As Bertel Schmitt has exhaustively documented, the Chinese luxury car market is hot fire right now. By 2015, luxury sales are expected to quadruple to 2m annually, making China the most important growth market in the world for brands like Audi, BMW and Mercedes. Having landed early, thanks to Volkswagen’s pioneering presence in the Chinese market, Audi is the king of Chinese luxury car brands, and isn’t showing any signs of quitting. And though 77 percent sales growth last quarter is nothing to sneeze at, longer-term trends show Audi’s market share sinking inexorably as its rivals fight hard for a toehold in the lucrative Chinese luxury game. According to BusinessWeek, Audi’s Chinese market share has skidded more than 20 percentage points since 2004, falling from a dominant 66 percent to a mere 42 percent last year. Can BMW and Mercedes continue to make gains? The only certainties are that they will try, and it won’t be easy.

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While all eyes are on the Beijing Auto Show, which starts by the end of this week, manufacturers are looking at plots of land and architect plans for new plants. According to The Nikkei [sub], carmakers are adding capacity to keep up with the ravenous appetite of the world’s largest car market.

Foreign carmakers don’t seem to be in a mood to exit, or to be squeezed out of this market anytime soon. According to the Nikkei, their building plans are “in response to the growing prominence of Chinese automakers.” (Read More…)

Volkswagen confirmed today that reports of a facelifted Phaeton are true. Tomorrow and on Saturday, the press can admire the car at the Beijing Autoshow. From April 27 to May 2, the remaining 1.3b Chinese will be able to get a first look, and decide whether the car fits in their purchasing plans.

Eight years after the Phaeton was launched in Germany with great fanfare, and four years after it was pulled from the US market due to being a resounding sales flop, a face-lift has been long overdue. “Usually, one would expect a whole new generation after eight years in production,” complained Germany’s Focus Magazine. Not a whole lot has changed at the outside. But the on-board electronic weaponry has been escalated to a level that soon will put JSTARS to shame. (Read More…)

Having acquired Saab’s old 9-3 and 9-5 platforms, Beijing Auto is wasting little time in putting the old Swedish warhorses back into action. In fact, if you cover the digitally-altered front end of this C71 concept, you’ll notice that it’s barely been changed. And that’s not all: at least one of BAIC’s two new SUV models seem to take more than a little inspiration from Jeep’s Wrangler and Grand Cherokee. Rather than simply ripping off popular models as other Chinese automakers do, BAIC’s designers seem only to seek inspiration from their partner firms. The weird part: BAIC has signed a deal to sell new, “real” Saabs at its Chinese dealerships. The real deal and the cheap, outdated knockoff sold in the same dealership? Even by Chinese standards, that’s a bizarre strategy. [via ChinaCarTimes]

The fabled Mercedes “Shooting Break” (or Brake ) is one step closer to productiondom. Gasgoo reports that the Shooting Break will make “its world debut at the Auto China motor show later this week.” Meaning Friday, the 23^rd. TTAC will be there. (Read More…)

China is rapidly becoming the world’s largest market for luxury cars. This is the conclusion of a study by the respected Institut für Automobilwirtschaft (IFA) of the university of Nürtingen-Geislingen, near Stuttgart. The study was made in cooperation with the likewise renowned Anting Automotive Academy of the Tongji University in Shanghai.

The study predicts that by 2015 two million premium cars will be sold in the PRC. That is four times the current uptake of luxury cars. In 2009, Chinese bought 500.000 cars for the upper class.  (Read More…)

Whenever yours  truly sings the long-term praise of the booming Chinese auto market, it elicits loud protests: “Can’t be! Bubble market! The environment! (Our gasoline.)”

The people who make and sell cars for a living have a different opinion. The AlixPartners consultancy asked  50 senior executives from both foreign and domestic players in China’s automobile industry how much they think the Chinese car market will grow between now and 2015. Guess what their answer is? (Read More…)

End of last year, we reported that the Chinese government was publicly thinking about new regulations to shift a large chunk of cars bought by the government to home-grown brands. We are talking about a serious amount of money here. The government is the biggest customer of cars in China, with an annual budget of around $15b. Government purchases influence the whole market. To buy Chinese. (Read More…)

Like it or not, more and more car makers elect to premiere their newest creations not at the IAA in Frankfurt, or the Detroit Auto Show, but in China. What do you expect with China being the world’s largest car market, and growing like gangbusters.  TTAC will cover the Beijing Auto Show on press days of April 23 and 24. With daily posts, helped by the fact that China is not only ahead in sales, it’s also 12 hours ahead of the East Coast.

Here is a short random preview, gleaned from various posts on Chinese websites. (Read More…)

It seems like the Chinese government is getting worried a bit about what Greenspan would have called „irrational exuberance“ in the Chinese auto market. If Greenspan would have worked for the Chinese. Would have been interesting. Anyway … (Read More…)

As my revered colleagues at China Car Times rightly remark, “March is the first full month of car sales after the Chinese New Year where the majority of dealerships are closed for around two weeks, thus stunting growth of that month, but March is always a very busy month with many customers flush with cash after the New Year.” That’s why everybody who knows the Chinese car industry has a sharp eye on the March numbers. And that’s why everybody gasped when total vehicle sales in China climbed 55.79 percent from March a year earlier. Something else happened. A revolution. (Read More…)

Remember the Geely GE, the poster child for Chinese auto styling theft? It’s been updated for the upcoming Beijing Auto Show, and trust us, it doesn’t look like a Rolls-Royce copy anymore…

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Western auto makers in distress are in the cross-hairs of Chinese auto makers that are riding one of the largest car booms in history. When Geely closed its deal with Ford over Volvo, we wrote: “Government owned companies like FAW, SAIC, Dongfeng, or BAIC will watch closely how privately owned Geely will digest the Volvo purchase. If successful, western car companies will be on their shopping list again.” They already are. (Read More…)

Our oracle of Shanghai, Kevin Wale, president and managing director for GM’s China operations, is chickening out. “Anything is possible in China. We are very bullish about future potential here,” he said. And then he predicted that GM China will sell 2m vehicles this year, China Daily reports. Why is that chickening out, you ask? (Read More…)

The Chinese government has been getting serious about controlling the emission and consumption of its rapidly growing fleet. Local manufacturers such as BYD and foreign joint venture partners are quick to rise to the occasion. Toyota’s Chinese joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile launched today a hybrid version of the Camry. The Camry is well liked in China, more than half a million of the non-hybrid version have been sold in China between its launch there in June 2006 and the end of February 2010. The hybrid Camry Hybrid won’t come cheap. (Read More…)