Porsche’s Wolfsburg-raised Porsche CEO Matthias Müller knows how to fan the flames. He’s not afraid of playing China against the U.S.A. A month ago, he dropped a hint to German media that Porsche could start production in China, or if that doesn’t work out, somewhere in “North America”. Chinese press went monkeyexcrement over the possibility of a Made in China Porsche. When they were all hot and bothered, tease Müller told China’s First Financial Daily that “Porsche currently has no such plans.” How do they put it so succinctly in China? “Aiya!”

Don’t cry for Porsche, China, Müller is at it again. (Read More…)

Yesterday night, I skyped with Ash Sutcliffe of Chinacartimes, and he kvetched that TTAC doesn’t give him enough “link love”. I pride myself in the knowledge of esoteric ways of showing affection, but link love? Would it have something to do with chains? Finally, it dawned on me that I make link love to Ash by topping his URL with TTAC’s high traffic words. And there is no better moment than this. Ash found the first real review of a real BYD plug in hybrid, performed by a real, card-carrying member of the press. My link love goes out to you for this, Ash! (Read More…)

There is one area where the feared Chinese export machine is way behind, and this is cars. According to data published by the China Association of Automobile manufacturers CAAM, 566,200 units were exported in 2010. At and in the same time, China imported 813,600 units. (Read More…)

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers finally has returned from the Chinese New Year festivities and got around to counting the real official sales number for China in January 2011. China’s auto sales in January rose 13.81 percent to 1.894 million units. Passenger vehicles did not rise 12.6 percent to 965,238 units in January, as prematurely reported by the Associated Press. Passenger vehicle sales in China rose 16.17 percent to 1.529 million units last month. (Read More…)

Beijing’s draconian license plate limits have a stimulating effect on the creativity of Beijingers. To skirt the new rules, complex schemes are being devised. Beijing’s courts are turned into accessories of the fraud. According to China Daily, the scheme goes like this: (Read More…)

More Chinese sales numbers for January are coming in as China slowly begins to return from the Chinese New Year holidays. We are keeping a wary eye on the January numbers. They are seen as an indicator for the whole year. Most of the world’s auto industry relies on China for growth and volume. A marked slowdown could have serious consequences. (Read More…)

The China Passenger Car Association reports that sales of passenger cars rose 12.6 percent to 965,238 units in January, says the Associated Press. However, as explained in my small lecture on the use and abuse of auto industry statistics, this is not the number we are waiting for. We are waiting for the sales of all motorvehicles in China with 4 wheels and over, also known as “automobile sales.” (Read More…)

For quite some time, we have been tracking a growing trend in China: Chinese cars. Well, Chinese cars, made by joint ventures with foreign carmakers. Here could be a new one, with a twist: Toyota so far has been hesitant following Nissan and others on the plugin bandwagon. Its Chinese joint venture, FAW-Toyota, will change that. They will come out with a Chinese-branded car that is a Toyota on the outside, and a Chinese-developed EV on the inside. If the information of BJNews (via Gasgoo) is correct, that is. (Read More…)

The wild Chinese autoblogosphere had been abuzz about a Chinese version of TopGear for a week now. Truth be told, it escaped my divided attention. No excuse, it will happen again. First on the story was my good friend Tycho, the intrepid red-haired Dutchman who runs the TheTycho car blog. He had an inside source at China’s state TV CCTV. Now, the matter is (semi-) official. (Read More…)

As reported here, GM’s and Volkswagen’s Chinese partner SAIC will halt the trading of its shares on Monday in anticipation of a major plan. The plan doesn’t appear to be fully hatched: According to People’s Daily, “SAIC will make an announcement on the plan in five trading days.”

But what’s that secret plan? Speculations by our commenters range from buying more of GM  to buying Saab. One of the Best & Brightest appears to be close to the truth – as far as we can fathom at this point. (Read More…)

Reuters reports:

Trading in the shares of China’s top carmaker SAIC Motor Corp will be suspended from February 14 pending a material corporate announcement, SAIC said on Friday.

SAIC, the Chinese partner of General Motors and Volkswagen, and owner of the MG Rover plant in Britain, said it has been notified by its holding company SAIC Group that it is working on a major plan involving SAIC and discussions over the proposal are continuing, it said in a filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

SAIC said it expects to make an announcement regarding the plan in five trading days following the trade suspension.

SAIC owns about one percent of GM, it is the majority owner of its Shanghai-GM joint venture and controls GM’s Indian-market operations… in fact, the last time SAIC suspended shares this way was when it took over GM’s Chinese and Indian ventures. So, what’s next? The mind boggles…

Car sales in India powered ahead in January. India added 184,332 passenger cars to its roads, up 26.3 percent. According to the Hindustan Times, this was  “the highest ever in a month eclipsing the previous record set only three months ago.” Allow me to use this opportunity for a small lecture on the use and abuse of auto industry statistics, in Asia, and around the world. (Read More…)

China’s prognosticated car bubble does not appear to experience its prognosticated burst. One by one, Chinese sales numbers for January are coming in, and none of them are bad. (Read More…)

Less than two weeks ago, GM China hinted that their sales may have risen more than 20 percent in January. This was seen as a good omen, because most pundits (except this one) had predicted a miserable January for China. GM China released its numbers today, and they over delivered. GM China reports a record month in January. (Read More…)

Despite fears of building overcapacity in the Chinese market, GM is still very much enamored of its chances in the Middle Kingdom. Terry Johnsson, vice president of the automaker’s China operations tells Reuters

We sold everything we could build in 2010 and the same holds true in 2011. We could actually sell more than we will be able to (build) if we are not capacity constrained. We are actually short of capacity. The total business is going to go up by the size of a single plant. It’s not just about this year. We’ll have to look about a real rapid increase in our capacity

After all, the Chinese market may have slowed to a “mere” 10-15%, but GM’s sales were up by 20% last year as foreign automakers solidified their hold on the Chinese market. And even if the Chinese market does hit a wall (crazier things have happened), China’s desire to boost exports of its domestically-produced cars will help justify further investments in Chinese production capacity. Johnsson adds that GM will a “substantial amount” of its made-in-China Chevy Sail to emerging markets over the coming years, a decision that further justifies an investment in Chinese capacity. Only 5k Sails were exported last year (to Chile), but exports should rise to 20k units this year. Still, even those increased numbers pale in comparison to Chevy’s 125,625 Sails sold in China last year. But GM is already looking at shipping knock-down kits of the Sail abroad as it looks to increase Sail exports beyond even the 20k units planned for next year. After all, if The General has to bump UAW workers into the second tier to build subcompact cars in the US, production of low-cost cars like the Sail will have to stay in China for the forseeable future.