >

Opel workers in Germany are getting increasingly frustrated and are banging the table. Rainer Einenkel, head of the works council in Bochum, today demanded that GM management in Detroit “immediately makes a clear and unambiguous statement, and to deny the plans of a sale without ifs and buts.” Rainel Einenkel writes on the website of the works council in Bochum that “ambiguous statements aren’t helpful, neither for the workers nor for our products.”

Yesterday, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel also demanded clarification from Detroit after the German newspaper Die Welt had written that China’s BAIC had made an offer for Opel. The paper said that GM’s board is tilting towards cutting Opel loose. On Thursday, Der Spiegel and Auto Bild had written that “GM is slowly wising up to the fact that the reasons that led to the planned Opel sale in 2009 have not changed.”  Media reports said that GM CEO Dan Akerson is getting impatient.

Now, it seems, there is impatience all around.

In the meantime, I finally tracked down my former Opel executive who always had been a dependable source. Read More >

China’s BAIC, the car company that is for all intents and purposes owned by the city of Beijing, is after Opel. That’s what Germany’s Welt, a paper usually well connected with the current German government, heard “from sources inside the company.” Read More >

China’s auto sales fell 3.98 percent to 1.3828 million in May. Production dropped 4.89 percent to 1.3489 million units. This according to data released today by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), and reported by China’s state news agency Xinhua.

Three cheers for our patent-pending TTAC China sales oracle, a.k.a. GM China. It nailed the number pretty closely in May. GM China’s May sales were down 2.7 percent. All percentages compared to May 2010.

Zhu Yiping, CAAM’s assistant secretary general, said the decline in May was caused by the removal of tax incentives in car purchases this year, rising fuel costs, and the purchase limits in some cities that were put in place to combat traffic congestion. Read More >

Both Der Spiegel and Auto Bild write that GM could throw in the towel on Opel and will put the loss making European division up for sale. Both papers are known to have high-ranking inside sources, both in Wolfsburg and in Berlin.

Auto-Bild: “GM is slowly wising up to the fact that the reasons that led to the planned Opel sale in 2009 have not changed.”

According to the paper, the German government has picked up indications that GM wants to sell Opel  to unnamed parties in China. (Any guesses? Who’s building cars in China on Opel platforms?)

Now, says Auto-Bild, Berlin is worried about the yellow peril and turned to Volkswagen for help.

UPDATE: Reuters reports

“Akerson is fed up with Opel, and the turnaround isn’t gaining traction,” said a person familiar with the GM CEO’s thinking who declined to be named.

“He is trying to think of all possibilities to improve performance. But a sale is wishful thinking.”

Read More >

In December 2009, freshly government owned GM cut a deal with its Chinese joint venture partner SAIC: For the chump change of $84.5 million, GM sold SAIC one percent of their Chinese joint venture. It was not just any one percent. It was THE one percent, the golden share that brought SAIC’s holdings to 51 percent. It allowed SAIC to consolidate the profits of the GM China JV in its books. And now, GM wants the golden one percent back. Read More >

While western companies have their eyes on China as the big market for EVs, and while they worry about their precious know-how being expropriated by the nasty Chicoms, Chinese are already looking elsewhere for low cost production of their cars. Read More >

The Chinese government appears to be dead-set on electrifying its car fleet. And if any government usually gets what it wants, then it’s the Chinese. Generous subsidies beckon: Some cities in China match a central government subsidy of 60,000 yuan with their own 60,000 yuan largesse. That’s 120,000 yuan, or in today’s greenbacks (forget the rumor that the yuan is pegged to the $, no more) that’s $18,515. Even more intriguing: Beijing promises to do away with its license plate lottery for EVs.

Two problems: No EVs to buy, and no charging stations. Read More >

May shapes up to be an accommodating month for China watchers: There’s something for everybody. You want to see the Chinese bubble burst? May will give that to you. You want cliché-confirmation, you want to hear that Chinese hate Japanese? May gives you automotive anti-Japan pogroms. You want GM up? No problem, May has got that. You want GM down? No problem, May has got that. You want unbridled growth? May can do.

Or as the Chinese say: “May wen ti!” No problem!

First, let’s have a look at our patent-pending TTAC China sales oracle, a.k.a. GM China. Read More >

Beijingers who are lucky enough to win the license plate lottery may be punished severely – if they don’t buy a car. In the beginning of the year, China’s capital instated a rule by which new car owners must enter a lottery for a license plate. Only 17,600 plates are available per month. In the latest draw, some 530,000 people did compete for the 17,600 plates. Only one out of 30 applicants could win. And what are the lucky winners doing? Most of them do nothing. In April, only 3,700 exercised their hard-won right and bought a car. At least that’s up from 2,000 in January.  Now, the city is thinking about meting out harsh punishment. Read More >

The civilian Chinese ersatz-HUMMER we had showed you here isn’t really for sale to civilians. Car News China had a great story a while ago about  China’s Dongfeng getting their hands legally on a Cummins engine by making a civilian version that no civilian can buy. Now, Car News China (which must be following the dealings of China’s Dongfeng for a living) has a story about a Chinese ersatz-Hummer that even a lowly civilian like myself might be able to buy. Read More >

Announcement, carried by the Chinese Government’s Official Web Portal:

“The Chinese government is carrying out a nationwide investigation into the status of official motor vehicles in a bid to reform the way in which they are purchased and used.

Official vehicles will be surveyed and checked for registration as part of the campaign. Data collected during the survey will be used to lay the foundation for reforming the way official vehicles are managed, according to a statement from the central authorities. Read More >

Supposedly, the Chinese car market is doomed and has crashed into its Limits of Growth. Not so, says Audi. China has turned into Audi’s largest single market, says Automobilwoche [sub], bigger than Germany. By the end of April, Audi had sold 78,487 Audis in Germany. How many were sold in China? Read More >