Intellectual property warriors, get your guns: Following GM, its arch nemesis Toyota will plant a brand new R & D center smack into the alleged intellectual property jungle called China. Toyota plans to spend between $330 and $440 million for the center. Building will commence next year. Compared to Toyota, the one GM built in 2008 was the lite version at a price of only $250 million.
The Toyota R&D center, complete with a full-scale test course, will be located not far from the GM center, in the outskirts of Shanghai, Gasgoo reports. (Read More…)
The Chinese city of Shanghai is thinking of rewarding buyers of an eco-friendly alternative-energy car with a free license plate, Shanghai Daily reports via Gasgoo. Big deal, you say? In Shanghai, it is a big deal. (Read More…)
The DetN, the unofficial in-house organ of GM, reports (without flinching) that GM officials “still hope to negotiate an agreement with Magna and Russian automaker GAZ. A source familiar with the situation said GM has already contacted Sberbank.” Exactly. The same bank that is owned by oligarch Oleg Deripaska who had his US visa canceled amidst allegations of money laundering and organized crime. And who had to cut a deal with the FBI to be allowed back into the country. And who, according to the New York Times, “has repeatedly denied media reports that he had acquired a major stake in U.S. car maker GM.” (Read More…)
When GM’s Fritz Henderson called Magna chief Siegfried Wolf and told him that GM had an irreversible case of seller’s remorse, Wolf’s flabbergasted counter was: “Are you joking?” Fritz told him he’s dead serious. Opel will stay with GM. Now, all Wolf has left for GM is unsolicited advice: Give more freedom to Opel and tread carefully with the brand and the unions. “GM must now smooth things out and win back trust. That requires a lot of sensitivity and tact,” Wolf told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag (via Reuters).
It doesn’t look like GM will be heeding the advice. New Opel Chairman Bob Lutz and new GM-E chief Nick Reilly are known for the sensitivity and tact of a Sherman tank. Supposedly, both are here on a temporary basis only until new outside managers are found. It could be a long search, if it is a real one at all.
On Monday, Fitz Henderson will come to Germany and try to smooth over things with the workers, Opel’s worker’s council chief Klaus Franz told German media. It will be a tough talk. (Read More…)
So used has the MSM become to China’s red hot car growth, that Reuters headlines the October sales report “Chinese car sales dip in October, but still robust.” China’s passenger vehicle sales clocked-in a year-on-year growth of 79.6 percent in October. In September, the growth was 83.62 percent, which serves as the reason for Reuter’s slight concern. (Read More…)
China’s Ministry of Commerce on Friday announced it would formally launch an investigation into subsidies on imports of some automobiles from the United States, Reuters reports. With all the bailout money sloshing around, China won’t have a hard time coming up with evidence. (Read More…)
I’m thinking about opening a car factory. A really small one. Tata would sell me their Nano in kit form. I’d have it assembled (using cheap Chinese labor, of course) and sell it as the Bertel car. Entirely possible. Tata may allow small car assemblers to put together its Nano and sell it under their own brand, India’s Business Standard reports via Reuters.
Nannification makes a great leap forward: OnStar services will be activated and fully operational in China in December 2009 on some Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet vehicles, PRNewswire reports. The system will be operated by OnStar Telematics Company Limited, a joint venture between GM and SAIC. According to the blurb, “this is OnStar’s first venture outside of North America in its 11-year history.” (Read More…)
China will lead the U.S. as the world’s biggest auto market for a “long time,” (if not forever.) This assessment doesn’t come from the Chinese propaganda machine. Nick Reilly, GM’s head of international operations, thinks China is too far ahead of the U.S. and demand will grow next year, Bloomberg reports.
Reilly sees vehicle demand in China increase to more than 13 million units next year from about 12.5 million in 2009. “I don’t see the U.S. being anywhere near that,” Reilly said.
President Obama started a trade war by slapping a 35 percent punitive tariff on imported tires as a big “Thank you” to his friends at the United Steelworkers. Most industry observers think this was mentally challenged exercise: Production of cheap tires will be shifted to other countries. Not a single US job will be created. Jobs will be lost and consumers will have to pay more.
The war is not going away. As a matter of fact, it is heating up. Not only did China lodge a formal complaint to the WTO. China has told the United States it is launching a trade investigation that could lead to new import duties on autos and sports utility vehicles made by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, a U.S. industry official confirmed to Reuters.
The action will leave no happy faces with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who are in China right now for high-level talks aimed at resolving trade disputes between the two countries. (Read More…)
Prepare yourself for an increasing number of „good news“ along the following lines:
„October U.S. auto sales should be down about 6 percent from a year ago, marking the first single-digit monthly decline since May 2008, industry forecasting firm J.D. Power and Associates said on Friday.” Glad tidings, brought to you by Reuters.
Times must be really bad when single digit declines are feted as an improvement.
In reality, things stay as bad as they have been all year. In September 2008, the bottom fell out of the light vehicle market. From now on out, monthly sales will be compared to hell.
Here’s a piece of news that will make Gordon G. Chang double his daily dose of Maalox, after he had eaten his words written in Forbes: This September, GM China sold more cars than GM USA. General Motors and its local joint ventures sold a record 181,148 vehicles in China in September, the company reports via Gasgoo. Back home in the U.S.A. GM sold 156,673 cars and trucks, as per Automotive News [sub] official statistics. (Read More…)
If right-wingnut Glenn Beck needs a China hater on the tube, he usually calls Gordon G. Chang. Chang is always good for talking bad about China. In 2001, Gordon Chang published a book titled. “The Coming Collapse of China.” In it, he predicted that China would implode by 2006, if not earlier, due to the mass of non-performing loans in Chinese state banks. Much to the chagrin of Chang, China is still standing. It must give Chang heart palpitations that the Chinese economy grew more than three times since he penned his doomsday book. To add injury to irony, instead of a China syndrome caused by the meltdown of Chinese banks, a non-performing global financing firm called Lehman Brothers started a chain reaction in 2008 that brought the world financial system to the brink of nuclear winter.
China ranks as the world’s third largest economy since it passed by Germany in 2007. China is likely to overtake Japan to become the world’s second largest economy, either this year or by 2010. In the world of Gordon Chang, all this growth must be as real as a Gucci bag at China’s notorious fake markets. (Read More…)
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