Where would the German car industry be without China? You guessed it: In deep Scheisse. China’s insatiable demand for German cars helped the German auto industry survive the crisis stronger than ever. Germany’s new car exports to China in the first six months of this year reached €4.4b ($6b). That’s 6.1 percent of its total car exports, says the China Business Times via Gasgoo. Read More >

According to lore, China has closed off its market to foreign car importers, and is ready to flood the world with cheapmobiles.

Just the opposite is true. Read More >

China’s Chery is one of the few big car companies that is not wedded to a foreigner. All the big ones are in bed with one or more Western (or Eastern) manufacturer.  Finally,  it looks like Chery might be losing its virginity. Read More >

A few weeks ago, a Chinese trawler rammed a Japanese coast guard vessel ( or vice versa, depending on who’s telling  the story.) The crew was sent home, the captain was arrested. This happened near some uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea, called Diaoyu islands in China and Senkaku islands in Japan. The rocks are under Japanese administration, but are also claimed by (to make matters even more complicated) China AND Taiwan. The islands sit on top of a huge natural gas field, to make matters really interesting. To get the captain home and to make a point, China has been ratcheting up the rhetoric. China is looking for a pressure point that hurts the Japanese. First, they tried to cut off the stream of Chinese tourists that go shopping in Japan. That didn’t work.

Now, China may have found something that seriously messes with traffic in Japan. Read More >

Carlos Ghosn has the Wall Street Journal flabbergasted. To the utter dismay of the WSJ, Ghosn said that Nissan is talking to their joint venture partner Dongfeng about transferring lithium-ion battery know-how and other electric-car technology to the joint venture. Even more worrisome to the WSJ is Ghosn’s statement that “there’s no limit to technology we bring to China.”

According to the WSJ, “Ghosn’s remarks on electric vehicles, at a news conference Monday, come amid worries by many foreign auto executives about a ten-year plan China is drafting for the electric-vehicle industry that they fear could compel foreign companies to transfer technology to local joint ventures in a way that might result in their losing control of the technology.”

These worries are either worries by junior executives, or the imagination of even greener Wall Street Journal reporters. Read More >

China’s FAW, despite its name (First Automobile Works) only second largest manufacturer in China, joint venture partner of Volkswagen and Toyota, and owner of a large array of brands, including the Hongqi, has filed its contribution to the 12th Five-Year Plan (pretty much the only holdover from the olden days) with China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). The numbers, brought to us by CapitalVue, are both audacious and timorous. Read More >

Again, shameless China shows utter disregard for intellectual property. Nothing is sacred anymore. The American government fines Toyota? Great! Let’s copy that! The Nikkei [sub] reports that Toyota has been fined by local authorities in Zhejiang Province. Wait until you hear what for. Read More >

As with most EVs, we knew about the CODA EV for a long time before a price was ever trotted out (the car was first mooted as the Miles XS500, and was scheduled for a 2009 launch before reality struck). And even before we knew the price, we reckoned that a Chinese-built sedan with Chinese battery cells thrown into it in Southern California would face its fair share of challenges. Now that the CODA EV has been priced at $44,900 (full specs here), we’re certain of it. Of course, Federal tax breaks bring the CODA down to $37,400, and a further California incentive could bring it as low as $32,400, or about $400 less than a Nissan Leaf… before tax breaks. Why would anyone pay $12,000 more for a Chinese fly-by-night when they could have a Nissan? CODA CEO Kevin Czinger tells Automotive News [sub] that

Price is not a decisive factor in the sale of electric cars. I think the 40 percent additional range, and 40 percent additional battery energy with all-season thermal management, is the decisive factor

In order to produce and sell cars in China, foreign firms are required to form joint partnerships with a Chinese firm. With a ten-year, $15b government EV stimulus in the works, automakers are complaining that a requirement to build EVs in partnership with Chinese firms amounts to government-mandated barrier to market access. A foreign automaker executive complains to the Wall Street Journal that the draft version of the government plan is

tantamount to China strong-arming foreign auto makers to give up battery, electric-motor, and control technology in exchange for market access… We don’t like it.

China’s automotive market is projected to grow faster than most, and with $15b of government assistance, the Chinese government has a big carrot with which to tempt foreign firms into sharing their technology. But the backlash is already building…

Read More >

Are you a top talent in the international auto market? Looking for a job? Why not give Brilliance a call? They are looking for 70 top talents globally, Gasgoo reports. Ever since Brilliance’s former General Manager Liu Zhigang and several other executives deserted to Huaitai Auto, there have been major openings at Brilliance. Qi Yumin, President of Brilliance Auto said that these positions will be filled. Read More >

There used to be a time when Japan exported cars. Now, they export car factories. Nissan has been on the forefront of this movement for a while. Now comes their biggest export deal: Nissan plans to double its capacity in China by 2012, writes Reuters. That would bring their annual capacity in China to 1.2 million units. Read More >

As cars are becoming a commodity item, a rich Chinese (and there are a lot of them) needs something to set him apart from the riff-raff. Luxury cars are a booming business in the Middle Kingdom. In 2015, more than a million luxury cars are seen changing hands in China. The trouble is, nearly none of them are American. The Chinese luxury segment is all but exclusively dominated by German makes. China has become the world’s largest market for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedans. In the first eight months of the year, BMW sold more cars in China than in all of 2009. Audi is China’s volume leader in the luxury segment. And the Americans? Read More >

Since I’ve been writing for TTAC, I predicted that Chinese interests will eventually go for GM, if and when price and time are right. GM already sells more cars in China than back home.  GM expects that huge business to grow by 10-15 percent next year. It stands to reason that China wants on (the) board. There has been talk about limiting the share of “foreign investors” in the GM IPO. “Foreign investors” of course are Chinese, and the true number of foreign investors interested in the GM IPO probably comes down to one: China’s SAIC, GM’s Chinese joint venture partner for 13 years now. And now it’s official. Read More >

Usually, people are worried about China stealing their vaunted trade secrets. Now they are shocked by the prospect that China might use less steel. Steel Guru, the go to site for the heavy metal crowd, is up in arms about a Bloomberg report that the Chinese may use less or lighter steel for their cars. Read More >

If you think that China’s car market (they are expecting to sell between 16 and 17m units this year) is a bubble about to burst big-time, then GM will disagree strongly with you.  “The market is still quite solid. As you know this year is going to be a strong year. We will see continued growth next year, but growing at a range between 10 to 15 percent,” said Kevin Wale of GM China to Reuters. Read More >