Tomorrow, Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn will be at a groundbreaking in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese dignitaries in attendance. A plant for high tech DSG transmissions is being built there, using technology that is in high demand in China. So high is the demand that joint venture partner FAW has, according to recent media reports,  “systematically and repeatedly” stolen designs of important components such as engines and transmissions. (Read More…)

Carnewschina spotted this looooooooooooog Ford F650 streeeeeeeeetch in front of a swank Beijing hotel.  This is a good place to spot outrageous cars in China, sometimes, it feels as if they get imported only to be permanently parked in front of a fivestar. As you can see, even the rope wasn’t long enough to completely rope off the monstrosity. (Read More…)

Volvo’s Chinese owners at Geely  encounter something in Europe that is unheard of in China: A drop in car sales.  Volvo has to cut production in Sweden by about 10 percent, and will let 200-300 contract workers go, Reuters says. (Read More…)

Wolfsburg’s Über-VW, the Phaeton, will be produced in China. At least if the Chinese car site Auto.163 is correct. The news is coming to you via Chinacartimes, which doubts the article’s veracity, not only because the logic behind Auto.163’s reasoning is a bit backwards. Is it really? (Read More…)

Chinacartimes, the website that monitors the Chinese car market, put its finger on a disturbing new trend in China: Cars adorned with Nazi paraphernalia.“Some Chinese like to dress up in period military costumes and stick WW2 era German military insignia all over their motors,” reports Ash Sutcliffe, the owner/operator of the site. (Read More…)

In the most recent installments of the never-ending rumors on Lincoln’s long march to China, Chinese media claimed that the Lincolns would be built at a new Ford plant in Hangzhou.  Dearborn denied everything. Yesterday, Ford confirmed for the first time that Lincoln would be coming to China. Today, Ford broke ground  at the Hangzhou plant, while someone says that Lincoln had been in China on the say, and that it did not work out. (Read More…)

There have been many rumors of an impending launch of the Lincoln brand in China, and so far, they had been rumors. Now, the rumor becomes reality. Ford will launch its Lincoln brand in China within two years, says Reuters.  Ford is not banking on big iron alone.  Ford, says Reuters, “is also developing a low-cost car under the mainstream brand to appeal to more price-sensitive consumers in the fast-growing cities in western China. This vehicle will compete with GM’s Sail car.” (Read More…)

Part of Saab’s presumptive “quirky” image is a serious lack of funds.  Saab “bled red like a stuck pig” as Car & Driver so delicately put it. Saab was sold when GM ran out of money. Victor Muller didn’t have the funds, and Saab’s future owner, Made-in-China Swede Jiang Dalong also seems to suffer the cash flow problem that is so familiar to all who touch Saab.  The presumptive buyer has received an ultimatum by the bankruptcy administrators: Pay in full until Friday, or the deal is off. (Read More…)

Divorces can be messy and expensive (ask me how I know) and take longer than thought (ask Frau Schmitto-san how she knows). Or ask Ford and Mazda. When Ford’s love affair with Mazda unraveled because Ford needed the cash, there was the case of their Chinese three-way joint venture with Changan. Two years ago, a deal was struck. It supposedly received the all-important Chinese government approval. Supposedly. Today, the threesome still isn’t dissolved. But it won’t be much longer. (Read More…)

Victor Muller managed to sell out to China after all. Today it was announced (full press release here) that Muller’s Spyker and former Saab suitor Youngman will form two companies. Spyker calls them “joint ventures,” but they look more like companies owned mostly by Youngman, with Spyker holding a token share. (Read More…)

The silly season continues unabated. A video of a wind-powered car, invented by a Chinese farmer suddenly goes demi-viral. “When the blue hornet hits 40 miles an hour, a turbine on its nose kicks in and starts to generate electricity,” it says in the video. “It’s pollution-free horsepower.” (Read More…)

It’s not quite the bursting bubble that had been prognosticated by many through the last decade, but there is no doubt that “the world’s largest auto market sputters in a slowing economy,” as Reuters writes.

“Be careful what you wish for” is not the Chinese proverb it often is made up to be, but it applies: The red menace of Chinese car exports, longer predicted than the bursting bubble and likewise for long a chimera, finally appears to get going. The sputtering Chinese home market provides the push to find better fortunes abroad, but General Motors broke the dam that held Chinese exports back. (Read More…)

Brazil was once VW’s home away from home. Here, it felt loved and welcome. It controlled 50 percent of the market. Time passed. An Italian upstart arrived and eventually robbed it of first place by being more agile. VW meanwhile grew bigger appetites and found a new home in China.  Brazil, the ex-favorite, the dark, mysterious, tropical, big bosomed former love affair relies on the crumbs that fall off the table of the slanted-eye enchantress. (Read More…)

Some thirty years later, China will finally get a new Santana. Here it is, brought to you by our friends at Carnewschina. In case it looks familiar, Carnewschina tells us that the new Santana is basically the new Jetta. The current models, holdovers from the stone age, finally can go to the junkyard of history. (Read More…)

U.S. Senators long have warned of an exodus of American know-how to China. Last year, Michigan Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin complained to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk about another attempt by China ”to illegally gain an unfair advantage over the U.S. automobile industry that will cost our country jobs. The United States must respond strongly to stand up for American businesses and working families.”

A year later, the exodus is in full swing, and it starts to hurt. This time, it pains automakers to see how Chinese companies are getting their hands on taxpayer-funded secrets. (Read More…)