Despite the fact that the Chinese new car market barely grew last year, and ignoring commentators that predict a flat market for this year also, GM has expansionist plans for the region. According to Bloomberg, GM should shortly receive approval to build a $1.1 billion factory in China, which will expand GM China’s annual capacity by 300,000 units. (Read More…)

Have a quick look at this screenshot. Scan it as quickly as you scan other news from China. Now picture scanning it under as much time pressure an average news editor is under. That’s what this is for, it is GM China’s site for journalists. Wouldn’t you think that GM China’s January sales were absolutely marvelous?

Well, it’s not true. (Read More…)

New car sales in China imploded in January. This will be the message when the official data by the CAAM are announced. Which should happen any minute.

The signs are ominous: Yesterday, GM China, TTAC’s in-house leading indicator, announced (in a way) that sales in January had been down by 8 percent. Then, China’s largest carmaker SAIC said that its January was down 8.5 percent. Today, the China Passenger Car Association told China Daily that the car market in China had nosedived16.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.17 million units in January. Late in the afternoon in Yokohama at Nissan’s quarterly earnings conference, Nissan’s Corporate Vice President, Joji Tagawa proudly pronounced that Nissan sales “declined only 16 percent” in China, while the Chinese car market as a whole registered “a negative 28 percent,” and isn’t that wonderful?

Whoa!!!! What’s going on?

Is the sky over China finally falling? It sure looks like it. (Read More…)

How do you say “grace, pace and space” in Mandarin? Jaguar Land Rover is apparently partnering with Chinese automaker Chery to build cars in China. While an announcement wont come until April’s Beijing Auto Show, the two companies have applied for permission from China’s regulators.

(Read More…)

Tycho, my Dutch friend in Beijing, scored the big one with his fake F150 story. After we wrote about it, everybody from  Motor Trend to Pickupinfo.ru wrote about it as well, taking the Carnewschina.com server on a shakedown tour. Tycho does what a good journo needs to do: Feed the beast. He found even better pictures of the pseudo Ford. And he found imagery of its older brother. Which is a Chevy copypaste. (Read More…)

Chinese blame their notoriously jam-packed streets on all kinds of things, preferably on government-types driving around needlessly in their government-issued cars. This time, it’s different. This traffic jam is caused by young couples who rush to the altar the municipal government building for their nuptials. Why the sudden run on weddings? (Read More…)

In the olden days, you banged your girl, and then got married. In China, as modern as it may be, the big bang is after the wedding ceremony. No Chinese wedding is complete without WWIII – worthy fireworks. The delivery vehicles for the marriage-megatonnage are purpose-converted ‘salute cars.’ As Tycho of Carnewschina tells us, the salute cars “are mostly based on old Beijing-Jeeps, dressed in military style with a big and scary rocket launcher in the back.” (Read More…)

David Mulroney, Canada’s ambassador to China, was mocked on a Chinese social networking site for committing a major social faux pas – according to commenters on Weibo, a Chinese social networking site, Mulroney’s Toyota Camry, his official car, lacked sufficient prestige for a man of his station.

(Read More…)

Remember when Ford dragged Ferrari into the U.S. district court in Detroit, after Ferrari had the nerve to call their new Formula One racer the “F150”? Ford feared massive dilution of their F-150 truck mark and sued. Ferrari relented. Let’s see what Ford will do about this overdose of trademark and design patent infringement: (Read More…)

With Audi offering an A4L in China, BMW naturally has to get in on the act. Now that a new, locally made 3-Series is debuting, BMW will offer a 335Li for customers who want to be driven, rather than drive the…erm…Ultimate Driving Machine.

(Read More…)

According to TTAC’s North Korean correspondent, “Mercedes of various models and age serve as the premium mode of transport for the rich and powerful.” China had to do something. And do they did. A Japanese car (of sorts) competes with German iron in the North Korean motor pool. (Read More…)

The world’s largest automakers are hugely dependent on China. More than a quarter of  GM’s and Volkswagen’s global sales are coming from China. With Europe’s market predicted to be flat or negative, and with only modest growth expected for the U.S., automakers are looking to the BRIC countries for long-term growth. Currently, the growth in China has more or less stopped. Are automakers betting on the wrong horse? (Read More…)

No, this is not a 1961 Rolls Royce Phantom. Fooled you. It is a ‘wedding car’ made by a Chinese company called Qingdao Soar Automobile. According to Carnewschina (which has more pictures,) (Read More…)

Two weeks ago, Bertel stole from me we brought you the very first pictures of the China-only RUF XL, a Porsche Panamera stretched by 40 centimeters exclusively for the limousine-orientated Chinese car market. The story has since been all over the internet.

Today, I present you the first pictures of the interior. This Porsche sure looks like a comfortable place to smoke a cigar, play with your second and/or third wife and to tell the driver to take it easy, or to go like stink. (Read More…)

The Buick Excelle is China’s top selling car in 2011, moving 254,000 units? Buick sold roughly 178,000 vehicles in the USA by contrast.
(Read More…)