Daimler’s China business is getting increasingly important. Two series, the C-Klasse and the E-Klasse, are already being built in China at their joint venture with Beijing’s BAIC. Soon, there will be a third line, says Automobilwoche [sub].  Today, Daimler’s CFO Bodo Uebber did not want to deny that it will be the GLK compact SUV. Wait, there is more … Read More >

Volkswagen’s  Chinese joint venture with FAW will announce a China-made Volkswagen CC next month. Two notable items: The launch ceremony will be on July 15 in Shanghai, right in front of the nose of Volkswagen’s other joint venture partner, SAIC. And the car will cost the princely sum of 320,000 yuan ($47,000) in China, if Gasgoo is correctly informed. That’s what a well appointed Audi A4L goes for. Volkswagen had been showing the car at Chinese auto shows for a while, whetting the appetite for a China created CC. Read More >

BMW, it turns out, can sell out more than just the odd “frozen grey” special-edition M3. According to BusinessWeek, BMW’s sales boss has confirmed that the new 5 Series is sold out, and that customers will have to wait between three and four months for orders to be processed.

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Better late than never: Fiat is betting big on their comeback in China. All eyes on their Changsha-based (read middle of nowhere) joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile Group Co (GAC). They are about to be open for business. Gasgoo says there will be three Fiat models, the first a newly designed mid-class sedan, codenamed C-Medium (any guesses?) If local media has it right, two Jeep-brand SUVs will also be produced in the new joint venture. Their codenames are SUV-3 and SUV-4 (any guesses?) Read More >

Ah, there’s nothing like a good old Chinese catfight over a foreign joint venture partner. Daimler’s Chinese partner BAIC (they build the E-Class and C-Class in Beijing) became increasingly green-eyed watching Daimler playing footsie with up-start BYD. Now, BAIC is throwing a fit.

Gasgoo says that BAIC might withdraw from or delay its planned acquisition of Fujian Daimler, and this could frustrate Daimler’s partnership with BYD. Why is that? Read More >

You thought the strikes that affected Honda and Toyota in China are over, and both are happily churning out cars again? That makes two of us. But we are mistaken. Read More >

It stands to reason that Japanese car makers would rejoice over rising wages in competing China and over an appreciating Chinese currency. Rising wages make production there more expensive, a rising Yuan makes exports more expensive. Both should give the Japanese more breathing room. That reasoning is falling by the wayside. The Nikkei [sub] reports that these developments pose ”serious threats to Toyota’s profitability in China, strategic challenges that other Japanese companies must also deal with.” Just goes to show that you need to be careful what you wish for. And wait who else should worry. Read More >

Remember GM’s Heated Windshield Washer Fire Fiasco? The one where the “Hotshot” unit got so hot that cars went up in flames? It sounded like it was a dispute between GM and the now defunct Microheat. Our friends at Carquestions did a little investigative reporting. Result? Read More >

I’m afraid our friends over at Gasgoo need a little parental oversight. Or the good folks at China’s premiere auto business site shouldn’t been drinking while posting. Today, they report that the Chinese government invested 5 billion yuan ($736m) in the “cash for clunkers” program last year. As of May 31, only 1.7 billion yuan ($250m) were handed out, with 3.3 billon yuan ($486m) left. No surprise to us. We never thought much of the program. In January, we said: “Due to the relatively young fleet in China, the impact of the cash for clunkers program on sales is expected to be small.” So far so good.

Now for a huge leap of logic:

“Therefore, the country’s automobile consumption in the next seven months will certainly be doubled,” say our friends at Gasgoo.

Shenme? (Say what????) Read More >

Give it a little while and the snickering about uninspired, or foreign-inspired Chinese car design can end. Carrozzeria Bertone has signed a partnership agreement with the Raffles CU International College, an affiliate of the Changchun University in northeastern China. Next to Shanghai, Changchun is the second-most important auto manufacturing center in China. It is dominated by FAW and its joint ventures with Volkswagen and Toyota. Read More >

Toyota was (after Honda) the second Japanese car company that came down with the current Chinese strike bug. Toyota is gladly taking a back seat on this. They solved their problems much quicker than Honda. Toyota said today that their largest plant in China will definitely be open for business on Monday. Read More >

A strike at two Toyota-affiliated parts makers brought Toyota’s largest assembly plant in China to a halt. No parts, no cars. Toyota’s factory in the port city of Tianjin near Beijing stopped production on Friday. A day later, it is unclear if production would resume on Monday, Reuters says.

The strike at a small plastic maker stops production at Toyota’s most important plant in China. Read More >

Now here is the perfect place for  electric vehicles: Hong Kong. Range anxiety? Not here.  Hong Kong is a city where no trip is more than 20 miles or so one way. Driving into the hinterlands is blocked by a border and by the necessity for secondary mainland Chinese license plates. Registration taxes on cars are high, they vary from 35% to over 100%, based on the size and value of the car.  Gasoline prices are high, about half of the price is tax. Fertile grounds for EVs. Read More >

The Honda strikes have been settled – more or less. Now it’s Toyota’s turn. Workers at an auto parts factory in Tianjin, China, run by a Chinese subsidiary of Toyoda Gosei,  42 percent owned by Toyota, went on strike Thursday and had not returned to their jobs today, a Toyoda Gosei spokesman confirmed to the New York Times. The factory makes plastic parts for a FAW-Toyota joint venture assembly plant in Tianjin. It’s not the only strike that affects Toyota. Read More >

When Volkswagen CFO Hans Dieter Poetsch was asked to make some forward looking statements on April 29, he was reasonably confident that Veedub could improve sales and operating profit from the 2009 level, “but that’s it.” Now suddenly, Volkswagen throw caution to the wind and says that  the company would “significantly” exceed last year’s results when 2010 is over, says Reuters. That assessment, made by a usually very cautious company, is bolstered by a forecast-beating performance in the first five months. Read More >