Hong Kong, and I speak from experience, is a great place to incorporate, to save taxes, and to throw a cloak of secrecy over financial operations which otherwise would be out in the open. In the case of GM, it is also a great place to save their Korean behinds. In December 2009, GM sold a 1% stake in its Shanghai-GM (SGM) joint venture to the Hong Kong part of its Chinese partner SAIC for the paltry sum of $85m. GM also put its India business into a Hong Kong based joint venture (HKJV). GM provided the India business, SAIC provided cash. As it turned out later, unearthed in Ed Niedermeyer’s seminal oeuvre about the mystery golden share, SAIC also underwrote a $400 million loan. In its darkest hour at the end of 2009, GM was kept afloat by the Chinese. Now, history seems to repeat itself in some convoluted way. (Read More…)

Chinese traffic jams are great equalizers:  They slow down all cars (except black A6 with flashing lights and a police escort.) Our reader and commenter Daveinchina spotted this car with an odd paintjob on the Hukun Expressway in Songjiang, on the outskirts of Shanghai. (Read More…)

Europe’s auto market implosion has led BMW to shift units earmarked for the continent over to the United States and China, where demand remains strong.

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Toyota may be cutting back its global group production by 200,000 units in the 2012 calendar year, writes Reuters, as a reaction to sharply reduced sales in China after the island row. Toyota’s China sales were down 49 percent in September. (Read More…)

The Chinese Army was a great admirer of Benzes, so much that they built their own. Bamin State Automobile Works, or Bamin Automobile for short, was based in Minhou in Fujian Province. The company was owned by the Chinese army, it was also called the ‘PLA 7427 Works’. Bamin Automobile started business in the late 1980′s with a local licensed variant of the Beijing 212; the Bamin BM212A/BM213A. (Read More…)

Vehicle sales in China were down 1.75 percent compared to the same month last year, says the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).  An official of the CAAM blamed it on the Japanese. (Read More…)

Japanese carmakers and their Chinese joint venture partners lost big-time in the spat over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. The winners are German carmakers and their Chinese joint venture partners. Oddly enough, the central government ends up with a shot in the foot. (Read More…)

The top three Japanese automakers Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are slashing their production in China in half, says The Nikkei [sub]. The reductions are a response to sales drops triggered by anti-Japanese demonstrations and riots in China. (Read More…)

Some have quietly or openly been hoping the GM could cash-in on the misery of Japanese brands in China. It’s not happening. Sales across all of GM’s Chinese joint ventures were up a marginal 1.7 percent in September while sales of German marques received a boost. (Read More…)

Toyota’s sales in China took a big hit in September, reports by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Reuters say. Executives of Japanese carmakers are putting on a brave face when it comes to China, but are worried that their significant China business could become a casualty of the East China Sea troubles.

No official data are available yet, but the Yomiuri says that Toyota’s September sales in China “halved,” after many Chinese customers canceled their orders in September. Reuters talks about a 40 percent reduction. A senior Toyota executive told the usually very reliable Reuters that Toyota sold about 50,000 cars in China in September, down from about 86,000 in September 2011. (Read More…)

On Monday, Japan’s prime minister Yoshihiko Noda presented a new and improved cabinet, tailcoats and all. Apparently, that cabinet has few friends in Japan’s  auto industry.

Akio Toyoda, who took over the rotating chairmanship of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association last May, sent a surprisingly strongly worded address to his new leaders. Speaking on behalf of all JAMA members, Toyoda said: (Read More…)

Three years ago, I was counting down the days until Honda tossed me the keys to their Formula Red S2000 press car. Times have changed, and so have I. Honda doesn’t have anything remotely that cool in their lineup, and I’m getting excited to drive the first Chinese car from a major OEM to be sold on our shores. Yes, it comes from the Big H.

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Japanese carmakers are worried about their sales in China after Japanese cars were smashed and dealerships torched during large scale anti-Japanese riots in China last month. As a first indicator that Japanese cars may be falling out of favor in China,  Mazda reports via Reuters that September sales in China dropped 35 percent. (Read More…)

The seventh generation of Volkswagen’s venerable and best-selling hatch, the Golf, has barely been launched in Europe, and Volkswagen is already looking into producing it abroad. Volkswagen aims at two regions that usually prefer cars with trunks: China and America. (Read More…)

Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho was sitting in his company jet, ready to go to Beijing for talks with the Chinese leadership, but the jet never got off the ground. After Chinese aviation authorities refused landing permission in Beijing, Cho left his plane and went home, NHK reports. (Read More…)