Posts Tagged ‘china cars’
But skeptics warn China's boom could go bust.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Apr.22, 2013
The Buick Riviera Concept.
Ford and General Motors are charging forward into the past this week at the Shanghai Auto Show, reviving two once-familiar nameplates in a bid to build market share in what has become the world’s largest automotive market.
The Ford Escort and Buick Riviera are just concept vehicles for now, but both offer hints of what the two U.S. manufacturers may have in store for Chinese consumers. Indeed, once little more than a backwater event, the Shanghai gathering is this year one of the world’s most significant car shows, with dozens of new vehicles making their global debut there.
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And for good reason – by at least one estimate, the Chinese automotive market could soon be larger than the U.S. and European markets combined. By 2022, forecast senior GM officials, sales in the People’s Republic could top 35 million annually. That’s more than double the peak hit in the American market nearly a decade ago.
No surprise, then, that Tim Lee, the president of GM’s International Operations, told reporters that, “No market is more critical than the China market for us.”
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Tags: Chinese Cars, auto china, auto news, bmw x4, buick riviera, car news, china cars, china pollution, ford escort, maserati ghibli, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, porsche panamera s e-hybrid, shanghai auto show, shanghai motor show, thedetroitbureau
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Ford nudges past Toyota, lands three in Top 10.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Apr.09, 2013
The Ford Focus toppled the long-running global best-seller, the Toyota Corolla.
Ford Motor Co.’s increasing focus on global small cars apparently is paying off. Make that the Ford Focus which was the world’s best-selling automobile overall last year, according to new data from R.L. Polk & Company.
The Detroit maker’s compact model rang up more than 1 million sales last year, almost 17% more volume than Toyota recorded for its traditional sales leader, the compact Corolla model. Ford also scored at the other extreme, its big F-Series pickups collectively coming in third on the global sales list. In all, Ford landed three different models in the Top 10, including the sixth-ranked Fiesta subcompact.
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Toyota and Honda each had two models on the Polk chart, while Volkswagen and General Motors’ Chevrolet brand each had one. But the Top 10 list also included a new name likely not recognizable to most Westerners: China’s Wuling Zhiguang which generated 768,870 sales, landing just behind the F-Series in fourth place.
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Tags: Ford Focus, Toyota Corolla, Wuling, auto news, auto sales, best-selling cars, car news, car sales, china cars, ford f-series, ford news, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, rl polk, thedetroitbureau, toyota news, world's best-selling cars
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Upsurge defies uncertainty in world’s largest auto market.
by Joseph Szczesny on Apr.03, 2013
The new Cadillac XTS has been gaining momentum since its recent launch in China.
General Motors continues to score big in China, its sales increasing by double digits again during March despite worrisome signs of trouble in what is now the world’s largest automotive market.
GM reported its Chinese joint ventures reached all-time highs for not just March but for the entire first quarter of 2013. Sales last month surged 12.6% on an annual basis to 290,538 units. It was the second-highest monthly sales total in GM’s history in China.
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For the quarter, GM’s sales in China jumped to 816,373 units, an increase of 9.6% from the same period last year, the company reported, putting GM on track to sell more than 3 million units in China this year. That seems on track to be another new record.
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Tags: China car market, auto news, auto sales china, buick china, car news, china car sales, china cars, general motors china, general motors news, gm china, gm china sales, gm news, joe szczesny, thedetroitbureau
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Europe key, but will U.S. remain “secondary” to Qoros’ plans?
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Mar.14, 2013
The Qoros 3 on display in Geneva.
It’s the world’s biggest car market, yet, when it comes to fully-assembled automotive exports, China is little more than a minor player. But a new and unusual consortium pairing one of the Asian nation’s more ambitious domestic makers with an Israeli billionaire hopes to convince buyers around the world that Chinese cars don’t have to be cheap, shoddy and unsafe.
The product of a 50/50 joint venture between Chery Automobile and Idan Ofer’s Israel Corp., Shanghai-based Qoros Auto Co., Ltd. Made a splashy debut at this month’s Geneva Motor Show with a trio of concept vehicles it has spent the last five years pulling together.
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While Chery is one of China’s largest homegrown brands, the partners decided to reach outside for help in crafting a product line-up that could compete on a global scale. That was a costly but potentially significant decision considering that the current crop of domestic Chinese products don’t stack up well against the offerings of the established automotive order, whether from Honda, Hyundai, Chevrolet or Volkswagen.
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Tags: Chinese Cars, auto news, battery cars, car news, cherry automobile, china cars, chinese auto exports, electric vehicles, israel corp, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, qoros, qoros 3, qoros geneva, qoros news, thedetroitbureau
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But there could be unexpected obstacles.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Mar.06, 2013
Mercedes opened the world's first standalone AMG Performance Center in Beijing.
Demand for luxury vehicles in China will make it the world’s second-largest market for expensive vehicles by 2016, and number one by decade’s end when it will likely surpass the U.S., according to a new study by the consulting firm of McKinsey & Co.
But industry analysts and planners caution that several obstacles could delay or completely short-circuit the boom in automotive demand in China, both on the mainstream and luxury level.
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Sales of premium vehicles will probably equal that of all of Western Europe by 2020, as incomes continue to rise in what is now the world’s second-largest economy, according to McKinsey & Co. China is already the largest automotive market in the world overall.
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Tags: audi china, auto news, cadillac china, car news, china autos, china car sales, china cars, china largest luxury car market, china luxury car sales, china luxury cars, infiniti china, joe szczesny, lincoln china, mercedes china, thedetroitbureau
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Taking aim at a global market.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Feb.18, 2013
The Qoros 3 sedan will launch in China late this year and land in Europe soon afterwards.
China may be the world’s largest automotive market but when it comes to building vehicles for export it’s more on the par with, say, Turkey. Despite repeated announcements, only a handful of Chinese makers have so far been able to go global, and usually just in select markets, such as Brazil.
But that could soon change. The all-new Chinese brand Qoros plans to make its debut at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show where it will launch not only a new sedan, the Qoros 3, but also two concept studies that it promises will be part of a “rapid expansion of the model range.”
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To make sure it isn’t dismissed lightly, an advance release highlights the fact that the new Chinese maker is tapping a global brain trust of “internationally renowned suppliers such as Magna Steyr, TRW, Continental, Bosch, Getrag, Benteler, Lear, Microsoft, Harman, Neusoft-Alpine and Iconmobile.”
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Tags: 2013 geneva motor show, auto news, car news, china auto exports, china autos, china cars, geneva, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, qoros 3, qoros 3 sedan, qoros geneva, thedetroitbureau
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Toyota, Honda, Nissan all hurt by island dispute with China.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jan.07, 2013
A Toyota dealership in Qingdao was burned by protestors in a dispute over an island chain claimed by both China and Japan.
General Motors and Ford Motor Co. have ended 2012 with all-time sales records in China — but the news is nowhere near as good for Japanese makers.
Stung by a dispute between China and Japan over a chain of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, Toyota, Nissan and Honda have all suffered a sharp decline in sales in what has become the world’s largest automotive market.
While General Motors has yet to release its final figures for 2012, the maker already passed its previous peak by the end of November, the 2.59 million vehicles it sold for all of 2011. GM has set a goal of boosting sales in China to 5 million by mid-decade.
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Ford, meanwhile, has confirmed its sales in China rose 21% last year, to 626,616, also an all-time high. The maker was a relative latecomer to the Chinese market but has been aggressively expanding both its product portfolio and production capacity over the last several years.
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Tags: auto news, car news, china auto sales, china car sales, china cars, china chrysler, china ford, china gm, china honda, china japan, china japan island dispute, china nissan, china toyota, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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Mercedes slipping behind rivals in booming Asian market.
by Joseph Szczesny on Dec.14, 2012
Daimler's new China chief, Hubertus Troska.
Daimler AG, in a move underscoring the growing importance of China to the company’ future, has named a new chief executive in charge of its operations in China and appointed him to the company’s Board of Management.
Hubertus Troska, 52, will become chief executive officer and Chairman of Daimler Northeast Asia responsible for all of Daimler’s strategic and operating activities in China.
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The timing is particularly significant considering the company has slipped in sales behind arch rivals Audi and BMW. Mercedes has had to resort to sometimes massive incentives to prop up its products this year.
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Tags: Chinese Cars, auto news, car news, china cars, china luxury cars, chinese luxury market, daimler news, damler china, hubertus troska, joe szczesny, mercedes china, mercedes news, thedetroitbureau
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China warns Japanese car sales likely to slide.
by Joseph Szczesny on Sep.19, 2012
Chinese Honda workers will be off the job for several days due to mounting protests.
Japanese automakers operating in China are facing a new wave of troubles as political tensions between the two Asian powerhouses escalated due to a dispute over tiny uninhabited islands in the South China Sea. At least three major makers have temporarily idled their Chinese factories as anti-Japanese sentiments reach levels not seen for decades.
The People’s Daily, the newspaper favored by China’s ruling Communist party, said Japanese automakers are facing tough times in China, as ongoing territorial tensions between the two countries “start to hurt sales.”
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“The serious impact we are seeing is far beyond our expectations,” Luo Lei, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, told the People’s Daily. “It will be impossible for struggling Japanese automakers to achieve their full-year sales targets.”
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Tags: Honda China, auto news, car news, china auto production, china auto production halt, china cars, china japan protests, china protests, joe szczesny, mazda china, thedetroitbureau, toyota china
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Obama, Romney trade jibes.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Sep.17, 2012
Chinese Pres. Hu Jintao with Pres. Barack Obama during a less confrontational meeting.
As expected, the U.S. filed a major trade complaint against China today, one that accuses the Asian giant of illegally dumping subsidized auto parts into the U.S. market – a move that has cost potentially tens, even 100s of thousands of U.S. jobs.
The move came just hours after China filed its own complaint with the World Trade Organization over punitive tariffs the Obama Administration had enacted earlier this year to compensate for China’s alleged dumping of tires. The tariffs cover more than 30 different product categories as diverse as kitchen appliances, chemicals and wind generation towers.
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The conflicting WTO complaints threaten to heat up the growing battle between two major global trading partners. But the issue is also becoming a point of debate between President Barack Obama as he competes for re-election and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
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Tags: China dumping, WTO, bain capital, china auto parts, china cars, obama china, obama romney, outsourcing, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, romney china, thedetroitbureau, wto china
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